
Full Answer
How does a quiz bowl game work?
During a quiz bowl game, two or more teams of usually up to four or five players are read questions by a moderator. In most forms of quiz bowl, there are two basic types of questions: toss-ups and bonuses. Toss-ups are questions that any individual player can attempt to answer, and players are generally not allowed to confer with each other.
How many players are in a quiz bowl game?
Standardized quiz bowl formats are played by lower school, middle school, high school, and university students throughout North America, Asia, Europe, Australia, and Africa. The sport is typically played with a lockout buzzer system between at least two teams, usually consisting of four or five players each.
Are there quiz bowl tournaments in high school?
Organized quiz bowl competitions are available in most states and at grade levels from middle school up. Quiz bowl tournaments can be interscholastic meets or intramural events designed for students at a single school. Some tournaments are based on athletic conferences, cities, and other groupings of teams.
What is a quiz bowl moderator?
A moderator reads questions to the players who try to score points for their team by buzzing first and responding with the correct answer. Quiz bowl is most commonly played in a toss-up/bonus format, which consists of a series of two different types of questions.

How does a quiz bowl work?
Quiz bowl is a game in which two teams compete head-to-head to answer questions from all areas of knowledge, including history, literature, science, fine arts, current events, popular culture, sports, and more. There are also tournaments for individual players rather than teams.
How do you make a quiz bowl team?
The basic procedure is the same at each level:Recruit players.Find an advisor or coach.Secure funding.Get practice material and start practicing and studying. New Middle School Package. New High School Package. ... Join the quiz bowl community.Get an account on naqt.com.Get a buzzer system.Attend tournaments.More items...
What is quiz bowl in high school?
Quiz Bowl is a game or competition in which two teams compete head-to-head to answer questions from all general areas of knowledge including history, literature, science, fine arts, current events, sports, popular culture, and more. You can think of it as similar to a team version of high school Jeopardy.
Is quiz bowl an academic club?
At the high school level, quiz bowl is a competitive, academic, interscholastic activity for which players attend periodic practices and then represent their school at varsity tournaments.
How long is a quiz bowl round?
~30 minutesQuiz bowl competitions are typically played with a lockout buzzer system between at least two teams, usually consisting of four or five players each....Quiz bowl.Other namesQuizbowl, scholastic bowl, academic bowl, etc.Players2–10Playing time~30 minutes (can vary)Age rangeSchool-aged and up4 more rows
How do you conduct a quiz bowl?
0:002:01How to Play Quiz Bowl - YouTubeYouTubeStart of suggested clipEnd of suggested clipEach toss-up question contains a series of clues that start hard and end easy any player may buzz inMoreEach toss-up question contains a series of clues that start hard and end easy any player may buzz in to answer a question at any time but they must answer without the help of their teammates.
Does Quiz Bowl look good for college?
For students who are looking to pursue something that is fun, challenging, and competitive, but also wants to check the academic boxes that top colleges are looking at, the Quiz Bowl is one of the best options currently available.
What should I study for Quiz Bowl?
NAQT hopes that quiz bowl will introduce players to new ideas, books, disciplines, and interests. Reading original texts (novels, dramas, poems, and other literature, of course, but also historiography, science textbooks, and similar sources) is generally the most comprehensive way to study.
How many people can be on a quiz bowl team?
Each team (one team/school) may consist of up to five players with no more than four participating at once (i.e., one team member will be an alternate). There may be no more than one graduate student per team.
What does the academic team do?
Academic teams are designed to empower students to take ownership of their own and their peers' learning through a student accountability system and structures for peer support.
How do you prepare for a quiz bowl competition?
How to Prepare for Quizbowl National Tournaments: 8 TipsStudy more challenging questions. ... Study the current year's college questions. ... Prepare for an endurance challenge. ... Assign roles for who will give answers and when. ... Know the rules. ... Think about potential close-game scenarios.More items...•
What is middle school quiz bowl?
At the middle school level, quiz bowl is a competitive, academic, interscholastic activity for which players attend periodic practices and then represent their school at tournaments.
How do I prepare for an academic bowl?
1) Play practice matches against staff and teachers at your school. 2) Practice during lunch with your teammates. 3) Develop flash cards and practice with your teammates. 4) Read USA Today newspaper or check cnn.com, usatoday.com, and other news websites for current events.
How many players are in a quiz bowl?
Gameplay. A quiz bowl game at the University of Delaware. During a quiz bowl game, two or more teams of usually up to four or five players are read questions by a moderator. In most forms of quiz bowl, there are two basic types of questions: toss-ups and bonuses.
How to prepare for a quiz bowl?
Players often research and write their own questions to prepare for quiz bowl. Active participation in academic coursework also helps to prepare for quiz bowl. Blind memorization of high-frequency out-of-context facts, often referred to as "stock" clues, is a common method of quiz bowl preparation but is generally discouraged because the memorization usually helps little with day-to-day schoolwork. Team members often specialize in one or more subjects, with top teams usually including one science/math expert, one social studies expert and one literature expert among their players. Players benefit from exposure to a broad range of school, cultural subjects, memorization, and study skills, as well as an improved ability to cooperate and work in teams.
What are bonus questions?
Bonuses usually have multiple parts, related by a common thread but not necessarily related to the tossup that was answered. A team is usually rewarded with 10 points for each correct answer in a bonus. Bonuses are the only types of questions that allow conferral among team members. Usually, only the team that answered the tossup correctly can answer the bonus, though some formats allow the opposing team to answer those parts of the bonus not correctly answered by the team that earned the bonus, a gameplay element known as a "bounceback" or "rebound." Less-used types of bonus questions include multiple-choice bonuses (sometimes seen in Science Bowl ), list bonuses (which require answers from a given list), and "30-20-10" bonuses (which give small sets of clues for a single answer in order of decreasing difficulty, with more points being awarded for giving the correct answer on an earlier clue. The 30-20-10 bonus was officially banned from ACF in 2008 and NAQT in 2009.
What is the oldest quiz competition in the US?
In the first half of the 20th century, many other quiz bowl-like competitions were also created. Delco Hi-Q began in 1948 as a radio quiz competition sponsored by the Scott Paper Company for high school students in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. It claims to be the oldest continuously running student quiz contest in the United States. The It's Academic televised student quiz show program has been run for high school teams in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area since 1961 and is recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest-running quiz program in television history. It's Academic has been spun off in many other US media markets and has inspired many other televised high school competitions.
Why are college bowls bad?
Some tournaments such as College Bowl are criticized for being insufficiently academic, including superfluous clues in their questions, and for recycling questions from previous years. The use of "hoses," misleading clues that discourage players from buzzing in too early, is also considered a mark of "bad" quiz bowl.
What is a toss up in chess?
Toss-ups are questions that any individual player can attempt to answer, and players are generally not allowed to confer with each other. Each player usually has a signaling device, also called a buzzer, to signal in at any time during the question to give an answer.
When was the college bowl broadcast?
Many of these competitions may have rules and formats that differ slightly from standardized quiz bowl. College Bowl was broadcast on NBC radio from 1953 to 1955. The program moved to television as General Electric College Bowl and was broadcast from 1959 to 1970, first on CBS and later on NBC.
What is a quiz bowl?
Quiz bowl is an academic competition between two teams of four players. A moderator reads questions and teams answer them. There are two types of questions: a tossup question and a bonus question.
What are the categories of quiz bowls?
The "big three" categories that make up the bulk of quiz bowl questions are literature, history and science, but there are a significant number of questions drawn from fine arts, mythology, religion, geography, social sciences. Some formats may also include several current events and pop culture questions in their packets.
What is a tossup question?
Tossups are pyramidal. That means that the tossup questions begin with harder, more obscure clues. As the question continues, the clues become easier and more familiar, culminating in a giveaway clue at the end of the question. Players may--and indeed, should--buzz in when they know the answer. The more a player knows about the subject, the more likely that player will know the harder clues. In this way, players with deeper knowledge will have an advantage because they can buzz in earlier and get the question correct.
Why do students study for quiz bowls?
Because both tossups and bonuses reward players and teams with more knowledge, students who want to get better at quiz bowl will study to learn more and be able to score more points.
What are the parts of a bonus?
A bonus consists of three parts. One of these parts are easy (most teams should be able to answer it), one medium (about half the teams should be able to answer it), and one hard (the best teams may be the only ones who can answer it). The bonus parts are not always in increasing difficulty, and may appear in any order. (So the first bonus part is not always the easiest part. There may be an easier part later on.) This bonus structure rewards the better teams with deeper knowledge, who will have an advantage over teams with less knowledge.
What are social science questions?
Social science/Thought questions may ask about individual thinkers, movements, theories, or works. It includes psychology, economics, anthropology and sociology, among other fields. (In more difficult tournaments, like hard high school tournaments and college tournaments, there will be a significant number of philosophy questions, as well.)
What are religion questions?
Religion questions may ask about religious figures, historical leaders. texts, holidays, practices or beliefs. They may also ask about sects or minor religions. At lower difficulty levels, these may be primarily about Christianity or Judaism, with basic questions about other religions. As the difficulty of tournaments increase, players would be expected to have deeper knowledge of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and other major religions.
What is a quiz bowl?
At the high school level, quiz bowl is a competitive, academic, interscholastic activity for which players attend periodic practices and then represent their school at varsity tournaments. Those tournaments may be based on the school’s athletic conference, school district, county, or state; they may also be open to all comers.
What is a high school quiz bowl tournament?
Any high school may choose to host a tournament, which can serve as a fundraiser for its team. Many college quiz bowl teams also run high school tournaments as fundraisers and to entice players into considering them for their post-secondary education. Some tournaments are run by community organizations like Rotary Clubs.
What is the phone number for the quiz bowl?
If you’d be interested in learning more about quiz bowl, please write to [email protected] or call 888‑411‑6278 (“NAQT”). NAQT maintains a schedule of high school tournaments, TV shows, conferences, and leagues. View Schedule.
How long does it take to play quiz bowls?
Nationwide, most quiz bowl events are tournaments on Saturday, for which anywhere from 4 to 104 teams from different schools drive to a central location (the “host”) and play five to twelve matches, each of which takes about 30 minutes.
When is quiz bowl season?
A school’s quiz bowl season would generally run from early October until late April, though events do occur both before and after those thresholds.
Does NAQT sell quiz bowls?
NAQT sells both tournament and practice questions (including a New High School Package for beginning teams). NAQT is not a universal governing body for all quiz bowl tournaments. At the end of the season, teams may attend a state championship (if their state has one). If they have done well during the year, they may earn an invitation to ...
What is NAQT partnering with?
NAQT is excited to announce that we are partnering with SKT Education Group to bring middle and high school quiz bowl to a wider audience in China. SKT will support local tournaments run by clubs and run regional tournaments that will serve as qualifiers for a large national championship (which will in turn serve as a qualifier for NAQT’s championships in the United States). NAQT will provide the question sets for these tournaments.
What division is Westmont in 2021?
Congratulations to the champions of the 2021 Small School National Championship Tournament: in the Traditional Public Schools Divsion, Westmont (Illinois); in the Open Division, St. Mark's School of Texas A. Complete team and individual statistics are now available.
How many questions are there in Buzzword Season 3?
For $99, you can get all the questions from the all-subject games in Season 3 (Levels A, B, and C) and Season 4 (Levels A and C). That’s 2,000 tossup questions, new to anyone at your school who didn’t play those Buzzword games. These questions will help your players prepare for team competitions or Buzzword Season 6, which will begin in early 2022.
What is Buzzword game?
An exciting online game of knowledge and recall, Buzzword challenges the depth and breadth of your knowledge in an engaging audio format. You can compare your results with those of players from around the world.
What is a quiz bowl?
Quiz bowl is a fast-paced buzzer competition in which teams of four players compete to answer questions that cover academic subjects like literature and science as well as the broader world of popular culture and current events. Learn more about quiz bowl.
What is buzzword coach tool?
Finally, Buzzword's Coach Tools provide detailed data about player performance. See exactly what questions players are answering and where they're buzzing to determine how your team is progressing and what areas to focus on.
When is the 2022 CC SCT?
NAQT is pleased to announce that our 2022 Community College Sectional Championship Tournaments will take place the weekend of January 21-23. Both in-person and online hosting options will be available for the 2022 CC SCT. If your school would like to host CC SCT this coming January, please use our tournament request form.

Overview
Quiz bowl (quizbowl, scholars' bowl, scholastic bowl, academic bowl, academic team, etc.) is a family of quiz-based competitions that test players on a wide variety of academic subjects. Standardized quiz bowl formats are played by lower school, middle school, high school, and university students throughout North America, Asia, Europe, Australia, and Africa.
Quiz bowl competitions are typically played with a lockout buzzer system between at least two t…
History
Most forms of modern quiz bowl are modeled after game shows. College Bowl, which was created by Don Reid as a USO activity for U.S. service men during World War II, was an influential early quiz bowl program. Also known as "The College Quiz Bowl," it started on radio in 1953 and then aired on national television in the U.S. from 1959 to 1970.
In the first half of the 20th century, many other quiz-bowl-like competitions were also created. Del…
Gameplay
During a quiz bowl game, two teams of usually up to four or five players are read questions by a moderator. Each player usually has an electronic buzzer to signal in ("buzz") at any time during the question to give an answer. In most forms of quiz bowl, there are two types of questions: toss-ups and bonuses. Toss-ups are questions that any individual player can attempt to answer by bu…
Competitions
Quiz bowl is primarily played at single-day tournaments. Some events have eligibility rules that dictate who may participate, such as allowing only freshman and sophomore players or excluding graduate students. Additionally, most tournaments allow multiple teams from a single school to compete.
Some schools hold intramural tournaments where any team formed from students can play. High …
Broadcasting
Quiz bowl shows have been on television for many decades in some areas and usually feature competitors from local high schools. Many of these competitions may have rules and formats that differ slightly from standardized quiz bowl.
College Bowl was broadcast on NBC radio from 1953 to 1955. The program moved to television as General Electric College Bowl and was broadcast from 1959 to 1970, first on CBS and later on
See also
• National History Bee and Bowl – a history quiz competition in the US
• Reach for the Top and SchoolReach – a long-lasting Canadian high school competition, formerly nationally broadcast on the CBC
• Schools' Challenge – a U.K. high school tournament
Works cited
• Jennings, Ken (2006). Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs, Villard
External links
• The Quizbowl Resource Center
• Quiz Bowl packet archive
• Interactive Quiz Bowl question database
• Media guide with FAQs Archived 2021-06-30 at the Wayback Machine