Knowledge Bowl

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Knowledge Bowl is an interdisciplinary academic competition involving teams of four students trying to answer questions in a written round and several oral rounds. No team is eliminated in this event, and every team participates in every round. Knowledge Bowl is a power competition in which team groupings are rearranged after each round on the basis of their total points accumulated. The written round is a multiple-choice exam taken by each team as a whole. Results of this round are used for seeding teams in the oral rounds. In the oral rounds, there are three teams per room. A reader presents the questions, and a team member may buzz in as soon as he or she chooses. If they miss a question, nothing is deducted, but the other teams then may try to answer the question based on who buzzed in first. The winner is the team with the greatest number of points at the end of the meet.

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[edit] Knowledge Bowl History

Knowledge Bowl originated in 1976 as a project within a small educational service cooperative (San Juan Board of Cooperative Services) in Durango, Colorado. It began in response to a group of area student body leaders who asked if the organization would develop and host some kind of competitive academic activity involving excellent students. The first meet held in Pagosa Springs involved just three high schools. Within two years, it evolved to include scores of invitational meets in addition to regional competitions and a Colorado state championship that has been held annually ever since. The event soon attracted educators from Minnesota, Washington, South Dakota who initiated the activity in their home states.

[edit] Knowledge Bowl in Colorado

[edit] History

The first statewide Colorado State Knowledge Bowl was held in 1978 at Fort Lewis College in Durango. Most of the competing teams that year came from schools in mountain districts. One of the few Front Range schools in the competition that year, Green Mountain High School in Jefferson County, won the first statewide championship. Green Mountain would go on to triumph in three of the first four years of the competition, taking first place in 1980 and 1981 as well.

[edit] Meet Format

In Colorado, the meets start off with the written round. This round comprises 60 multiple choice questions that the team attempts to answer correctly. They may talk about the answers. Depending on the school, the team may have between 2 to 5 people.

After the written round, the teams are sent into different rooms for the oral round. This round consists of fifty questions. Only four members of a team may take part in these rounds, so if the team has more than four members, the other members sub out every 25 questions. The members may not talk about the answer to the question, but they may talk about who will answer the question. A sheet of paper is provided for computations and for keeping score.

[edit] Knowledge Master Open

Once a year, a set of 200 questions are sent to the teams of Colorado. The entire team meets, and gathers around a computer to answer these questions. The questions are in multiple choice format. If a question is answered correctly, the team gets a certain amount of points. If a question is answered incorrectly, the team is given a second chance to get it right, for half the points. The third wrong answer is final, and the team gets no points for that question. Weeks later, the team gets the results of how they matched up to the other schools in Colorado.

[edit] Knowledge Bowl in Minnesota

[edit] History

The first Minnesota Knowledge Bowl was started by the Lakes Country Service Cooperative of Fergus Falls, Minnesota, in 1979. The first season featured teams from only eight school districts in western Minnesota. Today, Knowledge Bowl has grown to include over 700 teams from across the state.

[edit] Meet Format

Although there is some variation from region to region, most Knowledge Bowl meets follow the same general format. First is the written round. The written round (WR) consists of usually 60 multiple-choice questions with five possible answers listed. In the written round, all five members of the team may confer throughout the duration of the round.

However, in the oral rounds (OR), only four team members are allowed to participate. Thus, if a team has five members, one must sit out during the oral round. Oral rounds consist of three sets of 15 questions, 45 in total. Some regions play four oral rounds in a meet, others five. Oral rounds feature three teams in one room competing against each other for points. Teams may buzz in at any point during the question. However, they must then answer with whatever information has been given them. If a team buzzes in before the question is read in its entirety, the reader will reread the question for the other team(s), provided they have not yet buzzed in themselves.

Some regions randomly assign teams to play each other over the course of a meet, while others use "power ranking". Power ranking is simply the process whereby the top three teams are placed together in one room, the next three in another, and so on. While not all regions use the power ranking method, it is used in the Minnesota Service Cooperatives' State Knowledge Bowl Meet. In 2006, several regions tested a "Strength of Schedule" (SOS) meet format at meets using Power Ranking, and in 2007, this was made the official format. Using SOS, a team will receive a 1.5 point bonus for every round it spends in room 1, a 1 point bonus for every round in room two, and a .5 point bonus for every round in room three. The SOS points are not added to a team's score until after all of the oral rounds. In 2007, SOS was made official Knowledge Bowl procedure, and will be used at the state tournament.

[edit] Postseason

All the regions throughout Minnesota utilize various postseason formats to select the teams that will represent their region at the state meet. Following the completion of the regular season, the region hosts a sub-regional tournament. In some regions, teams have to qualify by finishing high enough in the standings, while in others, all the teams in the region qualify for Sub-Regions. Following Sub-Regions, a certain number of teams advance to Regions. In some regions, the top teams receive a bye through Sub-Regions straight to Regions, while in others, every team has to qualify through Sub-Regions. At Regions, teams compete for that region's allotted number of State berths.

The 48 teams that qualify for State are ordered by enrollment and then evenly divided, with the larger 24 in Class AA, and the smaller 24 in Class A. All schools from the Metro Region (XI) are automatically placed in Class AA. If one private school qualifies, it is automatically placed in Class AA, regardless of size. If two private schools qualify, the larger is placed in Class AA, and the smaller in Class A. If three private schools qualify, the larger two are placed in Class AA, and the smallest is placed in Class A, and so on. The State meet is held in late April at Cragun's Resort in Brainerd.

[edit] Regions

These are the ten/eleven regions throughout the state of Minnesota, and the city in which they are headquartered:

Northwest (I/II)*, Thief River Falls; Northeast (III), Mountain Iron; Lakes Country (IV), Fergus Falls; North Central (V), Staples; West Central/Southwest (VI/VIII)**, Marshall; Central (VII), St. Cloud; South Central (IX), North Mankato; Southeast (X), Rochester; Metro (XI), St. Anthony.

*-While the Northwest Region is designated Regions I & II, it is essentially one region, with all the teams from Northwest Minnesota participating in it. **-While the West Central and Southwest Regions are both headquartered in Marshall and operated under the same auspices, they are essentially separate regions in which teams from their respective region participate apart from teams in the other region.

[edit] Minnesota State Tournament

The Minnesota Knowledge Bowl state tournament is held annually at Cragun's resort in Brainerd, Minnesota. The tournament is a two-day event, with the first day comprising a banquet dinner and the written round, and the second day comprising five oral rounds.

[edit] Knowledge Bowl in Washington

[edit] Meet Formats

Knowledge Bowl competitions are held between November and late March. The regional tournaments that determine which teams go to State take place in late February or early March. Each meet, or Round Robin, consists of one written round and four oral rounds. Written rounds vary in length, usually consisting of 40-60 questions; oral rounds vary from 45-60. Each team may have a maximum of six team members with only four competing at a time. In the oral rounds, substitutions are allowed every 15 or 25 questions during the regular season. At Regional and State competitions, early rounds have 50 questions; semi-final and final rounds have 60. For Regional and State, substitutions are only allowed at the halfway point (at 30 for 60 questions, at 25 for 50 questions).

[edit] State Tournaments

The state championship tournaments take place in Camas, Washington for 2A, 3A, and 4A schools and Spokane, Washington for 1B, 2B, and 1A schools. The teams come from the nine ESDs (Educational Service Districts) in Washington. The number each ESD sends to State varies with the number of schools that compete at each level in the ESD. During qualifying rounds, some movement takes place between ESDs and/or between divisions to include enough teams for a Round Robin elimination. The top 18 teams in each division (top 9 in 1B) advance to State.


The ESDs send the following numbers of teams to each State competition:

ESD 101 (Northeast Washington) sends 5 teams to Camas, 10 teams to Spokane.

ESD 105 (Yakima Valley) sends 4 teams to Camas, 2 teams to Spokane.

ESD 112 (Southwest Washington) sends 7 teams to Camas, 4 teams to Spokane.

ESD 113 (West Central, Coast) sends 4 teams to Camas, 11 teams to Spokane.

ESD 114 (Olympic Peninsula) sends 3 teams to Camas, 3 teams to Spokane.

ESD 121 (Puget Sound) sends 17 teams to Camas, 3 to Spokane.

ESD 123 (Southeast Washington) sends 4 teams to Camas, 5 to Spokane.

ESD 171 (North Central Washington) sends 2 teams to Camas, 6 to Spokane.

ESD 189 (Northwest Washington) sends 8 teams to Camas, 1 to Spokane.


Past State Winners:

2001: South High School (2B)

2002: Eatonville High School (2A)

2004: Port Townsend High School (2A), Charles Wright Academy (1A)

2005: Medical Lake High School (2A), Charles Wright Academy (1A)

2006: Lewis and Clark High School (4A), Bellevue High School (3A), Stevenson High School (2A), Charles Wright Academy (1A), Pe Ell High School (B)

2007: Mountain View High School (4A), Hanford High School (3A), Blaine High School (2A), Chelan High School (1A), Federal Way Public Academy (2B), Pe Ell High School (1B)

2008: Kamiak High School (4A), Kennewick High School (3A), Sequim High School (2A), Charles Wright Academy (1A), St. George's School (2B), Pe Ell High School (1B)

[edit] International Knowledge Bowl

Knowledge Bowls are sponsored internationally by CEESA. They are featured in a double elimination format.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links