20. Pub quiz

I've been inspired by the fact that some of you are blogging about the pub quiz (and I'm under pressure to stay ahead of Beri's impressive blogging spree), so I thought I would share some of my reflections on the pub quiz.

First of all, you can check your team score in the 'league table' below. Out of 40 questions, the final scores were:

31.5 (79%)
30 (75%)
28.5 (71%)
28 (70%)
27 (68%)
26.5 (66%)
25 (63%)
25 (63%)
25 (63%)
21 (53%)

I was happy to see that many groups answered the practical questions correctly, such as those about due dates and blogging requirements. Of course I had a not-so-hidden agenda in including such questions: I'm always trying to promote time management and blogging.

I think short answers were what could be improved. When you answer this type of question, it's important to give an explicit answer without any ambiguity, and to ensure that your grammar and vocabulary are correct. (This is a useful exam tip for our class and for your other classes as well). You should not expect the quizmaster/marker to "figure out what you mean", or to wade through unclear language in search of the meaning. There's an old saying which goes "You don't really know something until you can teach it." Here we can interpret 'teaching' as giving a clear and concise explanation. The other thing to mention here is not to include two or more answers and 'hope' that one is correct. I can tell you that teachers are often trained to completely disregard such answers.

The competition was close in some sections, and this was exciting. However, it was also evident that many of you had done no review at all in preparation for the quiz. I do hope you realise that the main purpose of the quiz was to get you to review the semester, and not just for extra credit...

I must include a final point. I think it's no exaggeration to say that I was astounded that a number of groups who did not win the quiz asked me for an extra credit prize anyway! What exactly do you understand by the word 'competition'...? :)

Congratulations again to our winning teams and thanks to everyone who participated!