The last round of the quiz

Text A: an original contemporary practice extract.

Our quiz team had reached the final round without agreeing on a name. We had agreed, briefly, on the capital of a country none of us had visited, then spent longer disputing a television programme we had all watched. The answer sheet carried crossed-out certainty in three different pens. This was our third Thursday together, and I knew more about my colleagues than I had learned from months of polite greetings.

We lost by four points. The missing points included a question about a mountain and another about a singer whose name everybody remembered five seconds after the sheets were collected. We performed the usual ceremony of blaming the decision to change one answer. Then someone ordered chips, and the mountain became part of the evening rather than a permanent injury.

I enjoy winning, but I would not exchange our noisy negotiations for a silent table of experts. The quiz gives conversation something to push against. An answer can be mistaken without making its owner unwelcome; somebody else can know what I do not. We will return next Thursday with a team name at last. I suspect that choosing it will take longer than the final round.

Text B: an original contemporary practice extract.

The charity quiz promised an enjoyable evening, and most tables seemed to have one. Ours included two newcomers who had not grown up watching the programmes that supplied half the entertainment round. They could join the discussion, but their knowledge rarely had a route onto the sheet. When one offered an answer about astronomy, we finally heard the confidence missing from her earlier guesses.

I do not want a quiz in which nobody loses or every answer is equally right. I want the competition to test more than membership of the same childhood. A wider range of questions would not guarantee each player a winning moment. It would at least make different experience potentially useful, instead of turning the entry fee into a ticket to watch other people remember.

The organiser asked for suggestions afterwards. We proposed a broader entertainment round and questions from several areas, not an easier set. Enjoyment and fairness do not require the scoreboard to disappear. They require a reasonable chance to contribute before it is filled in. The table can be friendly while the questions quietly decide who is expected to belong. That is a decision worth making more deliberately.

Compare how the writers present their ideas and perspectives about competitive quiz nights. Support your comparisons with detailed references to both texts.