Lion's Eye Favorite: Exonians Love a Quiz Challenge – in English or Latin

May 1, 2009

Exeter's quiz club heads to Washington D.C. for a national competition. Here, 4 contestants in the Granite State Challenge finals pose with Assistant Principal Tom Hassan.

Exeter's Quiz Club has had a stellar year. They're currently in Washington, D.C. for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Science Bowl Championship, which takes place from April 30 to May 5. Selection for the national championship is based on a highly competitive series of regional matches. Exeter's team joins 450 students from 67 high school and 36 middle school teams. 

 Lion's note: Quiz team adviser reports that Exeter ties for second place in the Fermi Division at the National Science Bowl Championship. See updates sent by Hunter Farnham.

Arjun '09, captain of the 4-person team traveling to D.C., says of Exeter's selection, "It feels fantastic!" He adds, "Our team has a great synergy which I believe will take us very far." 

The Quiz Club has about a dozen active members who meet weekly to practice. For each competition, they select teams appropriate for the challenge.

Just two weeks ago, Exeter's team appeared on New Hampshire Public Television's Granite State Challenge. In this final match-up of the yearlong elimination tournament series, Exeter pitted 4 players against Hollis-Brookline High School – both schools having won their respective semifinals. Exeter started strong, mastering the first round – 140 to 100 – but ultimately took second place in a very fast-paced competition. The final score: 610 to 530.

  See Exeter's win in the semifinals of the Granite State Challenge…

  See the Granite State "SuperChallenge," where Exeter fought hard in a match of 2 talented teams…

Members of Quiz Club at a practice sessionLast month, in the final match of the New Hampshire Quiz Bowl League State Championships, Exeter's 7-person team came second in sudden death (by 1 point) to long-standing state champs, Hanover High School.

The team traveling to Washington, D.C. is psyched. In Young '11 says each team member brings a different subject strength, but all bring a "basic background knowledge in all the subjects." She sees her forte as math. "Right now, I'm studying earth science in the hopes that the marginal increase in my knowledge can help us do well at nationals. Overall, I'm just really excited for the events in Washington, D.C., because you don't get the environment of 300-plus teens dedicating a weekend to science that often."

For Arjun, training has been great. "Usually Quiz Club practices on Friday nights in the Phelps Academy Center," he explains. "We simulate tournaments. We split into two teams and our coach, Mr. Farnham, reads questions. We then buzz in and attempt to answer the questions. It's a lot of fun because students will end up discussing questions long after the question is read." Hunter Farnham agrees. "The main purpose of the Quiz Club is to allow Exonians a place to relax, hang out, have fun, and blow off steam," he says. 

Try it in Latin

Exeter's Kirtland Society has also been busy on the quiz circuit. Members recently traveled to The Roxbury Latin School in West Roxbury, MA, where they faced off against 9 other schools in a Certamen scrimmage. A Certamen is a quiz where contestants respond to questions on Latin grammar, Greek and Roman mythology, Greek and Roman history, Roman life and customs, derivations, reading comprehension, and Latin imperatives (the teams act out the questioner's commands).

Here's how Albert '09, a member of Exeter's Certamen team, describes the challenge: "Basically there's a team with a buzzer per person, and 20-30 'tossup' questions (depending on the rules). There are 2-3 teams, and a tossup may be answered by any player on any team by buzzing in. There is no talking amongst teammates during tossups, and if a player answers the tossup incorrectly, no one on his or her team may answer. If correct, that team gets a certain number of points and 2 bonus questions (for which they can converse), each worth half the amount of points as the tossup (2/1/1 or 10/5/5, depending on the rules). At the end, the team with the greatest points wins."

At the Certamen meet, Exeter faced two other schools, placing first in their round. Ultimately, they finished third in the competition after the scores of all 10 teams were tabulated and compared.

Albert, who cites Gaius Valerius Catullus as his favorite Latin writer "for his wit, humor, and his mastery in playing with the notion of masks," has found the study of classical languages a "gateway into a new world, or should I say, an old one?" He feels strongly that the study of Latin and Greek "improves the organizational abilities of one's mind."

Classical Languages "teaches me that there's a whole lot more to the ancient Romans and Greeks than marble busts in museums or meaningless names in textbooks," says Albert. "Translations never portray the meaning fully. A translator has to make many choices about which meanings to exclude, which sacrifices to make. Learning the original language allows one to experience all the flavors, textures, colors, connotations and definitions."

 Updates from the Nationals in Washington D.C.:

Monday May 4, 8:56 pm: 

PEA's National Science Bowl team answered the bell for the National Championship Competition on Sunday and did very well indeed. Competing in the eight-team Fermi division in a round robin, PEA finished tied for second place with a record of 5-2 against competition from schools in West Virginia, South Dakota, Iowa, Texas, Illinois, Connecticut and Oregon.

After a blowout loss to a demonic one-man answering machine from West Virginia in the opening round (212-92), PEA rebounded and ran off five consecutive and comfortable victories. In the ultimate match, against Central Academy, a magnet science and math school from Des Moines, IA, PEA was almost 50 points behind at the half. The squad responded well to the challenge, regaining all the lost ground, but ultimately falling 18 points short, 104-86. 

As a result, PEA was tied with Central for second place in the group behind 7-0 Woodrow Wilson of West Virginia. On the tie-break procedure, however, Central advanced to the round of 16 based on its better performance in the Divisional Team Challenge, a practical application project the teams completed the day before the quizzing began.
 
Central went on to finish joint 5th in the double-elimination tournament, which was won by Mira Loma HS of Sacramento, CA, over Lexington HS of Lexington, MA. Interestingly, Hopkins, another California team, also won the Middle School competition - over Lexington Middle School of Lexington, MA.
 
Team members Jonathon Cai ('12), In Young Cho ('11), Mike Levin and Arjun Venkatachalam (both '09), played very well and out scored their opponents by a handsome margin. They and the team made many new friends from around the country, and managed also to end up with a better record than our northern Virginia friends from Thomas Jefferson HS.
 
All in all, a week well spent hobnobbing with some of the most interesting and up-and-coming junior science people in the country, as Secretary of Energy, Prof. Steven Chiu told us today.
 
We also managed a mini-reunion with a gaggle of PEA Washington Interns this evening and got a ride on the Senate Railway, which runs from the Capitol to the Russell Office Building.  Thanks Ben!
—Hunter Farnham

We are at the National 4-H Center in Chevy Chase, MD, from 30 April - 05 May 2009.

Teams from all over the country are contesting the Championship.  California has the most teams, 10, and other states such as Texas (5) have qualified large delegations too.

We are housed in relatively spartan accommodations, four to a room, and that promotes instant bonding with people from other schools.

To date we've spent some time with teams from Hawaii and Illinois, and In Young Cho ('11) has reconnected with her old friends from Thomas Jefferson High in Fairfax, Virginia (they were third last year). In fact, she has been observing their practice session as well as one with Santa Monica HS (CA), last year's champs, and it has been most interesting.  She told me, "Santa Monica anticipated the answer to every tossup question - and bonus questions too!  It was uncanny."

Friday night participants were taken on a nighttime tour of Washington monuments.  In Young opted to study, but Arjun ('09), Mike ('09) and Jonathon ('12) got to drive around DC in the dusk/night of a relatively cool evening.  It was most impressive to wander around the Jefferson Memorial at the Tidal Basin, and the Memorial to Franklin Delano Roosevelt (a series of open-roofed chambers, most with waterfalls of various size), looking at the inscriptions and regarding the statues of, amongst others, Fala (the president's scotch terrier), and President and Mrs. Roosevelt.

In addition to seeing all the monuments, the boys also have been playing frisbee during their free time.

Today is National Science Day and the teams are attending lectures by various scientists (more later).  Tomorrow the competition begins in earnest, so we will get a good night's sleep.

What's it like here?  Arjun said, "Awesome!!"
—Hunter Farnham

Interested in learning more?

Read more about the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Science Bowl Championship…

Read more about the Certamen scrimmage at The Roxbury Latin School…

 Watch Exeter compete in the Granite State Challenge semifinals and the "SuperChallenge"…

 Learn more about Exeter's Classical Languages Department…