In-House Quiz Bowl Livens Up Spring Semester
Knowledge, quick reflexes both a must in matches
Simon Jones '20 could have slept in Wednesday. Instead, the sophomore was buzzing in with correct answers for Christ School's In-House Quiz Bowl Tournament.
"It was fun. I'm just glad I wasn't the weak link," Simon joked.
No, not at all. Simon, along with seniors Coleman Davis '18 and David Shainberg '18, and English Department chair Brent Kaneft advanced to the second round with 200 points. Classes start at 9:20 a.m. on Wednesdays instead of the usual 8:30, which allowed for the morning match in Sandy Powers' classroom.
The In-House Quiz Bowl Tournament, now in its fourth year of existence, began shortly before Easter Break. The championship should be decided sometime in late April. Each team is comprised of one faculty member and three students, or just four students. Teams are put together through a draft.
The format for the matches themselves is two halves consisting of 10 toss-up questions each. Once a player successfully answers the toss-up question for 10 points, his or her team alone gets a shot at a bonus without having to use buzzers. So quick reflexes and intelligence are both a must.
"Sometimes people have no idea (of the answer) and other times it's a race to the buzzer," Coleman said.
Along with the thrill of competition, there is a bracket challenge where the Christ School community picks winners for a cash prize. Proceeds from the bracket challenge, which is a 50-50 pot, will help send the official Greenie Quiz Bowl team to the Small School National Championship Tournament which is April 27-29 in Chicago.
The Quiz Bowl team is coached by Powers and Ben Dowling.
"I like (the In-House Tournament), the boys get to see that they can do this," Powers said. "It ends up being a great recruiting tool for us. That's not why we do it but it's a nice perk. You'll see a student say to himself, 'Hey, I kind of like this,' and then they might give it a try."
