Speed-check

Speed-check questions are very short questions which teams buzz in on. Such questions are rarely pyramidal due to their length. Speed-check questions often appear in lightning rounds.

If all teams get to buzz on speed check questions, speed-checks are inherently bad quizbowl because they do not allow for players that know more about the topic to demonstrate that they know more by buzzing earlier. As the name implies, speed-check questions often reward the winner of a buzzer race rather than the player who recognized a fact first, a frustrating experience which occurs far less frequently when there are multiple clues to distinguish all players.

Notable users of speed-check questions include Questions Galore and several televised programs, such as Battle of the Brains and It's Academic.