Million Pound Drop on C4

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Sunny

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I caught an episode of this over the weekend. Now, I understand that there is a lot of pressure in answering questions that could lead to winning loads of money but I was actually shocked at the lack of knowledge amoung the contestants who were all young.

Examples I saw included one contestant saying that WWII ended in 1949 only to be corrected by her partner who sneered at her and said it was 1944!
They struggled to remember that it was the 75th anniversary of the Dunkirk evacuation and in the end guessed.
Another question was which party did David Laws who resigned from the cabinet belong to. The couple were given a choice between the UKIP, the Conservatives, Lib Dems and the Greens. After much soul searching, they eliminated the UKIP but thought it might have been the Green party!

There were a couple more examples but I have to say the knowledge of English history and politics in young people in England is shocking. Have seen it before (was recently asked by an English woman at a wedding, did I vote for David Cameron). Wonder if it is as bad here.
 
Funny you should say that. When I lived and studied in England, quite a few people commented to me that my knowledge of e.g. Geography/History in particular was very good.

It isn't really TBH, so that maybe speaks volumes.

It may have to do with the A levels system where study is very focused on a few subjects only - basically for a few years entire subjects can be all but ignored.
 
My knowledge of Irish history and politics is not good, but I can explain relativity or quantum mechanics to anyone who cares to know about them - different people have different interests I guess.
 
truthseeker said:
My knowledge of Irish history and politics is not good, but I can explain relativity or quantum mechanics to anyone who cares to know about them - different people have different interests I guess.
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truthseeker, surely knowing when ww2 started and ended is general knowledge and that's where it differs from finer details on quantum mechanics
 
truthseeker said:
My knowledge of Irish history and politics is not good, but I can explain relativity or quantum mechanics to anyone who cares to know about them - different people have different interests I guess.
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I understand that. I am always just amazed how little young English people seem to know about the two world wars especially. I have alot of English friends who are not stupid but just have no interest in stuff like history and politics. One friend told me that the Duke of Wellington won the Battle of Britain! I just think it's such a pity considering the sacrifices that the Country made during the wars.

It's probably the same here with Irish history, politics and general knowledge I suppose. They all know about Cheryl Cole and Simon Cowall but would probably struggle to say who Michael Collins was. God, I sound old!!
 
I think to some extent it's a bit harsh to judge the knowledge of all English folk based upon a Channel 4 game show where it's possible they may have selected people with less than great general knowledge for the sake of entertainment.

I'm not sure just how broad the lack of general knowledge is among the UK's youth, but I suppose as time goes on it does become harder to sell these things to kids. At least for many of us (assuming a certain age) there was some contact with the past in terms of grand parents/great grand parents and others who lived these events first hand, so it was "real" and not just text book blurb.

Once that direct contact is lost, you lose your first hand passing down of events and history and it weakens the impact of that on future generations.

Only speaking for myself, but I can't say that I had a great interest in history during my schooling and besides some key dates and individuals involved, wouldn't have been able to enter into too much of a conversation about it. It was only as I got a bit older I started to get interested in a lot of European history and so started reading up on it. I guess, there's time enough for the kids to learn this stuff.
 
I am not basing it just on a game show and I am certainly not saying all English folk are the same. I have noticed it in general discussions with people from the UK. When I say they young, they were all adults. It's not just history. Was just using that as an example. It's more to do with the whole area of current affairs. People seem to have less and less awareness of what is happening in the world now, never mind 70 years ago. These guys didn't even know who was in Government. They thought it possible that a Green Minister had resigned from the cabinet.

Like I say, we would probably see the same thing here if we asked the same questions.
 
I'm not sure why anyone watching a Channel 4 game-show hosted by Davina McCall would have such high expectations. :)
 
Sunny said:
It's probably the same here with Irish history, politics and general knowledge I suppose. They all know about Cheryl Cole and Simon Cowall but would probably struggle to say who Michael Collins was. God, I sound old!!
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Michael Collins the GAA referee? After a particulary poor decision one supporter shouted out they shot the worng Michael Collins.
 
I would agree that large sections of society now probably have no interest in news and current affairs, instead preferring to concentrate on how is sleeping with who, what Jordan and Kerry Katona are up to etc etc.

For them, thats the news.
 
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