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.