"I'm from rural Georgia, so I didn't have much of an education to begin with," says Sandy Wood. Not that you'd ever know it now.
Now based in a suburb of Detroit, Wood and his wife, Kara Kovalchik, are the primary research editors for Mental Floss magazine, whose co-founder we interviewed as well. They also write the back page quiz that appears in the magazine, as well the daily facts and quizzes that appear on the Web site.
"When we approached them, at first they were saying, 'This is great, but let's start slow,'" recalls Wood. "But soon there was one thing they wanted us to do, and then another, and pretty soon we were working full time, sixty hours a week!"
The pair approached Mental Floss when it was still practically a start-up, having tried to flog a book based on their years hosting a chatroom-based game on AOL. "The research we did for the book was a solid foundation for us to approach other people," says Wood, who says he and Kovalchik wrote 25,000 questions in the eight years they hosted their AOL game.
Working with AOL also honed the pair's question writing skills, particularly since the text-based format allowed for an instant, and often vehement, feedback. "You learn how to write for all types of people and put them on an equal basis," says Wood. "For example, you can't have a question about White Castle hamburgers, because White Castle is only in the midwest and northeast. Somebody in California will have no idea what you're talking about.
For Wood, a good question makes you say one of three things. "It's either, 'Wow, I didn't know that.' Or, 'I used to know that, but I forgot it.' Or, 'I never did know that, but I'm glad I do now."
Wood and Kovalchik have adopted a style that is fully in keeping with the Mental Floss philosophy of making learning fun. Three sample quizzes produced by the pair are found below. Next up is a plan to add audio, and perhaps even video, to the online quizzes. "On AOL, we once had everybody start watching Airplane at the same time, and then we asked questions about the movie or threw in facts. It was a bit like Pop-Up Video."
Wood is always on the lookup for potential quiz ideas. He wears a portable recorder around his neck and even sleeps with it beside his bed. The quizzes themselves often follow tight thematic themes. Wood and Kovalchik brainstorm to come up with ideas for possible quizzes, then free-associate for question ideas, followed by a trip to Microsoft Bookshelf, on which he does keyword searches.
Indeed, the hunt for the perfect question can be as much fun as answering them. "I find you learn more from the questions you miss than the ones you get."
It also goes to show that even if you don't "have much of an education to begin with," you can always learn. And learn prodigiously.
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Correct answers: Question 1 Jane Pauley; Question 2 Jane Wyatt; Question 3 Jane Russell; Question 4 Jane Seymour (Joyce Penelope Wilhemina Frankenberg is her real name); Question 5 Jane Curtin. (Prymatt was Curtin's character in the SNL sketch and subsequent movie, 'Coneheads').
Copyright 2002-2004 Mental Floss, LLC, Reprinted with permission
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Correct answers: Question 1 pitchfork is different (it should have three tines, not four); Question 2 painting missing (should be on the wall, near the center of the image); Question 3 sword in hand (should be holding a hat instead); Question 4 hands different (reversed from their real positions); Question 5 entire painting reversed
Copyright 2002-2004 Mental Floss, LLC, Reprinted by permission
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Correct answers: Question 1 Nitrogen; Question 2 Monty Python and the Holy Grail; Question 3 zero; Question 4 Mediterranean Sea; Question 5 William McKinley (the other three were all born elsewhere in Ohio, as were Ulysses Grant, James Garfield and Benjamin Harrison).
Copyright 2002-2004 Mental Floss, LLC, Reprinted by permission
September 2004
