Academic Team/Quiz Bowl

[Zarrexaij]

Before I spout my babbling, I'll try to start some discussion. For you all still in high school or college, does your school have an academic team, often under the name of Quiz Bowl? It's basically sorta like team Jeopardy. You have two teams, each with four members with a buzzer, that answer questions related to academia. Sometimes though, you'll get pop culture and such questions (called TRASH).

I'm a member of my high school's academic team. I've found it quite fun, but sometimes it can be irritating when the guys on the team treat it as a power trip/a boost to their ego/manliness. The most irritating thing is, we have someone who will buzz in without hearing the rest of the question. This wouldn't be a problem, if he'd get most of those right. But he doesn't, so it's massively annoying.

Anyways, this Saturday we're going to regionals, so I'm way nervous. We have to at least place 4th to get to state, which I'm sorta worried about, with the buzz happy one on our team.

I guess I created this for people to tell their experiences at an academic team. :smalltongue:

[Greenpepa]

Hey I'm on my High school's Quiz bowl team. We qualified for state in Michigan on Monday. I have to share your pain on the early buzzers. At our lunchtime practice today I only got about half of my normal amount of questions because of two people (yes we have two) buzzing early and getting answers wrong. But anyways, good luck! Hope you can make it to state!

[13_CBS]

Hee hee! In Junior High we called ourselves the Nerd Squad.

[hobbes543]

I was on one in High school... We weren't half bad either. We didn't have any early buzzer's though...

[RandomLogic]

I've done math competitions as well as some quiz bowls that were pick a couple friends and compete against other teams.

They were pretty fun. I went to an engineering school full of nerds/geeks/etc and during the quiz bowl they asked a question similar to the following "In 1966 what book shared the Hugo Award [with the book title I forgot]?" Both teams were silent.... Silent... A school full of nerds, engineers, geeks, silent about the 1966 HUGO AWARD WINNING BOOK... I was pissed. Given I think myself and a couple other people knew it, but still the two teams up there didn't.

[The book is Dune btw..]

[Ettlesby]

I was in an academic team once, but it was for a slightly lower school level.

We did pretty good.

[ForzaFiori]

We have a Quiz Bowl team, though i'm not a part of it b/c it interferes with my sports.

However, i'm a member of MENSA, and they have an annual Culture Quest, like a Quiz Bowl on steroids kinda. You have teams of 5 people, a packet of more questions than i can count, and like 1.5 hours. Which ever team gets the most points in the ENTIRE US wins, and there are some big prizes. They also have a Culture Quest NG (Next Generation) for those under 18. Same questions and time limit, just that everyone is under 18. I've competed in it twice, and last year the NG team i ran (i was the head of the team) was actually the only team in the nation to get one of the questions right.

[bugsysservant]

We have one at our school. We've lost every single meet this year. Our captain is a hard core stoner who only shows up for the meets. People are invited to join the club solely on the basis of whether the people in it currently wan them their to talk to, since we don't bother practicing during our weekly practices. Even our adviser doesn't care anymore, and spends the time playing online while we screw off, then generally leaves us unattended till we decide to leave. In short, its pretty sweet.

And no, we have no early buzzers, everyone on our team is too timid to buzz till they ensure that no one else on either team has the answer.

[SurlySeraph]

As a matter of fact, I'm president of my school's Academic Quiz Bowl. But then, we have 6 presidents...

[KerfuffleMach2]

The closest I ever got to an academic team was in elementary with something called MLAG, which stood for the Michigan League of Academic Games. It wasn't anything similar to Quiz Bowl. These games were more related to I.Q. tests than anything, since they dealt with problem solving, patterns, and stuff like that. It was fun.

[Quincunx]

FEAR MY REACTION TIMES!

heheheheh.

I was domineering in such events--fortunately, I could also back it up with the answer. My classmates were much happier when we (I) were enrolled in individual events though.

[adanedhel9]

I did Quiz Bowl back in the day, as well as some sort of math competition (don't remember the name). We were usually middle-of-the-pack.

What bothered me was you would spend all this time preparing, and then there would be one competition; I always wanted more.

[Diva De]

I was part of my high school's academic team (that was 8 years ago - good lord) for all of 1 meet. I joined later in the season than everyone else, based on a recommendation from my SAT Prep teacher. I went to a few practices, did well, and went to a meet. We won, and I received the MVP award. I guess the other kids were jealous, because they decided to put a big spider in my seat. I am TERRIFIED of spiders. I walkedran out (screaming), and after that, they didn't win a single meet and were eventually disbanded.

[Zarrexaij]

I was part of my high school's academic team (that was 8 years ago - good lord) for all of 1 meet. I joined later in the season than everyone else, based on a recommendation from my SAT Prep teacher. I went to a few practices, did well, and went to a meet. We won, and I received the MVP award. I guess the other kids were jealous, because they decided to put a big spider in my seat. I am TERRIFIED of spiders. I walkedran out (screaming), and after that, they didn't win a single meet and were eventually disbanded.Talk about karma. :smallamused:

The time my team has just killed me for not knowing something is not knowing the Cretaceous (excuse my spelling) was the last period for dinosaurs, that Dante wrote, of course, Inferno, and lastly, that Yoko is the widow of John Lennon (I CANNOT BELIEVE I WAS NOT IN THAT ROUND! ARRRGGGH!)

Yeah. The rounds I wasn't in on district, they had all the easy questions. :smallfurious:

[Gaelbert]

I do Science Olympiad and Academic Decathlon. I think Science Olympiad is fairly famous or large, anyone else heard of it?
Funny story about our Acadec (Academic Decathlon) team. We go to a region wide scrimmage, which is basically 4 or so hours of us filling in bubbles on Scantron tests. Our team is fairly squirelly, and they didn't really cope well with havin to be quiet for an extended period of time. So, when we finished the tests (early, of course) they all basically started messing around and talking during what is supposed to be completely silent. We were almost the first team to be disqualified from an Acadec scrimmage due to rowdy behaviour, and I'm pretty sure we were the only team to ever lock ourelves out of the building... Good times.
Edit: Oh, and I placed 8th out of 6,000in our regionial section of the National Vocabulary Championship.

[Zarrexaij]

Never heard of it. Sounds interesting though.

Iunno if our team could deal with that. We have a rowdy one in our group. Same guy who is a spazz and likes buzzing in early on just about every question. :smallmad:

[HydwenPrydain]

I was in Quiz Bowl all through high school, and still am at college (Michigan State). College quiz bowl is hilariously obscure but basically the same as high school. Some of the college teams take it *very* seriously (doing flash-cards on German authors the night after an all day meet, for example), whereas we made a drinking game out of it.

[Zarrexaij]

I was in Quiz Bowl all through high school, and still am at college (Michigan State). College quiz bowl is hilariously obscure but basically the same as high school."There are four major forces of the universe. Two are restricted to the atomic level. Name one of the two others." obscure or "Name this one dude who did this one thing that no one really cares about." obscure?

:smalltongue:

[Thanatos 51-50]

Academic Bowl.
Whe I was in Middle School (5 years ago).

School-wide, my team got through undefeated.

[JessSoccer]

I did Academic Decathlon in high school, though I'm thinking that's slightly different. Involves lots of studying and stuff *nod nod* But top side is that you can only be tested on the material given.

[RTGoodman]

In our county, each of the seven or so high schools had one team, and then once a year they had a double-elimination tournament or some-such.

I was on the team, and we actually did really well at practices and in our first round. However, in our second time up (semi-finals or whatever) literally 4 or 5 of our questions were about astrophysics and star systems. You know what we never learned about in my 13 years of public education in that country? Astrophysics and star systems. The other team, of course, got pop culture, literature, and history questions, which is our best category.

Either way, we were eliminated, but we at least had the most fun. Each of us had a different hat and we all had team t-shirts with intimidating nicknames on the back (I was "The Shatterer of Worlds" and had a crown).

Some advice - have fun with it. We came up with a whole list of "stock answers" to use when we didn't know, and we actually got laughs from the audience for answering "The Potato Blight" (for some math question) and "Robotic Chuck Norris" (for some science question). :smallbiggrin:

[Pyro]

My school goes to their regionals this weekend, although I'm not in it. I smart enough, but I never really bothered. In fact once I was personally invited by my science teacher for a "science bowl" but I forgot to show up to the first meeting.

[Thanatos 51-50]

Some advice - have fun with it. We came up with a whole list of "stock answers" to use when we didn't know, and we actually got laughs from the audience for answering "The Potato Blight" (for some math question) and "Robotic Chuck Norris" (for some science question). :smallbiggrin:

"The Sqaure Root of Cheeto, plus or minus Mountain Dew all over I really should have studied to the Power of Greyskull"

[Zarrexaij]

Some advice - have fun with it. We came up with a whole list of "stock answers" to use when we didn't know, and we actually got laughs from the audience for answering "The Potato Blight" (for some math question) and "Robotic Chuck Norris" (for some science question). :smallbiggrin:If we don't know something, our generic answer is Robert Frost.

It's a long story.

[Greenpepa]

If we don't know something, our generic answer is Robert Frost.

It's a long story.

That's one of our team's generic answers too, along with Longfellow, Marco Polo, Shirley Temple, and Hamlet.

[CharlieSmiles]

I was in knowledge bowl. I'd never heard of "quz" bowl until I saw it on King of the Hill

[SurlySeraph]

If we don't know something, our generic answer is Robert Frost.

It's a long story.

Ours are Doestoeksky, Lincoln, and [name of a certain student at our school who graduated, on the theory that he's probably achieved something noteworthy by now].

[killingtime33]

my school doesn't have anything like that (not surprising actually)

is it fun?

[Zarrexaij]

Arrgh.

I'm so pissed off at my team, I'm considering quitting.

The second round I was in, I accidentally spouted answers when I shouldn't have. Well, that was bad. I finally did one right.

THEN I WAS TAKEN OUT.

And guess what?

The next round I knew the answer to every single damn question.

This is the second time this has happened, and even the Serbian has been in more rounds than I am.

I am seriously pissed off at the coach and I'm going to talk to her Monday about this.

[HydwenPrydain]

Wow, you have a coach that actually intervenes in these things, and people take it seriously enough to actually swap people around? That sounds pretty lame, quiz bowl is fundamentally a 'just for fun' activity as far as I'm concerned, and that's pretty ridiculous.


"There are four major forces of the universe. Two are restricted to the atomic level. Name one of the two others." obscure or "Name this one dude who did this one thing that no one really cares about." obscure?

:smalltongue:

We get a lot of the second and quite a few of the first, although the first-type questions usually have a long lead up of obscure clues, (which allows you to "power" the question if you get it before a certain point and thus multiply the points from any bonuses you answer by 1.5) and then some more obvious ones. Really, it varies quite wildly. We have had everything from horrifically obscure neurology and literature questions to Magic:The Gathering, poker and chess questions.

The answer to the first one, is, of course, either electromagnetism or gravity, and the answer to the second is Charles the Simple.


If we don't know something, our generic answer is Robert Frost.

It's a long story.

Haha, we have these too. In high school it was "The Old Man and the Sea," and nowadays it's "Samuel Clemens" after I said it instead of "Roger Clemens" on a baseball question.:smalltongue:

[Milanius]

Arrgh.

I'm so pissed off at my team, I'm considering quitting.

The second round I was in, I accidentally spouted answers when I shouldn't have. Well, that was bad. I finally did one right.

THEN I WAS TAKEN OUT.

And guess what?

The next round I knew the answer to every single damn question.

This is the second time this has happened, and even the Serbian has been in more rounds than I am.

I am seriously pissed off at the coach and I'm going to talk to her Monday about this.Woah. Some hardcore bad decisions on behalf of your team. :/

If my old HS had a Quiz Bowl team [eh, if we had Quiz Bowl in any case] back when I was a pupil, our generic answer to questions we don't know would be Nikola Tesla. Since yeah, my old HS's name is "Nikola Tesla".

Anyway, electromagnetism and gravity are those 2 forces, and the obscure guy is Charles Michael Kittridge Thompson IV.

[Zarrexaij]

I know! We're having a minor competition here sometime in April/March, and I'm going to have a talk that she needs to put me in there more often.

If it's some obscure science fact, there's a 95% chance I know it. If it has anything to do with computers, I know it.

[Raistlin1040]

It's called Acedemic Games at my Jr. high and I'm one of the two captains.