The Quizbowl Resource Center

I'm new to doing quizbowl (I've only done NHBB to date), and I'm beginning my QB grind. How should I approach to prepping Math?

Computational math or actual math?

Both.

For computational math there are some categories of basic formulas to know (certainly not a complete list):

• Geometry: areas, perimeters, and interior/exterior angles of common polygons; volumes/surface area of common solids; V - E + F = 2
• Statistics: mean (arithmetic, harmonic, geometric), median, combinations/permutations, basic probability/expected value
• Percent growth/decay (including interest/ROI; Rule of 72)
• Arithmetic/geometric progressions (Nth term and sums)
• Analytic geometry: slope-intercept line equations, distance between two points, equations for conic sections
• Trigonometry: values of sine, cosine, and tangent; understanding relationship between those and secant, cosecant, and cotangent; degree/radian conversions
• Physics: velocity and displacement
• Chemistry: ideal gas law, Gay-Lussac's Law, Charles's Law, Boyle's Law

An NAQT comp math question will typically provide the hint as to how to calculate the answer. However, if you already know which formula to apply, you can get a jump on performing the actual calculation.

I'm not a dedicated math player, but a surprising amount of the math questions that I do get are because of Numberphile videos.

If you go to https://www.quizdb.org/ and do a question search of science math of regular high school difficulty on "the" you get 207 tossups and 122 bonuses. Also, the Masonic sets at http://quizbowlpackets.com/ have a lot of math and name categories, so you can do ctrl-f math. The Masonic bonuses mix computation with noncomputation, which is unusual.

If you want to get better at computational math, join your school's math team.