Difficulty
Choose a preset in the quiz options, or select Custom to adjust the three controls independently. Difficulty settings are saved on your device.
Presets
Presets combine answer similarity, the maximum number of recordings considered for a species, and an observation-frequency range for the General Quiz.
| Preset | General Quiz observation range | What to expect |
|---|---|---|
| Beginner | 0-25% | Most frequently observed species and easier-to-distinguish answer choices. |
| Easy | 5-40% | Common species, with somewhat closer choices. |
| Intermediate | 10-50% | A broader mix and more closely related alternatives. |
| Hard | 20-75% | A broad range of species and challenging alternatives. |
| Expert | 25-100% | Includes less frequently observed species and the closest alternatives available. |
The percentages describe a relative range of species ranked by observations in your selected area, not a promise of an exact number of birds. The range only filters the General Quiz. Common Birds has its own 10/20/30 selection, while other quiz types use their own bird pools.
Custom controls
Answer similarity
Move from Beginner toward Expert to make the incorrect answers more closely related to the target species. The app uses classification groups to find those alternatives. This changes the answer choices, not which target bird is selected.
Recording variety
Choose how many Xeno-canto recordings may be considered for a species, from 1 to 20. The app selects a recording from that set, so a higher value can provide more variety when recordings are available. It does not guarantee that every species has that many recordings.
Observation frequency
Set the lower and upper bounds of the relative observation range. Lower percentages focus on more frequently observed species, higher percentages include less frequently observed species. A wider range makes more species eligible. This setting affects only the General Quiz.
Expert mode
Expert mode is a separate switch that changes how you answer: instead of four choices, you search and select the bird from all species eligible for the current quiz. It does not change the quiz's bird pool or replace the difficulty controls. In Challenge, each correct answer is worth one point.