Are You Smarter Than the South Lake Quiz Bowl Team?

This school year is proving to be a momentous one for the Quiz Bowl Team. For the first time in its eight-year history, the team has advanced to the state competition.

The 2011 Quiz Bowl State Tournament will take place this weekend, April 15 and 16, at Michigan State University in East Lansing. Led by volunteer coach Judy Smith, the South Lake team will compete in the Class B division.

“The kids are extremely excited because we have never gone to states before," said Smith. "They would love to win a game when we’re there. They're just excited about going.”

In order to make it to states, a team must win in a regional tournament. The South Lake team competed on Feb. 9 in the Tier II division of the Macomb Area Conference tournament, which was coincidentally held at South Lake High School.

The MAC tournament included six Tier I teams and 12 Tier II teams. South Lake needed to defeat three other Tier II teams in order to advance to the state competition. The team successfully defeated Roseville and Anchor Bay, then faced the International Academy of Macomb, a countywide magnet school known for its rigorous academic standards.

“That was our championship game,” Smith said proudly. “What I love about this group is that there’s a feeling that we are all part of the team, and we all contribute to the best of our ability.”

Quiz Bowl is a question-and-answer game between two school teams, each consisting of four to five students.

Question topics have a vast range, including biology, spelling, literature, Greek mythology, sports, classical or popular music, comic books and movies. Each question has a point value. Question readers act as judges, and students push a buzzer to answer questions. In order to optimize their team’s scores, many students try to “buzz in” before questions are read in their entirety.

Quiz Bowl games consist of four quarters. There are 25 questions in the first and fourth quarters. The second quarter has 10 questions, and for every correct answer a team gives, they receive four bonus questions. In the third quarter, commonly known as the “Lightening Round,” each team gets to choose a topic and answer 10 questions from that topic in 60 seconds.

Quiz Bowl questions require good listening skills and attention to details. Below are two examples:

• In “The Jungle Book,” Bagheera, the black panther, tells Mowgli to get the Red Flower from the village to protect himself. What is the Red Flower? (Answer: Fire)
• What Italian artist created the statue of David located in the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, Italy, and painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? (Answer: Michelangelo)

The Quiz Bowl MAC tournament featured teams of five students. Although the South Lake team has quadruple that number of students, the process is much like how a sports team functions, wherein the better players get more play time.

“I fielded a team of 20–one of the largest teams in the league. That’s neat because we are one of the smallest schools in the MAC,” said Smith, who started the South Lake Quiz Bowl team eight years ago when she was a history teacher. Although she retired last year, Smith came back as a volunteer coach this year.

The state competition will feature teams of four students. Smith will be taking 15 of her 20 South Lake students to the tournament.

“In states, they will have longer questions, so the students will need to pay good attention,” Smith said. “What makes a good Quiz Bowl player is to have a lot of knowledge in some areas, and to be aggressive and think and act quickly.”

The team has been diligently practicing twice a week after school. While everyone on the team makes valuable contributions, Smith said the group’s standouts are team captain Russ Iglehart and Vincent Ader (who has surprised many by consistently buzzing in early with the correct answers).

“It’s a great group of students and they have been so enthusiastic,” Smith said. “They represented South Lake High School very well, and they have been complimented by question readers for their exemplary behavior.”

The state tournament will be considerably more challenging, but her students will relish the experience, Smith said.