Quizzing: Meta Thoughts

Hat Tip:  Ramanand's Buzz:
From quatrainman: Wunderbar! RT @mitesh_agarwal: Must read if you are a quizzer - awesome stuff from Arul @al_lude Trivial pursuit


(I originally planned to just retweet it, then I  thought I should add a comment or two. One thought led to another and then all brevity eloped.)

Arul Mani's article makes excellent general points and confronts some dark aspects that most people would not admit in public. There are a number of spot-on observations on quizzers, quizzing communities and prevailing attitudes, including what's going to be called the quizzing asshole aphorism:

My own private test for the health of a quizzing community is to ask whether they have acquired a resident asshole. This creature is generally male, a petulant complainer, a hand-raiser, and a source of such constant irritation that all the others band together to ensure some general sanity. 

In a perverse way one, I  can only sympathize with the quizzer's need for recognition as a rockstar in a parallel universe where knowing the epitaph on Heisenberg's grave is actually 'cool':

Quizzers are at their entertaining best when they are overtaken by the need to write their own history. The Wikipedia page ‘Quizzing in India’ was initiated by a Pune-based quizzer as a bland list of quizzing activities in several Indian cities.

He continues further...

Despite the old and new, quizzing has had a very short history. There has been little organization or talk between communities across cities, but quizzers having read too many books are really quick to seize the opportunity to write their own mythologies and theories of supremacy of one city, or one system over another.

That has always been one of the chief attractions about quizzing - despite what anyone tells you - everyone wants to grab a slice of history and fame. To add a few more psychological-anthropological fundaes: Quizzing also being overwhelmingly male-dominated often descends into no-holds-barred nerd frat party, minus the booze. Male egos need histories to stand out as heroes. What's wrong with that?

The following also made me chuckle, Mr. Mani writes - "Some years ago, I discovered that the Pune quizzers liked to discuss questions, such as what makes for a good quiz, with pages of analysis and graphs – I spent several months wading through the stuff in repulsed fascination."  I  freely admit that we Pune quizzers tend to be masturbatory lot when it comes to theorizing. It did get out of hand a little while ago, but all that discussion was more in the speculative genre and the changes, or tweaks really, have been largely for the better. See the self-styled BCQC website for details. Note: BCQC people are Pune's leading quizzing fanatics (italics mine).

Nurturing a quiz team is one of the ways in which a business school can prove that their MBA packs muscle. Holding a quiz is the means by which folks in corporate employ can reassure themselves that they are knowledge-workers

There is hardly an 'old' quizzer who isn't lamenting with great nostalgia for the pure and distant past. I would argue to the contrary. TV shows and the popularity of  bad, often very bad MBA-style 'business quizzes' took quizzing to more places and to more people. If it hadn't been for these media circuses, place like my hometown Pune would not have been able to showcase the home-grown talent and for it to improve and compete with traditional powerhouses from Kolkata and Bangalore. Many, many years ago I had qualified for the National finals organized by Limca and Pune teams - Loyola and St. Vincent's (my team) took such a beating in the semis that we realized Pune's poor level of quizzing. I am very glad to note that this is no longer the case and  many local schools and open teams have had outstanding results at the national level.

The wrong kind of crowd who Mr. Mani wants to distance himself from is merely the price of democratization.  While the riff-raff and the occasional bad quizmaster who insists on using the Manorama Yearbook as a source of questions are still annoying,  I see a lot more decent quizzes and decent quizzers than before. People who really understand what a good question is and who appreciate the joy of 'working out' the answer. Mr. Mani rightly points out that the internet has been a boon to keep the nastier elements in line. On a more important note: the internet keeps people like me, part of the great quizzing diaspora connected.

Quiz master for the week

Dinesh Krithivasan has done a stellar job for over 300+ questions, posting one almost every day on the U M Quizblog: http://umqc.blogspot.com/. While he recharges his batteries, I will be running the questions for a week or two.

Googling is encouraged (though I doubt where it will get you for today's question). It's a homage to quizzing in an oblique way. For those who worked out the answer already - you know what I mean.

Pounce and Bounce

A veteran quizzer once told me that quizzing was not so much about knowing stuff, but was more about entertainment and having fun. I disagreed at that point thinking that such a remark was an act of high treason. Over the years, I have realised that quizzing is not a knowledge test. If it were so then quizzes would be like exams - timed and written. A written and timed test is the fairest way to judge who knows the most. All teams get the same questions, no question of order or luck. The team/person that got the highest number of correct answers would walk home with the prize. That's not the point, is it? The point is to have fun.

Over the years, people have obsessed over the best format that minimizes luck and ensures that the team that knows the most (read: best) wins. Quizzing innovations is an activity which has almost become a kind of cottage industry among quizzers with time on their hands. I am about to add more to that body of literature. That being said IMHO, my experience suggests that there is no point looking for the Holy Grail of a perfect format. A good quiz depends on ensuring three simple things in order of importance:

a) The format should be the 'modified infinite bounds with a midway reversal'.
All questions have equal points, the next question to the team to the left/right of the team that answered it. If the question is unanswered then the original teams gets the next question. Order reverses halfway during the quiz.

b) A long quiz.
I think for 5-6 teams there should be at least >40 questions. A factor of 10 is ideal. Even the old system of rounds with pass-direct questions (full points for direct, and half for a pass question) would be okay provided the quiz was long enough.

c) Questions, questions, questions.
The greatest evil is not the format, or the order, or marking scheme -- but bad questions. If questions are set correctly, spread over different topics evenly, and are of similar difficulty then the quiz will be fair and the best team 'should' win.

In practice, luck and order does play somewhat of a role even in the modified infinite bounds format, though b) should take care of it to some extent. The critical issue is to normalize questions in some fashion. Why normalize? Each quizmaster (QM) has his/her own personal strength (read: fetish) and quizzes as a result tend towards personal idiosyncrasies. The good QM is diligent about this and goes about setting questions keeping in mind those biases (knowing the QM and his/her strengths can help you work out the answer, cause you can guess what he/she knows, and how he/she sets questions). One way to do it, as is usually done for big quizzes, is to have two or more question-setters with divergent interests.

Despite the best intentions of the QM(s): all questions are not equal, some are more equal than others. A QM may think that a question is reasonably difficult, but may turn out to be a sitter. On the other hand, some questions are way too tough and end up being unanswered. Personally, if more than 10-15% of questions end up this way then the QM did a bad job. You cannot go about an weigh each question for difficulty.

The other aspect is that there should be some drama, some element of excitement in a quiz. I am a fan of 'buzzer-rounds' which have fallen out of favour in recent times. It provided that adrenalin-rush and rewarded quick recall and reflexes which are sadly missing from the current slow-cooking style. The current trend is away from the fireworks and some quizzes have written components at the start. This is bad, bad, bad.

Long story short. I tried out two innovations at the quizclub. Each team was given two wildcards to allow them to Pounce or Bounce a question.

Pounce: You can attempt a question out of turn. The team has to write down the question or tell the quizmaster before the question is attempted by any of the other teams in regular fashion. There are no negatives and a correct answer get full points.

Bounce: You can bounce a question to the team of your choice. If team doesn't answer it correctly they get -(full points), and if they do answer it correctly they get the full points. Regardless of the outcome, the team bouncing gets the next question.

The rationale behind the Pounce rule was to ensure that sitters can attempted by all. In the past, with great difficulty I have resisted urges to destroy the chair I was sitting on, or strangling the person who smirks when handed a sitter as a direct while I was left wringing my hands in despair. Often, close quizzes are decided on the basis of which team got slightly easier questions. This is where the Pounce comes in. Jump in on question out-of-queue. Grab a sitter. Of course, a team can misjudge the opponents knowledge and would end up with the question in the regular course of events.

The rationale behind the Bounce rule is to induce some excitement and additionally serves as a handicap for the obviously better team(s). There are always going to be a few questions that seem so unreasonable and tough that no one can answer them and a weaker team can either direct it towards the strongest team, or to their closest rival to level the playing field. Of course, if a team is really good and they can actually answer the question that seemed 'too tough' then all the better for them.

Innovations in practice:
This weekend when I tried these out and found the results mixed. No one team used the Bounce rule. They all played too nice, perhaps fearing retribution. The Pounce rule was used by all teams to good effect. Only once out of six times did a team not answer the question correctly. In all six cases, the team would not have got the question in the regular order and judged the moment of 'pouncing' correctly.

This was the casual Saturday quiz and not the best testing ground when there were only three teams and no one was too worried about winning or losing as there was nothing at stake. I curious to see how this works out in a longer, larger quiz more at stake. These rules do favour teams that can fake emotions of knowing or not knowing answers depending on the situation. A tight quiz can almost be like a poker game.
You can sometimes work out the answer being seeing who knows it.

Update:
See analysis of the Infinite Bounds on the BCQC blog that waxes philosophical on this topic. Looking for the link to a list of the more innovative formats proposed. Anyone?

Cross-listed on BCQC's quiz blog.

Quiz blog

Dinesh K. aka Dinky has set things rolling with the U of M Quiz blog. And for all you shameless people out there - Googling is allowed!

Store for Later Use

It's been ages since I have conducted a quiz. I have been mooching off other people for months... err years. A quiz has been in the works for a long time and I am reminded of the fact every time I visit our quizclub page. It was last updated in 2005 and I have not done what was promised. It has been pricking my conscience every since. Finally, the gnawing into my brain along with collective shame brought upon the folks I have been mooching past the many months has resulted in actually conducting this Sunday's quiz.

Whether you are an active quizzer, a quizzer-in-exile, or quizzer-in-hibernation, once you have taken the plunge as a quizzer you will always be one. Anything you read and hear (no, not touch!) will be stored away for future use. It is an unconscious and automatic process to store all kinds of useless facts.

Now, having to set questions puts all this at a more conscious level. Now you are aware of this automatic filing process. After struggling to make the first few questions, the process becomes easy, too easy. Suddenly, everything you read or hear becomes a potential question. It's not the finding of the information that is hard, it is the framing of it: getting the right images, facts to make the question interesting, workable and informative at the same time. I have some a number of potentially awesome questions getting wasted because of poor framing.

Sample question (any guesses?)

while(1) {
Stephen Hawking ;
Eric Schmidt;
Adam and Eve;
a picture of Zeus;
}

The best way to set a quiz is to set questions in way that you like them best. I like questions like the previous one. At first, it makes no sense. Then the pieces connect and it all makes sense. In a few moments, you instantly know that you have the right answer.

At the end of the weekend, I had way more questions that I could fit into 2 hour slot. So, I have archived them. Stored for later use.

More aimless wandering on the internet

Remember the time they used to ask capitals of countries in quizzes? and then it all changed. The worst thing you can do as a quizmaster is to ask capitals. But, what do you do if you still know where Dushanbe is? Or, pinpoint Reunion on a map?

This Travel IQ will ensure that you gain a sense of power and superiority over your fellow men. It is totally addictive and an insane waste of time.

Even the WSJ has taken interest in it!