Maybe you’re a geography nerd? Maybe you’re a fan of celebrity trivia? Maybe you love anything to do with TV and film? Either way, you love a quiz! Whether you and your partner like attending quiz nights, or it’s something you like setting the kids and playing in teams to beat, competing in quizzes can be a pretty fun pastime for the whole family.
However, it’s always the most fun when you actually know the answers to the questions you’re asked! And seeing as 99% of the time you won’t know what’s coming your way, you’re going to need to brush up on as many different subject areas as you can.
But who’s really got the time for that? Certainly no parent we know! And that’s why it’s crucial to find other ways to practice your quizzing skills. Yes, there really are multiple ways to do this, and they can all be just as effective at building your quizzing data bank.
So if you want to impress the group you’re with the next time you take on a quiz together, think about trying out some of the activities below in your spare time.
Stay Up to Date on the News Cycle
Of course, this can be quite the draining thing to try these days, so feel free to skip this method if it’s really not for you. That being said, it’s a good idea to keep up with a vague sense of what’s going on in the world. Not only does it keep you in the loop on things that may end up affecting your life, but it can help you to build that quiz bank we talked about above.
Being up to date on what’s going on in the news can help you answer questions on current affairs, celebrity life, viral trends, and anything in between. It’s good to have a sense of what’s happened in the past week at least, even if you only take note of news stories that genuinely jump out at you.
Like we said, you don’t need to dedicate yourself to doomscrolling to adopt this method. If there’s a news topic that’s of genuine interest to you, feel free to read it. If not, feel free to skip it. Either way, you have a much better chance of answering any ‘in the news’ type questions at the next quiz you go to!
Develop a Few More Hobbies
The more hobbies you have, the more knowledge you’re going to hold overall. That means you may need to pick up a few more things to do, but don’t force yourself to try out activities you have absolutely no interest in.
If you like the sound of woodworking, take that up in the near future! Take a couple hours per week learning how to carve wood, from the smallest of bark pieces to bigger furniture items. The day you create your first stool from scratch will be a very proud moment!
And what were you learning this whole time? All about carving techniques, the right woods to use, as well as simple engineering techniques and elements of physics. Thanks to woodworking being quite a hands-on, technical type of hobby, you’re more likely to come across these scientific areas of study as you do your research and get better at what you do.
It also means if any questions about woodworking come up – and if you’re a regular quizzer, you know there’s a chance of this – you’ll be the first person to write down the answer or hit the right button.
Play Plenty More Puzzles
Puzzles can help strengthen your quizzing prowess as well. A puzzle is something fun to do, that takes a bit more time than the average quiz question, but you can use them to reinforce the surrounding skills required to break down information and find the right answer.
A word search is often based around a theme, and the words you’re looking for under this theme could plug holes in your knowledge gaps. For example, if you’re looking for words within the theme of ‘Classic Hollywood’, you could end up with some obscure knowledge about the stars of yesteryear. Those are always tricky questions when they pop up on quizzes!
Crosswords can be used in a similar manner. When you fill out a crossword, the clues you’re given are often a little more vague than they could be, and you have to find the one solution that’ll work. Cryptic crosswords are a whole different beast, but if you like doing crosswords, this can be the next step up. They’ll take some manoeuvring from you, but successfully working out your first cryptic clue is an amazing confidence boost!
Teach Someone Else
This is usually the most effective quiz skill building activity you can do. If you learn something, going on to then teach that something to someone else reinforces it in your brain. It makes it stick with a much better kind of glue, and it also helps you to identify the areas you need to go over again.
After all, if you ever hesitate during your speech, or don’t quite know the answer to a follow up question from your audience, you need to hit the textbooks again!
Of course, don’t take the teaching element too seriously, and try not to bore anyone you practice it on! But if you’ve got a friend who’s willing to sit down and listen, walk them through what you just learned. If they’re part of your quizzing team as well, you’ll have another person in the group who’s able to tackle those more difficult and truly obscure questions!
Recognize What Usually Gets Asked About
Pattern recognition is something humans are primed to do. We find it extraordinarily easy to pick out sequences, whether we’re looking at a real person’s behavior, picking up on foreshadowing in a novel, or we’re at a quiz and keep being asked similar questions.
Really, if you’ve ever been to a traditional style ‘pub’ or bar quiz a few weeks in a row, you’ll notice just how many questions have the same answer. The questions themselves are phrased differently, or the question and the answer swap places, but it’s still the exact same topic and category you’re covering.
The more you can spot patterns like these, the easier you’re going to find quizzing. People that put quizzes together don’t tend to be specialists, especially if the quiz is based on general knowledge trivia. That means surface level topics are the ones that come up most, alongside the occasional deeper question that’ll get you pondering.
Try to take questions like these on board. If it gets asked about more than once, and it’s the kind of question that’s used to fill gaps on a quiz sheet, you can quickly and easily score points through them every time.
Become a Quiz Genius in Your Spare Time
Quiz geniuses come in all shapes and sizes. You can soon become one yourself, if you really want to! All you need to do is practice your skills here and there, and get used to how quizzes tend to work.
Along the way, make sure you keep in the loop on current affairs (in whatever way suits you best), take on a few more hobbies, play some puzzles on a regular basis, and take the opportunity to teach others about your interests. That’s a great way to reinforce the knowledge you’ve just collected in your head!
