Hey everyone! 

BiggerPockets is making some new upgrades in 2017, and one of those could be QUIZZES!!!! You know your brain will thank you :) - but will you thank us? Below is a quiz for first time and early investors, and we would love your feedback! 

TAKE OUR BP QUIZ HERE!

1- Do you think this quiz will be helpful at teaching new investors about real estate in a fun and easy way? 

2 - Do you think it is misleading? 

3- Do you think quizzes are a great way to learn?

We would love thoughts from the experienced pros on whether this is a useful tool, and what other types of quizzes you would want to see! 

Thank you! I look forward to all your feedback and responses :)

1- Do you think this quiz will be helpful at teaching new investors about real estate in a fun and easy way? Possibly, I mean doesn't one have to 'learn' prior to being quizzed..? But I guess it could be structured such that you lay out a scenario, and the 'answers' would be how to proceed in a given situation.. or something like that..

2 - Do you think it is misleading? YES! AND UNFAIR..ok, not really. I just had a high school test flash back.. sorry, moving on to #3..

3- Do you think quizzes are a great way to learn? Absolutely.. again, it depends on how the quiz is given, but generally if reader can see other peoples answers, (and can compare with their answers) that in itself, would constitute learning.. and being online, this would be like a 'class assignment' lol

..I do think, however, it would be wise to have a 'quiz moderator'. Not everything in RE is right or wrong. Yes, there are laws to follow, but personal strategy plays a big part too..

1. Looking at the overall spread of scores - and I suppose I'm bragging here, but I scored 100% as I would have expected - I think it will be useful. Anyone who has done this for any amount of time ought to be able to ace it, but I can see how newbies would miss the mark on several of the questions.

2. No.

3. Well, if they are well done they can expose your weaknesses. I thought this was an easy quiz, but the answers may not be so evident for someone who doesn't have experience. So yes, this could be useful that way. Considering the fact that 50% of the people who took this quiz missed 2 or more questions, it probably is useful (as of this writing 6 of 12 scored below 90%, which is 2 or more questions out of 12 that were missed). 

Here is my thoughts I missed 2. Some of these are completely subjective. Where do most investors find their first deal? Completely depends on the market. Not to mention Driving for Dollars often LEADS to direct mail. 

I would gladly support more quizzes but I think that they need to be more content as opposed to strategy based. 

I would also suggest showing folks what they missed so they can learn. Vs just wonder what they missed! 

Everyone loves quizzes don't they? It was fun and could possibly show newer investors what they need to brush up on. I think a good one would be definitions of different terms such as Cap Ex, NOI, Etc. Nice first quiz. Keep up the good work.

@JD Martin

I aced it 100% and i still consider myself a newbie, no flip under my belt yet, common sense i guess

What about this additional question:

What’s the best way to begin a conversation with strangers on a public forum?

1. “I have $100,000 in cold hard cash and no plan, can you help me?”
2. “Would you like to partner with me on the biggest investment I’ve made in my life?”
3. “Could someone please let me borrow important legal documents, like a lease?”
4. “Here are my goals. Anyone have similar ones? Can you tell me a little bit about your experience as an investor in my city having recently achieved what I’m setting out to do?”

:)

1- Do you think this quiz will be helpful at teaching new investors about real estate in a fun and easy way?

No.  The way the quiz questions and answers are phrased are not effective in significantly moving the needle of educating BP members.  They just seem amateurish and obvious to achieve your goals. (FYI, I am a newbie but have done a bit of reading and listening to BP podcasts.)  

2 - Do you think it is misleading?

It's not misleading. But some of the questions can be more subjective than the answers provided.  Either phrase them differently or avoid them completely.

3- Do you think quizzes are a great way to learn?

Quizzes without context are no good.  Combined with specific events or carefully crafted scenarios, they CAN work.

For the record. I missed the first question for a score of 91%.

I think quizzes could be helpful as well as fun, however, the questions and the answers need to be written better and none of the questions should have subjective answers. From memory, I think there were 2 of them.

Some of the questions mixed strategies (or perhaps did not specify one) and should be clearly defined. All in all, a good idea IF the questions are written well. Upon completion of a quiz, the user should be able to see which questions they got incorrect and be then retake those questions so they get to the correct answer. Otherwise, the user is left guessing which were missed.

Hey guys - this is great feedback. Can you please point out specifically which questions are poorly written and/or subjective? You can click back at any time to review the answers to the quiz.

@Will Barnard , @Kevin Tran

And @Ryan Dossey  - Thank you for the specific feedback there!

I had not considered that there are a significant amount of markets where the majority of first time investors are transacting on their first real estate investment off-market and/or without the use of licensed brokers and agents. How might you rephrase the question?

@Scott Trench  

I'd even gladly help you guys put some of these together. 

I would honestly probably remove that question all together. How are folks getting their first deals? You've got newspaper ads, craigslist, fsbo, door knocking, cold calling, bandit signs, MLS, wholesalers, referrals, garage sales, and the list goes on and on.

If I was going to do something like this I think that a fill in the blank with acceptable answers would be more effective for "lead generation strategies."

I would think gearing quizzes at specific "areas" would be beneficial. Maybe even make "passing" them a badge or something. 

Do one on land lording, one on marketing, one on commercial properties, deal evaluation, wholesaling, BRRR, Etc.

Could be neat to have the "experts" of BP in that field assist in the quiz prep. 

Thank you everyone for your feedback! It's greatly valuable. 

I definitely agree that showing the mistakes would be a great addition, so people can learn from the quizzes.

Also @Rob Donovan - great idea on a quiz based on terms of real estate investing. I think that would be beneficial to everyone :)

Yes just do it. I'm new and need to hear everyone's input. Plus, imagine the great debates that will follow.

Just a thought here, but the questions could be focused around a scenario/story (at the risk of getting to wordy with a single question).  What I've valued the most from this forum is reading the lessons learned from posts like "How I Made 12 Deadly Mistakes..." by Adriel Hsu recently.  These posts provide a wealth of new information including the lessons learned as well as ballpark cost ranges for specific rehabs.  The material is already right here. It's just a matter of repackaging and formulating the questions around the "right" thing to do.  Just my IMO, guys.  good luck.

I think there informative, however; I think that there should be a section that reveals the answers as well.☺️

I love the concept of a quiz as a learning tool. Keep going with this. I would like to see more of these.  

I'd add some quantitative deal analysis questions but it was fun

I love the idea of quizzes, however, this one missed the mark. I got 100% on it, which the quiz claims puts me in the 90-100 pertcentile, even though almost 50% of people were in that category; that's already a pretty big strike against. I think the last question hit the nail on the head, however; there is no right or wrong way to invest in real estate. If you make money consistently over the years, that speaks for itself, and all the subjective questions are meaningless. Even the ones that weren't subjective were not well-researched, I suspect. For instance, "most first-time investors use conventional financing?" I think that's very likely true, but what data sources are you using? Or are you (like I suspect) just using common sense, without any real information to back it up, except maybe some anecdotal evidence? (To be fair, I used to be a data analyst, so a pet peeve of mine is when people make up "facts". I know a lot people don't care about that.) The whole quiz just reads like someone who read a couple real estate books, but never did the work to gain real experience in the industry.

A more useful quiz, in my opinion, would be to ask real, non-subjective questions based on finance theory, US real estate tax accounting rules, or general real estate law. I realize that those are much harder to make than your standard clickbait quiz, but it would potentially add real value, rather than cluttering up the site with more distracting nonsense. I love the idea, but if you actually want to make it valuable, be prepared to spend some time on it, do real research, and have it peer reviewed prior to publishing.

If you're going to make quizzes, an aid like flash cards through anki might provide additional guidance to newbies. Of course, newbies can make their own cards through anki or the other flash card sites and apps, just as any student would, but if you're looking to educate, flash cards would be another angle to take this.

First, if I didn't love BP I wouldn't be here and I sure wouldn't be paying them. But....

What do I think? Really?

I'd like to ask a simple question........who on the BP staff has the education, experience and knowledge of real estate and financial investing that qualifies them to develop a quiz or related subject matter as an educational program? Who? 

I'm pretty sure, there isn't anyone. 

Any techie can compile data or information and use that to form a question, biased as it may be, but when the information used is nothing more than assumptions, opinions or "rules of thumb" the only thing that might be accomplished (from an educational standpoint) is a reinforcement of what can be poor, misleading or incomplete information. 

Let's be honest, BP is not an educational site, it is a social internet site that uses real estate investing as its common interest. It's really about internet traffic, hits, content and activity that drives the advertising and products sold as the business goal. I'm sure someone's job is to constantly figure how to increase traffic using real estate as a topic. This is a good example of such a goal.

IMO, members should understand that the educational aspects of networking comes from other members, a very few number I might add and learning from others really hinges on the ability to identify who is experienced and qualified and who is not, as well as what good and poor advice might be.  That's tough for a newbie to do.

Which brings me to the point of responsibility and trust. Generally, BP is not legally responsible for anything on this site.  

Seems a quiz is to test knowledge, what is tested implies there is a factual correct solution or answer to a question. What we get when the subject matter isn't correct or it is skewed, is the quiz becomes more of a brain washing tool. The assumption of any naive newbie is that the information is correct, as well as the answer and that is based on trust which is often misplaced on the internet, especially with gurus. 

Now, someone might say Bill is just busting chops because he has an education site.....No! Not at all, there is a far cry between what I do and what is attempted to be shown or taught on BP! Others were directly involved in developing materials, State approved real estate instructors, State University Administrators, development of testing, tech support and about a year ago, Josh called it "an honest attempt to teach" real estate. We don't have such staff support on BP to my knowledge. So, it's about the trust the public puts into the information they are exposed to, it's not the messenger. There's a lot of folklore here

So, instead of BP making the implication they are "teaching" they might attempt to consolidate information, cross reference investing techniques, such as what deed goes with what strategy, the deed then defined, the pros and cons of the strategy, quicker references to search.    

 Now, like I said, I love BP!  :)        

If you incorporate them into some sort of course, I think they would be helpful. But on their own, I think they wouldn't be of much use.

Quizs could be useful,however the one that's posted currently is subjective and rather arbitrary. Much of the value in quizs will be in properly explaining the answers for questions that are both objective and useful.

Also I don't know why you are using the term "misleading".

That was fun. I got just 1 wrong. I did not think it was subjective. The questions hit some real situations, like all the people that want to start but have no money and bad credit. 

I found all the answers were marked when I hit the back button on my browser. Maybe make a note of that at the end.

Thanks