"The Apprentice" (UK) Series 7 Quiz

Answer: True

In previous series, the winner simply worked for Alan Sugar for a while and often went off to do their own thing afterwards. The follow-up of these people is not particularly well publicised, particularly not by the BBC. The change to an investment does call into question the very principles of the show - as it seems more similar to Dragons' Den (where rich businesspeople invest in several potential products in an episode) than an apprenticeship now. The winner is actually now a business partner rather than an apprentice.

Answer: Karren Brady & Nick Hewer

Karren Brady and Nick Hewer sit to either side of Alan Sugar and give him feedback on both tasks and who they feel has more potential. One of them follows a team in each episode, and often are quick to pick up on particularly foolish endeavours by the candidates. Nick is well known for his amusing faces, and Karren is not afraid to speak her mind when giving feedback later.

Margaret Mountford WAS an aide to Sugar in previous series, but quit the Apprentice to pursue her PHD in papyrology. Karren Brady replaced her from series 6 on.

Answer: Edward Hunter

The task was to invest £250 in fruit and veg to feed London. The team with the most profit would win. Whilst team Venture did not invest all their money, due to a misunderstanding, they ended up winning this task anyway. Team Logic, who Edward fronted, lost their morning sales period due to breaking the orange juicing equipment.

Whilst they struggled with timekeeping, they were able to make up some ground later on with said orange juice and soup, but it was too little, too late. Edward was fired for not using his accounting abilities, for being a poor leader, and for bringing someone to the boardroom (Gavin) for non-business reasons. Alan Sugar told him not to be ashamed of being an accountant, but fired him anyway. I guess he just didn't 'fit the mould'.

Answer: l

Logic, sadly, appeared rather illogical in many respects. They lost the vast majority of tasks, starting out as an all-male team. After around the half way mark, the teams generally bear little resemblance to their originals, but only two of the males made it very far in the contest (only 2 in the top 7), so perhaps the many early losses were a sign of things to come.

Answer: Create, pitch and brand a new pet food

Vincent Disneur suggested the name "Pals" for a dog food, which amusingly didn't go too far considering the already existing "Pal" as a highly successful existing brand. Eventually, the name "Every Dog" was settled upon (suggested by Jim), but the idea of appealing to every dog was unsurprisingly impossible, causing the loss of the team.

In the boardroom, Ellie Reed was criticised for taking too much of a back seat, and was consequently fired. Since she had been on the winning task up to that week, this was her first and only appearance in the boardroom.
However, as Vincent had not brought Jim to the boardroom, much to Sugar's ire, and for his poor performance in tasks, he was also fired.

Answer: Natasha Scribbins

Natasha and her team won the task despite the criticisms of crudity of their content. However, they were up against a magazine called "HIP Replacement" - a magazine targeted at the older generation - so one could argue they didn't have a lot of competition, given the tactless name! Natasha worked in the construction area, and had quite an abrupt manner stemming from working in that area, which meant many candidates found it hard to work with her.

She also had a habit of saying 'yeah' a lot, which she admitted she could find annoying after an interview post-firing.

Answer: "Do the French really eat snails?"

The task was to market British products in France. As part of her brainstorming, Susan came out with quite a lot of inane stuff, which led to criticism, particularly from Karren Brady, which seemed like making a mountain of a molehill. Despite her lack of knowledge about France and its culture, she and Zoe were able to choose the products that would win them the task - particularly a child's booster seat that converted into a rucksack.

Answer: Special Stars

Bix Mix was the name of the opposing team's biscuit pack, which received a massive... wait for it... 0 orders. Whether these 800,000 orders are real has been called into doubt, and some believe this order (and others on "The Apprentice") are merely hypothetical. Nevertheless, this was an impressive win margin, although I didn't get what was so good about the stars myself!

Answer: Jim Eastwood

The final of "The Apprentice" usually consists of a final task between the top 2, however, since there were 4 people, likely due to the introduction of the investment, the candidates endured interviews in the finals instead of the week before, as is usual. Margaret Mountford, one of Alan Sugar's previous aides, after sifting through several cliches in his business plan, tried to get Jim to sum himself up without using a cliche, without much success. Jim has been praised as an excellent salesperson, and has managed to influence people to avoid going to the boardroom on several occasions, and eventually got 4th place.

Answer: Tom Pellereau

Tom is an inventor, and designed a chair for his business plan. However, it has been suggested Alan Sugar is going to focus on his existing nail file (called the Stylfile - an 'S' shaped nail file). Tom has already had some success with marketing, which seems to remove the point of the business plans. Tom has the worst win record in tasks of any Apprentice winner, only winning 3 out of 11 tasks. Concerns over the *point* of the tasks have been raised, as they appeared to have little to no bearing on the final outcome with this new investment format. Nevertheless, with a first class masters degree, Tom has shown he is intelligent (as have many of the candidates - on the whole, they seemed like they would be pretty competent in the 'real world') and will perhaps be able to invent something new and enterprising in the future.