What We Do

Quiz bowl is a competition in which teams answer questions from traditional academics, current events and pop culture, although most questions fall into the first category. In our state it's generally played under Arkansas Governor's Quiz Bowl Association rules. In this format two teams play four quarters: first quarter, twenty toss-ups; second quarter, bonus question for team that gets toss-up first; third quarter, sixty-second round in which each team answers ten questions on a related topic in said time frame; and fourth quarter, twenty toss-ups.

Tools of the Trade

If you think you can learn everything you need to know for quiz bowl from your typical public school education, think again.  

Banana Slugs Mascot of the University of Santa Cruz. We missed this one in a 60-second round, and for obvious reasons will never forget it.

Coca-Cola  Studying almost non-stop for the two days prior to the State Overalls, Brent was quizzing Bart over inventions and discoveries when he asked who had created said beverage.  "Coke?  Coke?!?  We're never going to need to know who invented Coke!  Give me some real stuff!"  In the semi-finals of the overalls, there was, in fact, a question concerning who created Coke, which Cecilia Tran of Fort Smith Northside answered.

Dictionary of Cultural Literacy Compilation of “universal knowledge” that all well-educated people should know contained in a 575-page tome Ms. Roberts had requested we all commit to memory. (Thus far not achieved by anyone.) The number of copies steadily rose throughout the year, thanks to an incident Bart says the coaches “don’t really want to know about.”

dirty knowledge Extensive knowledge about non-academic topics that are usually pop culture. David is the requisite keeper of the Dirty Knowledge Flame.

Hiroshima Novel by John Hersey with which literary boy wonder Joe Burton is familiar, enabling the team to defeat North Kansas City at a tournament in sudden death.

Little Green Study Folders Ever-growing compilation of knowledge our coaches believe we should know backward and forward, despite the fact that they don’t know a quarter of the information therein.  It's the only item on campus to have ever been censored. (At right: Brent and Allyn, with Jeremy in the background, study before a game at Nationals in Chicago.)

Joe Versus the Volcano Taken from the title of a terrible 1990 movie starring Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks, it refers to how we divide the team for practice games: Joe Burton against everyone else.  Interestingly, Joe won every game he ever played against the Volcano, which numbers somewhere in the fifties.  Eight hours before the final game of our season at two o'clock in the morning, the Volcano (comprised of Allyn and Bart, the only two still awake) defeated Joe by four questions.  Although Joe fell asleep in the fourth quarter and Ms. Roberts whispered the questions to them, they declared it a moral victory and insisted on ending the season on that positive note.

map, the We asked for a detailed map to study with for weeks but never got one. Bart and Joe took it upon themselves to locate and procure the map, a mammoth one that filled an entire wall of the quiz bowl room. Joe claims the two just "borrowed" it from a social studies classroom; Bart insists (almost with a straight face) that it belonged to the quiz bowl anyway and had just been misplaced until which time the two retrieved it.

Things We Know That We Probably Shouldn't

Duncan, Isadora  Famed dancer who died when the scarf she was wearing got caught in the spokes of the wheels of the car she was a passenger in.  Ms. Roberts insisted we know this.  It never once came up.

electric razor Invented by Schick, as opposed to the regular razor, which was invented by Gillette.  According to David, said tool will give you "no shave and razor burn all at the time time."

exaltation of larks Collective name for said group of birds.

Howells, William Dean Author of The Rise of Silas Lapham and nothing else of note, which didn’t stop Joe from using the writer as an answer to any literature question he didn’t know the correct answer to in the first few games of the year.

mho David's less-than-serious guess to the question, “What is the derived SI unit of electrical conductance that is the reciprocal of the ohm?” The guess was funny enough; the fact that he was actually right made it all the more hilarious.

Ouagoudougou Capital of the African nation of Burkina Faso, and perhaps one of the funniest words on the planet.  Once, after we'd spanked a team, their captain said, "Hey, I bet none of you know the capital of Burkina Faso."  All four players stopped in mid-sentence, turned to him, said, "Ouagoudougou," in unison, and resumed their conversation.  At Nationals, Joe tried to teach us the proper pronunciation with little success.

pirouette Despite the fact that Allyn trained as a dancer for years, it was David who correctly identified this ballet step in a tournament -- and in record time, no less. That's why he’s the keeper of the Dirty Knowledge Flame.

pyronymphonecromania Compulsion to start destructive fires while having sex with dead people.  Origin unknown, except for the fact that Joe printed out a bunch of posters that said such, one of which Ms. Roberts adhered to the back of her quiz bowl binder that she carried everywhere.    

Thomas, Biggers Character in Richard Wright’s novel Native Son. After a particularly grueling written pre-test for quiz bowl at the state Beta Club convention, Joe was desperate to learn in what work the character appeared. He insisted that this information was going to be very important; he could simply feel it in his bones. Lo and behold, the next day the question appeared in the first game. Joe buzzed in and said, with utter confidence, “Native Son.” However, he betrayed his self-doubt with a strangled, hysterical giggle on the last syllable. The stunned look on his face when the moderator deemed the answer correct was priceless.  

Other Stuff We Don't Have a Heading For

four David's stock answer to any math question. Because he’s not exactly a whiz with numbers, he’s prohibited from answering math questions in actual play. However, he happily answers all practice math questions with a confident, “Four!” , which always garners laughter and occasionally elicits awe, as he’s sometimes right.

quadratic equations Sixty-second round topic we foolishly chose during the finals of a tournament, despite the fact that Mr. Davis is a former math teacher and knew there was no way we could solve ten of them in the established time frame.

Spiderman Answer given by former team member John Sullivan on any comic book question except for the final question in the 1999 State finals, enabling us to win the game and breathe a huge sigh of relief and disbelief.  David wore a Spiderman T-shirt beneath his quiz bowl shirt in homage to John and the crime fighter throughout the year.

Star Trek Science-fiction television series that’s popped up several times this year in practice questions, much to our disgust because we find it thoroughly uninteresting, and much to Ms. Roberts’ disgust because she knows all the answers but can’t play.

Games We Dream About

There are times when the it seems as if we eat, breathe, and sleep quiz bowl.  In fact, there are days that we actually do.  It's no wonder that quiz bowl pervades our lives to the extent that we've found ourselves coming up with questions in the middle of the night... or in line at the grocery store... or right before we play games.   

Nightmare at the Battle of the Buzzers  Sixty-second rounds that we're terrified will come up one day.

Sweet Dreams Are Made of This  Sixty-second rounds that we're hoping will come up one day.

The Bald Knob High School Quiz Bowl webpage is an entirely independent creation of Bart Taylor. It is in absolutely no way sanctioned, authorized or supported by Bald Knob Public Schools, its school board, or employees. All questions, comments, etc., should be directed to the webmaster only.  Questions about the quiz bowl team itself should be directed to Bradi Roberts.
Copyright © 2000 Bald Knob High School Quiz Bowl
Last modified: June 24, 2000