Helpful Tips

• Start forming your team now! Get a jump on the books and begin reading now but be sure you are taking notes! 

• Either assign or have each team member read at least two of the 9 books; ensure each book is read by more than one student.

• Set up a periodic meeting time to talk about your team’s progress and to discuss books already read.

• Each team member should develop a list of questions from the books they read to review during team meetings. This is a great opportunity for a parent to read along and help develop the test questions.

• Hold a mock trivia event against another team. Invite another team that read from the same list to a mock trivia round. Make sure the kids are answering in the proper format: the captain answers the question or can assign a team mate to answer and students work within the 20 second window.

• Set up a Google doc or sheet and share among team members to jot notes for later review.

• During The Games, the moderator will read each question twice. However, if a team misses the question and the other team goes in for the steal, the question is not read again. It helps require listening from both teams.

• Team leads - During the games you are encouraged to sit back, relax and enjoy the day. There are NO scholarships associated with The Games. The win is having kids read books and enjoy discussing books with friends.

• In accordance with the rules, team leads are not to interrupt, prompt or discuss anything with their students during the trivia rounds. This includes asking the moderator for clarification and / or disputing a question or answer with the moderator. If a team lead does interfere, please know your actions will reflect on your team and might lead to disqualification. 

• ​Due to space limitations, spectators are not allowed at The Games. A great way to be involved with The Games is by volunteering! More information on volunteer roles will be shared when registration opens.​​

• Questions will be literal. If a moderator believes the team's answer is close, the moderator might choose to ask the team to be more specific - below is an example of a typical question and expected answer.

For example:  

Q. In the book Charlotte’s Web, to whom did Fern sell Wilbur when her father said he couldn’t stay at their farm?  

A. Her uncle / Mr. Zuckerman. Teams may be given a chance to provide more specific answers. In this example, if a team were to answer ‘a farmer’ - which is close - the moderator may choose to ask for clarification.​

• Moderators have been instructed to "err" on the side of teams being correct.  If a team answers "gerbil" but the official answer is "hamster", the moderator can use their judgment and deem the answer correct.