Students need to have a wide variety of knowledge – from astronomy to pop culture – for Scholastic Bowl, but it takes more than just knowing trivia to excel.
When students who participate in Scholastic Bowl go to competitions, they can be answering random trivia questions for hours. Preparing is very important for earning points in these matches, according to Mark Noll, senior. At the practices, which are on Mondays and Wednesdays after school, students are also given materials along with practice questions to help them prepare for matches.
“We study resources [to prepare]. We’ve got packets for every subject,” David Voss, social studies teacher, said. “We try to have one student study for each subject and use old tournament questions to study from. Students study, learn, and compete using knowledge.”
Voss stepped down this year after being the head coach of Scholastic Bowl for ten years and Michael Bale, art teacher, is the new head coach. According to Voss, there are sometimes “starters,” but the coaches try to play as many students as possible. To become a starter, things besides practicing are necessary, like speed, when answering the tossup questions.
“[To become a starter], you should be fast, fast is really important, and have a general knowledge of [topics] like math, history, and science,” Noll said. “Or you could become really specialized in one subject, like this girl, Malavika. She reads a lot. She’s usually a starter because she has very, very extensive knowledge on books, literature, and authors.”
Scholastic Bowl is a competition where a team of five people compete against another school’s team of five for questions like math, history, literature, and pop culture, according to Voss.
“You start out with a tossup question, where anyone can answer. You have buzzers, one for every person, and you buzz in as soon as you think you know the answer,” Noll said. “If you get the question correct, the whole thing moves onto a different set of questions, called bonus questions, and your team gets to answer first. If you get the answer wrong, then anyone on the other team has the remainder of the time to try to buzz in and answer the question.”
Noll said Scholastic Bowl matches can get stressful, especially when the scores are close.
“You just got to be calm and have confidence in yourself and your answer,” Noll said. “Confidence is really half the battle. If you think you know the answer, you buzz in and whether you’re right or you’re wrong, you still buzzed in.”
Voss thinks students should be interested and curious in school subjects to enjoy being part of Scholastic Bowl.
“My favorite topic is history because there’s so much they can ask about,” Noll said. “And I have a pretty good memory. I think it’s just interesting to learn about all the different things that have occurred over like 2,000 years because they ask from biblical times to current events.”