Description 

The games-show style quizzes are powerpoint presentations of exam practice questions.  They are downloaded separately from this website.  Currently, there are four assistant level quizzes, with technician level quizzes to be released next year.  Two of the quizzes cover anatomy and physiology, and the other two cover basic skills.  There are 50 questions on each quiz, for a total of 200 questions.   

Each presentation can be viewed or played individually, but they were designed for group participation.  The quizzes have been testing with groups as large as 50 people and have proven to be fun and stimulating.

Game Structure 

Participants are divided into two teams which compete with each other to be the first to correctly answer questions.  At least one person is chosen from each team, on a rotating basis,  to represent the team in question answering rounds.  For larger groups, we found it best to have two or three team members participate as a “mini-team” for question rounds.  Members of the larger team rotate into the mini-team.  Any of the mini-team is able to answer questions.  We found that this reduces the embarrassment factor because some were reluctant to participate for fear of not being able to answer questions. 

After a question is presented, the first person to respond is given an opportunity to answer the question.  If answered correctly, the team receives the designated number of points.  If the question is answered incorrectly, then the other team can be given the opportunity to answer correctly.  If a team answers a question correctly, then that team chooses the category and difficulty level of the next question.  After all the questions have been presented, the team with the most points wins.  There can be many variations to the rules, depending upon your preferences. 

The authenticity and atmosphere of the game can be increased by using a game show buzzer system, but this is not necessary.  Here is a good source for a buzzer system, http://www.svbz.com/index.html,  or you can google “game show buzzer” for other sources.  If you don’t use a buzzer system, participants can be seated and then stand up when they want to indicate that they may have the answer, or they can raise a hand, or you can use any variation that you can think of.

 The powerpoint presentation 

Questions are presented from the category board, as shown below.  There are five questions in each category, with increasing levels of difficulty.  The “100” level questions are worth 100 points, and so on.  Clicking on a number will take you to that question.  After clicking on a number, the link will turn white,  so that you know which questions have already been presented. 

After the question has been presented and responded to, the answer is presented by clicking the “answer” link at the bottom of the screen: 

 After the answer has been presented, the moderator can use the “scoreboard” button to go to a screen where the score can be updated.  If you don’t care about a score, or if you are using the presentation individually, you can go directly back to the category board.

Scores can be recorded on the screen by clicking on the “pen” icon at the bottom left of the screen. The mouse pointer can then be used to write on the screen.  You will need to click on “ arrow options” in the same menu to return to the mouse pointer and click on the category board button.

The last few slides on the powerpoint have the answers to the questions.  The moderator can print these slides so that he/she has the answers handy when moderating the game.  This will reduce the embarrassment factor for the moderator.

To print the slides, go to the file menu in the powerpoint program and click on “print”.  The following dialogue box should appear.  Change “print what” to “handouts”.  Change “slide per page” to “1”.  Enter the slide numbers that you want to print in the “print range”, “slides” box.  You can change the “color/grayscale” to grayscale if you don’t want to waste your color ink.