President Ford awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to what composer of songs that include “This Is the Army” and “God Bless America”? Can you answer that question? Could you answer it given only “President Ford awarded the Presidential Medal”? The members of knowledge bowl can. In fact, they’ve been trained to answer questions based off of the first few words in a question. “Usually the goal is to get the answer in before the end of the question,” said Dallen Petersen, junior. “It gets pretty fast sometimes.”

Knowledge bowl is a competition based on general knowledge. There are two parts to the competition: the written round and the oral round. Each team participating takes a written multiple choice test together to determine their starting standing.

After the written round, each team is put into another room with two other teams based on standings. In the oral rounds, teams are asked fifty questions. The teams can “buzz in” on buzzer strips whenever they want in the question to answer. They get fifteen seconds to answer after buzzing. If they are incorrect, the question continues and the other teams can still buzz in. Teams get one point for correct answers and no points for incorrect answers. The final scores are added onto the previous score.

There are four oral rounds. In the final round, one team of each school has a representative in the top rooms based on score before placing the other teams based on their scores.

FRHS held their annual Sylvia Ahermae Knowledge Bowl Invite last Saturday where all four FRHS knowledge bowl teams competed against other Colorado teams. The Fossil Ridge A team placed first, moving forward since their state win last year. The team hopes to win state again and plans on competing at a national level again this year.

Steven Hsu, freshman, shares that it’s a very competitive environment. “It’s competitive and you can learn lots from people around you… [My goal is to] try to beat the B team and move up in the standings.” To help the kids improve, their coach and experienced knowledge bowl competitor Coady Shawcroft competes against the students during practice and sits on teams to teach them how to buzz in at the correct time.

Many team members joined because they were recruited by Mrs. Cranor, Mr. Huckaby, and Mr. Rypma. Others joined because they were looking for a club, like senior Michael Suinn. “It’s a different sort of competition if you don’t feel like running around all of the time…Its also general knowledge. You can pretty much specialize in anything.” Daniel Ibarra, junior, agrees. “I love how the questions are all assorted, like there’s not just focusing on one section. It’s divided among math, history, geography, science.”

The teams hold practice every day after school in Mrs. Cranor’s room and is always welcoming new members. If you would like to join, contact Mrs. Cranor.