New High School Team in the Phoenix Area

[Tyden46]

I am a Senior in high school and I recently decided to start a "Trivia Club" at my school. Our goal is to share our love for trivia and learning and we believe quizbowl is a good avenue for that pursuit. The organization is very new, so new, in fact, that we haven't even had our first formal meeting yet! We have a group of about 12 motivated students and I am looking for advice on how to begin studying. I would like to ease into it and not start off with anything too hardcore; I'm worried that strenuous study sessions right off the bat might scare members away. Any recommendations for educational trivia-type games? We don't have any bad habits yet so we're open to any suggestions. Thanks in advance, I'll appreciate any feedback!

User was reminded to enable a signature. --Mgmt.

[Corry]

Quiz bowl doesn't focus so much on trivia, as it does on general academic knowledge. A lot of the information in quiz bowl questions would fit better in a standard AP textbook than in a deck of Trivial Pursuit cards. You might hear a quiz bowl question referring to some amusing historical anecdote about the Battle of Karánsebes every now and then, but otherwise, you don't see too much "true" trivia in normal gameplay.

Don't let that dissuade you, however. Quiz bowl is still the most fun thing ever. There's actually a decent-sized quiz bowl circuit in Phoenix, particularly around Arizona State University. ASU actually held four normal quiz bowl tournaments last year; they also held one History Bowl tournament.

Personally, I feel like Arizona is a particularly good place to start a quiz bowl team. Like I said, there's already a pretty decently-sized circuit (which you'll have easy access to because you're in the Phoenix area already), but at the same time, the playing field isn't so developed yet that it becomes difficult to enter as a new team. If you're interested, keep an eye out for Arizona tournament announcements in the Regular Season Tournament Announcements section of this website.

As for your original question of studying, I think that most quiz bowl teams rely on members to self-study. Everybody has their own preferred method. That being said, read books. That's really the easiest way of doing it. If you're find yourself really into quiz bowl, you could use team meetings as an opportunity to read past quiz bowl packets (HSAPQ is a good place to get past questions, though you could use quizbowlpackets.com too) and play mock quiz bowl rounds.

[Sun Devil Student]

Sorry I found this thread so late, hopefully the original poster is still around - for everyone's future reference, in case any more people appear on these forums looking for stuff in Arizona, here are the key contacts in Arizona's quizbowl community:
Arizona Quizbowl Association (umbrella high school hosting) - e-mail Bunnie Hadsall: [email protected]
ASU Quizbowl Team (college team which does some hosting) - e-mail the team officers: [email protected]
Cactus League (a year-long tournament in league format) - e-mail Cheryl Lenox: [email protected]

keep an eye out for Arizona tournament announcements in the Regular Season Tournament Announcements section of this website.

Note that Arizona's community rarely posts anything to these forums since my departure; their entire circuit is still so new that a critical mass of forum-readers does not yet exist to make these forums a practical method of communication within the Arizona circuit. The above e-mails are the only way I can think of for anyone outside the Sonoran to make contact. There are only about 10 high school teams and 1 college team in Arizona right now, and they'd love to have more!

Whoever you are, good luck and hope to see your team's stats at tournaments this year!