Beware of correct alternative answers. e.g.
| Who wrote The Casual Vacancy | Robert Galbraith | could also be answered Joanne Rowling or J. K. Rowling |
We are blessed to live in an age when the great majority of information can be accessed instantly, there is no excuse to deny perfectly good answers with "That is not what's written on the sheet"
Because of the very nature of SpeedQuizzing the protocol is well-established - unless told otherwise it is always Christian name required; use them and index answers by them, e.g. Emma Bunton, Emma Stone, Oliver Stone, William Shakespeare. e.g.
| Who won the 2012 Olympic Triathlon | A | for Alistair Browlee (his brother, Jonathan came third) |
Articles: Do not inclue a leading 'A' or 'The' in the answer, for example
| For which 1967 film did Mike Nichols win the 1968 Academy Award for Best Director | G | for Graduate |
For feck's sake don't ask me what to do with Los Lobos and La Bamba! (Actually I would leave it at that, on the pretext that WTF whatever!!)
I would always use the Wikipedia headlines as the go-to name of anything. SpeedQuizzing themselves are a little more ambivalent, for example they world readily call the apostle Jude Thadeus 'Judas' where as I feel more comfortable with a cannonical precedent.
Honorary Titles: Avoid them whenever possible, as they are fraught with ambiguity, many peers, for instance, having held the same title. It is an absolute minefield for question-setters, I mean, look at the Wikipedia entry for Lord Halifax. It is redirected to this page, which doesn't even mention Lord Halifax
Bob Geldorf and Paul McCartney are 'Sirs', but that is not a requirement to indicate understanding and plays havoc with indexing. Lord Nelson? Horatio.
Saints, rivers, mounts, motorways etc In answers, Whenever possible avoid using prefixes for proper names e.g.
| Which main saint's day is February 14th | Valentine |
| What major river runs through London | Thames |
| What is the highest mountain in the world | Everest |
| What number motorway runs from London to Leeds | 1 |
Ordinal numbers: Ordinal numbers should be written as plain numbers, e.g. Edward 2, World War 2. This allows them to sort. I'm the only person I know who maintains this.
By default any name answer which has an ordinal number should have that ordinal number apart from 'the first', where although it may be added is not absolutely critical. It is always assumed that King Edward is Edward 1 by default. (One good reason is that if, for instance King Stephen 2 was crowned in the future, there would be no need to change all the books about King Stephen for the past 900 years). Obviously a question-master may have a personal preference for the primary ordinal and require e.g. King Edward 1 but they would, if fair and consistent, also require Of England. To re-iterate, as long as an answer is reasonably unambigous, if it correct it should be given, e.g.
| Who was King of England in 1300 | Edward 1 | could be given as plain Edward, or Longshanks perhaps Hammer of the Scots, or even Malleus Scotorum |
Demonyms It is assumed that if a name has a demonym (e.g. King Henry 8 of England), that the place is the place where the question is being asked, e.g. in an English quiz Henry 8 would be fine. For some places, providing there is no scope for ambiguity the demonyms can be omitted, e.g. Ramases can be safely assumed to be Egyptian unless indicated otherwise. In the hierarchy of assumptions, Open refers to golf, and The Open is The British Open golf championship. Otherwise a sport reference should be mentioned, e.g.
| Who won the US Open (tennis) in 2012 | Andy Murray |
Follow Wikipedia for guidance, (Portree is on Skye, but Douglas is on the Isle of Man - it's a minefield!)
Avoid writing surnames only unless absolutely unavoidable, e.g. Ludwig van Beethoven as opposed to Beethoven. By all means highlight the surname.
Commas on serial lists. A 'serial' comma should go before the conjunction 'and' in a list of three or more items, e.g.
| Who starred in The Cable Guy, The Truman Show, and Dumb And Dumber | Jim Carey |
Time Setting: Endevour to make a question last forever, e.g.
| Who became the Chancellor of the Exchequer in 2010 | George Osborne |
As opposed to
| Who is the Chancellor of the Exchequer | George Osborne |
Be careful with the use of the word 'famous'. It is often pointless. Eg: Who famously ran the first four minute mile? is just long winded (although I suppose there is a case for someone running one before!) That goes for other subjective/tautolgical additions and answers. Sometimes you may need it, Eg: Who most famously said "God doesn't play dice"?
Beware of 'buts' in buzzer questions (e.g. Julian, Anne, Dick and Georgina were all members of The Famous Five but who had a hit with "Take Five"?). in addition, commas, full stops and colons should always be double checked for swerviness.
| Music incorporating Pop, Jazz, Classical, Radio, Musicals |
| Arts incorporating Art, Architecture, Food, Language, Literature |
| History incorporating History, Biography, Myth, Politics |
| Pastimes incorporating Sport, Games |
| Visual incorporating Film, TV, Theatre |
| Froth incorporating News, Celebrity, Fashion, Crime, Business, Lore (i.e. everything else) |
| Science incorporating Maths, Technology, Nature, Medical, Chemistry, Biology, Astronomy, Physics |
| Geography incorporating Geography, Social Sciences |
Bearing in mind that variety is the spice of life (and quizzes) and that the most difficult questions should be saved for a table quiz, Buzzer quiz setters should strive to attain questions where:
and, in a Buzz in round the question master will:
Having said that, the perfect question, like the lost chord, is probably non-existent! Nevertheless, when asking a question for any buzzer quiz there are some intuitively logical guidelines. 'Perfection' may be unobtainable, but excellence and/or adequacy is/are quite possible.
Primarily, if a buzzer quiz question is not eventually answered correctly it is a waste of valuable time and effort, not least on behalf of the question master. This does not preclude 'non-got' questions from being asked; they will be pitched in occasionally, as no question master can know the limits of the contestants' knowledge. One must imagine, however, that these 'non-got' questions are best saved for a 'table' quiz, i.e. a quiz designed to establish the boundaries of an individual's or a team's knowledge.
Try to be right!