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2011 Prognostication Quiz, Question #5 Film

What will win the Academy Award for Best Picture?
a. The Social Network
b. The King's Speech
c. True Grit
d. 127 Hours
e. Inception
f. none of the above: some other film will win

The film about overcoming adversity had to overcome adversity to best the late favorite The Social Network for American filmdom's top prize. The answer to Question 5 in the 2011 Prognostication Quiz and the winner of the 2011 Academy Award for best picture is b. The King's Speech.

Sixteen contestants guessed this correctly, besting the seventeen who found Mark Zuckerberg's tale more compelling than King George VI's and also the twenty who took a flier on an underdog in the form of answers C, D, E, or F.

The Oscar V-V-Victors:

Ekrem
Valerie
Marcus
Lorraine
Chris M.
Zoe
Ron
Cherie
Sarah
Jo
Cameron M.
Rachel F.
Katie
Claire&Craig
Ellen
Adrian

Leader Board


Ekrem has stunned the competition with his third point out of five questions. After three years, his "spell something" strategy for choosing entries has finally starting to pay off with his currently brilliant slate of answers, "BAD ABBA FED LEVIS."

Celebrating the concept, the photo above is the top result of a Google Images search for "BAD ABBA." The photo title is The really bad Abba imitators and is in a folder titled Knoeble's Grove [sic], which is an amusement park in Pennsylvania. You can almost hear the tuba visible in the background laying down a woefully inadequate disco bass line.

3 Ekrem
2 Valerie
2 Dave
2 Marcus
2 Lorraine
2 Paul
2 Chris M.
2 Pete C.
1 Zoe
1 Collette
1 Ron
1 Jeff
1 Cherie
1 Sarah
1 Rich
1 Ryan
1 Jo
1 Rachel H.
1 Russell
1 Cameron M.
1 Rachel F.
1 Katie
1 Claire&Craig
1 Kevin
1 Ellen
1 Missy
1 Larry
1 Adrian
1 Leanne
1 Cameron L.
0 Ted
0 Chris C.
0 Jan
0 Matthew
0 Tina
0 Beth
0 Eric
0 Grant
0 Janet
0 Todd
0 Peter B.
0 Zhiqi
0 Michael
0 Nadir
0 Craig
0 Gloria
0 Megan
0 Keila
0 Stacey
0 Ben
0 Liz

This should also serve as a wake-up call for those of us who have yet to score a point. With the Question 5 returns, the median score has shifted from zero to one. The 21 of us with zero points (out of the 53 entrants) are now below average by mean or median. We aren't even the mode anymore, since 22 entrants have one point.

Question 11 Update

The devastating earthquake that hit Japan on Friday was only 8.9 on the Richter scale. Lorraine, Ryan, Jo, Kevin, Adrian, and I hope that the 9.0-magnitude earthquake that we have predicted for this year happens further out in the middle of the ocean so as to be less destructive to humans.

Question 13-15 Update

Valerie, Dave, Chris M., Ron, Sarah, Jo, Russell, Rachel F., Katie, Adrian, Matthew, Grant, Megan, and Keila also came close to getting a point when a significant percentage of Zsa Zsa Gabor died as she had part of her leg amputated recently. Fractional points will not be awarded in this situation.

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