What Not to Do in Quizzes

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. If you write a quiz the way I often do, you put in the correct answer first, and then fill in the incorrect ones later. However, often there may be a small clue you put in inadvertently as to the correct answer. An example is this question: What is the name of Pia Zadora's first movie?

Answer: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.

Do you see it? The punctuation at the end of the answer? That little period often subtly indicates the correct answer, written when you're being careful about the quiz. The wrong answers, inserted later, are done a little more carelessly.

Other similar errors involve capitalizing all the words in the correct answer but not in the incorrect ones, and showing a different level of detail in the incorrect answers (e.g., correct answer "President Abraham Lincoln". Incorrect answers "President Washington, President Wilson, President Cleveland.")

2. The next one is a two parter, this first question will illustrate a gaffe I still occasionally make: Pitcairn Island was too small to support the expanding population in the new society, so an appeal was made to Great Britain to find for them a new home. A former penal colony was available, so on May 3, 1856, 183 people set sail for their new home on which island?

Answer: Norfolk Island

Wow, that was a long question, with information that probably goes better in the "Interesting Information" section. Why not ask "In 1856, the Pitcairn Islanders left their home for which island?"

3. Now part two of the two parter: 18 months later, several homesick islanders left Norfolk Island and returned to Pitcairn. What did they find there?

Answer: An American family

Sometimes you can find the answer to a question ("In 1856, the Pitcairn Islanders left their home for which island?") in the wording of another question ("several homesick islanders left Norfolk Island...").

In the time between the Pitcairners' travel to Norfolk and the return of some of them, several ships visited Pitcairn Island. Some visitors vandalized the island, one tried to claim it for France, and one family, the Warrens of Tiverton, Rhode Island, stayed.

There are no volcanoes on Pitcairn and the island was uninhabited when it was settled in 1790.

4. What was once a great trivia question can turn into a slew of correction notes. An example is the question below: The major league baseball player who was first alphabetically in the history of the league held which major career record?

Answer: Home runs

Yes, Hank Aaron held the first spot alphabetically in the major leagues' players list. And yes, he held the record for most home runs.

But in 2004, David Aardsma became the first player alphabetically and in 2007, Barry Bonds became the home run leader. Because of the passage of time, the records are no longer valid (and eventually, neither will be the ones in this paragraph).

I saw another, similar one, in one of Funtrivia's earlier quizzes, asking which team a football player played for. The multiple choice answers included the team he played for at the time the quiz was written as the correct answer, and the team he had been traded to since as an incorrect answer. Fortunately, this kind of question is rarely allowed anymore.

5. What aspect of History class did you hate the most in school growing up? I hated date memorization. That is why I hate this question: When was the singer Stevie Nicks born?

Answer: May 26, 1948

Dates tell so little about the subject and, unless historically significant (July 4, 1776; December 7, 1941; September 11, 2001), are basically questions designed to be difficult. Also, the Interesting Information in such a question is not so interesting: "Stephanie Lynn Nicks was born in Phoenix, Arizona."

Instead, why not use a question like "Who joined Fleetwood Mac alongside Lindsay Buckingham in 1975?" or "Who sang in hit duets with Don Henley, Tom Petty, and Kenny Loggins?" and then tell the story in the Interesting Information?

6. OK, here's an easy one for you: What is the capital of Australia?

Answer: Canberra

"OK, here's an easy one for you."

Anytime I see a statement like that in a question or in the Interesting Information, it knocks that quiz way down in the ratings to me. You might as well word it as "Miss this and there's something wrong with you."

Incidentally, just as the above question might not be so easy for someone not native to Australia, I have seen that statement used in some difficult questions.

7. How are you at spelling in foreign languages? What Falco song did After The Fire translate into English and turn into a hit in 1982?

Answer: Der Kommissar

Actually, this is a version of a far worse question I saw. It was a fill in the blank using the line:

"Don't turn around, oh oh oh, ___ _________ in town, oh oh oh."

So not only did you have to spell it correctly in German, you missed it if you did not include the apostrophe and s at the end ("Der Kommissar's"). When I took it, only 6% had answered it correctly.

Unless advertising your quiz as a spelling quiz, try not to make spelling the major concern, and on a fill in the blank, make the words easy to spell.

8. Let's trick you with an obscure memory from childhood: You are flying through outer space, cruising low over mountains, carrying three humanoids. Suddenly, you come across a swarm of Yllabian Space Guppies. You're out of smart bombs so you turn on Inviso and blow them away. What video game are you playing?

Answer: Stargate

A trick question, based on the fact that Defender was a major hit game but few people remember its sequel Stargate, with identical game play, but also with the new aliens "Yllabian Space Guppies" and the new control "Inviso".

Mea culpa... This question, since revised to make it less tricky, is from one of my first quizzes, "Vidiot--A Look at Classic Arcade Games".

9. Let's see if your opinion matches my opinion. Only when it does will you have the correct answer: You're playing no-limit Texas Hold'em. You are on the button at a table of nine, and three people have called the blinds, with nobody raising. You look down and you have pocket aces. What is the best way to play this hand?

Answer: There are many good ways to play this hand

I added "There are many good ways to play this hand" because that's what poker is all about--strategy and mixing things up.

But when I saw a question like this in a quiz, there was no such answer. This quiz basically gave the message "Play my way or you are wrong".

Besides, there is a lot of missing information. How many chips do you have in comparison to the competition? Are you in a tournament or a live game? What are the blinds? In a tournament, is it early in the tournament or late? Do you know the habits of the players you're playing against?

10. Let me amaze you with my knowledge of information you could never know: Before "You Can't Do That On Television" went to a half-hour format on Nickelodeon, it was an hour-long Saturday morning show in its local area. Which of the following additional features were in the original format?

Answer: All of these

Three totally obscure facts, tied together with an "All of the Above" answer.

In 1979, before Nickelodeon made the kids' show "You Can't Do That on Television" one of its flagship shows, it was seen by a few thousand kids near Toronto. About half of those episodes no longer exist in any medium, and the rest would only be held by collectors of '80s nostalgia.

This is another mea culpa, from my early quiz "You Can't Do That on Funtrivia". Yes, I was a collector of '80s nostalgia.

Source: Author Eauhomme

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor LeoDaVinci before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

This is not an easy "Don't Do This" quiz, but rather a general quiz with the questions done in popular probably-should-be-avoided ways. Some of these are things I've seen in others' quizzes, and some I have done myself.

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