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| Pub Trivia |
 Title text: Bonus question: Where is London located? (a) The British Isles (b) Great Britain and Northern Ireland (c) The UK (d) Europe (or 'the EU') (e) Greater London |
Explanation
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This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by A BOT ASKING BAD TRIVIA QUESTIONS - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. |
Many pubs have trivia nights, where patrons form teams and compete to answer questions about a range of topics. The typical goal for trivia games is that they be challenging, yet possible, and so questions with answers that are too difficult or too easy generally make for a poor game. In addition, it's usually preferable that questions are clearly worded with a single, objective answer, so as to avoid disputes about which answers are correct.
Cueball has apparently been hired by one bar to infiltrate other bars' quiz nights and ask particularly bad questions. The implication is that this will make the games unpleasant, in the hopes that people will leave, and possibly go to the bar that hired Cueball.
Cueball uses a variety of strategies to write bad questions, including questions that are trivial (where the answer is painfully obvious), unanswerable (either because there is no answer or because the answer is unknown), ambiguously worded or arguable.
Many of his questions could be altered slightly to make them more reasonable for such a game, but that would defeat Cueball's purpose.
It is possible the intention of this pub quiz is to identify the issues with each question as is done here, accepting these as the answers. As Cueball was hired by a rival pub, they could then take these corrections back to that rival place.
| Question | Problem with the Question | Explanation | More Reasonable Alternative(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Which member of BTS has a birthday this year? | Multiple correct answers | All people have birthdays every year[citation needed] (other than pedantic exceptions due to calendar issues or timezone alterations, or someone dying before their birthday, or being born on a leap day, none of which apply in this case). Therefore, all seven members of BTS have birthdays in 2024. | Which member of BTS has a birthday today/this week/this month? Which member of BTS turns [a specific age] this year? |
| 2. How many sides does a platonic solid have? | Multiple answers, ambiguous language | There are five Platonic solids, with 4, 6, 8, 12 or 20 faces (colloquially called sides) in Euclidean 3-space. The solids have, respectively, 6, 12, 12, 30 and 30 edges (also occasionally called sides colloquially). A more devious quizmaster might actually include this as a trick question with the correct answer being 'zero', since strictly speaking solids do not have 'sides'. | How many Platonic solids are there? What is the highest number of faces on a Platonic solid? How many faces does a [specific Platonic solid] have? How many faces (or edges, or vertices) do all the Platonic solids have (i.e., added together)? What is the number of vertices, minus the number of edges, plus the number of faces equal to for a platonic solid (i.e., the Euler characteristic)? |
| 3. What is the smallest lake in the world? | Arguable, potentially unknowable | While the largest lakes are relatively straightforward to categorize, smaller bodies of water range in size down to individual puddles. There is no clear, definitional line at which a body goes from being a lake to a pond, for example. In addition, the size of small lakes will fluctuate due to variability in precipitation, and other weather effects, and some lakes only exist for brief periods (intermittent lakes). Hence, which small bodies of water are "lakes" and which is the smallest can't be clearly answered, without specifying a whole list of parameters and standards.
This question is related to the Tom Scott video What counts as the world's shortest river? |
What lake has the largest surface area in the world? What is the world's deepest lake? What lake is recognized by the Guinness World Records as the world's smallest? (Benxi Lake in China). |
| 4. Which Steven Spielberg movie features more shark attacks, Jaws (1975) or Lincoln (2012)? | Trivial | Jaws is a famous movie about a killer shark, and features at least five fatal shark attacks. Lincoln is a movie about the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, containing zero shark attacks.[citation needed] Anyone with even a passing familiarity with American popular culture should be able to get this one right, and someone with no knowledge could likely guess the answer from the titles alone. This might be mistaken for a silly trick question, as Lincoln is a much less famous movie. | How many times is a shark seen on screen in "Jaws"? Which film won more Academy Awards? How many fatal shark attacks occur in "Jaws"? Which movie in the "Jaws" franchise has the most shark attacks? |
| 5. How many planets were there originally? | Ambiguous | The question doesn't specify a time frame or culture, which is necessary to understand both the word 'planet' and the word 'originally'. It could be referring to the original meaning of the word planet, which in antiquity referred to the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn (total of 7 planets). It could be referring to the planets originally known to the quiz master, which (assuming Cueball is between 18 and 96 years old) would be after the reclassification of Ceres, Pallas, Vesta and Juno to asteroids, and after the discovery of Pluto, but prior to the reclassification of Pluto to dwarf planet (total of 9 planets). It could conceivably be referring to the first official definition of planet by the International Astronomical Union in 2006, which would be Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune (total of 8 planets). It could be referring to the process of planetary formation, in which case another layer of ambiguity is added, as it could be referring to the number of protoplanetary bodies in the protoplanetary disk (which is unknown since some of them were destroyed like Theia), or the number of planets that accreted from the disk before some were likely ejected (which is also unknown), or how many planets existed when the sun or the universe was formed (which is 0). It also doesn't specify that it's referring to planets in our solar system alone (in the galaxy there are almost certainly trillions of planets). Additionally, it asks how many "were there", as opposed to how many planets "were known" (the number which we know of being far smaller than the true number of planets in the universe). | How many planets were known to Ancient Greece? How many planets were known to science prior to the invention of the telescope? How many planets were recognized in our Solar System at the end of the 20th century? |
| 6. What NFL player has scored the most points outside of a game? | Ambiguous, unknowable | The term "scored the most points" generally only applies within the context of a game, making it very unclear what kind of "points" the question is referring to. Does it mean points in non-NFL games? Points in games other than football? Points outside the context of any game at all (such as 'making a point' in conversation)? Even if this were clarified, points scored in official games in professional sports leagues are meticulously recorded and published, points scored in any other context are not, so the question is likely impossible to answer. Arguably, Brian Jordan would be an answer, with 121 Minor League and 755 MLB runs scored (points). | Which NFL player scored the most points in a game/season/career? |
| 7. The Wright brothers built the first airplane. Who built the last one? | Unknowable | Orville and Wilbur Wright are widely credited with designing and building the first airplane (in the sense that they invented wingflaps, and discounting everybody flying before them without wingflaps). In modern times, design and construction of airplanes has become a huge, international industry, with many airplanes of widely varying sizings being built each year. Since airplanes are built continuously, which one was made most recently depends on when the question is asked (and would be very difficult for the average person to know -- and not trivial for even a member of the aerospace industry to know). If it's asking about the last airplane ever, that's impossible to know, since that plane hasn't been built yet (and hopefully won't for a very long time). | Who built the first airplane after the Wright brothers? When was the final Wright Model B aircraft built? |
| 8. Is every even number greater than 2 the sum of two primes? | Unknown, possibly unknowable | This is a famous, centuries-old open question in math known as Goldbach's conjecture. Mathematicians widely believe that it is true, and it has held true for every number checked up to 4 ⋅ 1018, but since it's impossible to check every number, we can't assume it's universally true. No mathematical proof of its veracity exists at this point. Since it is known that something can be true but impossible to prove (and, being true, impossible to disprove), this may be the situation forever. | According to which mathematical conjecture is every even number greater than 2 the sum of two primes? |
| 9. Not counting Canberra, what city is the capital of Australia? | No answer exists | Australia has only one capital (unlike some countries, which divide the legislative and administrative capitals, for example), and that capital is Canberra. Hence, by definition, there is no national capital "not counting Canberra". Though each constituent state also has its state capital (inclusive of Canberra, which is, by population, almost the entirety of its own state territory), this would still leave us with an ambiguous choice. Before 1927, the answer could be Melbourne, as that was where the Parliament sat at that time. This may be a joke about how other cities, such as Melbourne and Sydney, are often mistaken for the capital of Australia due to Canberra's comparatively small population (roughly 500,000 in the greater metropolitan area, compared to Melbourne and Sydney's roughly 5,000,000 each). It also alludes to the rivalry between Sydney and Melbourne as each claims to be the true capital. | What city is the capital of Australia? What is currently the largest city in Australia? What is the smallest state capital in Australia? Not counting Canberra, what city was the most recently founded state capital of Australia? What city was the capital city before Canberra? |
| 10. Who played the drums? | Trivial, yet unknowable without context | As worded, the question could be answered with anyone who's ever played the drums, in any context, whether professional or not, in all of history. This would include a huge number of people, most of whom would not be well-known. Most people would be able to offer a technically correct answer, and almost none of them would be interesting. Or maybe the host is wondering who it was that played drums that night, as part of the bar's live music. | Who played the drums for some specific band/album/track/concert/tour/time/place? |
| (Title text) Where is London located? (a) the British Isles (b) Great Britain and Northern Ireland (c) the UK (d) Europe (or 'the EU') (e) Greater London | Multiple answers | All choices are technically correct as they are various geographical areas that include the city of London, England. Also note that the City of London is different from the city named London, as the latter includes a large region around the former, hence (e) as an answer. Answer (d) is both correct and incorrect, as it conflates a geographic region, Europe, and a political body, the European Union. The United Kingdom (and therefore London) left the EU in 2020, but is still geographically included in Europe. In addition, answer (b) is not a single geographical designation, but two combined together. Meanwhile, answer (c) is short for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but as well as Northern Ireland and Great Britain (the largest of the British Isles), it includes many other (though not all) surrounding islands, despite these not being mentioned in its full official name. Nonetheless, 'Great Britain' is often used as synecdoche for all of the UK except Northern Ireland (as well as for the UK as a whole), which could make answers (b) and (c), in a loose sense, equivalent. (Answer (a) is a different thing again, including islands that are neither Great Britain, nor part of the UK.) This often confusing overlapping map of definitions and nomenclatures provides fertile ground for tricky quiz questions. This also does not get into cities named London outside of the UK, so for example "Ontario" or "Canada" could also be possible answers if the test designer were truly evil, thus making none of the answers correct. | What is the capital of the United Kingdom? (answer: London) Where is London, England not located? (a) the British Isles (b) Great Britain and Northern Ireland (c) the UK (d) Europe (e) the EU (answer: (e)) |
Transcript
- [The top half of Cueball is shown beneath the list of questions he is reading aloud. He is holding a wireless microphone in his right hand and a pencil and notebook in his left, reading from the notebook and speaking into the microphone. The list is shown on the notebook as well, but just as unreadable lines.]:
- Cueball: Welcome to pub trivia! Round one is 10 questions:
- Which member of BTS has a birthday this year?
- How many sides does a platonic solid have?
- What is the smallest lake in the world?
- Which Steven Spielberg movie features more shark attacks - Jaws (1975) or Lincoln (2012)?
- How many planets were there originally?
- What NFL player has scored the most points outside of a game?
- The Wright brothers built the first airplane. Who built the last one?
- Is every even number greater than 2 the sum of two primes?
- Not counting Canberra, what city is the capital of Australia?
- Who played the drums?
- [Caption below the panel]:
- A local pub trivia place hired me to run bad quizzes at competing bars.
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