Quizbowl - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Quiz bowl is a family of games of questions and answers on all topics of human knowledge that is commonly played by students enrolled in high school or college, although some participants begin in middle or even elementary school

Primary education

A primary school is an institution in which children receive the first stage of compulsory education known as primary or elementary education. Primary school is the preferred term in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth Nations, and in most publications of the United Nations Educational,...

. Participants may benefit from studying a broad range of academic subjects, increasing memorization and study skills

Study Skills

Study skills or study strategies are approaches applied to learning. They are generally critical to success in school, are considered essential for acquiring good grades, and are useful for learning throughout one's life....

, learning to work in teams and expanding capacity for responsibility.

The game is typically played with a lockout buzzer

Buzzer

A buzzer or beeper is an audio signaling device, which may be mechanical, electromechanical, or piezoelectric. Typical uses of buzzers and beepers include alarm devices, timers and confirmation of user input such as a mouse click or keystroke....

system between some number of teams, most commonly two teams of four or five players each. A moderator reads questions to the teams, whose players endeavor to buzz in first with the correct answer, scoring points

Score (game)

In games, score refers to an abstract quantity associated with a player or team. Score is usually measured in the abstract unit of points, and events in the game can raise or lower the score of different parties...

for their team.

Quiz bowl is also known by various other names, such as Academic Bowl, Academic Challenge, Academic League, Academic Team, Battle of the Brains, Brain Bowl
Brain Bowl
Brain Bowl is an academic competition in which Florida Community College teams are pitted against one another. Teams consist of up to six players, only four of whom play at any given time. A moderator reads questions from four subject areas that includes humanities, mathematics, natural science...

, Brain Game, College Bowl
College Bowl
College Bowl was a format of college-level quizbowl run and operated by College Bowl Company, Incorporated. It had a format similar to the current NAQT format. College Bowl first aired on US radio stations in 1953, and aired on US television from 1959 to 1970...

, It's Academic
It's Academic
It's Academic is a televised academic quiz competition for high school students, currently airing on two NBC affiliates in Washington, D.C. and Central Virginia and one CBS affiliate Baltimore, Maryland . The show has been on the air since October 7, 1961, making it the longest...

, Knowledge Bowl
Knowledge Bowl
Knowledge Bowl is an interdisciplinary academic competition involving teams of four to six students trying to answer questions in a written round and several oral rounds. No team is eliminated in this event, and every team participates in every round...

, Scholar Quiz Bowl, Scholastic Bowl, Scholar's Bowl, and Nerd-Squad.

History

At the collegiate level, academic quiz bowl competitions enjoyed broad exposure in the United States media via College Bowl

College Bowl

College Bowl was a format of college-level quizbowl run and operated by College Bowl Company, Incorporated. It had a format similar to the current NAQT format. College Bowl first aired on US radio stations in 1953, and aired on US television from 1959 to 1970...

, which started on radio in 1953 and aired on national television from 1959 to 1970. In 1977, the format was revived on college campuses by College Bowl

College Bowl

Company Inc. (CBCI), which operated until 2008. In September 1990, the Academic Competition Federation

Academic Competition Federation

ACF is one of the major formats of collegiate quizbowl. The name refers to two related things:*The actual organization, founded as the Academic Competition Foundation in 1991, which changed its name to the Academic Competition Federation in 1997 and presently continues to run a national...

(ACF) was incorporated as the first major alternative to College Bowl on university campuses. In 1996, National Academic Quiz Tournaments

National Academic Quiz Tournaments

National Academic Quiz Tournaments, LLC is a question-writing and quizbowl organizing company founded by former players in 1996. It is unique among U.S. quiz organizations for supplying questions and hosting championships at the middle school, high school, and college levels.The format is a set...

(NAQT) was founded. Today, most major college-level competitions are run by either ACF or NAQT, with varying formats and governing rules.

In recent years, many former quiz bowl contestants have gone on to become successful game show

Game show

A game show is a type of radio or television program in which members of the public, television personalities or celebrities, sometimes as part of a team, play a game which involves answering questions or solving puzzles usually for money and/or prizes...

contestants, including two of the top dollar winners in the history of Jeopardy!
Jeopardy!
Griffin's first conception of the game used a board comprising ten categories with ten clues each, but after finding that this board could not be shown on camera easily, he reduced it to two rounds of thirty clues each, with five clues in each of six categories...

: Ken Jennings

Ken Jennings

Kenneth Wayne "Ken" Jennings III is an American game show contestant and author. Jennings is noted for holding the record for the longest winning streak on the U.S. syndicated game show Jeopardy! and as being the all-time leading money winner on American game shows...

, and Brad Rutter

Brad Rutter

Bradford Gates "Brad" Rutter is the biggest all-time money winner on the U.S. syndicated game show Jeopardy! and the second biggest all-time money winner on a game show....

Gameplay

There are several different formats of quiz bowl, but they generally share the following rules for playing. (See Formats below)

Two teams of (typically) 4 players, sometimes 5, each sit at a buzzer set, which is like a set of TV game show buzzers. Anyone who rings or buzzes in prevents anyone else from doing so. If a round is timed, a countdown timer is used. Most questions have a 5 second time limit after a question has been read. Each game is played with a packet of questions, which a moderator reads.

There are two basic types of questions asked: tossups (typically worth 10-15 points) and bonuses (worth a maximum of 20–40 points). Other types of questions include lightning or rapid-fire rounds, which usually consist of ten questions and sixty seconds, with only one team given the chance to respond. The other team may have the chance to answer the questions the first team missed; then the second team gets its own set of questions, and the first team may get to answer any missed questions.

Tossup questions

Tossup questions, commonly referred to as tossups, can be answered by any player from either team. Tossups must be answered individually, without the aid of teammates or the audience. Aid by teammates is known as conferring and is generally not allowed. The first person from either side to buzz in may attempt to answer the question. Unlike the current version of Jeopardy!, one may interrupt the moderator and give an answer. If the answer given is incorrect, then no other member of their team may attempt to answer and only players from the other team may buzz in. Only one player per team may try to answer a given question.

Scoring

In most American formats, correct tossup answers earn the team 10 points. In some formats, if the question is answered prior to a certain clue in the question, the team earns 15 or 20 points. In some formats, answering the question incorrectly after interrupting the question, results in a five point penalty.

If a tossup is successfully answered, the answerer's team is given control of a bonus question. The bonus question is usually given in multiple parts, with each part being worth a stated number of points. Teams are generally permitted to confer with each other on these questions. In some formats, only the team which answered the tossup question correctly can answer the bonus. In other formats, the other team is given an opportunity to answer any parts of the bonus that were not answered by the team in control of the bonus.

Bonus questions

Bonuses can only be answered by one team (at the high school level, some formats allow the other team to answer parts of the bonus question which the first team fails to answer; this is called rebounding or a bounce-back). The team may work together (confer) to answer the bonus question. Usually, bonus questions require multi-part answers, and tossups single-part answers.

Scoring:

Total of 20 to 30 points possible (ACF
Academic Competition Federation
ACF is one of the major formats of collegiate quizbowl. The name refers to two related things:*The actual organization, founded as the Academic Competition Foundation in 1991, which changed its name to the Academic Competition Federation in 1997 and presently continues to run a national...

and NAQT
National Academic Quiz Tournaments
National Academic Quiz Tournaments, LLC is a question-writing and quizbowl organizing company founded by former players in 1996. It is unique among U.S. quiz organizations for supplying questions and hosting championships at the middle school, high school, and college levels.The format is a set...

formats currently set all bonuses at 30 points)
Often have multiple parts, each worth a small number of points (most typically, three parts, each worth 10 points)
No penalty for wrong answers
Scoring is only done in multiples of 5 (except in rare cases in the Illinois system when there are 3 or 5 part bonuses, the usual is 4 parts)

Games are either played in timed halves, or until a set number of tossups are read. In the case of a tied score, a tiebreaker is used. The nature of the tiebreaker varies by tournament and format. If a player or team feels that a question is in error, a protest may be made. If the tossup would have affected the outcome of the game then the question is held for reevaluation, at which time points are adjusted if necessary.

Overtime

Overtime only happens if there is a tie at the end of regulation play. This varies from format to format, and may include extra toss-ups until the score changes, entire toss-up/bonus sets until one team leads at the end of a set, a multiple-toss-up playoff, or a timed period of 1 to 3 minutes.

Subject areas

At the college and high school level, most questions are on all general subjects, including literature

Literature

Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...

; history

History

History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

; science

Science

Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...

and math; social sciences; fine arts; geography

Geography

Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...

; religion

Religion

Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...

, mythology

Mythology

The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...

, and philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

; and general knowledge. Question distribution over subjects and the number of questions on each varies in each format. Questions are asked on topics such as popular culture

Popular culture

Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...

to a lesser extent and are referred to as "Trash."

Subjects in "Trash" games are generally considered to include current events, sports, pop culture, and some parts of the general knowledge catch-all. Much of traditional non-academic trivia falls under this heading.

Question styles

Between the college and high school level, there are several styles of writing questions. Each style "tests" for a particular skill or type of recall.

Toss-up

Toss-up questions are so named because each team has an equal opportunity to buzz in, answer the question, and win points.

Buzzer beaters

Buzzer beater, fast-buzz, or quick-recall questions are short with a single clue, and relatively simple. They have virtually disappeared at the college or high school levels, being looked down upon by many players. An example:

QUESTION: "Which company makes Macintosh computers?"

ANSWER: Apple (Computers)

This type of question is written specifically to test quick recall skills of players, and does not discriminate the different levels of knowledge that the players possess, as pyramid-style questions do.

Pyramid-style

Pyramid-style or pyramidal tossup questions include multiple clues, generally written so that each question starts with more difficult clues and moves toward easier clues. This type of toss-up is the standard style written in college and high school tournaments. Compare this example to the "quick recall" questions above:

QUESTION: In 1977, this Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a term which refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations...

garage startup sold its computers for $666.66. In late 1997, it became a Fortune 500
Fortune 500
The Fortune 500 is an annual list compiled and published by Fortune magazine that ranks the top 500 U.S. closely held and public corporations as ranked by their gross revenue after adjustments made by Fortune to exclude the impact of excise taxes companies collect. The list includes publicly and...

company led by one of its two founding Steves, hoping that the public would "Think different" and buy more of "The computer for the rest of us.". For ten points, name this company which in 1984 introduced the Macintosh and now sells its popular iPod
IPod
iPod is a line of portable media players created and marketed by Apple Inc. The product line-up currently consists of the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the touchscreen iPod Touch, the compact iPod Nano, and the ultra-compact iPod Shuffle...

.

ANSWER: Apple (Computer)

Unlike Trivial Pursuit

Trivial Pursuit

Trivial Pursuit is a board game in which progress is determined by a player's ability to answer general knowledge and popular culture questions. The game was created in 1979 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, by Canadian Chris Haney, a photo editor for Montreal's The Gazette and Scott Abbott, a sports...

and Jeopardy!
Jeopardy!
Griffin's first conception of the game used a board comprising ten categories with ten clues each, but after finding that this board could not be shown on camera easily, he reduced it to two rounds of thirty clues each, with five clues in each of six categories...

, quiz bowl players may interrupt the question and answer at any time. The lead-in clue ("In 1977, this Silicon Valley garage startup sold its computers for $666.66") uniquely identifies the desired answer, but is obscure enough so that those with deeper knowledge can answer earlier. As the question progresses, the clues become more accessible: Fortune 500, two founders named Steve, "Think Different", etc. The final "giveaway" clue, given after the phrase "for ten points", is often the easiest, such that most teams will be able to answer by this point.

Pyramid-style questions are designed to give the player with the most knowledge of the subject being asked about the best opportunity to answer first. It is for this reason that pyramid style toss-ups are growing in popularity, as it typically removes (or at least reduces) the element of a "race of reflexes" or "buzzer race" to answer questions, and rewards the more studied player.

One criticism of pyramid-style play is that it rewards knowledge of the obscure over the important. Another is that matches can potentially have longer running times. This is sometimes countered by implementing timed matches. Moderators will also read questions at a quick pace to counteract slowdown. Writing pyramid-style tossups can be more difficult because the answer must have many clues, ordered from unique and obscure to giveaway, without tapering too quickly or slowly.

Mathematics

There are two styles of mathematics tossups; computational and non-computational. Non-computational questions are generally math history or involve a specific aspect of mathematics, and are similar to the other subject areas. This also includes tossups on numbers, constants, functions, etc.. Computational mathematics ask the player to solve a math problem, which is dissimilar to the other subject areas. Computational math problems are harder to write in pyramidal style as they generally do not feature an obscure clue that can uniquely identify an answer. As such, many pyramidal quiz bowl formats will ask fewer or even no questions about computational mathematics when compared to formats that are not primarily pyramidal. Typically, players are given extra time to solve the problem.

One strategy used to implement pyramidality into computational math is to offer clues on how to solve the problem; during this time, weaker players can figure out how to work the problem, while stronger players are given a head start in computation time.

NAQT

National Academic Quiz Tournaments

has removed all computational math tossups from their national championship tournaments, although there are still computational bonuses.

Bonus questions

Bonus questions may or may not (as in the case of NAQT style formats) be related to corresponding tossups.

Multi-part bonus questions are often seen in a patterned format; that is the individual parts of a bonus question are often related by some common thread. This common thread is often revealed (though not always) in the opening part of the bonus question (called the "lead-in"). For example:

BONUS: Given the title of an Irving Stone biography, identify the subject.

Lust for Life
The Passions of the Mind
Greek Treasure

ANSWERS:

(Vincent) VAN GOGH
(Sigmund) FREUD
(Heinrich) SCHLIEMANN

Patterned

Just like "quick recall" questions, patterned bonus questions have virtually disappeared at the American collegiate level, and are becoming less common at some high-school

High school

High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....

competitions. These questions are more commonly encountered in areas involving mathematics. For example:

BONUS: "Given a pair of resistor

Resistor

A linear resistor is a linear, passive two-terminal electrical component that implements electrical resistance as a circuit element.The current through a resistor is in direct proportion to the voltage across the resistor's terminals. Thus, the ratio of the voltage applied across a resistor's...

s, give their equivalent resistance if they were connected in parallel with each other."

2 ohm
Ohm
The ohm is the SI unit of electrical resistance, named after German physicist Georg Simon Ohm.- Definition :The ohm is defined as a resistance between two points of a conductor when a constant potential difference of 1 volt, applied to these points, produces in the conductor a current of 1 ampere,...

s and 2 ohms
3 ohms and 5 ohms
10 ohms and 20 ohms

ANSWERS:

1 ohm
1 and 7/8 ohms
6 and 2/3 ohms

This bonus question tests only a single skill, thus if only one player has memorized the skill, the question is reduced to one question, repeated three times.

List

Some bonus questions are not broken into specific parts. Instead, players must be able to give their answers from a requested list. For example:

BONUS: In any order, identify any five of the six nations which border India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

.

ANSWERS:

(People's Republic of) China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
(Federal Democratic Republic of) Nepal
Nepal
Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...
(People's Republic of) Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
(Islamic Republic of) Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
(Kingdom of) Bhutan
Bhutan
Bhutan , officially the Kingdom of Bhutan, is a landlocked state in South Asia, located at the eastern end of the Himalayas and bordered to the south, east and west by the Republic of India and to the north by the People's Republic of China...
(Union of) Myanmar
Myanmar
Burma , officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar , is a country in Southeast Asia. Burma is bordered by China on the northeast, Laos on the east, Thailand on the southeast, Bangladesh on the west, India on the northwest, the Bay of Bengal to the southwest, and the Andaman Sea on the south....

[alt: Burma]

This style of question writing typically gives less information and forces teams to recall larger chunks of information all at once, and critically consider multiple options that the team may come up with; some of which may be wrong.

30-20-10 (and variants)

This no-longer-used type of bonus gave three (or some other number) discrete clues in order of decreasing difficulty; with the decreasing difficulty comes decreased point value, providing an incentive to answer the earlier clue. In NAQT format, whose question writers were particularly fond of 30-20-10 bonuses, a correct answer after the first clue is worth 30 points, one after the second clue is worth 20 points, and a correct answer given after the third clue is worth 10 points. Virtually any pyramidal tossup can be modified to create a 30-20-10. In general, the team may offer an answer after every clue in a 30-20-10.

An example of a 30-20-10 might be:

30-20-10. Identify the author from works.

30. Player Piano, his debut

20. Slapstick

10. Slaughterhouse-Five

Answer: Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was a 20th century American writer. His works such as Cat's Cradle , Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions blend satire, gallows humor and science fiction. He was known for his humanist beliefs and was honorary president of the American Humanist Association.-Early...

, Jr.

The 30-20-10 bonus was officially banned from ACF in 2008 and NAQT in 2009.

Formats

For tournament purposes, a format covers rules of play and question structure/content. For questions, this includes question topics, clue difficulty, order of clues, and writing style. Rules of play include player eligibility, scoring of questions, acceptable answers, and procedures for protesting a question.

In particular, ACF, CBCI, HCASC, NAQT, and UC each have distinctive formats. Also, certain college tournaments and programs have developed their own distinctive formats, such as the Deep Bench format (University of Minnesota/Carleton College). However, the basic ACF format is more or less standard for non-NAQT or PACE format tournaments in the US.

ACF format has a rigorous emphasis on academics. There is no limit on graduate student participation. Toss-up questions are typically in pyramid style, with more difficult clues coming first, and a question should be answerable from any clue read. ACF is untimed; questions are generally much longer than CBCI questions. Games are usually played to a total of 20 tossups read.

The now-defunct CBCI or College Bowl

College Bowl

format emphasizes comparatively short questions on academics, current events, pop culture, and general knowledge. The limits on participation are 6 years total in CBCI tournaments and only one graduate student per team. Questions tend to be structured so that most of the players know the answers to tossups read in their entirety. It is played in 8 minute halves, to a usual total of 22–24 tossups read, though there's no actual limit and 30-toss-up games, though quite rare, have occurred. Game play is relatively quick as a result. Related formats are HCASC (Honda Campus All Star Challenge) and UC (University Challenge).

NAQT format balances the diversity of subjects found in CB packets with the academic rigor of the ACF format. The limits on participation are complex but in general, as long as a player is earning a degree they can play. It is based on the Penn Bowl/MLK format. Game play is markedly different from ACF or CB. Timeouts and player substitution during timeouts are allowed. The NAQT also uses power marks in tossups (15 points instead of 10 earned for a tossup answered before a certain point). Game length can vary a little, but a standard length for NAQT is 9 minute halves and a total of 26 tossups. National/Regional tournaments follow these formats very closely, while invitationals often modify these formats for their own use. NAQT also writes questions and helps organize tournaments at the high school level.

The National Academic Championship is played in four-quarter format. Four-quarter format is the general term for quiz bowl that is broken up into several phases, with differing styles of gameplay in each phase. Individual formats vary but may include worksheets, lightning rounds, give-and-takes, and tossups, with or without accompanying bonuses.

Other competitions evolved from these formats include competitions testing knowledge in the Bible, Latin, modern foreign languages, nursing, business ethics, Black History, athletic training, cooking, and hundreds of other specialties. Many medical schools use quiz bowl-style competitions as part of their "grand rounds" specialty training for students and interns. In the 1990s, "Deaf College Bowl" for university teams with hearing-impaired students emerged. TRASH is a format that focuses on pop culture and sports trivia.

In addition, other variants on the above quiz bowl formats are used at the high school level, including such formats as those of the Ohio Academic Competition (OAC), Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence

Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence

The Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence is a nonprofit organization which runs the National Scholastics Championship , an end-of-year championship for North American high school quizbowl teams...

(PACE), and the Panasonic Academic Challenge

Panasonic Academic Challenge

The National Tournament of Academic Excellence is one of a small number of national competitions that is held in June for high school quizbowl teams in the United States. The NTAE has been run in June of each year since 1988...

(PAC or simply "Panasonic").

Tournaments

Quiz bowl is generally played at tournaments, though high schools will also commonly play single matches against local schools, or schools within an athletic conference. Many schools hold on-campus tournaments (intramurals) where anyone can play. Some schools have programs which practice weekly (or more) during the school year. These programs are generally open to all students. They often include in their names "College Bowl," "Academic Competition," or "Quiz Bowl." They send teams to invitational tournaments sponsored by other schools or organizations.

For quiz bowl, a tournament is a gathering of teams who engage each other in several rounds of games. A tournament winner is determined using some criteria (win-loss record, playoff record, etc.). There are several classes of tournaments, which may use one of several formats.

Intramural tournaments invite students on a given campus to form teams and play. They are often called campus tournaments. On occasion, such tournaments may be open to teams of graduate students, and/or campus staff.

Invitational tournaments involve teams from various schools. They are run by the quiz bowl team/program at a given school. Invitations are sometimes sent to individual programs. However, most tournaments give out open invitations for any school to accept.

Invitational tournaments

Major variants of Invitational tournaments include National/Regional, Junior Bird, "Masters", and "trash" (popular culture) tournaments.

Such tournaments often have qualification requirements, sometimes including purchase of intramural tournament packets, or participation in regional tournaments (or other tournaments). They have unique rules above their associated formats, usually concerning eligibility and number of teams per school.

Junior Bird or Novice tournaments

Junior Bird or Novice tournaments are restricted to collegiate players in their first or second season. Freshmen and sophomores are the intended market, but upperclassmen or grad students who meet the criteria are sometimes allowed to play. These tournaments aim to support player development by providing experience against other teams of similar skills, and to give newer players a chance to compete without being dominated by long-time veterans. The unusual name "Junior Bird", originally used by Emory University

Emory University

Emory University is a private research university in metropolitan Atlanta, located in the Druid Hills section of unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, United States. The university was founded as Emory College in 1836 in Oxford, Georgia by a small group of Methodists and was named in honor of...

, derives from a famous tournament held at Berry College

Berry College

Berry College is an American accredited, private, four-year liberal arts college located in Mount Berry, unincorporated Floyd County, Georgia, north of Rome. It was founded in 1902 by Martha Berry.-Location:Berry College is located on U.S...

, the "Early Bird", which was held early in the quiz bowl season (though the Early Bird is open to all undergraduates).

Undergraduate tournaments

Some tournaments are restricted to undergraduate collegiate players (excluding graduate students). Variants on this format permit teams to have a total of X years of experience (e.g. four freshman or sophomores, three juniors, but only two seniors), as quiz bowl skill is thought to be proportional to experience.

Masters tournaments

Masters tournaments are tournaments which do not place any restrictions on who may play. They are intended for those who want to play with people from other schools, have graduated, or are otherwise ineligible for college play. The intent behind them varies.

Collegiate National Tournaments

At the College level, there are academic tournaments run by organizations not affiliated with a given school. These generally have regional competitions followed by a national championship. These organizations include:

National Academic Quiz Tournaments
National Academic Quiz Tournaments
National Academic Quiz Tournaments, LLC is a question-writing and quizbowl organizing company founded by former players in 1996. It is unique among U.S. quiz organizations for supplying questions and hosting championships at the middle school, high school, and college levels.The format is a set...

(NAQT)
Academic Competition Federation
Academic Competition Federation
ACF is one of the major formats of collegiate quizbowl. The name refers to two related things:*The actual organization, founded as the Academic Competition Foundation in 1991, which changed its name to the Academic Competition Federation in 1997 and presently continues to run a national...

(ACF)
Honda Campus All-Star Challenge
Honda Campus All-Star Challenge
Honda Campus All-Star Challenge is a quizbowl tournament administered by College Bowl for Historically Black colleges and universities. The sponsor of the program is Honda Motor Company.-History:...

(HCASC) for Historically Black Colleges and Universities
Historically Black Colleges and Universities
Historically black colleges and universities are institutions of higher education in the United States that were established before 1964 with the intention of serving the black community....

, sponsored by the USA subsidiary of Honda
Honda
is a Japanese public multinational corporation primarily known as a manufacturer of automobiles and motorcycles.Honda has been the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer since 1959, as well as the world's largest manufacturer of internal combustion engines measured by volume, producing more than...

Motor Company. This program is administered by the College Bowl
College Bowl
College Bowl was a format of college-level quizbowl run and operated by College Bowl Company, Incorporated. It had a format similar to the current NAQT format. College Bowl first aired on US radio stations in 1953, and aired on US television from 1959 to 1970...

Company, Inc. (CBCI) in cooperation with the Association of College Unions International (ACUI) and the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Education (NAFEO).

Defunct:

College Bowl
College Bowl
College Bowl was a format of college-level quizbowl run and operated by College Bowl Company, Incorporated. It had a format similar to the current NAQT format. College Bowl first aired on US radio stations in 1953, and aired on US television from 1959 to 1970...

- traces its history to 1953, but was suspended after the 2007-08 season by the College Bowl Company, Inc. (CBCI).

High School National Tournaments

A number of organizations organize national competitions for high school students in the United States. These include:

High School National Championship Tournament (HSNCT) is sponsored by National Academic Quiz Tournaments since 1999. The tournament has been held in a number of different cities throughout its existence.

National Academic Championship (NAC) has been held since 1983, and is sponsored by Questions Unlimited. The tournament is played at three sites throughout the nation every year.

National Scholastics Championship (NSC) has been held since 1998, and is organized by the Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence
Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence
The Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence is a nonprofit organization which runs the National Scholastics Championship , an end-of-year championship for North American high school quizbowl teams...

(PACE). The competition has been held at various sites in the South, Mid-Atlantic and Midwest.

The National All-Star Academic Tournament (NASAT) is a national tournament hosted by High School Academic Pyramidal Questions (HSAPQ).

Defunct:

American Scholastics Competition Network (ASCN) hosted a national tournament from 1987 through 2005 in the Chicago area.
The National Tournament of Academic Excellence (formerly known as the Panasonic Academic Challenge) was held since 1988, and is sponsored by the school boards of the local counties and the State of Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

. It was traditionally held at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida
Orlando, Florida
Orlando is a city in the central region of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat of Orange County, and the center of the Greater Orlando metropolitan area. According to the 2010 US Census, the city had a population of 238,300, making Orlando the 79th largest city in the United States...

.

Tournament scheduling

Tournament scheduling at invitational tournaments is often in the form of a Round-robin

Round-robin tournament

A round-robin tournament is a competition "in which each contestant meets all other contestants in turn".-Terminology:...

, where each team plays each other team once. The top teams may engage in a playoff. Some tournaments (historically College Bowl

College Bowl

) have used single-elimination

Single-elimination tournament

A single-elimination tournament, also called a knockout, cup or sudden death tournament, is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match or bracket is immediately eliminated from winning the championship or first prize in the event...

or double-elimination

Double-elimination tournament

A double-elimination tournament is a type of elimination tournament competition in which a participant ceases to be eligible to win the tournament's championship upon having lost two games or matches...

, but this reduces the number of matches each team can play, and has been criticized on the college-circuit. Large tournaments have employed Swiss pairs

Swiss system tournament

A Swiss-system tournament is a commonly used type of tournament where players or teams need to be paired to face each other for several rounds of competition. This type of tournament was first used in a Zurich chess tournament in 1895, hence the name "Swiss system". The Swiss system is used when...

. Sometimes bracket-play is employed, where each team plays others in a round-robin within a bracket, and the top team(s) move on to another round-robin or a playoff.

Eligibility

Eligibility rules depend on the game. For the college game, in official College Bowl

College Bowl

, NAQT or other events, there are severe eligibility rules, while other tournaments differ on whether senior or only junior undergraduate, graduate, and even non-students can play. In general, players of lower academic standing than specified can compete; there is a debate about how much more experienced players should be involved (analogous to the hypothetical question of whether NBA players should be able to play college games, or even high school games). First and second year undergraduates can always play. Junior and Senior undergraduates are typically excluded from junior bird type tournaments. Graduate students are excluded from undergraduate-only tournaments. The general intent is to ensure a degree of fairness, by preventing teams from having too many players who have too much experience who can swamp the entire field. College Bowl

College Bowl

in particular allows only one graduate student per team.

Non-students are excluded from college tournaments; however, there are some tournaments open to everyone. These tournaments include "Masters" tournaments, "Trash" tournaments, and the occasional intramural tournament.

Question sources

Questions come from one of three sources.

Questions may be written by a company or non-profit organization. These may be written by a small group of professional writers, or by a large group of contract writers whose questions are later edited by a smaller group. In some cases, these companies or organizations may host their own tournaments.
The school hosting a tournament may choose to write all the questions used. Members of the host school's team generally write the packets, and then help run the tournament, rather than play.
Each team entered into the tournament may write and submit one round of questions. A single editor then reviews the questions for difficulty and to check for duplication.

Media coverage

No form of quiz bowl at the college level is broadcast regularly in the United States on a national basis. The "College Quiz Bowl" was broadcast on NBC radio from 1953 to 1955; General Electric College Bowl

College Bowl

was televised on CBS

CBS

CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...

and later NBC

NBC

The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...

from 1959 to 1970, College Bowl returned to CBS radio

CBS Radio

CBS Radio, Inc., formerly known as Infinity Broadcasting Corporation, is one of the largest owners and operators of radio stations in the United States, third behind main rival Clear Channel Communications and Cumulus Media. CBS Radio owns around 130 radio stations across the country...

1979-82, and HCASC was broadcast on BET

Black Entertainment Television

Black Entertainment Television is an American, Viacom-owned cable network based in Washington, D.C.. Currently viewed in more than 90 million homes worldwide, it is the most prominent television network targeting young Black-American audiences. The network was launched on January 25, 1980, by its...

until 1995. The Texaco Star National Academic Championship premiered July 1, 1989, on the Discovery Channel

Discovery Channel

Discovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...

. and ran through 1993. In 1994, it was syndicated as the Star Challenge and hosted by Mark Wahlberg. University Challenge
University Challenge
University Challenge is a British quiz programme that has aired since 1962. The format is based on the American show College Bowl, which ran on NBC radio from 1953 to 1957, and on NBC television from 1959 to 1970....

is licensed from CBCI by Granada TV Ltd. and broadcast in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

.

There are several local broadcasts of college and high school level quiz bowl.

There is no relationship between quiz bowl and Jeopardy!
Jeopardy!
Griffin's first conception of the game used a board comprising ten categories with ten clues each, but after finding that this board could not be shown on camera easily, he reduced it to two rounds of thirty clues each, with five clues in each of six categories...

or any of the other TV trivia game shows, other than that many of the contestants may be the same. NAQT

National Academic Quiz Tournaments

maintains a list of current and former quiz bowl players at any level who have appeared on TV game shows.

The "Quiz Bowl" episode of the Internet mockumentary Dorm Life
Dorm Life
Dorm Life is a mockumentary web series created by former students of UCLA. It follows the fictional lives of the inhabitants of the college dorm floor 5 South. It is produced by Attention Span Media, a Los Angeles based social media studio and is a 2008 Webby Honoree for Best Writing and Comedy:...

features a parody of a College Bowl match. It originally aired July 9, 2009.

Televised quiz bowl

Quiz bowl shows have been on television for many years in some areas, featuring both college and high school competitions.

Works cited

Jennings, Ken (2006). Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs, Villard

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

History

Gameplay

Tossup questions

Scoring

Bonus questions

Overtime

Subject areas

Question styles

Toss-up

Buzzer beaters

Pyramid-style

Mathematics

Bonus questions

Related

Patterned

List

30-20-10 (and variants)

Formats

Tournaments

Invitational tournaments

Junior Bird or Novice tournaments

Undergraduate tournaments

Masters tournaments

Collegiate National Tournaments

High School National Tournaments

Tournament scheduling

Eligibility

Question sources

Media coverage

Televised quiz bowl

See also

Works cited

External links