|alt= During a quiz bowl game, two teams of usually up to four or five players are read questions by a moderator. When there are more than four players on a team, the team has to substitute its players for different games. Each player usually has an electronic
buzzer to signal in ("buzz") at any time during the question to give an answer. Some formats include a
lightning round during which a team attempts to answer multiple questions as fast as possible under a given time limit, usually sixty seconds. Other formats include a written worksheet round, where teams work together for 2–5 minutes to agree on their written answers. Match length is determined by either a game clock or the number of questions in a packet. Quiz bowl tests players in a variety of
academic subjects including
literature,
science,
history, and
fine arts. Additionally, some quiz bowl events may feature small amounts of
popular culture content like
sports,
popular music, and other non-academic
general knowledge subjects, although their inclusion is generally kept to a minimum. In most quiz bowl competitions, players and coaches may protest the moderator's decision if they believe their answer was incorrectly rejected, or an opponent's answer was incorrectly accepted. Timed matches may also be in play. These are usually done by 9 minute halves and at the end of the first half, if not at tossup 12 or beyond it, the moderator will automatically skip to it. If past tossup 12 after the first half, they will just start where they ended. These often require players to stall or go faster. Skipping bonuses may be used if players are uncomfortable with the bonus but it will completely skip it and not just one part. These tactics are mostly accepted in different matches. This type of question is written specifically to test players' quick recall skills without discriminating between the different levels of knowledge on a topic that the players possess. Pyramidal tossups are considered standard for competitive quiz bowl, especially at the collegiate level. In most formats, correctly answering a tossup earns a team 10 points. Extra points, usually for a total of 15 or 20 points, may be awarded if a question is answered prior to a certain clue-providing keyword in the question, usually marked by an asterisk, an action known as "powering." and NAQT in 2009. Most programs now use a bonus of easy, medium and hard but in different orders.
Variations Several variations on the game of quiz bowl exist that affect question structure and content, rules of play, and round format. Most quiz bowl question producers, including ACF and NAQT, publish a distribution of the number of tossups and bonuses per round that will feature material from a given area of study. ACF/mACF tossups are written in pyramidal style and are generally much longer than College Bowl and NAQT questions. Games are usually untimed and last until a total of 20 tossups are read. However, many "housewrites", or question sets written by schools themselves, may choose to modify the category distribution. NAQT is another common variation on the tossup/bonus format that balances academic rigor with a wider variety of subjects, including popular culture and an increased amount of
current events and
geography content. NAQT also uses "power marks" in their tossups, which reward players with 15 points instead of 10 for a tossup answered before a predetermined point. NAQT tossups are typically shorter than most other pyramidal tossups because of shorter character limits on its questions. The format used for the now-defunct College Bowl tournament uses comparatively shorter questions. The Honda Campus All Star Challenge and
University Challenge in the U.K. use similar formats. Matches played at the National Academic Championship and its affiliated tournaments are split into four quarters, with differing styles of gameplay in each phase. The 2020–2021 quiz bowl season saw a dramatic increase in the number of large online quiz bowl competitions due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. In-person quiz bowl tournaments were cancelled, including all NAQT National Championships. Online competitions, often using the platforms
Zoom or
Discord, were widely used by tournament directors, including state championship organizers in 2020–21, as well as for the NAQT HSNCT and PACE NSC high school nationals tournaments. This allowed competition in spite of national and international lockdown requirements. These matches and tournaments were run in a similar manner to in-person competition, although some tournaments switched to tossup-only formats.
Preparation Since questions are generally derived from an unofficial "canon" of topics, players commonly review, and practice with, questions from past competition to prepare for upcoming tournaments. Players often research and write their own questions to prepare for quiz bowl. Active participation in academic coursework also helps to prepare for quiz bowl. Blind memorization of high-frequency out-of-context facts, often referred to as "stock" clues, is a common method of quiz bowl preparation, but is generally discouraged, because the memorization generally has little academic utility. Players benefit from exposure to a broad range of school,
cultural subjects,
memorization, and
study skills, as well as an improved ability to cooperate and work in teams. NAQT also sells lists of topics that are frequently asked about in their questions. == Competitions ==