The school hosted an inter-school Quiz Bowl Feb. 9 with the ASL team placing last against six other schools in London. The next inter-school Quiz Bowl will take place in February 2025, and tryouts for the team will start in December.聽
Organizer and team adviser Hannah Notowitz said the Quiz Bowl is a great experience for students to expand their knowledge and showcase their abilities with other schools.
“It’s really just a fun, low-stakes competition,” Notowitz said. “It’s really nice because it’s getting the school environment involved with local schools, and really just promoting the love of knowledge for its own sake.”
Team member Shelbe Yousey (鈥�25) said the structure of the day allowed the team to meet new students while competing.
“They had seven different rounds because it was a round-robin, so we played all the other teams and it was buzzer style, with 20 questions per round,” Yousey said. “Besides the basic competition, we also got to socialize with kids from other schools.”聽
Team member Kuzey Kaya (鈥�25) said the team has previously participated in school trivia and Quiz Bowl competitions together in the past. Kaya said the team began preparation for this competition last year.
“We always did trivias together since ninth grade and then we just decided we wanted to do this competition,” Kaya said. “Ms. Notowitz was [one of the team members] teachers at the time and she told us about this competition.”
Notowitz said there were various planning steps required when hosting the competition, including organizing the facilities and catering, as well as communicating with other schools. Moreover, Notowitz said the team did not have much formal preparation.
“The kids mostly are in it because they love trivia anyways,” Notowitz said. “For a lot of them, they don’t really need to put in any special practice per se because they already live and breathe knowledge.”
In addition, Notowitz said it will be valuable for the teams competing next year to use this year鈥檚 Quiz Bowl questions as practice.
Kaya said for this competition, his preparation included both group and individual practice.
“We played more trivia together, we were always with our team and I sometimes would play trivia together with my parents so I could get more information,” Kaya said.
Yousey said the competition was really fun despite the fact that the team placed last.
“It was great and they had playoffs too, it was a super fun experience and I highly recommend it,” Yousey said. “Especially with friends, it was really fun and we just got to do something we don’t usually get to do.”
Ultimately, Kaya said the competition allowed the team members to test their knowledge and build experience.
“It was really good because we met all these other students that have different perspectives from other schools and they are all mostly British students,” Kaya said. “We could really compare our knowledge.”
