What are Quizzes?
Quizzes are a type of a contest on online platforms that allow people to check their knowledge in this or that field or they can be created for fun. Businesses create quizzes to get some information about the likes and dislikes of their customers, to understand what drawbacks the business has or what should be changed or which area should be improved. In education quizzes are usually created to check the background of the students, to find out what they remember or what was unclear to them. Quizzes can be created on various subjects and topics.
Types of Quizzes
There exist various types of Quizzes. Some of them include only questions for fun, the others include questions created for knowledge checking purposes.
- Personality Quizzes
This type of quizzes are usually created for fun. Those are created for the participants to find out their personality types or to compare their personality features.
- Assessment Quizzes
These are the quizzes that are created to assess the knowledge or awareness of the participants in this or that subject. This type of quizzes can include questions concerning only a specific subject or they can concern general topics.
- Feedback Quizzes
These kinds of quizzes are usually created for the customers to give feedback about the brand generally or about the specific product they offer or service they provide. Feedback quizzes are helpful for the businesses to understand what should be changed and what parts need to be improved.
- Trivia Quizzes
Trivia quizzes are the type of quiz where the participants are given a variety of questions and they have to give as many right answers as they can. These are usually created for fun and entertainment.
Types of Quiz Answers
While the questions of the quiz can refer to various subjects and topics their answers can also differ based on the type of the quiz. The answers of quizzes can be:
- Multiple Choice Answer
This type of quizzes require answers that can have two and more answers. Participants have to choose the right one from a variety of options. Multiple-choice answers are very effective when the creator wants to make a quick quiz that doesn’t require a lot of time and thinking compared to other types.
- Matching Answers
This type of quizzes include two sets, one list of inquiries and the other list of answers. Matching answer quizzes are usually helpful for classrooms, they are good for educational purposes and help the students to practice associated pairs from the both sets.
- Open-ended Answers
These kinds of quizzes include questions that require open-ended answers. These kinds of quizzes usually require time and writing. Quizzes that include open-ended answers give the participants the opportunity to share their opinion and to write down whatever they think.
- True or False
This type of quizzes usually impose the statement then give the participants only two options to decide whether the statement is true or false. These kinds of quizzes are common for assessment, they are completed more quickly and do not require any writing.
History of Quizzes
There is no evidence of quizzing during ancient and medieval times. If the ancient Romans or Aboriginal peoples did quiz, there is no record of it. The word “quiz” first appeared in print in 1782 and initially referred to a strange-looking person. The origin of the word is unknown. According to a popular anecdote, Richard Daly, the manager of a Dublin theater, is credited with inventing the word. He supposedly bet that he could make a meaningless word popular and give it a widely accepted meaning within a week. To accomplish this, he had the letters Q, U, I, and Z displayed on doors and shutters all over Dublin. The public’s response to this led to his successful wager.
During the 19th century, the word “quiz” underwent a change in meaning. Initially, it was used to describe unusual objects, like a toy similar to a yo-yo that gained popularity in England in the 1790s. Additionally, “quiz” was used to refer to a practical joke or the person responsible for it.
In 1867, the term “quiz” appeared in print to specifically signify a set of questions designed to assess someone’s knowledge in an academic setting. This particular meaning of the word has endured and is still used by educators to describe tests that are shorter than exams and often taken by students without prior notice. In the early 20th century, American newspapers started using “quiz” to describe a form of entertainment, such as “The Ben Franklin Quiz,” a regularly published game that offered cash prizes for solving picture-based puzzles. The concept of a quiz as a competition between individuals or teams became more prevalent, but it’s unclear how or why the word’s meaning shifted from peculiar objects to a contest. The OED speculates that this change may have been influenced by associations with the words “inquisitive” or “question.”
It could be said that the use of questions as a formal test of knowledge originated in ancient China, specifically during the Han dynasty. At this time, individuals applying for civil service positions were evaluated to determine if they had memorized 9,000 Chinese characters. This evaluation process, which began during the Han dynasty but had roots dating back even earlier, eventually developed into a three-day, two-night examination.
Recognizing the benefits of this merit-based system, the British government underwent a series of reforms in the first half of the 19th century. These reforms led to the 1854 Northcote-Trevelyan Report, which recommended that recruitment into the civil service should be based on open examinations administered by an independent board. Subsequently, the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge adopted this concept of testing and applied it to boys as they prepared to leave school.
Top 3 Quizzes
Quizzes have been practiced for rather a long time. Nowadays quizzes are quite popularly used as assignment tools. Have you ever struggled with the process of choosing the best quiz tool that would just perfectly meet your requirements? The Internet is filled with quizzes and tools that help you create a quiz for assessment purposes. Let’s mention some of them.
Classmaker gives the opportunity to create a quiz that will include questions for assessing the students knowledge in real time. With this tool you can create quizzes that have time limitation and the questions can be answered randomly and not sequentially. With this tool you can also attach images or videos to the quiz if needed. The quiz answers are checked automatically and the feedback is received instantly
With this quiz too you can easily create various assessment quizzes. This tool provides a number of ready templates and AI generated questions that can help to make quizzes. The feedback is immediate and can be observed in real time.
This is one of the most popular tools for creating quizzes for assignments. It gives real time feedback and keeps the participants active and attentive during the quiz, because it has time limitations and gives the opportunity to work in teams. These kinds of quizzes also boost the desire to compete.
Why you should use Quizzes as an Assignment Tool
Quizzes are an entertaining and effective tool to help the students memorize, understand, revise and give feedback. Using different types of quizzes throughout the learning process as an assignment tool will give noticeable results. Teachers very often use multiple choice quizzes to assess the background knowledge of students, sometimes they use open-ended quizzes, it helps them to assess the student’s ability to compose their thoughts about the covered topics, to express their thoughts through writing, more specifically through quizzes. At first quizzes may seem ineffective but as time passes the results will be more visible. The thing is that the more students use what they have learned the better they remember the information. Quizzes give the students the opportunity to repeat the covered topics and to try to answer various questions about this or that subject. Let’s speak about some reasons why quizzes are a useful tool.
- It;s a fun activity that keeps the students entertained during the whole assessment process. It is considered engaging for the students, because it’s not like the usual assessment tests they have every month. Quizzes are a way to mix fun with learning.
- It encourages the students to participate to work in teams and to have self-assessment. Students will identify what areas they have memorized very well, what needs to be revised and what topics should be explained to them one more time.
- It boosts self-confidence. Students become more confident because sometimes they can make mistakes privately. They also improve their team-work abilities based on the type of the quiz (some quizzes are organized for teams).
- It;s a good assessment tool at the end of the covered topic. It gives the teachers and the students the opportunity to revise the covered topics and for the teachers to understand what areas of the subject were difficult for the students.
Thus, quizzes are a helpful tool in education. For the assessment processes it’s one of the most effective ways to revise, to help students memorize, to have a self-assessment test and to raise their self-esteem. Even though the results may not be visible at first sight, Quizzes are quite useful, because they give the chance to go over the discussed topic one more time. As mentioned before the students revise the covered topic the better they remember it.
