Even knowing that the tower is 984 feet tall isn't exceptionally helpful, since they'll ask for the height in meters.

A Little Help to Get You Started

(mouse over the questions to view the correct answers)

9/24/02
Tour the Tower for Free

Planning to visit Paris in the coming year? Or know someone who is? Then you might enjoy trying your luck with the Eiffel Tower Quiz.

Found at the elegant and detailed official site of the Eiffel Tower, the game consists of just ten multiple choice questions relating to the history and statistics of the tower and its designer, Gustave Eiffel. The site lets you know if your chosen answer is correct after each question. Answer at least seven out of ten correctly and you can enter the drawing. Every day five people will each win two tickets to the top (19,80 €, about a $20 US value).

If all this sounds too easy, there are a few details that provide challenge:

• Although the answers are all found on the Eiffel Tower site, just searching for them using keywords doesn't always work, as they cleverly use synonyms.

• The ten questions come from a random sample of perhaps a hundred or more, so it's likely each time you play you'll get some questions you haven't seen before.

• The potential answers are sometimes close enough or obscure enough that just guessing doesn't work that well.

The tickets can take up to ten weeks to arrive, so it's best to start playing early. Although there was nothing in the rules about it, it didn't seem to help to play more than once a day.

I became mildly obsessed with the game, playing just about every day for three weeks before, oh joy! I won! And in the process I inadvertently became an insufferable authority on all things Eiffel.

It's fun to get a letter from France, and the tickets look cool, too.

< previous | archive |