- Quiz
A quiz is a form of
game or mind sport in which the players (as individuals or in teams) attempt to answer questions correctly. Quizzes are also briefassessment s used in education and similar fields to measure growth in knowledge, abilities, and/or skills.Quizzes are usually scored in points and many quizzes are designed to determine a winner from a group of participants - usually the participant with the highest score.
Etymology
The first appearance of the word is from 1784 and means an odd person. This sense survives today in the word "quizzical". It was also used in the term quizzing glass, a common accoutrement of
British Regency dandies. It later acquired a meaning of to make fun of, or to mock. How it acquired its current meaning of a test is unknown, but that sense did not appear until 1867 and then it was in the United States.The OED2 has a citation from 1847 where the word appears: "She com back and quiesed us", which could be a clue to its origin. Quiz as a test could be a corruption of the Latin Qui es, meaning "Who are you?" American Heritage says it may be from the English dialect verb quiset, meaning to question. In any case it is probably from the same root as question and inquisitive.
There is a well-known but untrue story of the word "quiz", which says that in 1791 a Dublin theater owner named James Daly made a bet that he could introduce a word into the language within twenty-four hours. He then went out and hired a group of
street urchin s to write the word "quiz", which was a nonsense word, on walls around the city ofDublin . Within a day, the word was common currency and had acquired a meaning (since no one knew what it meant, everyone thought it was some sort of test) and Daly had some extra cash in his pocket. However, there is no evidence to support the story, and the term was already in use before the alleged bet in 1791.As competitions
Quizzes may be held on a variety of subjects (general knowledge, 'pot luck') or subject-specific. The format of the quiz can also vary widely. Popularly known competition quizzes include
*Pub quiz zes
*TeamQuizbowl s
**inIndia :
*seeQuizzing in India , for a discussion on the specific evolution of the quizzing culture inIndia
**inLithuania :
***Protmušis
**inAustralia :
***Music for the Masses (quiz night)
**inCanada :
***Reach for the Top
**in theUnited States :
***College Bowl
***National Academic Quiz Tournaments
***Academic Competition Federation
**in theUnited Kingdom :
***University Challenge (televised)
***Schools' Challenge
*Individual Quiz Tournaments
**in multiple countries:
***World Quizzing Championships
**in the United Kingdom:
***Mastermind (televised)
**Bait Bazi poetic quiz inPakistan
*Board games:
**Trivial Pursuit
*TV quizzes, also called "quiz shows" (Game show s TV/Radio )
**Quiz Call phone-in television show
**Jeopardy!
**Who Wants to be a Millionaire
**The Weakest Link
**BBC 's MasterMind
**Bait Bazi poetic quiz
*Online Quiz zes
**Blog Quiz zesSee also:
*Quiz league
*Quiz machine
*Bamboozle , ateletext quiz on UK TVIn education
A quiz is usually a form of student assessment, but often has fewer questions of lesser difficulty and requires less time for completion than a test. This use is typically found in the
USA andCanada .Other quizzes
Additionally, a
personality quiz may be a series of multiple-choice questions about the respondent without right or wrong answers. The responses to these questions are tallied according to a key, and the result purports to reveal some quality of the respondent. This kind of "quiz" was originally popularized by women's magazines such as "Cosmopolitan". They have since become common on theinternet , where the result page typically includes code which can be added to ablog entry to publicize the result. These postings are common onLiveJournal .There are also many
online quizzes , many webmasters have quiz sections on their websites and forums, phpBB2 has one MOD (modification) which allows users to submit quizzes, this is the [http://www.cmxmods.net/quiz.php Ultimate Quiz MOD.]Most of the
online quizzes are to be taken lightly. The results do not often reflect the true personality or relationship. They are also rarely psychometrically valid. However, they may occasion reflection on the subject of the quiz and provide a springboard for a person to explore his or her emotions, beliefs, or actions.See also
* Test
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