Don't ask me how I came upon Sporcle, but beware—it's addictive! There are quick quizzes for a wide array of subjects, and I've found them useful for refreshing the ol' memory on things I should know, as well as learning new interesting facts and just plain trivia. Not to mention spelling, as it doesn't matter if you do know the capital of Iceland if you can't spell Reykjavík, which I can't—yet. But I'm learning. Here are some of my favorites:
Countries of Europe Also North America, South America, Africa (up-to-date with South Sudan!) Asia, Oceania, and—if you have more time than I do—the world) and other geography games.
Books of the Old Testament (oh, those minor prophets!) Also New Testament, Apostles, Seven Deadly Sins, Roman and Greek gods.
U.S. Presidents: easy version (in order), hard version (random, by term of office).
Elements of the Periodic Table (accepts either "aluminum" or "aluminium").
Here's one for parents: can you name all the words in The Cat in the Hat?
Interesting trivia: common U.S. street names.
There's lots more, some more interesting and useful than others. I find the music category almost useless, although there are a few good ones if you dig, like Symphony Orchestra Instruments. Composers by Country was kind of fun.
Enjoy! And please post a comment here if you find good quizzes I haven't mentioned.
I couldn't resist trying the Cat in the Hat one: "You got 134 out of 236 answers correct"- more than half. It's interesting how many "him" "they" "them" types of words are there that you don't think about unless you're actually quoting the book to yourself as you go. I got "pink, white, and red" but forgot "dots" It's harder than you think!
your link to the instruments goes to the composers
Fixed, thanks.
No, we don't have time for this, but we're passing Joseph off between each other and I discovered: http://www.sporcle.com/games/triviahappy/spelling-test-american-vs-british-english
I like that one, too. I did quite well, thanks to all the British books I have read (though I still missed a few, like "hauler"), and in the process discovered why I have so much trouble spelling certain words—my brain has the British and American spellings with about equal intensity, and so is not sure of either.
I could complain to you that you took my husband away from me all Sunday afternoon, but now he's in the kitchen singing and making me dinner. I guess a working daddy needs an escape every once in a while to do his heart good! As you could expect, in every quiz we both took he beat me by a mile . . .
The Disciples are hard, because there are several lists in the Bible. I kept trying Nathanael in all kinds of variations because I was sure there was one - and John mentions one. The list used is the one from Mark's gospel.
Africa: How sad to miss Cape Verde and one of the two countries to be geographically named...
Janet's right - and so are you - it's an addicting little game, and if I don't get over it soon, I'll block the site...
P.S. Presidents, easy version: 29 out of 44. Oh well.
I wouldn't have done that well if it had not been for Sue Dickson's Song of the U.S. Presidents>, but thanks to that, it's no challenge at all. What is a challenge is identifying them by term of office, but I'm amazed at how much better I'm doing now that when I first took the quiz.
I try to keep the addiction under control by using it strictly (well, almost), a little bit each day, as an educational device to help me learn/remember things I want to know. It's surprising how empowering it feels to have some solid presidential "hooks" on which to hang history.
I'm still doing really badly with the Periodic Table, though.
