While PickSome has certain characteristics in common with PickOne, it is rather different from a gameplay point of view: a PickSome question with five items is basically a set of five "Yes or no?" questions. For example, if the game asks you to select the former Soviet republics from a list of five countries, you basically have to make a "was part of Soviet Union or not" decision five times--and every time you will (after you submit your selections) win or lose points.
Answering Interface[]
The Answering Interface of a PickSome question presents multiple buttons. Initially they are all gray. If you select a button, it turns orange. By tapping on it again, you can deselect it (= make it gray again).
| selected | not selected |
|---|---|
 |
 |
When you are happy with your selections, tap on Submit. If and when you run out of time before doing so, your selections as of that moment will be automatically submitted and scored.
Solution Display and Scoring Rules[]
The Solution Display for a PickSome question puts a green checkmark on each button you correctly selected, and a red X on each button you incorrectly selected or incorrectly left unselected (i.e., you should have selected it, but didn't).
Each correct selection earns you a fraction of the number of points winnable on the current question. For each incorrect selection (including incorrectly leaving an item unselected), you lose half the number of points you would have won otherwise.
Mathematically, this means that you will score if the number of incorrect items doesn't exceed the number of correct selections by a factor of two or more.
At the end of the Solution Display, only the correct answers to the question (whether or not you knew them) will still be perfectly legible while the other buttons fade out, ultimately disappearing entirely:
Boosters[]
The Remove booster allows you to take out one button of your choosing at a time. After tapping on the booster icon, you get to select the button that will be thrown out. This makes sense if there's a button you just don't know whether to select or leave unselected (and if you don't have a Reveal booster available, which would solve that part of the question for you). By removing such a button, you eliminate the risk of a deduction of points for getting that one wrong.
The Reveal booster sets the correct state (selected or unselected) for one button of your choosing at a time. After tapping on the booster icon, you get to select the button that will be solved for you. This is better than merely throwing it out with the Remove booster: by revealing that part of the answer, you are sure to get points if this item is one that you should have selected (as opposed to only avoiding a deduction).
The Hint booster tells you how many correct answers the current question has. After you tap on the icon, a popup with that information appears:
After you've used the Hint booster on a PickSome question (you can only use it once), it gets a gray badge that indicates the number of correct answers:
If you tap on it again, the popup comes up another time.
Retries[]
Additional attempts (up to three, meaning four attempts in total if one counts the initial try) are available.
Post-Solution Information[]
Some PickSome questions have a post-solution information (text and/or link) relating to the question itself. Typically, some post-solution information is also available with respect to famous persons, things, or concepts that are either a right answer or a wrong answer to the question.
Strategy[]
While exceptions prove the rule, a five-item PickSome question in Quizcover typically has two, three or four items that are correct answers to the question. Therefore, if you have absolutely no idea and don't have boosters available or don't want to spend them, you will get at least a few points most (but not all) of the time if you simply select all buttons.
User Benefits[]
With a single PickSome question it's often possible to present multiple facts in parallel, thereby putting things in context.
Old-fashioned PickOne-only trivia games squeeze all sorts of things into the PickOne pattern that should be presented differently, and in many cases, a PickSome question is a superior alternative.
For example, other games often come with questions such as the following:
"Which of these are the branches of the U.S. government?"
As a PickOne question, each button would contain a list:
- "executive, legislature, judiciary" (correct)
- "legislature, fiscal, military"
- "air force, navy, police, CIA"
- "judiciary, cabinet, law enforcement"
Such questions can be very tiring. In a PickSome format, each word just gets its own button. Another example would be a question about the colors of a flag.
In order to avoid lists, old-fashioned trivia games sometimes try another trick, which isn't much better in the end:
"Which of these is not a former U.S. president?"
- Benjamin Franklin (correct; he didn't serve as president)
- Thomas Jefferson
- George Washington
- George W. Bush
The problem with such negated questions is that one easily overlooks the negation particle ("not") and just taps on the first president one spots on the list. In the PickSome format, such questions can be phrased positively:
"Which of these men served as president of the United States?"
Much more intuitive that way.