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The Eleven(th) Experience

By Prakash Subbarao

On 1st September 2004, when I started the Bangalore Quiz Group (BQG), I was a novice at quizzing. Today, I have mustered the confidence to write about it  based on my BQG experiences and based on some of the things that I learned along the way.

Let me call them THE ELEVEN(TH) EXPERIENCE.....the (TH) standing for "Thoughts".

1. Research, research, research! Check every fact before it goes out. Indians are great intellectuals and great diggers out of facts. Before you know it, mistakes in your quiz will come back to haunt you!

2. Never write a quiz question from memory. Memories are inherently faulty....even of the best quizzers. I remember an incident in the early days of BQG when a nationally known quizzer made a severe blooper in a BQG quiz that he posted. He himself couldn't understand how he had made such a mistake and was red faced for weeks about this incident, which he perceived could have hurt his image.

3. Never try to make a question more than it is. Many quiz masters try and wow! the audience with answers that could be patently false. Many people go away from the quiz thrilled, but the few who dig out the facts will become skeptical of the QM and will never again take him at face value.

4. Avoid making questions after checking facts from dubious sources. The question may look very appealing but if it isn't true, don't use it.

5. Introduce new content regularly. I personally feel that very few quizzers introduce new questions into the quizzing circuit. I feel that every quizzer should post at least one quiz of ten questions every month and all the ten questions must never have seen light of day earlier; they must be delightfully fresh virgins. In the absence of fresh content, the same questions go round and round the circuit.

6. NEVER PLAGIARIZE and pass off a question as your own. You will be caught. I remember this happening in a BQG contest. The rules demanded that the questions in each quiz should be independently researched and should not have appeared elsewhere. One person tried to pass of a quiz of ten questions as his own and was exposed within forty eight hours. Today, several years later, I wouldn't give that person's quiz even a cursory glance because once respect is lost, it is lost forever.

7. Don't try and impress the audience with your brilliance. There are many quiz masters who try and impress the audience no end with their individual brilliance. In my humble opinion, a quiz master should focus on making the teams and the audience have a good time. This brings to mind a quote from David Ogilvy:

When Greek statesman Aeschines spoke to his people urging them to unite and defend independence against Philip II of Macedon, they said "How well he speaks." But it was Demosthenes' speech that made people say..."Let us march against Philip." In other words, the latter was more strongly motivating than the former.

8. Build in local flavour as early in the quiz as possible. When you are doing a quiz in, say, a college of Business Management in Mysore, start with a video clip that features Dr. Rajkumar. When doing a similar quiz in, say, Coimbatore, open with a video clip on Rajnikanth. The appreciative whistles from the audience will lay the foundation for the success of the remainder of the quiz.

9. Give your best, whatever you are paid for the quiz. Once you have negotiated the fee for a quiz, (however high or low it may be), put the value out of your mind and try and build the best quiz that you possibly can. In a month or two you will have forgotten how much you got for that quiz but a great quiz will be remembered by your audience for years.

10. Never re-use your questions. I have seen many quiz masters re-use questions because these are the questions that have drawn strong positive reactions from the public. However, public memory, when it comes to quizzing, is long rather than short. I remember a friend of mine (and a well known quizzer) using a question on "potty parity" at least four times in two years! He didn't remember that he had used it three times earlier. My guess is that a lot of people who had attended his quizzes remembered this and consequently may have down rated his performance.

11. There is no such thing as a "tough" quiz: And finally, numero eleveno........a lot of people have told me in the past "your quizzes are very tough". If you don't know the answers, it is very tough. But what if you knew the answers? The quiz would have been very easy, wouldn't it? Don't evaluate a quiz based on how tough it is. See a quiz in light of "I knew three of the answers. This quiz taught me seven things that I didn't know." When you define it this way, no quiz will be "tough" but will be exciting because you have learnt a lot of new things!

That's my ELEVEN(TH) philosophy. Do give me your feedback.

Cheers,

Prakash

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