Common Entries Contests

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Common Entries Contests

These are puzzle-like contests that I ran on the rec.puzzles and rec.games.trivia newsgroups many years ago. In these contests I asked entrants to predict the most common answers to my questions, given that all other entrants would also be attemtpting to predict the most common answers . This game was not just "Family Feud"---the self-referential nature of the contest meant that the questions coul be much harder.

The questions from all the contests are reproduced below. In each contest, entrants were asked to answer all ten questions. Their score on each question was equal to the number of entrants (including themselves) who gave that same answer. Their total score was the product of their scores on the individual questions. (For the complete rules, follow the links for individual contests, below). I also have links to the results for each contest; you can follow those if you want to see how good your answers were.

Around the time that I ran these contests, I also ran some Numbers Contests.

MOJO1

• 0. Pick a number.
• 1. Name a word beginning with the letter m.
• 2. Give an antonym of banana.
• 3. Name a type of mythical creature.
• 4. Name the creature which you expect to be the third most common answer to the previous question.
• 5. Name the most attractive celebrity alive today.
• 6. Name any country in Europe other than Andorra.
• 7. State a proverb. (Entries which differ only slightly in phrasing will be considered the same.)
• 8. State the most contentious possible topic of discussion on usenet today.
• 9. Name a book which was first published sometime in the last 100 years.

MOJO2

• 0. Write two words which both begin with the letter d, separating the words with a space. (Entries which give the same two words as each other, but in opposite order, will NOT be considered the same when scoring.)
• 1. Give an antonym of "blue book" which does not include the letter sequence "blue book" in it, either forwards or backwards.
• 2. Name a country in Europe other than Lichtenstein or France.
• 3. Complete this analogy: pig is to web as horse is to ______.
• 4. State the capital of Australia.
• 5. Name a type of object.
• 6. Please help me define love by completing the sentence "Love is __________," without anywhere re-using the word "love." (Entries must be identical, except for possible minor punctuation differences, to be considered the same).
• 7. Name a musical album.
• 8. Consider the following game. You and nine other readers from rec.puzzles and rec.games.trivia are placed in separate rooms, and given two buttons, "C" (for cooperate) and "D" (for defect), and given ten minutes to decide which button to press. If everyone presses "C," you will all get $1000. If at least one person presses "D," then everyone who presses "D" will get $100, while those who press "C" will get nothing. Which button you pressed will not be revealed to the other players at the end of the contest. Which button do you press?
• 9. Quote a line or sequence of lines from a movie. (Entries which differ slightly in phrasing or which quote different lengths of text will be considered the same as long as the material quoted is sufficient to make clear the scene and movie being quoted.)

MOJO3

• 0. Name or describe a method of producing electricity. (I will generally be lenient in viewing differently worded answers or methods in the same general class as the same.)
• 1. Write an adjective.
• 2. Pick an urban legend.
• 3.
• 4. Write a complete sentence in a language other than English. (You may write it phoenetically if you wish, but you should then tell me the intended language and English translation. Punctuation will not be considered important in determining if two entries are the same.)
• 5. Name a type of food or drink.
• 6. Name a person.
• 7. Name an rare or "deviant" sexual fetish or practice.
• 8. Consider the following game. You and nine other readers from rec.puzzles and rec.games.trivia are placed in separate rooms, and given two buttons, "C" (for cooperate) and "D" (for defect), and given ten minutes to decide which button to press. If everyone presses "C," you will all get $1000. If at least one person presses "D," then everyone who presses "D" will get $100, while those who press "C" will get nothing. Which button you pressed will not be revealed to the other players at the end of the contest. Which button do you press?
  (This question was just asked in MOJO2. In that contest, the result was 31 C's and 23 D's.)
• 9. Write a word which has more vowels than consonants, and which is greater than or equal to four letters in length.

MOJO4

• 0. Quote a line or sequence of lines from a book. (Entries which differ slightly in phrasing or which quote different lengths of text will be considered the same as long as the material quoted is sufficient to make clear the text and section being quoted.)
• 1. Name a person whose last name begins with the letter "A".
• 2. Name one of the seven deadly sins. (Answers will be counted as different if they give different words, even if those words are synonyms.)
• 3. Write a word which begins with the letter "p".
• 4. Name a landlocked U.S. state.
• 5. Name a movie in which Winona Ryder had a major role.
• 6. Name an activity which humans engage in for leisure.
• 7. Name or describe a type of phobia (Describing a phobia will be considered the same as naming it.)
• 8. Consider the following game known as "Prisoner's Dilemna." You and another reader from rec.puzzles or rec.games.trivia are placed in separate rooms, and given two buttons, "C" (for cooperate) and "D" (for defect). If you both press "C," you will both get $200 (American), while if you both press "D" you will each get $100. However, if one of you presses "D," while the other presses "C," the "D"-presser will get $300, while the "C"-presser will get $50.
  You and the other player are to play THREE consecutive rounds of this game, being informed of the results of each round before the next round starts. Which button will you press in the first round?
• 9. Name a type of hard liquor or mixed drink.

MOJO5

• 0. Name an invention which appears in Leonardo Da Vinci's sketches or drawings, but did not appear in working form until after his death.
• 1. Name a country in Europe other than Andorra, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Liechtenstein, San Marino, Vatican City, or Singapore.
• 2. Pick a sign of the zodiac.
• 3. Name a fictional place.
• 4. Name a former King of England.
• 5. Pick a brand of prescription drug.
• 6. Name a dead Norwegian.
• 7. Name a 19th century war which involved at least one European power.
• 8. Name a type of musical instrument.
• 9. Pick a word which begins with the letter "o".

MOJO6

• 0. Name a type of food associated with England.
• 1. Name a work of art produced in the last 100 years.
• 2. Name a country in Europe other than Andorra, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, or Switzerland.
• 3. Name a fairy tale.
• 4. Name a film director.
• 5. Give the name of a chess opening (different names for the same chess opening will be counted as the same).
• 6. Name a breed of dog.
• 7. Give a good name for a dog.
• 8. Name an event of nature by which a person could be accidentally killed.
• 9. Name a word which begins with the letter d, and is over four letters long.

MOJO7.ANTONYMS

• 1. butterfly
• 2. art
• 3. describe
• 4. fog
• 5. dumpling
• 6. Enron
• 7. poker
• 8. button
• 9. epidemic
• 10. president