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Feel at a loss during trivia and general knowledge games? Fear not - there are various methods you can use to guess the correct answers, and come across as a genius!

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Steps

  1. Guess the Answers in Trivia Questions Step 1.jpg
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    Realize that the quiz-setters won't ask questions that are completely impossible. That knowledge enables you to vastly reduce the range of potential answers.
    • For instance, this question from Trivial Pursuit: Which English king built Whitehall Palace? You may think this question is impossible unless you already know the answer, but actually the answer can be guessed fairly easily. You can reason that the answer is probably going to be a king who is at least moderately well-known - after all, they are not going to ask the question if the answer is Offa of Mercia, as that would be too hard. So, how many English kings can you name? If you're like most people, you're probably limited to Henry 8th, Richard the Lionheart, King John, and Alfred the Great. You probably know from the Robin Hood films that Richard the Lionheart and King John didn't build "palaces" - in those days it was more about castles than palaces. Alfred the Great was even earlier, so he is an even less likely contender. Anyway, "Whitehall Palace" sounds fairly recent, not an ancient Anglo-Saxon name. That leaves you with just one possible answer - Henry 8th. Which is correct.
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  2. Guess the Answers in Trivia Questions Step 2.jpg
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    Look for the clues within the question itself. Questions often contain lots of clues. Here's an example, from the quiz show Fifteen to One: For what do Australians fondly remember Andrew Barton Paterson? Again, you probably know the answer without realizing it. Look carefully at the question and see what it tells you.
    • Firstly, there are two clues that the answer is something that exists only in the past, namely the word "remember" and the fact that nowadays most people do not go by three-word names.
    • Secondly, the word "fondly" tells us that the answer probably has some sort of sentimental content.
    • Thirdly, the use of the word "Australians" means that the answer is something that is of relevance to all Australians, not just some of them, and therefore is probably something to do with national symbolism. It must also be something that a person can create, not something natural such as a national animal or flower.
    • Moreover, as per the previous hint we can be fairly sure the answer must be something we have actually heard of.
    • We have now narrowed the range of possibilities right down to the point where there is really only one possible answer, namely that Andrew Barton Paterson wrote Waltzing Matilda. Which is correct.
  3. Guess the Answers in Trivia Questions Step 3.jpg
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    Use your general knowledge. If the quiz you're doing is a more difficult one, you can often still work out the answers but you'll need a wider range of general knowledge in order to help you. Here's an example from University Challenge, a difficult British TV quiz for the brightest university students: Which is the fifth largest city in Ireland, located by the confluence of three rivers?
    • Since you know the quiz is a very difficult one, the answer is definitely not going to be something obvious like Dublin or Cork, but again it cannot be something completely impossible. However, there is a deliberate clue in the question, namely the rivers, which are a gentle nudge that the answer is Waterford. Obviously if you have never heard of Waterford you cannot guess this answer, so some general knowledge is required, but the important thing is to look for and notice clues in the questions.
    • Here's another example, from the same quiz show: Which French city's bridge was originally built in 1185 and destroyed in 1668? You may think the question absolutely impossible - surely France is full of bridges, and how can you be expected to know the dates they were all built?! In fact though it's possible to guess the correct answer just from the first four words, "Which French city's bridge...". Here's the reasoning: think about French cities and bridges. How many French bridges would even a well-educated non-Frenchman have heard of? Very few indeed - probably only one: the bridge in Avignon, which you may know from the children's song Sur Le Pont d'Avignon - On the Bridge at Avignon.
      • One of the contestants on University Challenge did indeed give the correct answer, apparently by guesswork. In fact, he used all the reasoning in this article to correctly guess this question and many others. Viewers were amazed by his apparently encyclopedic knowledge, but in fact all he was doing was reasoning his way to the correct answers.
  4. Guess the Answers in Trivia Questions Step 4.jpg
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    Guess the answer from the topic of the question. This is a technique you can dazzle people with by correctly guessing answers even just a few words into a question. This technique works much better in the easier trivia quizzes. It is this: if the subject of the question is little-known, there is often only one question that can realistically be asked on that subject - therefore, as soon as you know the subject of the question you can probably guess the answer. Here's an example, from the trivia show The Weakest Link, and although the full question was given on the show, I will give only the first two words: "The Lorelei...".
    • It is in fact extremely to guess the answer: the river Rhine. You know this because as soon as you hear that the subject of the question is the Lorelei, the question is almost certainly going to be something like "The Lorelei lured sailors to their deaths on which river?" What else could the question be? The only other realistic possibility is something like "The Lorelei is a legendary figure in the mythology of which present-day country?" But that is probably too easy a question.
  5. Guess the Answers in Trivia Questions Step 5.jpg
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    Note the styles of questions that appear on different quiz shows. Question-setters have favourite styles which you can recognize and learn. They also have favourite topics, which you can swot up on.
  6. Guess the Answers in Trivia Questions Step 6.jpg
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    If you're serious about quizzes, learn the lists of data that are likely to recur in shows: names of planets and their moons, US presidents and their dates in office, states and their capitals, etc.
  7. Guess the Answers in Trivia Questions Step 7.jpg
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    Guess the question! As you become more successful at quizzes, the fun becomes not so much about guessing the correct answer to the question but about how soon into the question you can guess what the question will be, or even, if you're really sharp, how how soon into the question you can guess not only the question and the answer but even any wrong answers the contestant on the show is likely to give!
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Categories: Puzzles and Memory Games

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