Brilliant - that's perfectly acceptable! Well done!

I'm sure Hofmann, Ninov, et al. from the Heavy Ion Research Laboratory in Germany would just love to hear that delboy, given how much money and man-hours went into their 25 years of work to make it...

Yep fair comment spanish

I'm coming a little late to this thread, but how about:

helium, lead, uranium, radon

Whether the clue is referring to Audrey or Katharine will be up to LadyC.

Back to the original question, LadyC, I never have any problems with your questions of this type either - the hints you give are always really helpful.

I think the corrections will come no matter what advice you give - some people just won't read all the available information no matter how clear it is.

It's like my 'typo' quiz where I deliberately put in words with correct spelling but in the wrong context. I get a rash of corrections each time one of those Qs comes up as a stand-alone (luckily it's out of GM Madness now!) telling me I have made a typo! The title appears below, and makes it quite plain what's going on, and most people are sheepish when I point that out to them, but hadn't thought to look there first (actually I've suggested somewhere else that it might be a good idea to make titles a bit bigger and perhaps a different colour - red isn't the easiest to read.) Of course in some instances the title doesn't appear with the Q at all (in some/all? hourlies and possibly private tournaments), in which case all bets are off!

Okay, I mostly stayed on topic, but I was still talking about stand-alone Qs! Someone mentioned an example like when all you get in the Q is

Tom Cruise?

then a list of movies as answers, and you're not sure if you're trying to find out which one he was in or which one he wasn't in! If the title appears it's easy (assuming it's something like "What Weren't They In?"), but if it doesn't not so much. Okay, you can argue that you should be able to tell if you know anything about Tom Cruise, but how many times, in a timed game, do you see the answer you think fits and choose it, without reading the whole Q and all the answers? Surely that's part of playing fast, knowing what has to be read and what doesn't...

Did I mention I really like your periodic spelling quizzes LadyC?

Oh, and Sulphur, Carbon, Radium, Lead, Oxygen, Oxygen, Potassium - then add me on the end and you get 'scrapbooking'!

'ing' ...... "A rather unusual and rare element, found only in the darkest recesses of a certain city in Australia - highly reactive, with a shiny luster" hehehehe

Oh Delboyo, I bet you say that to all the girls! Though it is a little scary how well you know me...

"Scrapbook" alone is perfectly good, though. Surprised that I didn't think of it...

We edit on the assumption that the player can see the quiz title. I've been looking through the games just now, trying to find one where the title is not visible, and can't find one.

Sometimes the subcategory doesn't show up in Expert, but I think that's the only place where you don't get that information.

Though there certainly are questions out there that don't stand alone, I think a lot of the time players did have access to the information, but were going too fast to notice it.

Thanks Aggers, you're quite right as usual. When I had someone tell me they couldn't see the title in the game they'd played with one of my typo questions in it I assumed their info was accurate without checking it properly - duh!

Well no, that's not strictly true, I did check it, just got it wrong in my mind ...what confused me about the hourlies is that when you review answers on "Piece of Cake" etc you don't see the title, just the author and the options for playing the quiz or sending a correction, but you do definately see the title when you're playing the quiz.

Also, my comment about making the title font bigger obviously doesn't apply when the title appears above the question (though it is still in red!) but does in games when it is below the question - maybe position could be standardised too?

So I guess ultimately we're agreeing that no matter how many instructions you give, some people just won't read them!

I never thought to put the quizzes in Brain Teasers ...

Regarding cheating, I don't actually know enough about chemistry to make a call on that. I think I would agree, though, that if it has an element symbol, it's fair game. By the way ... you guys are good at this! I look forward to playing your quizzes!

The origins of the game were that I had this really boring job where I had to sit and wait for a machine to determine how much copper, how much something else, and how much of this other thing were in samples of nylon polymer and the process, depending on the number of samples, could take up to 45 minutes. I had to stay there all the while, because whenever it was done one of the samples it would print the necessary information up on the computer screen, but every new sample pushed the other info off, and you couldn't scroll up to retrieve it. Luckily there was a large Periodic Table of the Elements poster hanging above the computer, so I just brought a pencil and paper with me and amused myself trying to see what different words I could spell.

One of my first set included the word "LaSCIVIOUS". We had a dictionary in the break room that a retired worker (who enjoyed crossword puzzles) had left. One of my co-workers started making fun of me for using my break time to look up words in a dictionary. I tried describing what I needed it for, and got more funny looks. "Well, how would you define 'lascivious'?" I asked him. "Very carefully" he replied. "Well," said I, "so would I!"

In the end, I found it entirely more useful to sort the symbols alphabetically. Made the whole process much easier.

(Edit to add: I just remembered, sulpher and titanium dioxide were the other two things I had to check on the x-ray spectrometer.)

Fascinating and fun back story on the origin of those quizzes, LadyC! Love it

Yeah, what Liz said!

I have played the chemical quiz a few times - especially with FITB - and found it fun and informative. The Basilisk always stumps me!