In Defence of Quiz

A quiz master should never be defensive, of course. In particular a QuizQuizQuiz QuizMaster who is trained and paid specifically for the skill to convert even the most fervently anti-quiz, to be inclusive and thoughtful and not make anyone feel like they’re stupid or too young or too old or not from the right place to enjoy the fun.

Sometimes, though, as part of the quizzing community, when one comes across certain expressions of contempt for the whole quizzle bizzle, one feels it reasonable to speak up a little.

“Who cares?”

Well, that depends. If no one cares, that’s obviously the quiz master/question setter’s fault. If hardly anyone cares, likewise. One shouldn’t ask questions that are so esoteric as to exclude all but the quizziest of quizzers.

But quizzes are a participatory, collaborational competition. If you’re in it, you’ll enjoy it more if you engage with it. If you don’t know an answer, well, someone else might, and even if you don’t know an answer, you might be able to provide a bit of information which will help someone else get the answer.

So, if a question is asked, and a fair proportion of the intended audience care enough about the answer, then that is a fair and reasonable question to ask and “Who cares?” is not necessarily a fair and reasonable question to ask …

“I wasn’t even born then”/”I’m not interested in modern celebrities/pop music”

Ever hear that one? A part of me understands and sympathizes. If excluded from the generational “sweet spot” of the quiz audience, and if a quiz is overly geared towards popular culture fans who grew up in the 70s and 80s, then you might feel a little discriminated against.

But if you’ve ever heard someone complain about a question about Buddy Holly (who died in 1959) as “bloody pop music”, or likewise about the end of the Cold War as “not fair, that was before I was born”, then you’ll hope that sometimes reluctant quizzers have to understand that they won’t be able to answer every single question, but a good quiz master does hope to give every team a fair crack of the whip.

If the age range at a quiz is from 18-70, you’ll try to throw something in for every generation, but if every single question was to be answerable by every single person in the room, you’d have a very narrow frame of reference and a very boring quiz indeed.

Quizzes are tests of knowledge. If you don’t know answers, hopefully there’ll be enough in the question that you can have some kind of fair guess. If you can’t have a fair guess, hopefully there’ll be someone on your team that can. There’s nothing too unreasonable about that.

I remember going to a pub quiz once which was so hard that my team got 18 out of 50 and still came second. Perhaps that was a little much, but I do remember that the questions were interesting and so I didn’t feel that put upon at the end.

And, sure, there are some people that like that mental challenge more than others, people whose brains work more effectively in other areas, and haven’t felt the need to store up bits of knowledge.

But, you know, sometimes it’s worth sticking up for quizzes a little. They are what they are, a test of knowledge, problem-solving and team work, and hopefully a fair one.