Friday, April 23, 2010

Knowledge Bowl

By Katelyn Diercks

Biology. English. Algebra. Literature. Geometry. History. All these, and many more, are possible subjects of questions that you may come across at a Knowledge Bowl Meet.

Knowledge Bowl is an academic competition involving teams of four to five students. The teams compete against each other in written and oral rounds. The written exam is a multiple choice test that all members of a team can work together on. After completing the written round, teams move on to the oral rounds. There are usually three to five oral rounds, depending where the meet is located. An oral round consists of three teams in a room with an adult reader. Each team has a buzzer that they can buzz anytime when the adult leader is reading the question. “Sometimes teams buzz in when the reader has only read three words and they get it right!” exclaimed Karen O’Connor. Karen, a senior, has been involved with Knowledge Bowl since her freshman year, when her friends urged her to join. “Although I don’t take Knowledge Bowl that seriously, like some people, I really enjoy it. It’s a great chance to get out of school and be with my friends, and I really love the shopping afterwards!” O’Connor stated.

An oral round consists of 30 questions. When asked what kind of questions are asked in an oral round, Carolyn Johnson, a junior, stated “There are questions about anything and everything!” Johnson has been with Knowledge Bowl since her seventh grade year. Her hard work has paid off this year when her team, consisting of Michelle Poncelet, Jon Schmitz, and Kaleb Luhman, got third place in the Sub-Regional’s and fourth at Regional’s. “We were only four points away from going to state!” she exclaimed.

This year Goodhue had 21 members on its Senior High Knowledge Bowl team and 23 on its Junior High team. Knowledge Bowl is coached by Dawn Austin.