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There is a school of thought (for which I have a certain amount of sympathy) that says question setters shouldn't ask for the complete expansion of an acronym (or similar abbreviation). This applies particularly in a quiz–league format, or any other where a question is passed over to a second team if the first team gets it wrong. In these circumstances particularly, if the first team has a stab at it but gets it slightly wrong, this gives an unfair advantage to the second team. It's better (argues this school of thought) to ask what one particular letter stands for – and that letter should be one of the more significant letters in the abbreviation or acronym.

For example: SPCK is an abbreviation for the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge. Suppose you ask what SPCK stands for, and the first team answers "Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge". This is so close to the right answer that to deny the team the point(s) would be very harsh; it puts the question master in a very difficult position. If he (or she) passes the question over to the second team, they (who might not have had a clue as to the answer before the first team had a shot at it) have now got a very good base to start from. They might well guess that it was "Promotion" that was wrong, and that the P actually stands for "Propagation". The first team has done most of the work, but the second team's got the points.

It might be better to ask what the "C" stands for in that abbreviation, or the "K". As long as the team has an idea what the SPCK is, they should stand a pretty good chance of getting either of those answers right.

(There's not much point in asking what the "S" stands for, as the contestants would stand a fair chance of guessing this even if they'd never heard of the SPCK.)

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