by John Nolan
April 8, 2015 in Quizzes
It’s been over a week since I posted the few questions from the quiz I wrote in aid of a local primary school, so you’ve had plenty of time to give them a go.
Hit the ‘Read more…’ to see how you got on.
by John Nolan
April 1, 2015 in Quizzes
One year on from the quiz I hosted in aid of the local primary school, I was again invited to provide the questions for 2015’s event. The school staff also asked me to host once again but, alas, due to family reasons I couldn’t.
After being impressed with the number of school children who attended last year’s quiz, I decided to make this year’s questions a bit more child-friendly. I have since been told that this worked out well as there were even more kids in attendance this year!
However, in amongst questions about nursery rhyme characters, medieval history and ‘make and do’, I also endeavoured to place at least one (if not two) tough questions in each round – to keep adult teams interested.
Hopefully that worked out and I wasn’t being cursed by the all-grown-ups teams in the room…
by John Nolan
April 9, 2014 in Quizzes
Life is still not what it once was, or should be. Issues away from quizzing continue to take up my time and, as readers of the blog will have noticed, keep me away from the site.
Sorry about that.
Here, about two weeks after I posted them, are the answers to questions in the Are you smarter than a 10-year-old? post.
by John Nolan
March 26, 2014 in Quizzes
Recently I hosted a table quiz in aid of my local primary school. “Be sure and don’t make the questions too hard,” the headmaster told me “as there’ll probably be several kids in attendance.”
Seeing as he was also the principal back in my own youth at the same school, I did what I was told.
Seriously though, I don’t think I needed that advice. It’s part of the quiz master’s job to judge the potential crowd and what sort of questions will both challenge them and be attainable. Too hard is bad, true. But so is too easy. (Here I mention the Ballyhaunis town quiz where the winners got 99 out of 100!)
At the end of this night, the winning team scored 79/100, which I regarded as a pretty good par score.
Would you like to have a go at some of the questions? Read on so.
by John Nolan
March 21, 2013 in Quizzes
Just a quick post to put up the answers to the questions I posted on Tuesday in Vegetarians, look away now.
Click the Read the rest… link to see them
by John Nolan
March 19, 2013 in Quizzes
The future of my tasty trophy…
Last Friday, for the first time in the four years I’ve lived at my current address, I attended a quiz in my local pub. This particular venue, the Coney Island Bar & Lounge, is about a mile from my house – which makes it about four miles closer than any other. Still, if no quizzes take place you can’t attend them and, as far as I know, this was the first one in those four years.
It was the 2013 version of Gorthaganny National School quiz which I was so enthralled by last year. This year’s quiz sadly did not feature those futuristic buzzers which seemed to usher in a new era in quizzing. They still might but, on Friday night, it was retro quizzing with paper scoresheets, biros and manual counting.
I turned up on spec and ended up on a team with two neighbours, Tommy and Mary, and another Thomas, who hails from the other side of the village. It was that kind of event.
The quiz was once again created by the teachers of the school and they did a great job. Almost all the rounds were themed – and in creative ways. Two off the top of my head were called ‘Parts of the body’ (where the answer was always a homonym of a body part) and ‘Feathered friends’, in which a bird featured in the answer. If you look through the questions at the end of the post you’ll notice that we didn’t ace the latter of those two.
Still, we did well, and were in joint-first place at half-time. We thought our goose was cooked in round seven though, which featured questions taken from the fifth and sixth class curricula. (Again, see the questions below). Unfortunately, even though we are all parents, none of our children have yet reached the big kids room and we struggled. In the end, we felt lucky to get out of there with a seven.
by John Nolan
September 26, 2012 in Interactive, Quizzes
The first of the Autumnal series of quizzes, in aid of Liam’s Wheels, took place in The King’s Head, in Galway, on Monday night last.
It was all put together in under a week, as we decided we’d need to have the first quiz take place in September. Linked in to this decision was the theme I’d chosen for the questions: Back to school. It’s still topical now. Next month, not so much.
The short-notice also affected the promotion of the event by the King’s Head staff but, in spite of my own fears, a very impressive crowd of 26 tables turned up!
The quiz itself flew by, with the final results being announced at the unusually early time of 11.05pm. I think the audience appreciated the unusual nature of the questions but I must put my hand up and admit that I got one wrong. It was pointed out to me almost instantly and, as it had been in the round before the break, we were able to rectify the scoreboard before the second half begun. No harm done, therefore, but it was still very embarassing as it must be several years since I last let a wrong answer stray under my radar. For the record, turtles are reptiles, not amphibians. 🙁
If you’d like to have a go at the questions, and try out one of the night’s picture rounds, click the Read the rest… link.
by John Nolan
September 20, 2012 in Quizzes
So, September is here and the new quizzing season can begin. Indeed, there seems to be a glut of them around here this week. It may have something to do with all the clubs who have All-Ireland football final tickets they need to raffle off. 🙂 Anyway, I’m off to one in Swinford tonight.
I’m also getting back into the swing of hosting quizzes. I am the man behind the mic at the ‘Back to School’ quiz, which is taking place in The King’s Head, Galway, on Monday night at 8pm. All are welcome.
Tables of four are just €20 and all proceeds will go to Liam’s Wheels, raising money for former French Foreign Legionnaire Liam Cullinane who now needs a customised tricycle for mobility. It’s definitely a worthy cause.
If you haven’t guessed already, the quiz will feature questions which everyone used to know the answers to! That’s right, all those essential facts we learned during our school days and have, of course, used every day since.
It should be great fun and I hope many of you can come along. For more information, please visit The King’s Head page on Facebook.
