Question Research

[Wingnut]

I am researching game-show / quiz questions, and someone at alt.tv.game-shows kindly directed me here. I hope I'm posting in the right forum, and I have run several searches to see if the answers to my questions have already been posted, but couldn't find the info I'm looking for.

My research is for a "live-event" quiz, rather than a TV show. I'm looking for a way of sourcing questions; what I'd ideally like is access to a database of past questions (either an "official" database, or an "unofficial" one...). There is a limited budget for this, but not of televisual proportions! The project is UK based.

Do TV production companies employ people to write questions in-house, or do they sub-contract to companies who specialise in this? I'm also interested in how questions are "graded" (ie on Millionaire some questions are obviously easier than others, how do they grade the questions and decide which to use when).

Any info, and contact details / urls for those involved would be great.

Thank you for your time.

[Jimmy Owen]

There are writers employed by game shows.  Using a database of previously used questions might be more difficult than using a box of Trivial Pursuit cards. I'm not sure if facts can be copyrighted.  On "Millionaire" the questions are easy only if you know the answers.

[inturnaround]

Facts are not copyrightable. The way it is presented is.

[Matt Ottinger]

[quote name=\'Wingnut\' date=\'Feb 26 2004, 10:44 AM\'] Do TV production companies employ people to write questions in-house, or do they sub-contract to companies who specialise in this? [/quote]
In the United States, there are a number of independent companies that specialize in preparing questions for quiz-bowl competitions in the style of our old College Bowl program (what you might know as University Challenge).  One of the members of this forum works for a great company called NAQT, which can be found on the web, logically enough, at www.naqt.com.  Depending on your needs and how much money you have to invest in your project, they or some other similar service may be able to provide you with questions.

Of course, if you're doing it on a shoestring, and you don't have copyright concerns (shame on you), your best bet will be drawing material from a quiz book or box game of some sort.

I'm also interested in how questions are "graded" (ie on Millionaire some questions are obviously easier than others, how do they grade the questions and decide which to use when).

Ah, the eternal question about...questions.  This is one of the great arts of writing trivia questions, and there's no easy way to explain how to do it.  The best question writers just have an instinct (or tons of experience) that helps them sort out difficulty.

[DrBear]

Add to that the question of style. Obviously, the way the questions are written for Jeopardy! (detailed answer, possibly with a small hint) will be different than the way they're written for Millionaire (straightforward question, tricky multiple choice) than the way they were for The Joker's Wild or Tic Tac Dough (long-winded question with more information than anybody cares about, ridiculously easy answer).

So you can get facts anywhere; the trick is to
a. write them to fit a format; if it's straight question-and-answer, try to make them a bit entertaining.
b. Get ones that a good percentage of the players, and for TV, the audience, can answer.

Trivial Pursuit, which was mentioned, does one of the best jobs of hitting a good medium of knowledge.

[mmb5]

As the NAQT forum member, I would give you this advice:

1. Don't attempt to write the whole thing yourself.  It's a lot harder than it looks.  The easy part of question writing is the question.  The hard part is the answer.

2. What is your audience?  Are you going for academic content (i.e. the General Knowledge round of Mastermind), or are you going for pop culture content, or are you going for a mix of both (i.e. Weakest Link)?  Are you having a bunch of people who would win it all on Millionaire, or are they the first person voted off Weakest Link?

3. Once you determine your audience, pick a distribution of the questions.  For example, when I write Millionaire-style questions, I try to ensure the last 9 include one each of movies, music, TV, sports, geography, literature, science, history and miscellaneous.

Of course, Matt as usual is right, do check us out at naqt.com and check out information about our intramural questions (our easiest set and what would most resemble a pub quiz).  We may not be exactly what you want (since we are suppling things of a mostly academic nature), but we really can't be beat on price.


--Mike Burger

[Wingnut]

Thank you so much for the advice and suggestions. I shall certainly check out NAQT.

To answer the questions that have been asked of me:

1. The contestants will be more Weakest Link - a very broad mix, with some very "quiz literate" people, and some much less able.

2. The questions will be presented in a multiple choice format, with with only 2 options (as opposed to Millionaire's four).

And don't worry, I have no intention of trying to write them myself!

Do shows "focus group" questions in order to try and determine the level of difficulty / likelihood of a correct answer, or is this just determined by the setter's instinct / experience?

[mmb5]

[quote name=\'Wingnut\' date=\'Feb 26 2004, 02:24 PM\'] Do shows "focus group" questions in order to try and determine the level of difficulty / likelihood of a correct answer, or is this just determined by the setter's instinct / experience? [/quote]
 Usually it's done at a different level, one person will write the question and give their impression of the difficulty, two or more others will settle on it's actual difficulty.


--Mike

[dickoon]

*checks eligibility requirements to make sure that I am not about to make a faux pas with this post*

If you're looking for people who do this in the UK already who can supply more British-culture specific questions, I can recommend a couple of organisations who I think are likely to be able to do a good job and who are staffed with people who are worthy of your money. (It may well be that they in turn recommend other people for your work instead.) I can also recommend a couple of organisations who I think are possibly able to do a good job but are full of people who really don't need deserve to get money from anyone at all, but I shall be keeping my opinions here very firmly to myself.

The good guys are the British Quiz Association and the Oxford University Quiz Society. Disclosure: yes, the people involved are my friends, but I have other friends who I could be recommending here and have chosen not to do so. :-)

Good luck!
Chris

[tommycharles]

At my highschool we've always used Knowledge Master, whose info is at www.greatauk.com - if for some reason you need another option than NAQT (who I would join Matt and co. in recommending, we use KM because the league says we have to).

[chris319]

The easy part of question writing is the question. The hard part is the answer.

In my experience, the hardest part of question writing is getting past the "standard" questions, such as "Who authored Romeo and Juliet?" or "Who first scaled Mount Everest?". These questions are common knowledge and obvious fodder for a quiz, and that makes them easy to write. A less obvious question (off the top of my head) might be "Name the Finnish-born computer programmer for whom the operating system Linux is named." Such would not be a question not heard on your father's Tic Tac Dough :-)

On P+, once we had assembled a body of about 600 puzzles we found that we were running out of playable subjects, so puzzles were rewritten with different clues. I don't think that's a secret as far as anyone on this board is concerned.

[carlopanno]

A suggestion, which I learned from my years on the Jeopardy! research staff:

All game show questions should inspire one of three responses:

1. I know that.
2. I used to know that.
3. I'm glad I know it now.

The worst possible response is "Who cares?" If no one is engaged enough to tryto respond, the question is a failure.

Good luck.

--C

[Brandon Brooks]

[quote name=\'carlopanno\' date=\'Feb 29 2004, 12:54 AM\'] A suggestion, which I learned from my years on the Jeopardy! research staff:

All game show questions should inspire one of three responses:

1. I know that.
2. I used to know that.
3. I'm glad I know it now. [/quote]
 Wow, that was very well put.

Brandon Brooks

[chris319]

All game show questions should inspire one of three responses:

1. I know that.
2. I used to know that.
3. I'm glad I know it now.

There's also:

4. I should have known that.
5. What the hell, (NAME OF CATEGORY) was never my subject anyway.