So basically, I don't know that our team participates in a lot of the competitions I've seen talked about around here, but I was just going to give a rundown of what we compete in, how we did last year, and what the outlook is for this year, then you guys help me out from there. If you have any questions about something I say or don't say, please, please ask me.
Like I said, there's 3 major competitions that our team does each year, and they each have their own different format. I'll write a little on each of them.
First is our local league. We go up to another school in our area every Monday from late September or early October to around early December to play against 5 other teams in our division. Last year I was the captain of the JV team, and we won the playoff for our division title. Unfortunately our varsity team didn't do too well, though. In regards to the teams we played against last year in JV, there's a pretty obvious divide between the top 3 teams who are very competitive and the bottom 3 teams who are a bit behind. The formatting of these competitions is this: 3 teams play at once, there are 3 rounds. The first round is 15 tossups, with a bonus following any correct answer. Then all 3 teams get a 10 question lightning round, each answer worth 5 points apiece with an extra 10 points given for sweeping the category (Did that last year with an American Revolution category). The last round is another 15 tossups, with a 4-part bonus given when a team gets 3 correct answers. I don't remember all the point values, sorry about that, but there's no points deducted for wrong answers here.
Second is the TV competition filmed at our local PBS affiliate. Last year we went to the semifinals before getting knocked out by a team with one big powerhouse. I just saw the draw for this year, and we're playing our archrivals (Parkland), a very good team. In the first round. They don't seed it or anything, it's a joke if you ask me, but whatever. Can only play who's put in front of us. These questions are a fair bit less obscure than some of the ones from the league, and you know the category before they are read. Every right answer is worth 10 points, and you get a bonus worth 10 points if you do answer correctly. You lose 5 points if you're the first team to buzz in and you get it wrong, but I don't think you lose anything if you're the second team in and you're wrong. I'll have to go back and check that though. No points lost for guessing on a bonus.
Finally, we have the competition at our intermediate unit. Last year we could only manage to get 3 people to go because of AP exams and people just getting back from overseas trips, but we managed to win the whole thing playing against teams with 4 players. It was a 3-way tie going into the final "fanfare round" (like a lightning round where only one team gets to answer), and we pulled it out. It was just an incredible moment. We went to the state championships in early May and held our own, but we were done in by an insanely difficult draw. At states, 3 teams play at a time and we had 2 preliminary matches, so we played 4 teams in all. 3 of them were the 3 final teams, and the fourth was the team that won our TV competition. It was still a great learning experience, though, so I'm happy to have gone. Formatting for this is 10 tossups followed by a 6-question fanfare round for each team. Then that's repeated one more time. Every answer is worth 5 points, and you don't lose anything for wrong answers.
So now catching up to today. One of our team's advising teachers retired last year, so our remaining coach told me last year that I'd probably have to help him with pulling out questions for practices, maybe doing some reading every now and then. I went and found him on the first day of school to tell him a fun story from over the summer, and he told me that I'm now varsity/TV-IU team captain and club president. I'm really excited for this, because I can feel that we'll have a pretty good year. We're having our tryout test in a little over a week, and I've got a cardboard box full of folders with questions that I brought home so I can sift through them and pretty much formulate the test.
Now this is where you guys come in. I want to be able to take that next step, to get our varsity team back up to the top in the league, to win the TV competition, and to go a bit further at states. The thing is, I don't really know where to start in doing that. First thing's first, I suppose, what should I look for in questions to make up the test? In the past it's been 100 questions that you have 10 seconds to answer, and our coach and I are fine to keep it that way unless there's something else I find that may be better. After we have our team set, what should I look for in good practice questions? We have tons and tons of old questions from our league in years past and other sources as well, is it best to just mix everything together or concentrate on certain subjects sometimes? One example is I know we need a better literature base, I've been trying to work on it myself but would it be good to get everybody to know a bit more? If you have anything else we could do I'd love to hear it.
Wow, that was really, really long. So if you've read this far thank you very much for doing so, and I'd greatly appreciate it if you gave me a few ideas of what to do. Thanks again!
