COMPUTER-IMPLEMENTED DEDUCTIVE REASONING GAME

• US 20090143126A1
• Filed: 11/26/2008
• Published: 06/04/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 11/29/2007
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Mystery Competition, LLC
• Original Assignee: Mystery Competition, LLC
• Inventors: O'Kane, Collin B., O'Kane, Randall J. SR.
• Application Number:
  US12/323,941
• Publication Number:
  US 20090143126A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 463/9
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 7/02 of the type wherein the student is expected to construct an answer to the question which is presented or wherein the machine gives an answer to the question presented by a student

Abstract

A computer implemented method includes presenting a text passage to at least one participant, the text passage including a set of text fragments, each of the set of text fragments which provide clues as to a correct answer to an overall question. The method further includes receiving the participant'"'"'s answers to sub-questions associated with the set of text fragments, and receiving a participant'"'"'s selected answer to an overall question related to the text passage. The method further includes computing a score for the at least one participant, based on the selected answer to the overall question and the answers to the sub-questions.

Claims

1. A computer implemented method comprising:

presenting a text passage to at least one participant, the text passage comprising a set of text fragments, each of a subset of the set of text fragments providing a clue as to an answer to an overall question related to the text passage;

providing for the participant to input answers to sub-questions associated with a group of the text fragments which the participant deduces provide clues as to the answer to the overall question;

providing for the participant to select an answer to the overall question; and

computing a score for the at least one participant based on the selected answer to the overall question and the input answers to the sub-questions.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the text passage comprises a mystery story and the overall question relates to the perpetrator of a crime described in the mystery story and the answer to the overall question is the name of a suspect selected from a group of suspects.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the text passage comprises a non-fiction passage and the overall question relates to at least one of a location, event, and person.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising ranking a group of participants based on the computed scores.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the computing of the score comprises computing a first score based on the answers of a first set of participants;

computing a second score based on the answers of a second set of participants; and

comparing the first and second scores.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the presenting includes displaying the text passage on a screen.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the text passage is displayed by a web browser application on a participant'"'"'s computing device.

8. The method of claim 6, further comprising providing an active area of the screen for each of the set of text fragments, which when actuated, causes a sub-question associated with the respective text fragment to be displayed.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the active areas of the screen are identified by one of icons and the displayed text fragments.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein candidate answers for each sub-question comprise candidate answers for the overall question or concern the candidate answers for the overall question.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein each of the sub-questions requires the participant to indicate, based on the associated text fragment, whether a participant-selected one of the candidate answers is more or less likely to be the answer to the overall question.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein the participant'"'"'s answer to the overall question is selected from a set of candidate answers and the participant'"'"'s answers to the sub-questions are all selected from the same set of candidate answers.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein the participant'"'"'s answer to the overall question is selected from a set of candidate answers and the sub-questions are all questions each related to at least some of the same set of candidate answers.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the text passage comprises at least one paragraph.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the text fragments each comprise at least one sentence.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the text fragments each comprise an individual line of text.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein a respective sub-question is associated with each of the text fragments the set of text fragments.

18. The method of claim 1, further comprising identifying, to the participant, how many of the text fragments are in the subset.

19. The method of claim 18, wherein the scoring penalizes the participant for answering fewer or more sub-questions than the identified number of the text fragments that are in the subset.

20. The method of claim 1, wherein the participant is prompted to select, from the set of text fragments, only those text fragments that the participant considers are among the subset of text fragments which provide a clue as to a correct answer to the overall question and to answer the respective sub-question for each.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein the computing of the score includes reducing the score when the participant answers a sub-question associated with one of the text fragments which is not in the subset of text fragments.

22. The method of claim 1, wherein the computed score is also based on whether the participant has correctly identified each of the text fragments forming the subset of text fragments from the text.

23. The method of claim 1, further comprising causing the participant-selected text fragments to be highlighted.

24. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing a fixed time period for the participant to answer the overall question and sub-questions.

25. A computer program product encoding instructions, which when executed on a computer causes the computer to perform the method of claim 1.

26. A printout of at least one screen displayed for performing the method of claim 1.

27. A system for playing a deductive reasoning game comprising:

memory which stores instructions for presenting a text passage to at least one participant, the text passage comprising a set of text fragments, each of a subset of the set of text fragments providing a clue as to a correct answer to the overall question;

a processor in communication with the memory which;

receives a participant'"'"'s selected answer to an overall question related to the text passage,

receives a participant'"'"'s answers to sub-questions associated with selected ones of the set of text fragments, and

computes a score for the at least one participant based on the selected answer to the overall question and the received answers to the sub-questions.

28. The system of claim 27, wherein the score is a function of whether the participant has correctly identified each of the text fragments in the subset of text fragments.

29. A computer implemented method comprising:

displaying on a screen a text passage describing a mystery to at least one participant, the text passage comprising a set of text fragments which includes a predefined subset of text fragments, each of the text fragments in the subset providing a clue as to an overall answer to the mystery;

optionally, identifying, to the at least one participant, how many text fragments there are in the predefined subset of text fragments;

providing for the participant to interactively select from the set of text fragments, a group of the text fragments and for each of the group of text fragments, to input an answer to a sub-question and to input an answer an overall question related to solving the mystery;

receiving the participant'"'"'s input answers to the sub-questions and to the overall question;

computing a score for the at least one participant based on the input answer to the overall question and the input answers to the sub-questions which takes into account whether the participant correctly identified the predefined subset of text fragments.