What A Difference Practice Makes: A Successful Quiz Bowl

It always astounds me how much hard work and dedication make all the difference. It seems logical enough. The parable of course is used all the time. But I have practiced with many of my teams and never seen instant results. At the last tournament I let every player compete to a loss of tremendous proportions. Almost every team was in the bottom 3rd. But from that I weeded down to the top 12 players. These 3 NAQT Quiz Bowl teams practiced almost every day after-school for a month. When others kids were home having fun, these students were at school with me practicing and strategizing. This dedication paid off.

Non-Catholic Schools (MS-21)

#	Team	W–L	%	Points	TUH	P	TU	I	PPB	PP20TUH
1	St. John's A	10-0	1.000	4495	200	54	74	19	23.75	449.5
2	Annunciation Orthodox A	9-1	0.900	4020	200	40	82	18	22.05	402.0
3	Beckendorff A	8-1	0.889	3450	180	32	79	5	19.86	383.3
3	Kinkaid A	7-2	0.778	3635	180	39	62	9	24.50	403.9
5	T. H. Rogers A	6-2	0.750	3345	160	44	56	22	22.35	418.1
5	Beckendorff B	6-2	0.750	2570	160	22	63	16	19.88	321.2
5	St. John's B	6-3	0.667	2555	180	20	62	7	20.37	283.9
5	Quail Valley	5-3	0.625	2665	160	39	39	26	23.33	333.1
9	Beckendorff C	5-3	0.625	2250	160	18	55	14	20.55	281.2

All three of our teams made top 10, making it into the finals. Then two of our teams made Nationals. It was awesome to not only of course do well, but also excel beyond their previous matches. Every student who competed scored/ranked higher then they had before pushing their team to the playoffs and ultimately Nationals. One of our students out of all of the students in our division- 140 actually scored #1

1	Siddharth Nair	7th	Beckendorff A	9.0	180	21	53	0	4.69	28.4%	93.89
2	Alkiviades Boukas	8th	T. H. Rogers A	8.0	160	18	28	9	3.16	39.1%	63.12
3	Nicholas Hao	8th	Quail Valley	8.0	160	17	23	13	2.62	42.5%	52.50
4	Aaryan Sagar	7th	Beck A	8.0	160	11	27	5	2.56	28.9%	51.25
5	Ayush Suresh	8th	Baylor Academy at Ryan A	7.0	140	13	23	14	2.54	36.1%	50.71
6	Vedul Palavajjhala	7th	Kinkaid A	9.0	180	14	25	1	2.53	35.9%	50.56
7	Kile Stenoien	7th	Annunciation Orthodox A	10.0	200	12	34	5	2.48	26.1%	49.50
8	Anirudh Srinivasan	8th	Village B	7.5	150	12	22	6	2.47	35.3%	49.33
9	Sarah Chen	8th	St. John's A	10.0	200	18	23	2	2.45	43.9%	49.00
10	Everett Adkins	8th	Annunciation Orthodox B	8.0	160	7	31	5	2.44	18.4%	48.75

Out of every 20 questions read- He scored 93.89 points for his team. I am just so very proud of the dedication my students have in this very rigorous, engaging, academic competition. It is a National competition and if you haven't joined yet you should. It is so fun and it isn't taking written tests in a quiet room, it is a Jeopardy style, buzzer system competition, highly interactive and exciting to watch.