Streak Bonuses in Live Quiz Games: How They Work

In many live quiz games, the winner is whoever is fastest on the first few questions. A student who starts slowly or misreads one question can feel out of it by question four, and then the phone goes back in the desk. A streak bonus is one way to change that. It rewards getting several right in a row, so consistency matters and not only speed.

Kwizzy has a streak bonus that you can turn on or off when you start a game. Here is exactly how it scores, what students see, and when it is worth leaving on.

How the scoring works

Without a streak bonus, a correct answer scores between 500 and 1,000 points, depending on how quickly the student answers within the question's time window. A wrong answer or no answer scores zero.

The streak bonus adds to that. Every correct answer in a row builds the streak. When a student gets the next question right, the bonus is 100 points for each correct answer they have in a row just before it, up to five. So:

• First correct answer: no bonus, since there is no streak yet.
• Second correct answer in a row: 100 extra points.
• Third in a row: 200 extra.
• And so on, up to a bonus of 500 on a sixth correct answer in a row or later.

A wrong answer, a missed question or an answer after time is up ends the streak. The next right answer starts the count again from zero. The bonus is capped, so a long streak cannot run away with the game, and a student who is a little slower but never wrong can still catch someone faster who stumbled.

The server works all of this out. Students cannot change their own score by editing anything on their phone.

What students see

Each student's phone counts their own streak. After the answer is revealed, they see how many they have in a row and how many bonus points that earned. If they lose a streak, the phone says so in an encouraging way and points to the next question as a fresh start. At the end of the game, the phone shows their best streak.

This feedback does as much as the points. A student who sees "4 in a row" on their screen tends to slow down for the next question, which is the behavior you want when you are reviewing a topic.

Turning it on or off

When you create a live game, there is a streak bonus setting on the start screen, and it is on by default. Turn it off if you want pure speed-and-accuracy scoring, for example when you are running a quick warm-up and the points hardly matter.

It works alongside team mode. If you split the class into teams, each student's streak still counts for their own score, and the team score is the average of its members. A single student on a long streak lifts the team without dominating it.

When it helps, and when it does not

A streak bonus tends to help in these situations:

• Mixed-ability classes. Steady accuracy earns more than a fast guess.
• Review before a test. Students are rewarded for knowing a run of related facts, which matches what a test asks.
• Longer quizzes. Streaks only matter once there are enough questions for them to build. Try a quiz with at least ten.

It helps less when:

• The quiz is very short. With five questions, a streak barely forms.
• Questions are uneven. If one hard question sits between easy ones, one miss breaks a streak that the student otherwise earned. Order your questions so difficulty rises gradually, or keep the hardest ones for the end.
• You want to see where students struggle. A bonus does not change what the questions measure, but it can make one wrong answer look costlier than it is. Say out loud that a lost streak is normal.

Solo play and homework do not have a streak bonus in the score. Solo players still see their streak on screen as feedback.

Trying it

A quiz with plenty of short questions is ideal for seeing the effect. Fractions on a Bar works well for younger students, and The Solar System or World Capitals suit a quick whole-class game. Hosting is available on a free account. If you want to run bigger games more often, or see which questions students missed after each game, the pricing page shows what the paid plans add.