I'm pulling questions together for a quiz we're doing at work on Thursday. I need good questions (and answers) that I can use.

I don't want them too difficult cos its no fun when people score zero, but too easy isn't good either.

Average age of participants is about 40. Assume they are not the world's most intelligent!

UK-based questions would be best.

THANKS IN ADVANCE!

Categories are:

General Knowledge - MORE OR LESS DONE
The Natural World - REALLY NEED QUESTIONS
Science - REALLY NEED QUESTIONS
Sport - 50% DONE
Music - 30% DONE
Entertainment - movies, TV, film, oscars etc

My daughter, just last Sunday, bought a little set of cards in the kid's section of the bookstore, with quiz questions and answers. It sounds exactly like the sort of thing you're looking for. As we ate dinner, she quizzed me and my mom and kept score. I think it was this one if I recall correctly.

Natural World...

If a rooster sits on top of a barn then lays and egg, which way will it roll?

I hope you know the answer, but if they really aren't the most intelligent people in the world, someone is bound to miss it...

LOL, I may try that one!

Tony... thanks for the link. I don't have time to go and buy a book, but will see if friends have books.

emptriv has about 20,000 questions, many on those categories, and of varying degrees of difficulty. I'll attach the data file for the "Science" category, for example. The format is tab-separated values (suitable for importing into Excel), and the fields are:

"CATEGORY" "Question" "Difficulty" "Answer #1" "Answer #2" "Answer #3" "Answer #4" "Answer #5" "Number of Correct Answer"

For instance, here's a sample question:

"SCI" "What is the study of soils known as?" "86" "Geology" "Pedology" "Petrology" "Terraology" "Frenology" "2"

Difficulty is a number from 1 to 100. There are not necessarily 5 possible choices for answers of all questions, but there are usually at least 4.

I have all 20,000 emptriv questions in a big fat Excel spreadsheet (6mb) if you're really interested, but the questions in the attached file should help fill out your science category. Want more, let me know.

Great stuff, thanks!

I'll let you know how I get on with those before requesting the big file.

Thanks again

Ouch is all I can say...

What is the unladen airspeed velocity of a swallow?

-Zeke

real answer

What do you mean? An African or European swallow?

I don't know!

AAAAAAArrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

What is the unladen airspeed velocity of a swallow?

African or European?

- trs

EDIT: sonofabitch I'm slow.

Folks, don't miss Ezekiel's "Real Answer" link in his post, above. In case you hadn't seen it yet.

If a rooster sits on top of a barn then lays and egg, which way will it roll?

Dude, this is creepy if it's a coincidence, but the Simpsons episode playing on my local Fox channel is playing an episode where Lisa and Bart's teacher* just asked the class this exact same question!


* yes, Lisa and Bart's teacher. it's the episode where they are both moved to the same grade

How many animals of each sex did Moses place on the Ark at the time of the great flood?

tanstaafl.

Why don't you have peek at those cards in a box of Trivial Persuit, and copy some of the questions ? There's bound to be some good ones in there.

Hehehe. None, although Noah put two of each, excepting for the "clean" animals which were meant for food during the journey. There were seven of each of these, not two.

why is the answer none?

why is the answer none?

Moses wasn't born yet!

How about "What were the names of the three wise men according to the bible?"

oh. i completely skipped the moses part. heh, thanks

How about "What were the names of the three wise men according to the bible?"

Who said there were three? Three gifts maybe but not three wise men. There isn't a number of wise men. It just says "wise men came from the east..."

Who said there were three?

Yup, kinda my point there. I actually had a teacher in college who gave us one of those "how sad is it that people don't know these obvious things from the bible" quizzes. You know, stuff like "who gave the sermon on the mount?" One of the questions was the names of the three wise men. When I pointed out that we don't even known the number she just gave me a blank stare.

Who did name them?

That I don't know. . . I suspect their names are just traditions that have evolved over time. It'd be interesting to find out though.