General Quiz Advice

Marking

If you have the time and resources available then the best and fairest way to mark everyone's answer sheets is to collect them all in and have them all marked by the same person. This ensures consistency, but does take time. An alternative way is to ask teams to swap their answer sheets at the end of the quiz and ask them to mark each others' sheets as you read out the answers. If you choose to do this, then we recommend that each team is given their answer sheets back after this so that they can check they are happy with the way they have been marked.


Entry Fee

We would recommend charging £1 or £2 per person. This should be cheap enough to keep things fun and encourage as many people as possible to join in, but should also generate a decent amount of money to put towards prizes.


Maximum Team Size

We would recommend having a limit on how many players are allowed in a team. Teams with lots of players will have a better chance of winning and this could discourage teams with just a few players. We would recommend a limit of either 4, 5 or 6, and if larger teams did want to participate, they could be encouraged to split into smaller teams. Alternatively, or as well as this, you could have a rule that deducts a certain number of points for every person in a team. So, for example, a team with 6 people could start the quiz on -12 points while a team with only 2 people would start on -4.


Same Team Always Winning?

This can be a problem in quizzes, but there are a number of things you can do to help with this. Some of our handout rounds, such as "Our Suvery Said" rounds,  aren't based on fact, and so can help to mix things up a bit. The same goes for some specialist subject rounds that we have available. Introducing a gambling element to the final round of your quiz can also help. We recommend a "Double Or Quits" rule where teams score double points for a correct answer, but they can leave answers blank as any wrong answers means a score of zero for the round. This could make things a bit closer as some teams who feel they haven't done so well up to the last round might score high by gambling more, while others who feel they have done well might be more cautious.


Cheating

Using mobile phones to cheat is a common problem in pub quizzes, and can be a difficult one to solve. We would recommend that you make it clear at the start of your quiz that this is not allowed. A friendly announcement along the lines of "we all know it’s easy to cheat using your mobile phone, but please don’t as it’s not much fun for anyone else taking part if there are cheats involved" should help discourage things. If not, then threatening to disqualify anyone caught cheating could help. It might also be worth encouraging teams in your quiz to look out for cheats and to let you know if they suspect anything. This might seem a bit harsh, but if one team knows that another team is cheating and doesn’t do anything about it, then this makes the quiz unfair for all of the non-cheating teams, and the team who know about the cheats might stop coming to your quiz because of this or might even resort to cheating themselves. Another idea that does involve a bit of extra work, is to have a box (or similar container) on every table. Before the start of the quiz, everyone has to put their mobile phone in the box on their table and the box is shut. Then, if someone genuinely does have a need to use their phone, they can do so under supervision, otherwise the phones remain out of use.



Other Ideas For Quiz Rounds

Here are some other ideas for rounds which are not currently available on Bubble Tree Quizzes, but which should be fairly straightforward for you to compile on your own.

"Local Knowledge"... Specialist questions all about the area local to your pub quiz. 
"Rollover Round"... A special round at the end of a weekly quiz, where the winning team attempts to go for a jackpot and if they fail then the pot is added to for the winning team of the following weeks quiz to go for.


If you have any other ideas for quiz material you would like to see on the site then please e-mail support@bubbletreequizzes.com