Ankur's Quick Fire

Questions come up one at a time and the whole game is a single tap, so the fastest correct thumb in the batch ends the night on top.

Who this is for

Ankur Rastogi runs an evening SSC batch above a sweet shop in Bareilly. Thirty-one students, one whiteboard, one ceiling fan that rattles. The last fifteen minutes of class are dead time. Bags get zipped, phones come out, two boys at the back have already stopped listening. That is the slot he wants back, and he wants it back in a way the quiet girl in the third row also joins.

How the job is done today

Ankur reads a question out and shouts go. The same three loud boys answer first every single time, so the rest have learnt to stay quiet. He cannot tell who was actually fast and who just spoke loudest. Some nights he puts a poll in the batch WhatsApp group instead, but the answer sits there for an hour, everyone sees what the others picked, and by the time the last student votes the question is worthless. He keeps a rough ranking in his head and it is mostly wrong.

The screens, in order

1. Set the round — Ankur types or pastes his questions with the four options and marks which one is correct, then opens the room.
2. Room code — Shows one short code on the board so students can get in without an account or a password.
3. Name and wait — A student types their name, sees who else has joined, and waits for Ankur to start.
4. The question — The question sits at the top, the four options come up one after another at the same speed on every phone, and the only thing a student can do is tap.
5. After the question — Tells each student in a line whether they got it and where they stand right now, then moves on before anyone can argue.
6. Standings — The full order at the end of the round, top name at the top, so the class knows who won and by how little.

What it keeps track of

• Round — which batch, who ran it, which evening, how many questions, whether it is still open
• Question — the question, the four options in the order they will appear, which one is right, how long each option stays on screen
• Player — name as typed, which round they joined, which phone they came in on
• Tap — which player, which question, which option was showing when they tapped, how long after the right option appeared

The one decision that matters

The one control means options have to move on their own, and the question is who controls the moving. Option one, each phone cycles the four options at its own pace and the student taps on the right one. Option two, all thirty-one phones show the same option at the same instant, driven from Ankur's screen. Go with option two. In option one a fast tap only proves that a student was lucky enough to have the correct option come up first, and the ranking becomes nonsense. When every phone is in step, the only thing being measured is the gap between the right answer appearing and the thumb landing, which is exactly what Ankur wants to know and exactly what the loud boys at the back cannot fake.

What to leave out of the first version

No accounts, no history, no term-long points table. A round lives for the fifteen minutes it is played and then it is over. The moment you store standings across weeks, Ankur starts getting asked about a wrong name, a student who joined twice, a phone that hung on question nine. Let the first version be something he can start in twenty seconds and abandon without consequence. Also skip images in questions, since half the batch is on a slow connection.

How you would know it worked

On an evening Ankur runs late and skips it, three students ask him for the round before he has finished the chapter. And the girl in the third row who never answers aloud finishes second.

Build it

Paste this in and let it run.

I run an evening SSC batch in Bareilly with about thirty students and I want a quiz they can play on their phones in the last fifteen minutes of class. I should be able to paste in twenty questions, each with four options, and mark the correct one. Students open a link, type their name, and wait. When I start, the question shows and the four options come up one after another at the same speed on every phone, and the only thing a student can do is tap the screen when the right answer is showing. Tapping while a wrong option is up means that question is finished for them. Rank them on how quickly they tapped after the correct option came up. Show a short standings line after each question and the full order at the end. No signup, no passwords, and it must work on a slow phone.