Being part of a CPCU® or AINS® study group or class can be a helpful way to make it through the course. In today’s post, we have a few review game ideas that we’ve tested out in a classroom setting and want to share them with you here. These games provide a fun & memorable way to approach rounding up each chapter.

Game Idea #1: Family Feud-style

In all of your CPCU and AINS courses, there are numerous lists that you’ll have to remember. Those lists lend themselves very well to playing Family Feud-style game.

For those who are not familiar with Family Feud, the basic game rules are as follows:

• Each question in the game should have multiple correct answers (ex: “Name a type of coverage that is provided by a personal auto policy.”)
• Players are split into two teams.
• At the start of each round, one player from each team will face off head-to-head.
• A question is revealed or read out loud, and the first player to hit the buzzer gets a chance to give any correct answer.
• If their answer is one of correct answers, they can choose to pass or play:
  • If they play, the rest of their team members are given a chance one by one  to give another correct answer (without consulting with each other). The goal is to guess all of the correct answers to the question, and one point is awarded for each correct answer if this team is able to get all of the answers.
  • If the team gets three strikes (wrong answers), the team’s turn ends and opposing team is then given a chance to steal the points by giving one of the remaining correct answers.
    • The stealing team is allowed to discuss together but must decide on one group answer.
    • If the stealing team’s answer is correct, they get all the points from this round (one point per correct answer).
    • If the stealing team’s answer is wrong, the original team that started the round gets all the points from the round.
  • If the team that won the initial head-to-head decides to pass, the opposing team gets to do the above instead. Strategically, you may want to “pass” if you don’t think your team can get all of the correct answers to this question, or know an obscure answer that you don’t think the other team will remember.
• Once a round is done, a new member from each team faces off head-to-head and repeats this whole process.
• You can play as many rounds as desired.

Again, the questions should be anything that has multiple answers. For example: “What are the 8 goals of risk management? [from CPCU 500] or “Name one of the 8 generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP)” [from CPCU 540]. You can definitely find lists or categories like this by flipping through the textbook, and they’re even easier to find if you use our study guides.

To get more out of the review game, you may want to require that the players also be able to define or explain the term, not just name it.

Game idea #2: Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

Another game you can play involves using practice quiz questions to do a Who Wants to Be a Millionaire-style quiz game. Here are the rules for our version of this review game:

• A player is given a practice question and the four possible answer choices.
• He or she can earn two points by guessing the correct answer without any help.
• The player can forfeit a point in exchange for one of three lifelines, which may help them get closer to the correct answer:
  • Lifeline #1 – 50/50: Two incorrect answers are eliminated from the four available choices.
  • Lifeline #2 – Phone a Friend: The player may discuss the question and answer choices with another person in the room to try come up with the correct answer. The player is not obligated to go with the answer that their helper feels is correct.
  • Lifeline #3 – Poll the Audience: Each person gives what they feel is the right answer, but is not allowed to explain why they think so. The main player is not obligated to go with the answer that the majority of the group selected.

The original game show has one player being asked a whole series of questions, but for the purposes of preparing for the exam, we’ve found that people get more out of the game if you let each person answer a question, so that everyone has a chance to test their knowledge.

This game does requirethe class instructor or study group members to know the answers ahead of time, so the person hosting the game will need to go through the quiz and make a note of the correct answers ahead of time. You will also need to have a plan for displaying the questions up for everyone to see, whether that means having a projector set up for an in-person class or using screen-sharing for a virtual study session.

How to divide up game preparations

If you are using these review games in a study group as opposed to in a class, it is best to split up the responsibility for preparing the game between all the members. Divide the chapters between everyone in the study group, and the assigned student who came up with the questions for the chapter being reviewed that day can play host.

For the Family Feud game, the host should prepare the questions and have a list of the all the correct answers. For the Who Wants to be a Millionaire game, the host should be able to explain what is the correct answer & why the other choices are wrong. The student should go so far as to reference page numbers, so the group can stop, flip to it, and discuss if questions for the host come up. This actually isn’t as much work as it seems, and the student preparing the chapter is very likely to gain an excellent understanding of the topics they choose to cover in their game show questions.