Bear Quiz

The six questions, in outline

Bears look like one kind of animal and live like several, and these six questions probe the places where easy assumptions wear thin. Winters are one subject — what bears actually do about the cold season, as opposed to the storybook of it. Diets are another: what a bear eats across a year is worth asking about precisely, not by reputation. And then there is size, because among the bears one kind grows biggest, and the quiz would like to know whether you can pick it out of four.

How every answer was verified

The answer key was not written once and trusted. Fauna’s whole dataset — a question catalog plus structured reference tables — was filled in twice, by two authors working independently against the same fixed keys, and the copies were compared value by value. Of 196 keys, 194 agreed outright. The two that did not were genuinely contested facts, and they were dropped from the site rather than scored, on the principle that a quiz should never mark you wrong over something experts dispute. Facts that decay — statuses revised yearly, records that pass from holder to holder — were left out from the start.

Taking a run at it

Four options per question, an instant right-or-wrong on every pick, and the correct answer shown whichever way you chose. The end of the quiz brings a review of all six questions, and your best score is stored in your browser to give the next run something to chase. No account, no download; it all happens in the page.