Questions - and answer lists??

[Guest]

On a side note, I was after a list of questions and their answers for a quiz game I'm programming, although no-one has found anything yet.

Here's a bunch of questions. You will need to 'multiple-choicify' the answers, tho.

http://tatarize.com/modules.php?name=Do ... load&cid=5

Maybe a sub-forum with a tree of additional subs could be created to order all these Qs on here somewhere.

[Matt Vinyl]

Ah, nice one! That is indeed an extensive list! LOL

[anewman]

I am currently working on a Wikimedia installation to create a wiki for this purpose and it is coming along promisingly. If allowed, when I have got the settings right I will post the link here.

[Vidmar]

ITBox Soccer would be do-able. I've already seen loads of repititions on not so strong subjects.

'Watford Legends' always seems to elude me and crop up once you start doing well.

In fact, I might start writing down every answer.....

[anewman]

I have created a wiki site using the wikimedia software. Click my web address. The site functions pretty much the same way as wikipedia allowing users to edit the pages and contribute.

To edit pages you need to register. Registered users can add to the questions and use the discussion pages to discuss changes to categories and so on. As I have only just knocked it up today it's still a work in progress but please feel free to register and contribute

Deal or No Deal currently has the best developed category list.

[mjd]

Capital Cities is a good one for this.

ie you have London for England (easy) but not everyone would know that the capital city of Bulgaria is Sofia, for example.

[cool]

Question databases on the internet is the lazymans attempt at getting rich.
Most questions are easily answered by investing in (a) a computer (b)a decent set of books (c) by deduction from actually playing the game. Perhaps it would be a good idea to run a subject ' book list ' & ' useful site list' for a good sources to examine in order to find out questions.

[anewman]

Question databases on the internet is the lazymans attempt at getting rich.
Most questions are easily answered by investing in (a) a computer (b)a decent set of books (c) by deduction from actually playing the game. Perhaps it would be a good idea to run a subject ' book list ' & ' useful site list' for a good sources to examine in order to find out questions.

But the fact the machine uses a database itself and cannot come up with questions from thin air means it can be beaten

[tka]

The link is here...

http://www.an1.co.uk/qa/index.php/Main_Page

[cool]

I agree with you completely! The majority of people who have made money from these machines over their creation 20 years ago have not relied on internet question databases , but lists that they have created for their own personal use. My best friend 'Rocky' who I share information about pub sites with has (as have I)has never felt the need to talk about what games we have conquered or the exchange of information regarding questions.Indeed the reason we got into machines was the fact that the Quizmaster had a limited database and was learnable.

[Nil Satis]

Good luck with all this guys, and I wouldn't want to discourage such a show of enterprise, but have you really thought this one through? Personally I would find it difficult to learn enough from just reading a list of questions and answers to be able to benefit when playing any decent game.

I'm not clear how I learn so many useless bits of information but two main factors are I believe constant practice and reading loads (but not quiz questions, rather newspapers, magazines, the Internet etc). One thing I do know is that I find it much easier to recall something where I have some experience of the subject. For example if I have heard a song or seen a film or been to a place ... I will find it much easier to remember a fact about that subject rather than if I sat down and tried to learn long lists of related questions.

I have occasionally looked up the answer to certain things when they have bugged me, e.g. the correct order of a few of the Bonus rounds on proper Millionaire, but in any one session playing a few games I am likely to encounter between say 200 and 500 questions per hour. The thought of trying to remember these and make some record of the answers (both correct and incorrect) is quite mind-boggling. Equally, the thought of trying to learn someone else's set of several hundred questions is just a non-starter.

One other over-riding issue is that all games to a greater or lesser extent have spoiler questions. You could TRY to learn all the 'real' questions for say Trivial Pursuit but if the machine doesn't want to pay you are still going to lose your money on a set of automatically-generated questions such as the total length in miles of River x and River y, with the two rivers being different each time.

If you genuinely have the ability to learn (and recall within a few seconds) the answers to a set of questions that you have systematically worked through, I would suggest that you already have 95% of what you need to give you a fair chance on the quiz games. For me that time would be better spent on actually getting out and playing the things - you will learn answers as you go along and you will also be improving some of the skills that you can't get from sitting in front of a list - speed of recall, hand/eye co-ordination and so on.

[anewman]

I guess the way I see it is for example you play one game - you get a question wrong and it pops up the correct answer. If you see the question again you are more likely to remember the correct answer just because you have seen the question before. So if you simply read through the list - if the question comes up you have a better chance than someone who did not see the list. So I don't think mega hardcore hours of revision would be necessary.

What would be really nice is if an insider could leak the question database that's in these machines or if someone who owns a pub and is good at fiddling with PC's (probably hacking as I guess these things are encrypted) could manage to get it (probably the licenses you have to get mean you are not allowed to open the case anyway...)

I wasn't aware that machines generated spoiler questions in such a manner as you suggest from a variety of known information - I guess that's what would make everything difficult. Also if the company that created the machines gets wise and changes questions/deletes games and so on...

[Guest]

What would be really nice is if an insider could leak the question database

Please?

[Nil Satis]

I guess the way I see it is for example you play one game - you get a question wrong and it pops up the correct answer. If you see the question again you are more likely to remember the correct answer just because you have seen the question before.

That is one of the key points actually. Personally I would find myself much more likely to remember something because I got it wrong on a game rather than if I'd seen it as one question and answer pair in a long list. Seeing it in the game gives it a context that reading it off a list doesn't.

I am by no means an expert on the science of memory and learning but context seems to me to be a huge part of the process. To take your simple example of who won the Ashes in 2005, most of us would know the answer anyway because we can recall the matches themselves, the excitement of seeing England win, the celebrations afterwards and so on. If however I sat down to try to learn a list of who won the Ashes each year it was played in the 1910s I would find it a lot harder because there is no context to place each fact against.

A couple of other points:

(1) question sets and more importantly games do change. If you are going to try this approach you have to be able to deal with the potential disappointment of taking two months trying to learn say 10,000 questions for Deal or No Deal only to find it removed from all the machines the next time you go to the pub!

(2) most games do NOT show you the correct answer when you get a question wrong. For Millionaire you might have to get the same question four times before you knew what the right answer was

I don't want to completely discourage you or anyone else trying this but like I said, if you genuinely have the ability to learn in this way, you should really be out there playing the games rather than spending hours in front of a long list of facts.

[QuizMaster]

A simpler way would would be to duel down the ages with immortal type beings (taking care not to get your head cut off) until you are the only who remains. The 'Prize' for this is the ability to know everything, thus saving you countless hours of revision and meaning you have waged a 600 year battle so you can win a £5 off Deal or No Deal.