The Quizbowl Resource Center

Hey everyone!
Perhaps you can settle an argument between me and my dad, s'il vous plaît. We were arguing about the true purpose of quiz bowl. He said that quiz bowl is, at its core, about answering questions correctly faster than the opposing team. Meanwhile, I said that quiz bowl was more about testing knowledge, and that if there was a more efficient, accurate, and objective way to test someone's knowledge than by buzzers and questions, then we would start using that instead.
What do you guys think?

the purpose of pyramidal quizbowl is so that questions allow players who know more to buzz in earlier as opposed to testing pure buzzer speed

To me, quiz bowl is about growth and knowledge. It's about watching you and your teammates learning so much at such a depth that you surprise yourself. It's about testing your knowledge and ability to perform well with others and having chemistry under pressure. It's also pretty nice being able to fake your way through a conversation with someone who has a Masters in English, so there's that.

hornetvtol wrote:Perhaps you can settle an argument between me and my dad, s'il vous plaît. We were arguing about the true purpose of quiz bowl. He said that quiz bowl is, at its core, about answering questions correctly faster than the opposing team. Meanwhile, I said that quiz bowl was more about testing knowledge, and that if there was a more efficient, accurate, and objective way to test someone's knowledge than by buzzers and questions, then we would start using that instead.

There are elements of both, and elements of other things. It can't just be the former (because that doesn't explain bonuses at all), and in my view, the latter encompasses an inordinately simplified view of what knowledge is.

At the risk of giving an unhelpful answer, I think quizbowl has many purposes, and different people prioritize those purposes differently, so quizbowl ends up being different things to different people (just like so many other pursuits in life). Here are some of the purposes that quizbowl accomplishes for me; it's not in any particular order and isn't meant to be exhaustive.

• Quizbowl is fun
• Quizbowl is competitive
• Quizbowl helps me show off specific aspects of my knowledge and memory
• Quizbowl helps me see specific aspects of what other people know and remember
• Quizbowl helps me learn more things, both about topics I already knew I was interested in and about topics I had no idea I would find interesting
• Quizbowl motivates me to get better at things I'm good at, and at things I'm bad at
• Quizbowl pays the bills
• Quizbowl introduces me to new people and brings me closer to people I already knew
• Quizbowl provides a focused context in which to enjoy socializing with those (old and new) friends

I actually don't think your answer really makes sense, at least in terms of accuracy. There are certainly more accurate ways to test any individual person's knowledge, as it may be. Quizbowl only allows the first person with a correct answer to show it off, so there are 7 other players in the game who may have the same knowledge but lose a buzzer race. And bonuses incorporate an element of team collaboration, meaning that a person's knowledge could be overwhelmed by their teammates' insistence on another wrong answer. So I actually do think there are several more accurate ways of testing a person's knowledge that don't rely on the structure of the game itself. In fact, a single-person "worksheet" or "quiz" actually is probably more accurate at gauging a person's knowledge.

From my experience having two children go through high school playing and another middle-schooler who also is interested in playing, beyond the competition aspect of the game, I see the purpose as being a spur of intellectual curiosity. I have seen it in both my sons where they have found quiz bowl as an outlet for learning as much as they can possibly learn in areas that they study in school, but also finding a passion for learning things that they never would have considered learning otherwise. Without the quiz bowl experience, I would not expect to see them buying books, reading about, and analyzing art, listening to opera, exploring literature from Africa, China, Japan, and South America, or trying to master scientific formulas and which scientists studied which effects. I see the quest for knowledge as being the biggest benefit of the entire experience, and that learning is contagious, as others around them start taking an interest in some of these same areas.

A quick anecdote: I had a player at Valencia (Community) College back around 2008 named Nolan who wanted a subcategory in which to get better. Since we didn't have any players who knew much Asian history, I asked him to make a buzz sheet (our version of the "You Gotta Knows" that NAQT stole from me, lawsuit pending) on Chinese dynasties. That was a gateway into studying a lot more about China, culminating with him years later writing an undergraduate thesis at New College on the history of the Civil Service Exams. Last I heard he was in China studying the language.

So quiz bowl can lead to some interesting and unexpected places.

jonah wrote: [*]Quizbowl pays the bills

If only that were true for me....