Trivia
Also known as Quiz, Pub Quiz and General Knowledge Quiz
Five questions a round, one topic each, four answers to choose from. Three wrong answers end it. It is also the puzzle most worth writing yourself — a round about your own family, your own holiday or your own workplace is not something any app can generate for you.
How it works
- Answer five questions, one topic each.
- Tap an answer to lock it in and see if you were right.
- A hint rules out one wrong answer.
- Three wrong answers end the round.
Good if you want…
- Recall rather than deduction
- Two minutes flat
- Writing a round for people you know
How to solve Trivia
Rule answers out
With four options, you rarely need to know the answer outright. Crossing off the two you are sure are wrong turns a guess into a coin toss, and very often the question has one answer that is obviously out of place — a date from the wrong century, a country on the wrong continent.
Read the question twice
Most wrong answers come from misreading rather than not knowing. "Which of these is not…", "the second largest…", "in what year did it end…" — the one word that changes the question is easy to skim past.
Spend the hint where it counts
A hint rules out one wrong answer. Save it for the question you genuinely cannot narrow down, rather than one where you were already choosing between two. Three wrong answers end the round, so a hint that saves one is worth more late than early.
Writing a round of your own
Trivia is the puzzle most worth writing yourself. A good question has one answer that is right and three that are plausible — wrong answers that nobody could believe make the question too easy. Questions about people you know, a place you went together or your own workplace are something no generated round can offer, and they are the ones people remember.
Use what the other answers tell you
The wrong answers are chosen to be plausible, which means they are often clues in their own right. If three of the options are cities in one country and the fourth is elsewhere, the question is probably about that country. If two answers are nearly identical, one of them is very often right — setters like a near miss as a distractor.
Common mistakes
- Changing your first instinct without a reason. On recall questions, a first answer is right more often than a second-guessed one.
- Rushing a question on a topic you know well. Those are the ones with the trap in the wording.
Trivia questions
How many questions are there?
Five a round, one topic each, with four answers to choose from.
Can I make my own quiz?
Yes. Trivia is one of the six puzzles you can write in the app and send to someone as a link.
Trivia in Winters Puzzles
Trivia is one of 40 puzzles in Winters Puzzles, so it sits alongside and everything else in the app rather than being a download of its own. It counts towards your stats and streak like any other puzzle. It also has a published board in Pip’s dailies, with earlier dates available in the archive.
Trivia is also one of the 5 puzzles you can write yourself. Put in your own words or questions, try it, then send a link so someone else can play exactly what you made — see create and share.
Play Trivia.
Free on iPhone and iPad, with 39 other puzzles alongside it. Or play it in your browser — no download, nothing to sign up for.
