Pub Quiz question

Why October @SprayWhiteDung? Surely September is longer?

11

Made me laugh and I wondered if you are also an LOTR fan?

"Wicked, tricksy, false! What has it got in its pocketses? We wonders, aye, we wonders, precious."

(May not be the actual quote BTW...)

Well I've heard it before and obviously it's 11; sneaky wording.

If you are in a pub quiz and you get a question like that, you have to look for the lateral view.

Although the 'in' makes it quite clunky and obvious IMO; 'How many months have 30 days?' is more likely to trick people into thinking immediately of months with a total of 30 days.

11. All bar Feb.

Some questions are old chestnuts that come round often and that question is a really common one.

Indeed. In the same way as you'll pretty much always get a team called 'Universally Challenged' or 'Norfolk Enchants' or similar - and they'll usually think they're soooo original in thinking it up.

We were once at a quiz where two teams had chosen effectively the same (obvious, very weak pun) name, but with one letter different in the spelling. That was so irritating, hearing the QM have to over-emphasise the different letter to differentiate between them all evening.

No wrong information was implied. People wrongly inferred!

It was a crucial point and we came second because of that question, when it should have been a tie-breaker for first place.

Oh we've had that too, so frustrating!

yes anyone saying this is unfair or should be clarified has fundamentally misunderstood what a pub QUIZ (not just list some facts) is supposed to be like.

It’s say how many months have 30 days IN not ARE 30 days. 11 is the right answer, 4 would be wrong!

It's a bog standard pub quiz question. We are a quizzing family. DH and I used to do pub quiz leagues where you would even lose a point for spelling! DC were brought up with quizzes and do regular pub quizzes as adults.
Some questions are old chestnuts that come round often and that question is a really common one.
You have to answer the question as it's asked, you don't need more information or clarification, that's how these things work.

One question was "Write a question using the word 'why'" - and one child just put "Why?".

Perfect answer in my opinion!
Years ago an Oxford entrance exam asked the candidate to write an essay on 'What is Courage?' and they wrote 'This' and got into Oxford.
Sometimes we as markers argue about what's accepted and as teachers tell our students to be very careful about how they use language, eg borrow/lend, what may be colloquially understood would be marked wrong in an exam if the wrong term is used.
In this pub question there really isn't any ambiguity, 11 months have 30 days.

Quizmasters shouldn't do that, hopefully s/he would just read the clear question again.
Love pub quizzes, sometimes the questions create such arguments and why do men always assume they are right on Sport questions??? I bought myself a t-shirt in Florida, 'I'm not arguing, I'm just telling you I'm right'.

I've seen quite a few extracts from school exams pop up on TwiX, where children have clearly understood and given valid answers to the question asked, but they've been incorrectly marked as wrong (and the kids dismissed as smartarses), because the teacher setting the question didn't express clearly enough what answer they were wanting, and assuming that the children would know what was in their mind, as well as having neurotypical thought processes.

One question was "Write a question using the word 'why'" - and one child just put "Why?".

Another was "Write five words you can spell", giving five lines for five answers - and the student had written 'five', 'words', 'you', 'can' and 'spell' on the five lines!

The most insensitive of all of them has to be "Which of these numbers is the closest to your Grandad's age: A-5, B-50 or C-500?". One poor child added 'D-Dead' and it was marked wrong (although the teacher did at least add "Sorry" after marking it wrong).

An online pub quiz would be so fun

11

Hm. We’d arguing about whether to put 11 or 4. I’d probably ask the quiz master to clarify whether he means exactly 30 days.

I was at a quiz once, where they asked "Which British football team is mentioned in the Bible?"

Another good one along a kind of similar vein is "In the original Band Aid recording of 'Do They Know It's Christmas', which performer sings their own name?"

We also had a frustrating question at a community quiz we took part in, where the question was "Rum, Eigg and Muck are part of which Scottish island group?" We put 'The Small Isles' and were told we were wrong, as the answer was 'The Hebrides'. The quizmaster quite 'helpfully' informed us that yes, they are quite small islands, but they're actually part of the Hebrides.

No amount of protesting that they were indeed a part of the Hebrides, but part of a group known specifically as the Small Isles - so either answer should actually have been fairly accepted - would convince him that we were right. We asked him to look it up online, but he said that phones were not allowed; erm, I think it's OK if it's the end of the quiz and you're the quizmaster!!

It was a crucial point and we came second because of that question, when it should have been a tie-breaker for first place.

...To add, even when it comes to sports rounds, you get a lot of regular pub quiz-doers who assume that sport = all/mostly (men's) football, and they get miffed and personally offended if there are no football questions.

I've organised and run a few pub quizzes, along with a friend. When we have a sport round, he always compiles it, because he is a sport fan, so it makes sense. Once, he deliberately tried to redress the balance of 'standard' sports rounds by making every question about a specific sportswoman or women's tournaments in general. It wasn't stated as a 'women's sport' round - just as a 'sport' round, of course; but there were a few boorish blokes whose sensibilities were offended when they realised that, on this one very rare occasion, men's sports were not being centred (or indeed included).

I also did a 'herstory' round once, which went down very well!

sorry
30 days has September, April June and November
all the rest have 31 except in February alone
which has 28 days clear
except for 29 in a leap year

Just because you got it wrong doesn't make it ambiguous. So many people are reading extra information into the question, I think I've marked a lot of your children's exam papers this years! On my wall I had the words When all else fails, read the blankety blank question!

IN

All bar February have 30 days IN them

There is one single correct answer

Assuming they mean IN TOTAL is you adding to the question

Being unable to comprehend does not make it a 'stupid' question.

11

Then you would be wrong to add implied information that wasn't in the question!

I have had a couple of great pub quiz questions, one was about King Edward the eleventh, the other was Name the three Scottish football clubs with Thistle in their names. We had to tell the quizmaster that Inverness Caledonian Thistle was only 1 team!