The Best Questions to Ask in a Guessing Game

What makes a guessing-game question useful?

• It tests one clear property.
• Both possible answers would eliminate candidates.
• It builds on the existing clue trail.
• It avoids assuming facts that have not been established.
• It is broad enough for the current stage of the mystery.

1. List the broad kinds of answers that still fit.
2. Find one property that separates those possibilities.
3. Ask that property as a clear yes-or-no question.
4. Remove candidates that conflict with the answer.
5. Choose the next question from the smaller remaining set.

Useful opening questions

• Is it living? This removes either living subjects or nonliving subjects.
• Is it a real person or real living subject? This can separate factual identities from fictional characters when the rules permit that wording.
• Is it human-made? This separates inventions and structures from natural subjects.
• Is it a place? This removes people, animals, portable objects, and many events.
• Is it physical? This can separate tangible subjects from ideas, systems, or cultural works.

Questions for people and characters

• Is the person or character fictional? It separates created characters from historical or living people.
• Was this person alive before 1900? It divides broad historical periods when the subject is real.
• Is this person best known for science? It removes candidates mainly associated with politics, art, sport, or literature.
• Is this character from a book? It separates literary characters from those originating in film, television, folklore, or games.

1. Establish whether the identity is real or fictional.
2. Narrow the time period or originating medium.
3. Ask about the main field, role, or story.
4. Test a distinctive achievement or characteristic before guessing.

Questions for animals and nature

• Is it an animal? This separates animals from plants, fungi, habitats, and natural phenomena.
• Is it a mammal? This removes birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and invertebrates.
• Does it live mainly in water? This distinguishes aquatic from mainly land-based species.
• Is it extinct? This separates living species from organisms known only from the past.
• Does it eat other animals? This can narrow candidates after habitat and biological group are known.

1. Identify the kind of natural subject.
2. Ask about biological group or whether it is extinct.
3. Narrow by habitat and movement.
4. Use diet, size, or a distinctive adaptation as a later clue.

Questions for places and landmarks

• Is it human-made? It separates monuments and structures from mountains, canyons, reefs, and other natural places.
• Is it in Europe? It removes places on every other continent.
• Is it a single structure? It separates buildings and monuments from cities, countries, and large landscapes.
• Was it built before 1900? It creates a broad historical division for constructed landmarks.
• Is it associated with a capital city? It can distinguish landmarks after the region is known.

1. Determine whether the place is natural or human-made.
2. Narrow the continent or broad region.
3. Identify the type of place or structure.
4. Use purpose, period, material, or nearby city as a later distinction.

Questions for objects and inventions

• Can one person carry it? It separates portable objects from large machines and fixed structures.
• Does it normally use electricity? It removes either powered devices or non-electrical tools.
• Is it mainly used for communication? It narrows toward telephones, radios, printing systems, and related inventions.
• Does it have moving parts? It separates many machines from simpler tools and static objects.
• Is it used to observe something too small or distant to see clearly? It narrows toward optical instruments.

1. Determine whether it is portable or fixed.
2. Ask about power source or moving parts.
3. Narrow by its main function.
4. Test the setting, period, or distinctive mechanism before guessing.

Avoid questions that waste a turn

• Repeated: “Is it alive?” after asking “Is it living?”
• Overly specific: “Is it the Eiffel Tower?” before establishing that the answer is a human-made landmark.
• Subjective: “Is it beautiful?” or “Is it scary?”
• Ambiguous: “Is it big?” without a comparison standard.
• Compound: “Is it old and made of stone?” because a mixed answer is difficult to interpret.

1. Check whether the clue has already been established.
2. Replace an identity guess with a broader shared property.
3. Replace an opinion word with an observable characteristic.
4. Define relative terms such as large, old, or nearby.
5. Split a compound question into one property at a time.

Match each question to the clue trail

• Early round: establish category and broad origin.
• Middle round: narrow by subgroup, region, function, habitat, or period.
• Late round: distinguish a small number of candidates with one decisive property.
• Identity guess: use when the candidate fits the full clue trail.

1. Review all confirmed clues.
2. Name two or more candidates that still fit.
3. Find one property on which those candidates differ.
4. Ask about that property.
5. Repeat until one candidate clearly fits better than the rest.

Practice with the Is It This? categories

• Compare Abraham Lincoln and Sherlock Holmes by asking whether the subject was a real person.
• Compare a blue whale and a bald eagle by asking whether the animal lives mainly in the ocean.
• Compare the Grand Canyon and the Eiffel Tower by asking whether the place is human-made.
• Compare a compass and a telephone by asking whether the object normally uses electricity.

1. Open one category page.
2. Choose two answers from that category.
3. Identify one property they do not share.
4. Turn that property into a clear yes-or-no question.
5. Check whether both a yes and a no would eliminate one of the two.