Five questions, once a day
A round is five questions, and it is the same five for every player — round 3 is round 3 for everyone. You get one a day: finish it, and the next unlocks at midnight, your midnight, wherever you are.
The rules
How to play Smart or Not
The whole game is five questions a day. Here is everything that matters.
Every question is worth twenty
Right is right — twenty points, however long you took. A perfect round is 100. The clock is not scored, because a score should mean how much you knew, not how fast you read.
You find out how everyone else did
After each answer you see the share of players who got it right, and at the end where your round places against the field. Some questions almost nobody gets. Those are the good ones.
A wrong answer costs you the points, not the round
There is no failing out. A wrong answer scores zero and you carry on to the next question, so a bad start never ends the round early.
Every answer is explained
Right or wrong, you get the reasoning before moving on. That is the part most people stay for.
Scoring, exactly
Twenty points for a correct answer, zero for a wrong one, however long you spent on either. Five questions, so a perfect round is 100.
There is no time bonus and no time penalty. The clock is shown on your result as an average, because it is interesting — but it has never been worth a point, and two players with the same score got the same number right.
Common questions
- Is Smart or Not free to play?
- Yes. The daily round is free and needs no account, no sign-up and no install.
- Can I play more than one round a day?
- Not on the web — that is the point of a daily round. The mobile app has unlimited play, five game modes and powerups.
- When does the new round appear?
- At midnight where you are. The day that counts is the one on your own clock, not a timezone somebody else picked.
- Do I need to create an account?
- No. Your results and your streak live in your own browser and nowhere else, which also means clearing your site data clears them.
- What happens if I miss a day?
- Nothing. The rounds follow you rather than the calendar, so you are always on the next one in order and you never lose your place. What you cannot do is play the backlog in one sitting — that is what the app is for.