Five students at a time compete head-to-head with the students from another school using a buzzer system. The time limit to answer questions is 10 seconds, with more time allotted when paper-and-pencil calculation is required. The sixteen questions for each round of regional and state competitions come from seven categories: foreign language, social science, language arts, mathematics, science/health, fine arts, and current events. At invitational tournaments the categories vary.