Photo courtesy of Moses Schindler

Juniors Moses Schindler, Raj Paul and Akshay Govindan and freshman Eric Yin confer about a question.

Ladue’s Quizbowl team wins the overall title of the NAQT Missouri Qualifier at Columbia College, Saturday Mar. 3rd. The trivia invitational was one of the many Missouri Quizbowl Alliance (MOQBA) certified tournaments for the 2018 National Academic Quizbowl Tournaments’ High School National Championship Tournaments (HSNCT) and Small School National Championship Tournament (SSNCT) in which the top teams qualify for nationals in Atlanta, GA May 25–27, 2018.

Ladue Quizbowl’s team A – Akshay Govindan, 16, Raj Paul, 16, Moses Schindler, 17 – played five half-hour preliminary rounds and a finals round. In each round, two opposing teams of four people each compete to answer buzzer-stop questions, which cover the entirety of the academic sphere.

“So the questions go as follows: 20 percent [is] science and 20 percent also is the case for literature and history,” Paul said. “Aside from the three big categories, the other 40 percent is made up of fine arts… and then there’s also math, philosophy, social science [and] religion.”

The questions are either toss-ups or bonuses: 20 toss-ups are formatted as paragraphs that any individual player can buzz in and attempt to answer. If answered incorrectly, the team cannot give another answer, but if answered correctly the team is rewarded points and an opportunity to answer a bonus question.

“[A bonus] is a three-part question,” Paul said. “Bonuses work similarly to toss-ups in that there’s also 20 bonuses… each one corresponds to a toss-up. The categories are [also] the same.”

Ladue A’s win-loss record is 4-0 in the preliminary rounds with an average number of 452.5 points scored per game. According to the Quizbowl Resource Center at hsquizbowl.org, that makes their average margin of victory 398.8.

“You can track progress really well,” Govindan said. 

Quizbowl’s season progresses to state and national tournaments, which makes this invitational an expected win for Ladue A. Quizbowl meets every Friday afternoon and they are always encouraging new members to test their knowledge. 

 “I encourage everybody [to join Quizbowl], to learn and to learn things that you enjoy with your friends in a good atmosphere with reward, which is one of the best things I can think of, Govindan said.”