A quiz is a form of game or mind sport in which the players as individuals
or in teams attempt to answer questions correctly. Quizzes are also brief
assessments used in education and similar fields to measure growth in
knowledge, abilities, and/or skills.
Quizzes are usually scored in points and
many quizzes are designed to
determine a winner from a group of participants usually the participant
with the highest score.
The first appearance of the word is from 1784 and
means an odd person. This sense survives today in the word quizzical.
It was also used in the term quizzing glass, a common accoutrement of British Regency dandies.
It later acquired a meaning of to make fun of, or to mock. How it acquired
its current meaning of a test is unknown, but that sense did not appear until
1867 and then it was in the United States.
The OED2 has a citation from
1847 where the word appears: She com back and quiesed us, which could
be a clue to its origin.
Quiz as a test could be a corruption of the Latin Qui es, meaning Who are
you. American Heritage says it may be from the English dialect verb quiset,
meaning to question. In any case it is probably from the same root as
question and inquisitive.
The Wikipedia model allows anyone to edit, and
relies on a large number of well intentioned editors to overcome issues
raised by a smaller number of problematic editors.
It is inherent in Wikipedia's editing model that poor information can be added,
but over time quality is anticipated to improve in a form of group learning as
editors reach consensus, so that substandard edits will very rapidly be
removed. This assumption is still being tested, and its limitations and
reliability are not yet a settled matter.
Wikipedia is a pioneer in communal knowledge building of this kind.
It contrasts with many more traditional models of knowledge and publishing,
which attempt to limit content creation to a relatively small group of
approved editors in order to exercise strong hierarchical control.
Theories of critical pedagogy argue that consensus alone maintains the
status quo. New knowledges only emerge from a dialectical exposure of
power structures. In order to improve reliability, some editors have called
for "stable versions" of articles.
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