The Little Exam

Game rules

The goal of this game is to gain the maximum number of points by finding a word beginning with a given letter and corresponding to a given category.
In each round, 5 categories and 5 letters are given randomly. Then, players have a limited time to give a word corresponding to each category and beginning with the indicated letter. During this limited time, players are asked to think individually, so chatting and noise are forbidden. Giving solutions or hints is forbidden on the table, and the player who disobeys this rule might be kicked out. Search engines and dictionaries are of course forbidden!


Once the thinking time is up, the judge sees the answers of other players and decides whether they are right or wrong. Each correct answer gives a player 2 points, if he/ she is the only player to suggest it. If more than one player suggests the same answer, it gives them only 1 point each. The winner of the game is the first one to attain a fixed number of points, generally 20, 25, or 30.

The playroom suggests three difficulty levels: easy, medium, and difficult. The difference between these three levels lays in the difference of available categories in each one. In easy mode, only the relatively generic categories are used. In medium level, we use all the categories provided in the easy mode, + a new series including more restrictive and precise designations. In difficult mode, we use all the categories used in the two levels mentioned above, + another series containing more detailed and less evident things. The easy mode contains almost 25 categories, 60 for the medium level, and between 80 and 100 for the difficult mode.

The judge

A judge is chosen at the beginning of each round. He/ she does not play, yet his/ her role is to assess answers. The judge is not allowed to know in advance who wrote what, and this is made in order to avoid all kinds of favoritism and cheating.

The judge Is free to accept or not the familiar or vulgar terms, to be strict with spelling, or to accept original and fanciful ideas. He/ she might resort to dictionaries to check answers. The best thing is that the players establish an agreement of what is accepted and what is not, before starting the game. In general terms, we try to maintain a more or less correct spelling without considering the accented letters, and for famous people categories, players are asked to give the first letter of the last name of the person, and not their first name or pseudonym, in order not to make the game too easy.

There are two ways to choose the judge: either each player becomes judge at his/ her turn, which changes from one round to another, or the judge is chosen in advance and that player stays the judge during the entire game. The latter mode is particularly useful for tournaments, while the former one is well-suited for friendly games.

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