How easy is it to distinguish between a question that’s too easy and a question that’s too hard/boring for a pub quiz? I ask because I’ve been feeling distinctly ungenerous towards the setter of Thursday’s quiz in the club. I like the setter a lot, as it happens (but as a person, not as a question master). Sorry, that’s mean. But then, if I write down some of the mean things which occur to me to say about a quiz, then I reckon I’m slightly less likely to actually say them. Slightly.
Now, it’s fair to say that Thursday night’s QM would
probably not be my favourite QM even if her quizzes were better. She has an
unfortunate tendency to shout into the microphone which is not pleasant on the
ear at all. Don’t take my word for it. Dan made a point of mentioning this
almost as soon as I’d got in the car yesterday. And don’t get me wrong, using a
microphone does take a bit of getting used to. Your brain is telling you that
you need to speak very loudly to be heard by everyone, yet it's one of the worst
things you can do with a microphone. (Worse things probably necessitate
surgery, but let’s not go on about that.)
But then, her quizzes aren’t better. Last year she gave us
a quiz where a large number of the question concerned events in 2016. On
Thursday for me there was an issue in the level of the questions. Some of them
were of the ‘Lisbon is the capital of which country?’ variety. Nobody ever
complains that a whole quiz is too easy, but I’m sorry, some questions are so
easy they are not worth asking. While others were of the ‘How many miles is it
from London to Stonehenge?’ variety. Questions which require you to guess and
give you no satisfaction. There were a lot of these what I would call random
number questions. Now there’s an adage which my olders and betters used to say
when I was starting quizzing more than 3 and a half decades ago, namely that
weak quizzers make weak quizzes, because they don’t know what makes a good
question. Certainly the QM on Thursday is in a team that usually come last by
some distance. So is it just that? Probably has something to do with it.
It’s not necessarily quite that simple, though. Dan made
the point that when he, Jess or Adam acts as QM they find it difficult getting
the level of TV, film, Music questions right because everyone else in the quiz
is so much older, and not tuned in to more modern questions. My answer is
though – yes, but you’re aware of this. You care about this. You make every effort
to put the best questions that you can in your quiz. Thursday’s setter? Much as
I like her, nah, I don’t believe that she does.
Dan also made a fair point that the wording of the
questions was not always precise enough. For example – “What is Shakira?” Yeah,
you probably immediately gave the correct answer – singer – but it annoys me because
you could put down a number of different things, all correct and yet not be
given the point.
Okay, in for a penny, in for a pound. In about round 7 we
had five of the ten questions which had all been asked in the previous week’s
quiz. The QM had not been present last week. What must have happened is that
both of the last two QMs must have used the same website for these questions,
and both must have just copied them down as they come in the order that they
come. Now, I can’t blame Thursday’s QM for the coincidence since she missed the
previous week. However, just shoving own any old questions from a website does
not a good quiz make.
Well, there you go. Principles can be a dangerous thing. I’ve
always said that a) anybody who volunteers to compile a quiz and be QM should
be allowed, and b) if someone is public spirited enough to compile a quiz for
the club you should never boycott them (apart from the one who publicly
attacked me over the mic that once) and try to attend and support them, however
much you may dislike their quiz. But in all honesty, I hope we won’t have to
sit through another quiz like that for a while.
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