Creating a History Quiz: Some Hints

Answer: So you can be original and avoid asking questions that have already been asked

Copying from other quizzes is plagiarism and is unacceptable. One of the most important reasons for taking plenty of History quizzes before creating your own quiz is to *avoid* duplicating material already in other quizzes. Asking old questions again is boring, too.

As for popularity and making hard quizzes, these should be relatively unimportant considerations. You may find it helpful to use the Funtrivia search engine, as some relevant quizzes may be in another category, for example, "People" or "World".

Answer: Make sure that this particular description of Calvin is widely known

Check that all the facts in your quiz, including nicknames, are widely acknowledged. Avoid asking for knowledge that is purely 'local'. For example, your teacher may call Calvin the 'organizer of the Reformation' in order to provide you with a convenient label, but if it's not generally recognized, it will produce correction notices.

It's usually easy to check such things by means of a websearch of the type "Calvin organizer".

Answer: Any or all of these

If France had 'achieved independence' in AD 486 one can be sure that the 1,500th anniversary would have been celebrated in style in France, with plenty of commemmorative stamps and coins, for example. It's also worth bearing in mind that the CIA "World Factbook" isn't primarily concerned with history. Closer inspection will reveal that the publication seems to have a slot for "Independence" for all countries.

This works well for the USA and many other countries, but is inappropriate for countries that emerged gradually and didn't suddenly come into existence as nation-states on a given date.

Answer: Who, by long established tradition, is often regarded as the first King of England?

When asking a question about who or which was first, it's very important to be aware whether or not there is any controversy about the answer. This should help you to ask the question in a way that doesn't land you in the thick of an avoidable argument.

In this case the difficulty is that although Egbert extended the Kingdom of Wessex and assumed the title of 'King of All England' his actual control over the other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, for example, Northumbria and much of Mercia, was practically nil.

Moreover, there was no central administration. Moreover, sometimes other kings are named instead as the first king of England.

Answer: There's no single date that covers the phenomenon

To put the matter simply: the question is based on inaccurate assumptions and therefore doesn't make sense. If what you really want is the date of the abolition of serfdom, ask for precisely that. Feudalism was a vast and complex social system and there has never been a complete and single 'abolition of feudalism' in England.

Instead, various aspects of the feudal system were abolished piecemeal and some aspects fell into disuse long before they were abolished by law. Incidentally, one can argue that a few aspects survived into the 20th and 21st centuries, such as the right of hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords; and of course, the monarchy itself is arguably a 'feudal' remnant. :)

Answer: Any or all of these reasons

It's unwise to ask a question without doing research on the topic. In this case, for example, one needs to be aware that university education for women (and the appointment of women to university teaching posts) were only achieved after a lengthy campaign in the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth century. That said, the University of Padua awarded an MA and a doctorate to Elena Cornoro Piscopia in 1678 and a handful of universities made some awards of various kinds to women in the eighteenth century, but these were extremely few in number and were isolated exceptions.

Answer: For all of these reasons

People taking the quiz will be intrigued by this claim, and will want to know more. There's also a very important principle when dealing with knowledge: other people must be able to check your claims and statements. For example, in this case, others may decide that this wasn't a war, merely a minor incident. If you shroud the event in mystery, nobody can check it.

Moreover, people taking the quiz won't be very happy about it, either. (By the way, this 'incident' has been invented purely in order to illustrate a point).

Answer: Which European country ruled most of India from about 1760 until the country gained independence in 1947?

It so happens that there are many ways of referring to the colonial power in question: Britain, Great Britain, United Kingdom, UK, U.K., U. K. and even the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Would you really be able to predict all these correct answers and how would the software cope with a profusion of acceptable answers?

Answer: No

Please stick to the well established convention in this matter. Anything else is likely to attract a lot of correction notices. The only country that uses 1941-45 as the standard dates is the former Soviet Union. This isn't at all surprising as the period between the outbreak of WWII and the German invasion of the Soviet Union is the source of more than a little embarrassment ...

Answer: All of these

Above all, please do enough research, as asking questions about things you don't understand is a 'no-no' ... Good luck and enjoy yourself when creating your History quizzes!