Facetious quizzes

If you are a teacher, you probably know this quiz. Students read and perform a list of tasks, only to realize that they were only to read the quiz, put their names on the paper, and stop. This shows how poorly we pay attention to directions or read things unattentively. Now, if the students went to grade school in the US, they may have already done this in school. I find that some of my students in Korea were familiar with this, too. So keep in mind that this may not work if enough of your students took this before. There are various forms of this quiz. I have two versions that I give out - some get version 1, some get version 2 - just to make things more interesting. It will probably take more than three minutes, depending on students' levels.

1 Directions quiz

1.1 3-minute Quiz (version 1)

Can you follow directions?

1. Read everything before doing anything.
2. Put your name in the upper right hand corner of this paper.
3. Circle the word ‘name' in the second sentence.
4. Raise your hand and yell, "I am a genius”.
5. Draw five small squares in the upper left hand corner of this paper.
6. Put an "X" in each square.
7. Write the word "yak" under the title of this paper.
8. Draw a picture of a penguin in the lower left-hand corner of this paper.
9. Draw a rectangle around the word ‘paper' in sentence #5.
10. Yell out your first name when you get to this point in the quiz.
11. Stand up and say, "I am a beautiful flower.”
12. If you think that you have followed the directions carefully so far, call out "I have!”
13. Yell out, "I am a good English student”.
14. On the reverse side of this paper, add the numbers 8950 and 9805.
15. Put a circle around your answer to #14, and put a square around the circle.
16. In a normal voice, count from ten to one backwards in English.
17. Punch three small holes in the top of this paper with your pencil point.
18. If you are the first person in the class to get this far, shout out "I am the fastest and the best in following directions!”
19. Underline all even numbers on this page (2, 4...).
20. Now that you have finished reading carefully, do only sentences one and two.

1.2 3-minute Quiz (version 2)

Can you follow directions?

1. Read everything before doing anything.
2. Put your name in the left hand corner of this paper.
3. Circle the word ‘name' in the second sentence.
4. Raise your hand and yell, "I am a genius”.
5. Draw five small squares in the upper right corner of this paper.
6. Put an "X" in each square.
7. Write the word "yak" under the title of this paper.
8. Draw a picture of a penguin in the lower left-hand corner of this paper.
9. Draw a rectangle around the word ‘paper' in sentence #5.
10. Yell out your first name when you get to this point in the quiz.
11. Stand up and say, "I am a beautiful flower.”
12. Open your English textbooks or one of your school books. Write the title of that book at the bottom of this paper.
13. If you think that you have followed the directions carefully so far, call out "I can follow English directions!”
14. On the reverse side of this paper, write out the value of π as far as you can.
15. Put a circle around your answer to #14, and put a square around the circle.
16. In a normal voice, count from ten to one backwards in English.
17. Write the name of the British Prime Minister:
18. If you are the first person in the class to get this far, shout out "I am the fastest and the best in following directions!”
19. Underline all odd numbers on this page (1, 3...).
20. Now that you have finished reading carefully, do only sentences one and two.