Rules

Teams

  • Each match is played by teams of four people, with one player as the captain.
  • You may include up to a further four players in your roster to make up a squad of a maximum of eight. We advise you have at least five people in your squad, so you have someone who can read or score as this is a requirement, and so you have additional player(s) should someone not be available one week.
  • Each team must bring someone to read or score – this can be one of the squad if you have more than four players, or it could be a friend or relative.
  • There is no qualification required to play, and you can choose to represent your city/region/or your usual quiz team.
  • Teams will be placed into groups following a random draw.
  • A team can only be made up of players from one country – and MUST all be in the same or a similar time zone. If you have played in IQA competitions, ‘your country’ is the country you represent there. In all other cases, ‘your country’ is the country where you either reside permanently or where you were born.
  • League structure will be finalised once we know how many teams wish to play, but all teams are guaranteed at least eight matches.
  • Matches can be played at either of two Zoom session on a Sunday
  • Session 1: 09.00 – 12.30 (UK time)
  • Session 2: 19:00 – 21.00 (UK time)

Before the Match

The Quizzing World Cup has been designed to test the whole team and individual players in the team too. It has a total of 60 questions in each match. Thirty-two questions are played by individuals and the remaining 28 are played by the teams.

The matches should take roughly 50-60 minutes to play.

  • The questions will be sent to the nominated reader 30 minutes before your allotted playing time. These are password protected.
  • The Topic Sheets will be sent to all team members 30 minutes before your allotted playing time. Your team should discuss them BEFORE your quiz starts. The purpose of this is for teams to decide the order in which they will play and work out which subjects they hope they can get/hope to steal from their opponents.

  • Links to the Quizzing World Cup scoring system will be provided to the team captains to distribute to whoever is scoring. A .pdf file with a scoring sheet that can be printed out will be sent to captains to pass to any members of the team who want to keep score as they play too.
  • All players will be sent a link to the Zoom room. Reminder that only those playing or officiating should join the Zoom room.
  • When you join the Zoom room, you should set your screen name to: <short form team name> <seat number> <your first name> eg: IQA S2 Jane
  • Readers/scorers should set their screen name to Reader (or Scorer) <first name> eg: Reader Jane

To set your screen name, click on your own image when in the Zoom room and a box with three dots will appear. Click on this and you will see ‘Rename’. You can also set your name before you enter the room.

Playing the Game

Each team must provide someone to score or read, so there will be two people proctoring for each match. Proctors can either be from the squads playing, teams that have already played, or friends or family members.

Round 1

  • The order of play is decided by a coin toss or similar. The winning captain can then choose to play first or second. Whichever team goes first in the first round will go second in the second round.

Individual Element

  • Players must NOT confer at any time during this part of the quiz.
  • Behind each ‘topic’ there are two questions related to the ‘topic’ title.
  • Player one from the first team to play chooses a topic.
  • The proctor pastes the question into the chat window (if playing online).
  • The proctor then reads the first question out loud to the player.
  • The question may not be repeated.
  • The player has 20 seconds once the question has been read out in which to answer.
  • With five seconds remaining, the timing proctor will say ‘five’.
  • At the end of the 20 seconds, and assuming the player hasn’t answered, the timing proctor will say ‘Time. I need an answer please.’
  • If no answer is forthcoming, the timing proctor will say ‘Over to the team’, and the question is passed to the player’s team, who will then have five seconds in which to answer. The original player cannot answer again.
  • The team’s captain will either answer the question, or will pass it to another player on the team.
  • After five seconds, the timing proctor will say ‘I need an answer’. If the team gets the answer incorrect or fails to produce an answer, the timing proctor will say, ‘Over to the other team’.
  • The opposition team will then have five seconds to answer with the captain answering or nominating another team member to answer.
  • At the end of the five seconds, the timing proctor will say ‘I need an answer’… and then ‘Time!’, if the team still gets the answer incorrect or fails to produce an answer.
  • The answer will then be given by the proctor if no one got it right.
  • Note on answering questions: Please make it very clear to the proctor that you have given your answer. Perhaps saying ‘My/Our Answer is: xxx’. This is especially important if you are playing online as it can be tricky to hear an answer if more than one person was speaking.
  • This process is repeated in the order: team one – player one, team two – player one etc. until all eight players have selected and played one of the topics on the ‘Topics sheet’. (Topics can only be selected once).

Signalling

Although players cannot confer during this part of the competition, they CAN signal to each other if they think they know the answer. Holding up five fingers to the camera, indicates they know they answer. Three fingers will mean they think they know the answer and so on. Teams can decide on their own method of signalling. Players on both teams can do this, including the captains as it will help the captain decide who to pass the question to if the question comes to their team.

Scoring – Individual Element

  • Two points are awarded if the initial player answers correctly
  • One point is awarded if the team answers correctly
  • One point is awarded if the opposition team answers correctly.

Team Element

  • Team one chooses one of the topics.
  • The question is then asked to the WHOLE team, who MAY CONFER verbally in front of their opponents as these questions do NOT get passed to the other team.
  • The team has 30 seconds in which to answer via the team captain.
  • The proctor timing will call ‘Five’ with five seconds remaining, and will ask for an answer when the time is up.
  • The question does NOT pass to the other team if not answered or if answered incorrectly, but the proctor may give the answer afterwards.
  • Now, team two will choose a topic as above, followed by team one again and then team two again.
  • Now, team one gets to decide if they want ‘Mystery Box A’ or ‘Mystery Box B’.
  • Each ‘Mystery Box’ contains THREE questions on the topics from the quiz.
  • The team has 30 seconds from the end of the question in which to give their answer.

They MAY CONFER verbally in front of the other team as these questions are NOT passed to the other team.

  • Team two then gets asked the questions from the remaining ‘Mystery Box’.

Scoring – Team Element

  • Team round – Two points are awarded for every correct answer.

Round 2

  • The whole process is repeated, with a new packet of questions and topics, and with the second team going first this time.

The League

  • The first Group Stage of the current league will feature x groups (depending on team numbers), each with five teams who will each play each other once. This means one team in each group will not play each week. You will be emailed asking if you can help officiate. We’ll explain how the rest of the league works once we know numbers.

Scoring in the League Tables

  • Win – 4 points
  • Draw – 2 points
  • Loss – 0 points
  • There is also 1 point for losing, but being within four marks short of the winner.

Breaking Ties

Ties will only be split between teams playing knock-out matches or if it affects positions in the next stage.

TB 1. All points during the current stage (or current match in the case of the knockout rounds) except those from offered across individual questions. ie: not counting points that came across from the opposition as this can be skewed by the ability of the opposition.
TB 2. If the teams met each other at any point during the competition, the result of this match will split the tie.
TB 3. One nominated player from each team will be invited to contest a short head-to-head quiz.

Champions

  • At the end of the season, the four Rosette League winners will be declared, and the highest-scoring teams from the top flight will go head-to-head in the finale of the Quizzing World Cup that will be broadcast online.

Questions

  • Questions will all be kept fairly short, so hopefully they will be easily understood the first time they are read and players won’t need them repeated. The questions should be pasted into the chat window for all players to see, especially if players do not have English as their first language or if a player has a hearing impediment.
  • Questions will be written by a panel of setters from around the world to ensure they work for a global audience.
  • The questions behind the subject categories will be the subjects you are expecting – ie: there are no cryptic clues in the subject categories.
  • If English is not your first language and we have not provided an answer in your language, you can answer in your language and then stop play while your answer is checked by people in your match. As long as the other team are satisfied that you have answered correctly, then you can have the point(s).

Filming

We want to show the world how great quizzers are at real quizzes, so matches may be recorded by a player or proctor and sent to Quizzing.tv after the match. You’ll be shown how to do this. It’s very straightforward and just involves someone recording what’s on their screen.

FAQs

What do to if you can’t field a full team one week

– You should select a seat for the player. When it is their turn, the captain should select a topic. The topic will be read out in the usual way, but will go straight to the team for 1 point. (The team will have 20 seconds to think about it and to signal to the captain if they think they know the answer. There must be NO conferring.)

Full Rules and Code of Conduct

Full rules and our code of conduct can be found on the Quiz Nations website.