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Two word questions: One or two word questions are no longer accepted in some categories i.e. each question in a quiz must be a complete sentence. Please check the specific requirements of your chosen category before drafting a quiz.
Repeat questions: If at all possible, please try to avoid repeating questions which are already in another quiz, by playing a few quizzes in your category beforehand. Some categories prohibit repeat questions. Please check the specific requirements of the relevant category before drafting your quiz.
Linked questions: Every question must stand on its own two feet, don't link one question to a previous question, such as What is the capital of the country in Question 4? This applies to all categories except Brain Teasers, and Common Bond quizzes in General. The answers to these linked questions must always be FITB.
Questions about money or contract values or remuneration, or prizemonies earnt by athletes or celebrities or other persons, will no longer be accepted as quiz questions. These questions have generated truckloads of correction notes, due to the confidential nature of money matters or conflicting facts. Ditto dollars gross collected at the box office by movies.
Filler questions to pad out your quiz such as "Did you like my quiz?" or "Is it true that my dog's name is Lassie?" or anything else along those lines, will be rejected, as they are not quiz questions.
Questions not statements wherever possible, please write questions as questions, in the interrogative case; not as statements. You are writing a quiz, not a novel.
Future tense does not work in an online environment, and is not allowed in Quizzyland. Quizzes will be online for months and years to come, and the question will, at that time, refer to the past!
Date stamping of questions with the expression as of November 2001 (for example) are no longer acceptable, as the question will go stale as time goes by.
Finally, any other trivia question which, in the opinion of an editor, is too esoteric or trivial, will also be rejected. This is not open to debate. e.g. a person's height, the colour of their hair, tattoos, their shoe soze, colour of their eyes, names of their pets, etc.
FunTrivia.com reserves the right not to include questions submitted and does not guarantee that any or all submitted quizzes will be placed online. Quizzes submitted may be edited, modified or deleted by our editorial staff at any time.
16-Nov-01, 27-Aug-02, 01-Mar-03
7 Unacceptable Questions quizzes and 70
Unacceptable Questions trivia questions.
In a recent Quiz Makers' Guild meeting, several "bad" sorts of questions were identified. By way of example, I, the humble Stuthehistoryguy, offer this quiz.
The difference between a ho-hum quiz that gets little play and poor ratings and a great quiz is often how well the questions are written. Do you know how to tell a great question from a boring one?
Editors see many recurring blunders in the course of their work on the site. Here are ten questions about some common types of pitfalls that many quiz authors fall into, especially if they are inexperienced.
Some quizzes are wonderful and some are not quite so wonderful. Here is one that is not so wonderful, with questions that drive most of us up trees. Thanks to Analogllc, Daver852, Martincube, Mensa and Poolosipher.
Certain types of quiz questions drive me nuts. Can you guess which ones? I'm using "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" and "Friends" as examples. Beware of spoilers!
Do you want to learn to write better quizzes that will receive high ratings? Play this quiz to discover some quizmaking secrets! This quiz will primarily focus on avoiding boring numeric questions.
George was, of course, the first President of the USA. This is an example of an obscure date question. Only a Washington expert would know the answer. To all others it is a wild guess, the answer forgotten in a matter of minutes. Try to make the questions interesting while giving the players a chance to use their brains.
2. Which question is most difficult to answer without the book in front of you?
Answer: How many galleons apiece does Slughorn think he can get for the unicorn hairs?
I dislike quiz questions that you can only answer if: 1) You have a photographic memory; or 2) you have the book in front of you.
3. Here's a question from a quiz on the Northern Rockies Region.
"The Alaska Highway took how long to build?" The answer is "8 months and 12 days." What is the best way to rewrite this question in a more interesting manner?
Answer: It only took a little over 8 months to build this 1422-mile roadway, which stretches from Dawson Creek in Canada to Fairbanks in Alaska. That's 21 miles of road a day! What is this famous roadway?
The longer question is much more interesting, and does not require the memorization of picky numerical data. Whenever you can, avoid asking numerical questions!
Aside from being evident only to one who speaks French, this is another entry that has no value to a player who is not a speaker of French. Quizzes should be all encompassing. These questions are always popping up in Daily, hourly and daily games.
5. Which question is next-to-impossible to answer?
Answer: In Book 6, how many Death Eaters do we encounter?
To answer such a question, you'd have to start on page 1 and meticulously count each Death Eater as he or she appears. Plus, do we know FOR SURE that Snape is a true Death Eater? How about those who are (perhaps falsely) accused of being Death Eaters? Do we count them, or not?
7. Here's a question from a quiz on pandas.
"When did the first living Giant Pandas come to the UK?" The answer is "December 1938." What is the best way to rewrite this question in a more interesting manner?
Answer: In 1938, the first animal of this kind was exported to the UK. Beloved by the citizens, his antics cheered a country at war.
Again, avoid those boring numerics whenever possible! What is interesting here is the animals and the place, not the date. That panda's name was Ming, by the way, and his nickname was Baby.
8. From The Quiz: "Angelina Jolie, Jon Voight's Daughter and Movie Phenomenon". Question: Who is Jon Voight's movie star daughter?
Angelina is an accomplished actress. Another one that irritates me is a quiz that has a question that is answered by its own quiz title. Replacing this type of question with something harder would maker for a much more enjoyable quiz.
9. Here's a question from a quiz on general trivia.
"What element has a chemical symbol Ca?" The answer is "Calcium." What is the best way to rewrite this question in a more interesting manner?
Answer: Clavicles and chalk both contain this element with the symbol Ca- what is it?
This gets a bit repetitive, I know :>)
But again, the more interesting your questions, the better your quiz will be! Element symbol questions are some of the most boring questions there are; they must be livened up.
10. What characteristic do the top 10 highest-rated quizzes at FunTrivia usually share?
Answer: They are rated "Average" to "Tough" in difficulty
This shows the importance of writing good questions! Quizzes that are overly simple or impossible won't receive high ratings. Quizzes that present a decent challenge without being impossible are best.
Quizzes about things that "everyone knows" are also not high in the ratings. This is at least in part because quizzes on popular subjects are often written quickly, with little attention paid to crafting a quality quiz. On the other hand, someone writing about a subject that he or she knows and loves is much more apt to write a good quiz.
While the vast bulk of quizzes submitted to FunTrivia are on entertainment-related topics, few of them are highly-rated. Many quizwriters fall into the trap of writing overly obscure questions on minute details, which the average quiztaker simply doesn't care about.
What are some of the topics of the most-highly-rated quizzes? Here is a sampling from May, 2005:
- The goddess Athena
- Charles Dickens' "The Pickwick Papers"
- Touring Amsterdam
- The history of Brisbane, Australia
- Early German literature
11. What was the real name of British actor Morton Selten (1860-1939)?
Trivia is indeed trivial, but it should also be fun. Too many quizzes have questions like this; Impossible to answer and, as a result, just downright irritating to the player. Selten did nothing of real note in his undistinguished career. Put yourself in the place of the player when preparing quizzes. Would you know the answers without looking them up?
Answer: How many times does Uncle Vernon speak during Dumbledore's visit?
Boring, boring, boring, and impossible to answer without the book in front of you.
13. Here's a true/false question from a quiz on Iowa.
"Charles H. Holley died February 3, 1959." The answer is "T." What is the best way to rewrite this question as a multiple-choice question in a more interesting manner?
Answer: On February 3, 1959, a plane crashed into an Iowa cornfield, killing all aboard. Who was among its passengers?
If you are like me, your first reaction to this quiz would have been, "Who the heck is "Charles H. Holley"? He's *much* better known as musician Buddy Holly. The question is meaningless without other information.
If we used the better-written question, of course the multiple-choice answer would be "Buddy Holly," not "Charles H. Holley."
"On what date did Charles H. Holley, otherwise known as Buddy Holly, die in a plane crash in Iowa?" isn't the best answer, because it still calls for memorization of a number, rather than the more interesting fact of who died in the cornfield.
14. Most people have two hands. One is commonly called their right hand. What name, in English, is normally given to the other?
Two marks of a really bad trivia question are that it is very obvious--bordering on the insulting--and has very little interesting information. Not unlike this one.
15. Here's a question from a quiz on the United States.
"How many states were named after Indian tribes?" The answer is "12." What is the best way to rewrite this question in a more interesting manner?
Answer: Arkansas, Illinois and Missouri all derive their names from what origin?
Rewriting the question in this way doesn't require the memorization of boring numerical data. And see, the longest question isn't always the right answer. :>)
By the way, the information this question gives isn't quite correct; according to http://www.shgresources.com/resources/symbols/names/statenamesorign/, while several states derive their names from Indian languages, only Arkansas, Illinois and Missouri are actually named after tribes.
Yes, I have asked this question before. Doesn't make it right.
McCartney's career as a bass player began in 1961 when he switched to the instrument from rhythm guitar. Paul succeeded the "fifth Beatle" Stu Sutcliffe on the four-stringed instrument when Sutcliffe conceded that he would never be a professional-quality musician; the departing Beatle would pass away soon thereafter. Since his days with the Beatles, McCartney has gradually drifted away from the instrument, increasingly favoring rhythm guitar and piano from the 1980s onward.
18. Here's a quiz question.
"What is a defining feature of the anserines?"
What is the main thing wrong with this question?
Answer: It uses unfamiliar vocabulary but doesn't explain it
Almost anyone playing this quiz would be muttering, "What the heck is an anserine?"
When writing any quiz on a non-entertainment topic, always assume that the player of your quiz knows little to nothing about the topic, but wants to learn more. Using lots of unfamiliar, unexplained vocabulary will turn people off. Always explain new vocabulary in the question.
Oh- and anserines are ducks and geese.
Translating foreign phrases is easy if you know the language, but impossible if you don't. Think of alternative ways to integrate foreign words and phrases into your quizzes.
20. What was that one movie with the guy from that one show who used to be really funny and married that girl from "Striptease" and he was in a skyscraper and it blew up?
Again, nothing too insightful to add here. This question just stinks.
Perhaps the greatest maxim of quizwriting is that it IS writing. That means your questions should be good prose. If you think players don't care if your quizzes are well written, just read the above question again and ask yourself if you'd want to answer TEN like that.
"Die Hard" did seem to inspire an entire sub-genre of similar films. Willis himself once referred to "Speed" as "'Die Hard' on a bus". (The preceding, by the way, is much better than "Die Hard came out in 1988, and Speed came out in 1994. Speed was really good, too.")
Also, this question would probably work better as a multiple choice given what a horrible clue you had to work with - but hey, this is the worst quiz ever. You knew what you were getting into.
21. Here's a question from a quiz on useless trivia.
"How long does it take the U.S. Space Shuttle to go from 0 to 1000 MPH at launch?" The answer is "18 seconds." What is the best way to rewrite this question in a more interesting manner?
Answer: Which of the following vehicles can go from 0 to 1000 MPH in only 18 seconds?
You could have some interesting false answers for this one, like a Ferrari and a 747! Again, the more interesting question makes you think about something rather than numbers.
22. Here's that quiz question again:
"What is a defining feature of the anserines?"
What would be a better way to write this question?
Answer: There are too many different ways to write the names.
Fill-in-the-blank answers (as I've learned via my fractured word quizzes) need to be very short, easy to spell, usually without punctuation, and without possibilities for variation. By the way, the answer to that question is the following: Ginny, Demelza, and the two Beaters. Team members who each sit out at least one game are Ron, Harry, and Katie Bell. Dean Thomas and Cormac McLaggen play as substitutes.
"Puggle" is the Australian term for a baby Platypus. It is also the result of breeding a Pug and an Beagle. Only people in that area of the world and few others would be expected know this term. Regional slang terms should be avoided if at all possible.
26. Here's a question from a quiz on dogs.
"How many colors of the Labrador Retriever are there?" The answer is "3." What is the best way to rewrite this question in a more interesting manner?
Answer: The most popular breed in the United States, this dog comes in three color varieties- yellow, chocolate and black. What breed is it?
You would be surprised- as editor for the Animals category, this particular question is one I see more often than almost any other, save what a curry comb is used for!
This is category 3543
Last Updated Apr 13 2024 5:45 AM
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= Top 5% Rated Quiz,
Top 10% Rated Quiz,
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