NAME

       quiz — random knowledge tests

SYNOPSIS

       quiz [-t] [-i file] [question answer]

DESCRIPTION

       The  quiz utility tests your knowledge of random facts.  It has a database of subjects from which you can
       choose.  With no arguments, quiz displays the list of available subjects.

       The options are as follows:

       -t      Use tutorial mode, in which questions are repeated later if you didn't get them right  the  first
               time, and new questions are presented less frequently to help you learn the older ones.

       -i      Specify an alternative index file.

       Subjects  are divided into categories.  You can pick any two categories from the same subject.  quiz will
       ask questions from the first category and it expects answers from the second category.  For example,  the
       command  “quiz  victim  killer”  asks questions which are the names of victims, and expects you to answer
       with the cause of their untimely demise, whereas the command “quiz killer victim”  works  the  other  way
       around.

       If you get the answer wrong, quiz lets you try again.  To see the right answer, enter a blank line.

   Index and Data File Syntax
       The index and data files have a similar syntax.  Lines in them consist of several categories separated by
       colons.  The categories are regular expressions formed using the following meta-characters:

             pat|pat  alternative patterns
             {pat}    optional pattern
             [pat]    delimiters, as in pat[pat|pat]pat

       In  an index file, each line represents a subject.  The first category in each subject is the pathname of
       the data file for the subject.  The remaining categories are regular expressions for the titles  of  each
       category in the subject.

       In  data  files,  each  line  represents a question/answer set.  Each category is the information for the
       question/answer for that category.

       The backslash character (``\'') is used to quote syntactically significant characters, or at the end of a
       line to signify that a continuation line follows.

       If either a question or its answer is empty, quiz will refrain from asking it.

FILES

       /usr/share/games/bsdgames/quiz  The default index and data files.

BUGS

       quiz is pretty cynical about certain subjects.

Debian                                            May 31, 1993                                           QUIZ(6)