What is quizbowl? (The Format):

Quizbowl is a buzzer-based interscholastic academic competition in which teams from different schools compete against each other to answer questions pertaining to all areas of knowledge (see below). In a typical quizbowl match, a moderator reads questions to two teams of up to 4 players, who compete head-to-head to answer them. There are typically 20 cycles of questions; each cycle consists of one pyramidal tossup* and one 3-part bonus**. Tossups are worth 10 points (though you can often earn 15 points if you buzz in with the correct answer early in the question, called a power), and a team that answers a tossup correctly then answers a bonus and receives 10 points per bonus part answered correctly (a team can earn up to 30 points for an entire bonus). The winning team has the most points at the end of the match.

Quizbowl matches are usually played at tournaments that are hosted on Saturdays. Tournaments typically have a set of 5 rounds in the morning and 5 rounds in the afternoon (with a lunch break in-between), and teams accumulate win-loss records throughout the day. At the end of the day, the teams with the top two records play a final round to decide the overall champion.

* A tossup is described as "pyramidal" because it gradually becomes easier to answer as it progresses from start to finish (the beginning of the question contains harder clues, and the clues get easier toward the end). Individual players can buzz at any point during the tossup to give an answer, though if a player answers incorrectly, then the rest of their team is blocked from trying to answer the question (this often causes their team's score to lose 5-points, called a neg).

** A bonus typically has one easy part, one medium part, and one hard part, which are all answered via collaboration between players on the same team. While some tournaments allow it, bouncebacks are not common in college quizbowl, so the opposing team is usually not able to answer missed bonus parts.

What is quizbowl? (The Questions):

Quizbowl questions draw from all areas of knowledge. Major categories include science (biology, physics, chemistry, earth science, astronomy, math, computer science, etc.), history (American, European, World, Ancient, etc.), literature (American, British, European, World), religion, mythology, philosophy, social science (economics, sociology, political science, anthropology, linguistics, etc.), arts (visual fine arts such as painting/scuplture; auditory/performing arts such as classical music, jazz, opera, and dance; and applied arts such as architecture and fashion), geography, current events, and pop culture.

The main difference between quizbowl questions and general trivia questions is an explicit emphasis by the question writer on the usefulness and academic merit of both the question's answer and clues. This desire to test knowledge is why quizbowl questions are generally longer, more intensive, and ultimately much more relevant than trivia questions that you may find, for example, at a bar or in a board game.

More information can be found on these websites:

www.pace-nsc.org/quizbowl-101/

The Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence (PACE) is one of the prominent organizations in high school quizbowl, but much of the content on this portion of their website is also relevant to college quizbowl.

National Academic Quiz Tournaments (NAQT)

NAQT is another prominent provider of questions for both college and high school quizbowl.

The Quizbowl Forums

The official online forums for college (and high school) quizbowl is useful for both scheduling purposes and general discussions of quizbowl.