Hi.

In this newsletter we will be discussing some questions I have been asked about the pro-quiz.com website.

Each week I try to give you a 'quiz of the week', usually around Thursday or Friday
of each week.  I usually give it in two formats and one or two have asked why I do this, since it must be more work.  The reason is that there are various formats used in pub quizzes, but the two most popular are the Type A and Type B formats I offer.

This consists of 6 rounds of ten questions and 2 table rounds of 20 questions, total 100. QuizA-02, the last one, contains: Round 1 - Ten questions on General Knowledge Round 2 - Ten questions on Mythology Round 3 - Table Round.  20 Books and their characters to match up. Round 4 - Ten questions on Astronomy Round 5 - Ten questions on Sport Round 6 - Table Round. 20 Films and their actors to match up. Round 7 - Ten questions on Musicals Round 8 - Ten questions on General Knowledge. Plus answer sheets and score sheet.  The price for this is $5.99 (~£3.45). This ten question per round quiz is very popular. This format is even more popular.  It comprises five rounds. Typical is QuizB-02, the type B version of that above.  This will contain many of the questions included in Quiz-A, so do not purchase them both.  It is an 'either or' choice.  QuizB-02 is: Round 1 - Twenty questions on general Knowledge. Round 2 - Table Round as above Round 3 - Five questions on each of four subjects: Mythology, astronomy, sport, musicals Round 4 - Table Round as above, Round 5 - twenty questions on General Knowledge. Still 100 questions, but in a different format. Price is the same as above. Some people compile their own audio music round and use this is the quiz as well, or in place of one of the table round.  For copyright reasons, we cannot offer you this for sale or promotion.

Quiz-A











Quiz-B












Another question I have been asked is why my prices are in dollars if I am UK based, and what I do about fluctuating exchange rates. 

Firstly, A large proportion of my customers come from outside the UK - well over half.  The dollar is the international currency of the internet, so my prices are in dollars.  I try to a give a £UK equivalent where I can, based on an exchange rate of around $1.75 to the £.  I take it to the nearest round figure  - either to the 5p figure or the 99p figure.  E.g. the quizzes above at $5.99 come to £3.42 at 1.75, so I give a UK equivalent price of ~£3.45.   If it were 3.96 I will give it as £3.99.

However, the £UK price is a guide only.  You pay the stated dollar price and your bank, credit card company or Paypal charge you the converted price based on the exchange rate at the time.  You don't have to worry about it - it will never be any more than a few pence more or less than my indicated price.  If the exchange rate becomes unfavourable, I will drop the prices accordingly.

Secondly, the payment system I use on my shopping cart page deals in $US only, so to change would need me to get another payment system, which could be very expensive.  Many charge up to 40p per transaction plus a percentage on top of that, so there would not be much left from a purchase of £1.

I have been asked about online quizzes, where you answer the questions on your computer and get on to a high scores league table.  I am working on a suitable system and it should be on my site soon - so 'watch this space' as they say.

Not much more just now, so here is your 20 question quiz for this week. The first ten are easier than the
last ten.

1.    What fruit comes from a rose flower?
2.    Who had number one hit in almost 30 countries with an album titled True Blue?
3.    Director James Cameron won an Oscar in 1997 for what film?
4.    In ten-pin bowling, how many pins are on the back row?
5.    If Spring is vernal, what is Summer?
6.    What weight is a snow leopard?
7.    A horse called Pie appears in what film?
8.    In 2004, what was officially the world's busiest airport in terms of international passenger traffic?
9.    What age is the Prince of Wales?
10.  In 1998, Simon Fuller was sacked as manager of which band?   
11.  What was Black Beauty's original name?
12.  What band does Fran Healey front?  (You can ask this the other way around).
13.  Where would you see the Cassini rings?
14.  Which NFL team play out of Alameda, near San Francisco?
15.  Who is the new bowler brought in to bolster the Australian cricket attack?
16.  What killed Bruce Lee?
17.  Which poet, killed in 1918, wrote Anthem For Doomed Youth?
18.  What does the term 'fleur-de-lis' literally mean, and why could it be a misnomer?
19.  On what date did the USA enter the First World War - a point each for day,month,year.
20.  Again on dates,  what famous event occurred in America on the 14th February, 1929?

Answers below.  Most of the above questions can be made easier or harder by changing the wording of the question. I would not say all, since it would be difficult to make question one much easier or harder. 

This is a small tip on how to change the degree of difficulty of a quiz, either when you are writing it, or even on the night when you are asking it!  This can be very useful if you have found preceding rounds either too hard or too easy for your audience.  You can then make the next round harder or easier, irrespective of the questions you have available.  let's look at a couple of examples.

Question 10 - you can change it to 'Who did the Spice Girls sack in 1998?', makes it a bit harder, or to 'What girl band sacked Simon Fuller as their manager in 1998?'.  You are adding the information that the band was a girl band to make it a bit easier.

Question 11, make it easier by asking 'What literary horse was originally called Darkie?' makes it much easier, and 16 can be made very easy by asking 'What famous Kung Fu actor died mysteriously of an aneurism?'.

You can do this live, then make a note on your question sheet of the change made.  I sometimes use this technique if I am grading questions - the same question can be made easy (Grade A), medium (Grade C) or hard (grade E) by changing the way it is asked.  Grades B and D on my system refer to quizzes rather than questions.  Grade B is a mix of A and C questions, and slightly easier than a medium quiz, and grade D similarly a mix of C and E questions, and a bit hard, but not too hard.

The answers to the quiz are:

1.    A hip.
2.    Madonna.
3.    Titanic.
4.    Four.
5.    Aestival.
6.    An ounce (the other name for a snow leopard).
7.    National Velvet.
8.    Heathrow Airport.
9.    56 - birthday is 14.11.1948 so change it to 57 after that date!
10.  The Spice Girls.
11.  Darkie.
12.  Travis.
13.  Round Saturn there are divisions between rings.
14.  Oakland Raiders.
15.  Sean Tate.
16.  from an aneurism.  An aneurism is a swelling of a blood vessel, rather than a ruptured vessel.
17.  Wilfrid Owen.
18.  It means Lily Flower.  It is actually believed to be a stylised Iris pseudacorus, a yellow iris called
       Lieschblum in German, shortened to Lies and Leys in the Middle Ages.
19.  The USA joined the war on the 6th April, 1917 - a point for each part if your are asking this.
20.  The St. Valentine's Day Massacre - the date should have given the clue!

So there you have it. Nothing particularly new this week on the quiz scene.  In fact I have been on a short vacation so have not added much to the site.  I am getting back to it after I get this off.

Just one final point on my website, pro-quiz.com.  Some people have had problems getting products they have purchased.  There have been a couple of bugs in the system, but these have now been dealt with.  It should be appreciated that the quizzes on the site are downloadable.  You must follow the buying procedure right through till after you have confirmed your payment, you get a blue screen with red border 
which is the download screen.  You must click where asked in order to download your quiz.  If buy more than one, you must download each separately, starting with doc files, then pdf files after.  Some files are large so are in zipped format (.zip files).  

pdf files can opened with Acrobat, which most computers now have, but if not it can be downloaded from my Services-Supplies page, as can Winzip.  Both are free, or evaluation versions, which can be used to open your files.  If this procedure is not followed, you will not get your product, and there is no back-up email offering a download URL. 

If you have a problem, please email me at info@pro-quiz.com and I will help sort it out.  But please answer my emails when I respond.  I sometimes get complaints, I resolve the problem or ask for further information, but get no response for weeks.  This not good - neither for the customer nor myself, since a simple problem can then turn into a major one.

If my site is playing up I need to know about it, but generally it is the customer having the problem, either by not following the procedure, or having problems with the file format. I admit that one or two of my quizzes had the wrong download URL at the start, but this has now been resolved.

I have personally successfully purchased every one of my products using the standard purchasing procedure from a remote computer. 


Home Sales

I know that this is not your scene, and that your interest is with quizzes, but if you are interested in working from home yourself, I have a site called homesales-online.com.  Just click to get to it.  If nothing else, there is a free newsletter which gives information on such aspects of home businesses as getting your own website, including free sites, how to collect payments, how to buy and sell things on eBay and simple advice such as how to start a PayPal and eBay account, tips on using eBay including some little known and little used pages available on eBay to help you sell.  Also some other auction sites, not so well known such as eBid.

Over the coming weeks and months, lots of free advice will be given on many aspects of making cash online and I will be putting readers in touch with products which I have found indispensable, and also giving away lots of free eBooks on the subject.

Lots of advice like that.  There is also an eBook, but that's only if you are really serious about making money online, in which case it is invaluable.

So, keep quizzing, and don't forget to tell me of any amusing anecdotes about quizzes, or any ambiguous questions you have come across.  I am always interested in what you have say, be it supportive or critical.  I've one or two things to put together now for soem of you so I must be going.

Regards and best wishes,

Peter