Quiz-show style activity

To make tests less intimidating and more engaging, restyle them as game shows. In this example, we turned a fill-in-the-blanks test into a game loosely based on the TV game show Jeopardy©.

Here’s how it works: Learners are given a certain amount of time to reach a specific total score by correctly answering questions about Visual Basic. To reach their goals, learners can very quickly answer a lot of low-point questions or take a bit more time to answer fewer high-point questions. Each correct answer adds to the total score and each incorrect answer subtracts from the total score.

Games like this are good for testing factual knowledge, provided answers are clearly right or wrong. Such games can seduce voluntary learners into taking tests. They provide incentive to study and learn. A game might be a good sensitizing activity or pre-test at the beginning of a module. The desire to win the game provides incentive to learn the needed facts.

Here is a simpler quiz-show style game patterened after the popular TV game show "So You Want to be a Millionaire©." Note: This example requires the Microsoft Animation runtime Active x control. You will be prompted to download it.

About the examples

The first example was built using Adobe Dreamweaver and JavaScript. The second example was built and saved for the Web using PowerPoint.