Quiz Bowl continued its weekly Monday meetings, hosting its last try-out meeting on Sept. 25 in Room A229. According to Brian Pho, club co-president and junior, club leadership has been working to determine the strengths of members in different Quiz Bowl categories by recording member responses in a spreadsheet.

“Ideally, we are looking for members who are interested in the subjects we encounter often in Quiz Bowl and can complement each others’ skill sets,” Pho said. “In my opinion, having interest and high motivation will be more important in obtaining results than whatever initial talent our members join with.”

Club sponsor Matthew Cinkoske said while he considered the most important thing for any sort of trivia competition to be the knowledge each team has, he considered the most important traits for Quiz Bowl members to be intellectual curiosity and an openness to learning new things.

“Last year, for example, we had a student that was a ringer for any math or physics question that came his way, but was initially on our C Team due to the specificity of his knowledge,” Cinkoske added. “After spending a few weeks intensively studying literature- and philosophy-related questions, he quickly became a key member of our B Team. He studied these not only because we needed more coverage of those areas, but also because they interested him.”

According to Pho, Carmel Quiz Bowl is looking to attend two or three more tournaments this semester, in addition to the Indiana Kickoff Tournament scheduled on Oct. 7 at Purdue University.

“I look forward to seeing three of our teams compete for the first time this year, as well as seeing how our competition across the state has been practicing and preparing since the spring,” Cinkoske said. “I hope to see us continue to bring our all to every tournament, to play to the best of our ability, but most importantly, to demonstrate good sportsmanship to every competitor.”

Pho said the next tournament the team will attend after the Indiana Kickoff Tournament could potentially be a tournament held on Oct. 21 at Saint Joseph High School.

Regarding long-term Quiz Bowl plans, Pho said, “I hope we can qualify two or three teams to the national championship at the end of the year, win State again and get some regular season tournament wins as well!”

About Quiz Bowl: https://www.naqt.com/about/quiz-bowl.html