This is a basic FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) aimed mostly at those in college new to the sport known as Quiz Bowl, College Bowl, or Academic Competition. It is meant to provide a running introduction to the sport as it exists at the college level. It does not address the high school game. It only provides basic information about the college game.
Quiz Bowl is a game in which two teams compete to answer questions on all topics of human knowledge. It is commonly referred to as "College Bowl" or "Academic Competition", or variants thereof. "Quiz Bowl/QB" will be the generic term used here.
(2) What are the questions on?
At the college level, most questions are on subjects generally covered in a liberal arts education, or the liberal arts component of a degree. These include Literature, History, Science and Math, Social Science, Fine Arts, Geography, and Religion. The choice of subjects and number of questions on each is called question distribution. To a lesser extent, questions are asked on Engineering topics (including Computer Science), and "Trash".
"Trash" subjects are generally considered to be current events, sports, pop culture, and some parts of the "general knowledge" catch-all. The use of the word "trash" in reference to these subjects was originally derogatory, but "trash-lovers" have reclaimed the word, and many label themselves "trash-mesiters" or similarly with pride.
(2b) What are the questions like?
Most questions in college level Quiz Bowl rarely look like this: "Who is the original maker of Macintosh computers?"
Instead, they resemble this tossup question:
A: APPLE Computer
There are several different variants (or formats) of Quiz Bowl, but they share the following rules for playing.
Two teams of (typically) 4 players each sit at a buzzer set, which is like a set of TV game show buzzers. Anyone who 'rings' or 'buzzes' in prevents anyone else from doing so. If a round is timed, a countdown timer is used. Each game is played with a packet of questions, which a moderator reads.
There are two basic types of questions asked: tossups (typically worth 10 points) and bonuses (worth a maximum of 20-30 points).
Tossup questions:
Tossup questions (or tossups) can be answered by any player from either team. Tossups must be answered individually, without the aid of teammates or the audience (Just like Jeopardy!). Aid by teammates is known as conferring and is not allowed. The first person from either side to buzz in may attempt to answer the question. Unlike Jeopardy!, one may interrupt the moderator and give an answer. If their answer is incorrect, then no other member of their team may attempt to answer and only players from the other team may ring in. Only one player per team may try to answer.
Scoring:
Bonus questions
Bonuses can only be answered by one team. The team may work together (confer) to answer the bonus question. Usually, bonus questions require multi-part answers, and tossups single-part answers.
Scoring:
(4) Who can play? (Undergraduate, Graduate, and Non Students)
i. Undergraduates enrolled in a degree seeking program in general can always play.
ii. Graduate students can play, but face more restrictions on participation, depending on the rules in place for a given tournament. Some rules restrict the number of graduate students per team, others restrict the number of years played for individual players.
The intent is to ensure a degree of fairness, by preventing teams from having too many players who have too much experience who can swamp the entire field. College Bowl in particular allows only one graduate student per team. This is a controversial point.
iii. Non students generally are restricted to certain tournaments, which are open to everyone. These tournaments include "Masters" tournaments, "Trash" tournaments, and the occasional intramural tournament.
Why not? Many of the people who play College Bowl love games of quick recall and/or knowledge (like Jeopardy!). A lot can be learned by playing and writing questions. The people are friendly: some of the neat things about the game are being part of a team, and meeting people from other schools.
As to how good one has to be to play, one doesn't have to be very good to start playing. Through team practices and tournament experiences, playing skills improve over time. Although self-study helps, a knowledge base can be built on what is learned in liberal arts classes.
(5) Where does one play Quiz Bowl?
Quiz Bowl is generally played at tournaments. Many schools hold on-campus
tournaments (intramurals) where anyone can play. Some schools have programs
which practice weekly (or more) during the school year. These programs
are generally open to all students. They often include in their names "College
Bowl", "Academic Competition", or "Quiz Bowl". They send teams to invitational
tournaments sponsored by other schools or organizations.
For Quiz Bowl, a tournament is a gathering of teams who engage each other in several rounds of games. A tournament winner is determined using some criteria (win-loss record, playoff record, etc....). There are several classes of tournaments, which may use one of several formats (See 7 - What's a format?).
Intramural tournaments invite students on a given campus to form teams and play. They are often called campus tournaments. On occassion, such tournaments may be open to teams of graduate students, and/or campus staff.
Invitational tournaments involve teams from various schools. They are run by the Quiz Bowl team/program at a given school. Invitations are sometimes sent to individual programs. However, most tournaments give out open invitations for any school to accept.
Major variants of Invitational tournaments include National/Regional, Junior Bird, "Masters", and "trash" tournaments.
National/Regional tournaments are academic tournaments run by organizations not affiliated with a given school. These organizations include:
Such tournaments often have qualification requirements, sometimes including purchase of intramural tournament packets, or participation in regional tournaments (or other tournaments). They have unique rules above their associated formats, usually concerning eligibility and number of teams per school.
Junior Bird tournaments are restricted to collegiate players in their
first or second season. Freshmen and sophmores are the intended target,
but grad students who meet the criteria sometimes play. The intent of these
is to support player development by providing experience against other
teams of similar skills.
Masters tournaments are tournaments which do not place any restrictions on who may play. They are intended for those who want to play with people from other schools, have graduated, or are otherwise ineligible for college play. The intent behind them varies.
Trash tournaments are similar to Masters tournaments, except that all
the questions are on trash subjects. (See 2a - What
is trash?).
For tournament purposes, a format covers rules of play and question structure/content. For questions, this includes question topics, clue difficulty, order of clues, and writing style. Most questions contain multiple clues. Rules of play include player eligibility, scoring of questions, acceptible answers, and procedures for protesting a question.
In particular, ACF, CBCI, HCASC, NAQT and UC each have distinctive formats.
Also, certain tournaments and programs have developed their own distinctive
formats. A few of them include the University of Pennsylvania (Penn Bowl
007, returning in 1998), University of Michigan MLK, Stanford University,
and Deep Bench (U of MN/Carleton College).
(8) What are the ACF, CBCI, and NAQT formats?
Again, in alphabetical order:
ACF format has a rigorous emphasis on academics, specifically Western Civ. There is no limit on grad participation. Questions are almost all on academic topics, and are more difficult than other formats. Clues are layered; more difficult clues come first, and a question should be answerable from any clue read. ACF is untimed; questions are generally much longer than CBCI questions. Games are usually played to a total of 20 tossups read.
CBCI or College Bowl format emphasizes comparitively short questions on academics, current events, pop culture, and general knowledge. The limits on participation are 6 years total in CBCI tournaments and only one grad student per team. Questions tend to be structured so that most of the players know the answers to tossups read in their entirety. It is played in 7 minute halves, to a total of 24 tossups read. Game play is relatively quick as a result. Related formats are HCASC (Honda Campus All Star Challenge) and UC (University Challenge).
NAQT format balances the diversity of subjects found in CB packets
with question difficulty often seen in the ACF format. The limits on participation
are complex; in a nutshell, as long as you're earning a degree, you can
play. It is based on the Penn Bowl/MLK format. Game play is markedly different
from ACF or CB. Timeouts and player substitution during timeouts is allowed.
In addition, there are power tossups, where 15 points may be earned during
an early intrarupt. Game length can vary a little, but a standard length
for NAQT is 9 minute halves and a total of 28 tossups. National/Regional
tournaments follow these formats very closely, while invitationals often
modify these formats for their own use.
(9) Where do questions and packets come from?
Questions come from one of three sources.
(10) Is Quiz Bowl televised or on the radio?
As far as I know, no form of quiz bowl at the college level is broadcast
regularly in the United States on a national basis. From 1959 to 1970,
College Bowl was televised on NBC (and was on the radio from 1953 to 1958?),
and HCASC was broadcast on BET until a few years ago. University Challenge
is licensed from CBCI by Granada TV Ltd. and broadcast in the UK.
There are probably several local broadcasts of college and high school level quiz bowl.
There is no relationship between Quiz Bowl and Jeopardy! or any of the
other TV trivia game shows out there, other than that a few of the contestants
may be the same.
(11) Where can I find out more?
There is much, much more to QB than is written here. Many questions can be answered by people in your school's program (if it has one) or people on the mailing list.
There are many resources on the Internet for finding out more about tournaments, formats and QB in general. Many of these may move or disappear, and the FAQ editor takes no responsibility for their availability or content.
Commands for getting on and off the lists
Much thanks goes to all the people who over the decades have worked and are working to sustain and grow Quiz Bowl. The original FAQ, edited by Pat Matthews, was very helpful in preparing this document.
General Notes: Many things are not included in this FAQ - stuff on starting a program, running a tournament, playing the game, the history of the game, where to buy equipment, current issues, stuff on current programs, or writing questions. Many of these date easily, and require effort to maintain. Others I know little about, and would have no business writing on.
Those subjects are each worthy of a separate FAQ, and anyone who want to should write one. Knowing HTML or any other technical skill (including how to type) is not a requirement - other people can help out with that. And they don't have to be written solo.
As for me maintaining/organizing this FAQ, I will not guarantee it. I did this FAQ mostly because I had a burst of energy, and because the prior FAQ needed overhauling. Anyone is welcome to take it over.