Quiz in aid of Niall Mellon Educate

Last evening I had the pleasure of being Quiz Master at a fund-raiser hosted by the Killiney Lions Club in aid of Mellon Educate in the Rochestown Lodge Hotel. Rome will be part of the building blitz in Capetown next month to build a school.

Writing a quiz is hard work - I have now written several quizzes. Getting the balance between difficult questions and easy ones is hard. You don't want a quiz to be too hard so that people feel stupid for not knowing the answers, or too easy so that it is not challenging. I try to write a round of questions where some questions should be easy for everyone to get, and to also have one or two hard ones that the top teams will be the only ones to get. I also like to have questions that will generate discussion and even argument among team members. When I read out the answers I love to hear groans and people saying "I was right!".

Here are questions from two of the rounds - the first set was a numbers round which had some teams in difficulty. See how many you get right:

1. How many days is it until Christmas Day?
2. Including Pluto, how many planets are there in the solar system?
3. How many furlongs are there in a mile?
4. How many points did Dublin score in this year’s men’s Senior All-Ireland football final against Kerry?
5. What is the maximum number of CAO points that you can get in the Leaving Certificate?
6. How many cities are there on the island of Ireland?
7. How many sides are there in a heptagon?
8. How many tablespoons are there in a cup?
9. How many golf clubs are allowed in a bag during competitions?
10. How many pockets are there on a casino roulette wheel?

The TV round was the easiest - six teams got 10/10, see how you do:

1. Name one of the two current presenters on this year’s ITV show “The X Factor”.
2. What was the surname of Del Boy and Rodney in “Only Fools and Horses”?
3. Who played the part of Fr Dougal Maguire in the TV series “Fr Ted”?
4. Who is the presenter of RTÉ’s “Kitchen Hero” programme?
5. In what TV series would you find the characters of Daenerys Targaryen, Ned Stark, and Jaime Lannister?
6. In what 2015 BBC drama series did Irish actor Aidan Turner play the lead role?
7. Name the four Teletubbies.
8. Earlier this year British actress Anne Kirkbride died: what character did she play in a well-known TV soap series?
9. “Here we come/ Walking down the street/ We get the funniest looks from/ Everyone we meet...” Which 1960s TV series were these the opening lines of the theme tune?
10. Which sit-com was set in the fictional seaside resort of Walmington-on-Sea?