Double The Fun: Play A Game While Playing A Game

When a task becomes routine, sometimes you need to change it up to keep everyone motivated and engaged. And unfortunately, about midway through the season, quiz practice becomes – dare I say it? – boring. Boring for the coach and boring for the quizzers.

If you are like me, you look for games to play to make mundane jobs exciting again. Jogging? Pretend there is a pack of wild dogs chasing you. Cleaning up your room? Set a timer and try to break your previous record. (The key to this one is to not play with the stuff you find!). For quiz practice, sometimes we’ll play “King of the Hill” or “Bible Baseball”. But even those get repetitive after a while. So I thought: what could we play every week that would encourage every quizzer to be actively involved, provide a different experience each time we play, cover a lot of questions, and use the quiz equipment so we can improve our jumping techniques?

Our answer? A card game designed specifically for Teen Bible Quizzing. 

Yes, we play a game while playing a game. But if you want to encourage your quizzers to try new things and attempt to answer questions they would normally be hesitant to do, try Bible Quiz Challenge Cards at your next quiz practice (or even at a quiz meet!).
 
How To Play
 
The concept is simple: while quizzing at practice, teens accrue points for certain achievements based on the Challenge Cards they complete. The cards have different point values based on the difficulty of the challenge:

• Common cards are worth 1 point
• Rare cards are worth 2 points
• Legendary cards are worth 4 points
• Exotic cards are worth 8 points

The way we play the game, a quizzer can hold 5 cards at a time and can only replace completed cards and swap incomplete cards between games. Completed cards are held by the quizzer until the end of the event. Additionally, the mission printed on the card can only be completed while in possession the card. For example, if the card requires the quizzer to “accumulate 2 Memory Verse questions”, any Memory Verse question answered prior to obtaining that card doesn’t count.

I currently use one deck of 96 cards from which my quizzers choose 5 to fill their hand. As there are only 1 of each card, there is a bit of strategy involved when selecting cards!
 
How To Win
 
Award small prizes or candy for the most Challenge Card points achieved or the most Challenge Cards completed at the conclusion of the quiz practice (or the quiz meet, if you choose to do so).
 
Make Your Own Rules (aka Calvinball)
 
There are many different ways you can use these cards using customized rules to fit your team goals and resources:

• Quizzer can complete the same card more than once. Or not.
• Make duplicates of the cards. Or not.
• Completed cards are turned in and available for other quizzers to pick up. Or not.
• Quizzers must have at least one card of each difficulty in their hand. Or not.
• Quizzers are limited to 1 Exotic card in their hand. Or not.

To keep it interesting, I sometimes change the rules from week to week.
 
Make (or Purchase) Your Own Deck
 
I started by making my own cards using Avery #5390 Name Badge Insert paper and my word processing software.  Of course you could also use any size of template paper or simply cut the cards out of card stock. Here are some examples of the cards I made:

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But if you are not the artistic or imaginative type – or just don’t have the time – you can purchase pre-made, premium quality playing cards as shown in these pictures. These cards come in 2 series of 48 cards each. Each deck costs just $8.99:

• Series 1 Challenge Cards are primarily intended for practices, but can also be used during competition.
• Series 2 Challenge Cards are designed to be played during competition conditions (at practice or at a quiz meet).

Personally, I use all 96 cards at Quiz Practice and at Quiz Meets with great success. For some quizzers, it adds a level of excitement and attentiveness to an otherwise routine quiz tournament.

But whatever you do, the choice is yours! Make it fun!

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