Knowledge is Power: Lind-Ritzville High School Students Test Their Knowledge in Bowl Meets

Twelve students from Lind-Ritzville High School have been participating in the trivial competitions of the Knowledge Bowl this school year. Mr. Thomas Pulliam is the team’s advisor and is responsible for the organization of this unique and fun extracurricular activity.

When asked why he wanted to start a Knowledge Bowl team, Pulliam responded, “These kids who aren’t involved in extracurricular stuff, this is an extracurricular during the school day that they are able to do. It’s nice to have those kids have an opportunity to shine at something.”

This is Lind-Ritzville’s first year participating in the Knowledge Bowl league. I was given the opportunity to sit in at a home meet, and was able to see how a meet runs and hear the types of questions that are asked. There were three teams competing all together, including our Lind-Ritzville team. Freeman and ACH also joined the meet.

There were two different rooms set up with buzzers for both the Junior Varsity and Varsity teams. Each room consisted of a timer, a question reader, and the team members. Four members from each team are allowed to compete at a time with one alternate who is allowed to switch out after every twenty-five questions.

Each team appoints a team captain who is the speaker of the team, and is the one who gives the team’s final answers. Points are given for every question answered correctly, but there is no penalty for wrong answers. Once the question reader has started reading, teams are allowed to buzz in, once they think they know the answer. They are then given 15 seconds to answer and if they answer wrong or if they run out of time, the team that buzzed in next has 15 seconds to answer and so on. If a team has not buzzed in and the others have already answered, they can ask to have the question repeated in its entirety or they can just move on to the next question if they are unsure of the answer.

When talking with two of the Varsity team members, Lisa and Alexis Koss, I found that there is a strategic way to participate in Knowledge Bowl. They explained that when they buzz in second, instead of first, it gives them more time to deliberate, and they can also use the previous team’s answers to narrow their ideas down to the right answer.

Pulliam agreed saying, “There’s definitely some strategy. There are questions when you are able to reason it out by watching the other teams.”

The questions asked range from mathematics to literature, to any sort of miscellaneous trivia. Each meet consists of three rounds, and during each round 50 questions are asked. In the Varsity meet I attended, our team answered seven of the 150 correctly, with quite a few attempts at some very challenging questions.

When asked about how the team has changed from meet to meet, Pulliam said, “There’s been definite improvement. They’re not so timid. At the beginning of the year they were really worried about being wrong. Now they’re going for the gusto!”

He went on to say that for the future he would like to see continued improvement, but most importantly, he just wants them to enjoy it and have fun.

Pulliam hopes to continue having a Knowledge Bowl team for many years to come and to possibly have the Varsity meets in the Gilson Gymnasium next year for community members to attend. As for the rest of this year, the team will continue on to Regionals, and if they secure a place in Regionals, they will advance to the State competition.