Introducing AISG Quiz Bowl

What comes to your mind when the school announces that a group of students is traveling to another region to compete in a national Quiz Bowl tournament? Maybe a clique immersed in the acquisition of knowledge, or demure, inquisitive students who are often patronized as “nerds”. Many students look down on this activity and do not give Quiz Bowl players the credits they deserve. The perception students hold about Quiz Bowl is mostly pessimistic and biased; the reality is that the traditional image of Quiz Bowl does not seem to change in the AISG community even after being informed of the remarkable achievements of the AISG Quiz Bowl team.

Quiz Bowl is a competitive sport that asks players a wide range of academic questions ranging from literature, history, math, science, fine arts, social sciences to popular culture. There is no restriction as to how many students can be enrolled in the high school Quiz Bowl team; however, only four players can represent the team and play at a time. Therefore, coaches of the Quiz Bowl team usually select four students with different areas of expertise for the team’s success.

Most Quiz Bowl players are well-rounded and knowledgeable about a variety of topics, yet each player needs to delve into a certain subject to tackle questions that ask very detailed and esoteric concepts or events. In order to attain better results, Quiz Bowl players hone their skills and expand their knowledge through books, Quizlet Flashcards, and online platforms such as www.protobowl.com and www.quizdb.org/. The former is an online database that is open to all demographics and helps students experience the real sense of playing Quiz Bowl. The latter is the past Quiz Bowl questions. One of the Quiz Bowl A team players, Terry M. explains what Quiz Bowl members do for Tuesday and Thursday practice: “We alternate between using past packets and using Quizlet.live study sets to test our knowledge. Also, studying and expanding Quiz Bowl knowledge is one’s own responsibility to fulfill outside of practice.”

The AISG quiz bowl team has been successful in bringing glory and satisfactory results for our school, such as placing second in 2019 Quiz Bowl Asian Championships, achievements that APAC sports teams in AISG can hardly obtain. Therefore, I believe that Quiz Bowl members and the activity itself deserve more credit from the community.