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Do You Think You're Clever?: The Oxbridge Questions (2009)

by John Farndon(Favorite Author)

3.17 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

1848310838 (ISBN13: 9781848310834)

languge

English

genre

Humor

publisher

Icon Books

review 1: Meh. The book purports to give answers to some of the trickier entrance exam questions at the UK's top universities. Initially I enjoyed seeing how the author tackles these questions, mapping potential directions, structuring his answers, larding them with a few historic quotes and dictionary definitions, and building up to the final flourish. After a while, though, the mechanism becomes repetitive, and the reader will start spotting flaws in the author's logic or glaring gaps when certain obvious aspects are not being addressed in his replies. The questions aren't all as titillating as the one that made it to the book cover (for which the answer, unsurprisingly, is: "It depends what you define by clever". Yawn). The exhilarating ride that was promised quickly turns into ... morethe view of a flat landscape whizzing by, its dull features merging into one blurred impression.
review 2: If this is what clever is then I guess I don't want to be clever. The questions proposed are interesting and could lead to an assortment of answers but in the majority of them the author ended up in a philosophical rant. Sometimes the answers were interesting and educational but mostly they were boring and predictable.The point of the Oxbridge questions, as mentioned at the start of the book, are to provoke responses from people by putting them out of their normal frame of mind and gaining an insight into how they think. I would have much rather read good, and maybe some not so good, real responses given by people actually applying. Not answers from someone who's been able to sit and think and research each question before writing an answer.An ok book that could have been much better. Thankfully I got it for cheap. less

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