This year, the Quiz Bowl team has qualified two teams to the National Championship Tournament, which will take place in Atlanta on May 23-25. The team lineups have not been finalized yet, but two teams of six — 12 students total — will be attending.
Quiz Bowl is a buzzer-based competition where two teams compete against each other. Teams are quizzed on a wide variety of knowledge, with topics in history, literature, science and other disciplines.
To qualify for Nationals, a team must place in the top 10-15% of the teams participating at a tournament. For a school to qualify two teams, the two teams must simultaneously qualify at the same tournament.
The Quiz Bowl team achieved a one-team qualification at the Texas Quiz Bowl Alliance (TQBA) Online Jamboree in September, placing second out of 12 teams, and also at the TQBA Homecoming tournament in October, placing third out of 15 teams.
More recently, the team earned a two-team qualification at the TQBA Prickly Pear tournament on March 8, placing first and second.
The team also participated in the Academic Competition Federation fall tournament on Sept. 15 of last year, which featured college-level Quiz Bowl questions. This year, they participated in the Washington Winter Classic on Jan. 25, the California Cup 2 on Feb. 15 and the California Cup 3 on March 15.
Junior Max Rombakh, who specializes in science, appreciates how the team-working dynamic highlights different members’ strengths in different fields. The members would subdivide preparation among different types of questions, making them a strong, well-rounded competitor in tournaments.
“Personally, I just go for science and math questions, and occasionally I know some of the history and geography knowledge from history classes,” Rombakh said. “It’s kind of impressive to think about what other people on the team who are super dedicated to learning something like fine arts can do. Oftentimes, you’ll even see them name a piece of the music given the first few notes of it.”
This year, the team has gained several new members, and according to senior team captain Alan Cai, the new freshmen — Harini Ramakrishnan and Arjun Vijaykumar — are key contributors to the team.
“Our freshmen are really active and have gone to almost every single tournament circuit. And really, kudos to them,” Cai said. “I think that’s a very good sign for the growth of the team. With them on the team, I wouldn’t be worried about the team’s future.”
Both freshmen have participated in Quiz Bowl at Redwood Middle School, which according to Vijaykumar, has already transitioned to high school level competitions when he was in 7th grade. The Redwood team participated in Nationals last year, of which both freshmen found to be a motivating experience in their Quiz Bowl careers.
As a result, Ramakrishnan and Vijaykumar quickly became familiar with the high school Quiz Bowl setting, gaining a lot from the team.
“The club is really fun,” Vijaykumar said. “The people are really nice and it’s just a great way to have fun, learn new stuff and go to tournaments.”
Ramakrishnan said her main way of preparing for Quiz Bowl tournaments is to read consistently. During middle school, she focused on Literature and Fine Arts as her main focus, but began to expand toward more subjects in high school.
Meanwhile, Vijaykumar said he practiced for Quiz Bowl by reading Wikipedia and past questions, as these allowed him to get close to a real competition experience.
During practices on every Blue Day Tuesdays, the team aims to simulate a real competition experience under pressure. The usual routine consists of the whole team studying questions packets about a certain field, holding small practice rounds for team members to buzz in and, at the end, doing a breakdown and summary of the meeting.
The club encourages members to actively seek out knowledge, improving themselves in not just one specific area, but in their knowledge base as a whole.
“Quiz Bowl made me more well-rounded in my knowledge,” Rombakh said. “If it wasn’t for this, I’d be too science-focused, but now I actually get to find out about all the cool stuff in other disciplines.”
