Classic Computer Magazine Archive ANTIC VOL. 2, NO. 10 / JANUARY 1984

EDUCATION

TRIVIA-QUESTION QUIZ

A quizzical way to learn

by GEORGE STONE

Are you having trouble learning your French vocabulary words! Or those historical dates you have to memorize by next Friday! Are you a sports, TV, or movie fan who loves to share trivia questions with your friends? Or are you a teacher with a constant need for question and short-answer drills?

Here is a skeleton program for the Atari that you can use in all of these situations. It displays a scoreboard at the top of the screen, with the user's name, the number of problems attempted, the number of correct answers, and the percentage of correct answers.

The questions are displayed below, and the user types in short-answer responses. A sequence of up or down sound notes is followed by a "correct" or "incorrect" message for each answer.

Once the skeleton program is loaded, all that is necessary to prepare your version is to add a set of DATA statements and a number in line 170. Line 170 says:

FOR SENT=1 TO 3

Change the three to match the number of DATA statements you want to use. You can program your DATA statements at any free location you wish (line 1000 is a good place to start)

The DATA statements should be written as follows:

1000 DATA WHAT IS THE QUESTION?,ANSWER

That is, the line number followed by the question, a comma, and the correct answer. Remember to use capital letters if you want the answers to be upper case, and to use a comma between the question and the answer.

Remember also to save the skeleton program before entering the DATA so that it can be used for other purposes again. Then save the completed program under a new filename. You can use the skeleton program to create a complete collection of educational drill or trivia programs.

You can enter as many questions as you like, programs as long as you like, but you must be sure to make line 170 agree with the number of questions.

Download TRIVIA.BAS Download