The Practice Quiz

At James River, we have about ten brand new quizzers this year. These students have never participated in a BQ match. Some of them come from JBQ, so they have some quiz experience, while others have never seen a match of any kind before. With our first league match less than two weeks away, we think it's important that they experience what a real game is like before they have to play games that matter.

So this Saturday we have scheduled a practice quiz. Our one B and five MSQ teams will compete it a two-round tournament with all rules in effect. We'll have a full complement of officials in each room, we'll keep score, and we'll encourage the quizzers to do their best.

By doing this, quizzers get game experience in advance of the league match. They get to see what it's like with the questions, the timing, and the procedures. It's sort of like pre-season games for sports teams. It also lets inexperienced coaches get a sense of how to manage a game, and it gives us an opportunity to train new officials.

For us at James River, having multiple teams makes setting up a scrimmage situation fairly simple. If you only have one team, it may be more difficult. I would encourage you to try and do it anyway. Maybe you can split your team into two groups or even invite a team from a neighboring church. By having a couple games where rules are enforced, fouls are called, and quiz outs are counted, you give new quizzers a chance to see what it's like, and experienced quizzers a chance to shake off some rust.

One final point--don't expect the results of the practice quiz to be indicative of future results. My teams have quizzed notoriously poorly at these, but the end results usually wind up pretty decent for us.