Questions from the Canadian Inquisition (QFTCI*)

[Mark Brader]

This is a repeat of my 2016-11-26 introductory posting with some
minor updates. If you were already familiar with the content and
the way I'm scheduling things, then there's no real need to reread
it now.


* Introduction

As most of you will remember, the Canadian Inquisition is a team
trivia league that plays in Toronto pubs. It's a cooperative
league, whose teams take turns to write and ask the questions that
the others answer. In the current season, September-December
2017, the questions are being written Smith & Guessin'. I have
obtained their permission to post to this newsgroup the questions
from this seasons, to be tagged QFTCISG in the subject line.
Before posting them here, I'm editing some of them for various
reasons -- for brevity, to clarify their intent, to avoid issues
raised on protests, for suitability in this medium, and so on.

When the current season ends I intend to similarly ask permission
from the next team writing questions, which is currently expected
to be Bill Psychs.

As you may remember, the league's season consists of 10 regular
games and a Final. A regular game contains 102 questions. Most of
the game is in rounds of 10 questions on a specific topic within
a different general area. For example, one game in 2008 included
a geography round on former place names, an entertainment round
on Morgan Freeman movies, and a sports round on things that
happened during Toronto Blue Jays games. Round 1 is always a
current-events round; Round 5 is always an audio round; and Round
10 (the "challenge round") normally contains 12 questions, 2 each
on 6 different subjects.

I won't be posting audio questions (except if I think they can be
answered without the audio), nor will I post the video questions
that sometimes occur in the Final.


* Scheduling - Regular Games

My intent is that for each quiz you'll get about 3 days to answer,
plus or minus a few hours, but I'm not going to set exact deadlines;
I'll cut off entries at whatever time (after 2 days and about
21 hours) that it's convenient for me to do the scoring and post
the results.

One series of postings will consist of rounds from a single game:
normally those will be Rounds 2-4 and 6-10. I will normally post
the questions as four sets of two rounds each: Rounds 2-3 in one
posting, Rounds 4 and 6 in the next, and so on. In the Final, most
rounds have 15 questions, and these I'll post one round at a time.

For each game, I'll keep a cumulative score over the group of
postings, counting your best 6 rounds out of 8 (or 5 out of 7,
etc.) -- that way if you miss a set, or if there's a subject you're
weak on, you still have a chance to finish well. Each game will
be totaled after the last round is posted and scored.

In a normal game usually one round is Canadiana (this may also
fall under another subject such as history or geography), which
those of you in distant places may have some trouble with, but I am
including them in the posting series anyway. This is your chance
to shine by displaying your knowledge of Canadiana. However, if
*nobody* in the newsgroup scores *any* points on a round, which
has happened with Canadiana occasionally, then I will score as if
that round had never existed.


* Scheduling - Current Events

I will also do a separate series of postings consisting of
current-events rounds only, also to be posted two at a time.
These will all appear while they're still reasonably current
-- normally within a couple of days of the second of the two
original games. For this series I'll accumulating score over all
the games from the season, similarly counting the best 9 out of 11.
So there will be an overall current-events winner for the season.

I'm posting current-events games independently of the posting
of other games, so there will normally be a regular game running
concurrently with each set of current-events questions. The first
pair of current-events rounds will be posted later this week.

Current-events rounds generally refer to events that took place the
week before the original game, sometimes also the week before that.
If answers have changed due to newer news, you are still expected
to give the answer that was correct as of the game date.


* Procedures and Scoring

The usual rule in our regular league games is that each question
goes to an individual who can answer for 2 points without
assistance, and if he misses, he can consult his team and try
again for 1 point. If the quizmaster judges that an answer is
incomplete, she can ask for more details before ruling the answer
right or wrong.

To maintain the spirit of these rules, I will say that you can
give two answers on every question. But I will penalize you if
you give both a right answer and a wrong answer. My scoring is:

4 points - if you answer once and are right (or twice, both right)
3 points - if you guess twice and are right only the first time
2 points - if you guess twice and are right only the second time

Bonus points may occasionally be available and will be explained in
the relevant round.

If you give only one answer, but with only some sort of additional
comment, please make it clear that that's what you're doing.
If there is any doubt I'll assume that you are giving two answers.
If I see more than two answers, the third and any later ones will
be ignored.

Although there is no rule like this in the Canadian Inquisition,
where it makes sense I will accept answers that I think are almost
close enough (*more than half right*), with a 1-point penalty.

But I will reject answers that I do not think are sufficiently
specific, since there is no opportunity to ask for clarification
when answers are posted in the newsgroup. If I anticipate the
possibility of insufficiently specific answers I will try to
provide guidance on the individual questions.

You must, of course, answer based on your own knowledge and
nothing else. You must post all your answers in a single posting.
Where a person's name is asked for, *normally you need only give
the surname*. If you give another part of the name and you're
wrong, your answer is wrong.
--
Mark Brader | "(I've been told that I suffer from rampant narcissism.
Toronto | Just to confirm the accuracy of this character assessment,
m...@vex.net | I have now shared it with the whole world.)" --Laura Spira

My text in this article is in the public domain.