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Why You Can Never Prepare for a Quiz Show
A quiz is the most ridiculous test of ability in the world. It is the only game where a player with lots of luck and no skill can come out on top, and one with all the skill in the world can lose horribly. As illustrated in Slumdog Millionaire, even a mournful looking gentleman like Dev Patel who had no formal education can walk away with millions. Why? Various reasons, actually. Answering a quiz question is like playing roulette. It’s even more up to chance than roulette, in fact, because you know the casino has the odds stacked in its favor. In a quiz, it is less about you knowing the answer to the question than getting a question you know the answer to. Take MTV Roadies or Bigg Boss, for example. In these shows, you have to complete certain tasks to win and depending on the nature of these tasks, your physical or mental mastery will allow you to get ahead. In a quiz show, everyone has a certain body of knowledge to rely on. If all the questions in that quiz are somehow all part of that body of knowledge, you’re golden. If not, you’re in trouble! Why do you think the first few questions on our beloved Kaun Banega Crorepati are so easily handled by their illustrious participants, as if they were consummate professionals doing the crossword on Sunday? Because KBC is not a real quiz. It is a game show and in order to be appealing to the masses, they purposely select the first few questions from areas that are either ridiculously easy. In order to make the show appeal to the advertisers who finance the show, producers also set the last few questions from areas they know the poor sod will not know much about. The point of a general knowledge quiz is for the questions to be general in nature, not carefully selected and tailored to the person in the hot seat. In a true quiz, you really can’t prepare. The only way to prepare would be to read every book published in the world, a task that is, needless to say, impossible. Human memory is not limitless. What about an eidetic or photographic memory? Contrary to the perception in popular media, where the hero invariably possesses supreme powers of recall, in real life this does not happen. Not even one individual has been tested to have a true eidetic memory. Scientists have found subjects lacking in many ways, they can only organize certain types of data, such as chess positions for grandmasters, or they are using memory tools like mnemonics to remember things. The point is that the human brain can only remember so much. However you prepare for a quiz, everything you learn is at the risk of something else. So in effect, you’re simply guessing that what you have just learned will be of use in the quiz, rather than what you’ve just forgotten. Compounding the problem is the fact that you won’t know what it is you’ve forgotten until you need it, by which time it’s probably too late to remember anyway. Quizzing, unlike most of the human race, has evolved. It’s now no longer about direct questions and answers. It’s less about what you know, and more about how you use it. Consider a question like ‘What is the frequent flier program of Olympic Airways called?’ Obscure, right? But consider the hint given as well: ‘It’s an inappropriate name for an airline.’ If you are on the ball, your thinking process should go like this. Okay, Olympic Airways sounds like Greece, what do we know about Greece and flying? The legend of Dedalus and his son Icarus, whosse wax wings melted as he flew too close to the sun. We have two possible answers, let’s go with Icarus. Why? It sounds cooler. The answer is, of course, Icarus. Educated guesses can actually take you somewhere, unlike in a direct question which asks for facts and figures, where an educated guess has a much lower chance of eliciting applause, unless its sarcastic applause. Lastly, and most importantly, having said there is no way to prepare for a quiz, the only way you can actually do so is to be as curious as possible. Acquire information in every conceivable form, the newspapers, Wikipedia, books, whatever. Only when you have that thirst for knowledge, the thirst makes you question what you see around you will you be able to take part in and more importantly, win a quiz.
Editor's note: Most articles submitted to Chillibreeze go through a selection process. Only 30 percent of submitted articles are accepted for publication on the Chillibreeze.com featured article list. All accepted articles are edited and proofread for glaring errors of punctuation and grammar. Sentence structure is changed in certain cases and sometimes, entire sections are rewritten. If you notice any errors that have slipped through the cracks, do let us know! (Email us at info at chillibreeze dot com). Chillibreeze's disclaimer: This is a contributed article and was published on Chillibreeze in May, 2011. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not reflect the views of Chillibreeze as a company. Chillibreeze has a strict anti-plagiarism policy. Please contact us to report any copyright issues related to this article. The relevance of the facts and figures cited (if any) could change after a period of time.
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