National Science Bee & History Bee

Announcements, results, and discussion for single subject events including but not limited to National History Bee and Bowl, the US Geography Championships, and Science Bowl. DO NOT discuss specific question content from any sets that have not been announced as clear.
Post Reply
accidentalcoach
Kimahri
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Jun 18, 2024 3:49 pm

National Science Bee & History Bee

Post by accidentalcoach »

Hi there --

I've been scouring the internet and I think maybe this is the best forum to ask this, but I could be wrong, so if I am, forgive me and point me in the right general direction! Former HS player from a time that pre-dates this forum, was an all-conference player several years in the Rockford, IL area.

I now have sons in elementary school who are sponges for knowledge, doing almost all middle/high school work (homeschooling, handwriting is the big exception). Someone mentioned the various National Bees, and I decided out of curiosity to put on my quizmaster hat and go through last year's packet of national championship questions for the Science Bee (which is most in their wheelhouse).

To my shock, since neither had been exposed to pyramidal questions or even any kind of trivia quiz in general...both kids would have been very likely to have successfully "exited" the round by successfully answering five questions, with relatively fast answer speeds that got better as we worked our way through 25 questions. The older of the boys might have exited quite rapidly, with exceptionally fast speeds on four early questions that would have meant he'd have gotten the exit as soon as he got one more of the many that he knew by the end.

The rub: The kids are actually kindergarten and 2nd grade age, so even next year, they'll both be in the "3rd and under" grade category. Their scores totally unpracticed were sufficient to put them into the playoffs in their grade category (and yeah, I know some kids freeze under pressure, but that's something we have time to work on by next year).

Well, I knew they were good, but I have to admit, I didn't know they were that good. I think based on their history performance that they could be decent in the History Bee as well, but the Geography Bee...I'm sure they could get through to regionals, but I don't think they'd be performant beyond a few Nationals level questions.

Here's the problem. I can read up about this stuff from lots of sources, but I've never sat in on these. I don't know what the pitfalls are. I don't, in a fundamental sense, know what I am doing. I have never been a coach but my quiz bowl arc in high school was a total blast. My kids are begging to do more question sets and I am going to oblige them. So first off: Where can I find oodles of pyramidal science questions?

Second: Anyone (Florida people especially preferred) who'd like to talk strategy and tactics for the Bee competitions, if you were starting with highly naturally talented players with a wide knowledge base? What other competitions would let kids of this age show their stuff (with divisions that didn't stick them with middle schoolers, hopefully)?

User was reminded to enable a signature. --Mgmt.
---------------------------------
J. Sherman, Harlem High School 1996-00
Gave birth to children with quiz superpowers, apparently??
User avatar
Good Goblin Housekeeping
Auron
Posts: 1121
Joined: Sun May 23, 2010 10:03 am

Re: National Science Bee & History Bee

Post by Good Goblin Housekeeping »

Not sure what difficulty you're looking for but quizbowlpackets.com has a lot of free questions almost all of which should be pyramidal, but very few of which are limited by category. Most of the questions there are on qbreader.org/db - which both has reading functions and filterable search options for the database itself, although it may take some time to figure out exactly what dififculties you're aiming for.
Andrew Wang
Illinois 2016
High Dependency Unit
Yuna
Posts: 871
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2012 6:45 pm

Re: National Science Bee & History Bee

Post by High Dependency Unit »

Good Goblin Housekeeping wrote: Tue Jun 18, 2024 5:49 pm Not sure what difficulty you're looking for but quizbowlpackets.com has a lot of free questions almost all of which should be pyramidal, but very few of which are limited by category. Most of the questions there are on qbreader.org/db - which both has reading functions and filterable search options for the database itself, although it may take some time to figure out exactly what dififculties you're aiming for.
I think a standard middle school regionals set would be similar to IAC regionals difficulty, maybe slightly harder than the questions for grade 3 and under. Nationals would be similar to middle school nationals and high school regional-level quiz bowl but questions but with a slightly different distribution (i.e. less physics, more earth science, zoology, etc.).

I'd probably just look at a few packets and decide if that level of topic is coming up in your kid's homeschooling or not.
Michael Borecki
Middlesex Middle '13,
Darien (co-captain) '17,
Bowdoin College (club president) '21
User avatar
Irreligion in Bangladesh
Auron
Posts: 2132
Joined: Thu Jul 08, 2004 1:18 am
Location: Winnebago, IL

Re: National Science Bee & History Bee

Post by Irreligion in Bangladesh »

As a fellow Rockford area player from quite a while ago - hello!

Alas, there's not much in the way of elementary-level pyramidal competition; partly, it's just hard to write a good tossup to differentiate kids that young. Most competitions will, indeed, lump elementary in with middle school. I say, as long as the questions are good, play 'em anyway. The strongest recommendation on that front is NAQT's Middle School National Championship Tournament, via some local qualifying events that I hope exist for you. It's a team event, but 4 players on a team rather than 5; you can play shorthanded, and many teams often do.

The one piece of strategy that I always like to share is "if you're doing well and having fun, aim higher than your current level." (That's usually in the form of "middle schoolers should be practicing high school questions" or "high schoolers should be practicing nationals level questions," but it'll certainly apply here as well.) Higher difficulty levels will have more opportunities for questions to teach new facts & hear new stories; in terms of enjoying the game, that typically has a longer burn than winning an event does.

More than that, though, quizbowl's a game where, 99% of the time, the team that loses can look at the team that wins and say "they knew more than we did, and that was really cool to watch." Not every kid has that emotional response in their toolbag, and it's a good one to develop. Playing with kids who are supposed to beat you because they're in middle school and you're not yet can be a solid method for building that up.
Brad Fischer
IHSSBCA Chair
The Rockford Quiz Bowl Company

Winnebago HS ('06)
Northern Illinois University ('10)
Assistant Coach, IMSA (2010-12)
Coach, Keith Country Day School (2012-16)
IHSA Head Editor (2016-2024)
accidentalcoach
Kimahri
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Jun 18, 2024 3:49 pm

Re: National Science Bee & History Bee

Post by accidentalcoach »

Awesome! These resources are perfect, just what I was looking for. All those question packets are incredible, and frankly I don't mind combing them to find the science and math questions to make my own practice quizzes. Honestly, question quality has gone up so much. Back in the day, I remember practicing with Patrick's Press questions and being happy when we were lucky enough to get A+ questions.

Very cool about the NAQT and being able to participate short-handed. A huge part of why I think this is great for my kids is that my six year old had gotten an attitude from a public pre-K that the "normal" thing was for him to always know the answer to everything and never learn anything in a classroom. He had big perfectionism issues at the start of our year this year because I always want to give them challenging work that they're unlikely to get 100% on. It's been amazing to see him gain resilience and a willingness to try things outside his comfort zone as the year went on! Good call on inculcating the spirit of "wow, that was incredible." I remember feeling that way about a couple of people's performances when I was in school (Matt Childers Byron '00 comes to mind).

Maybe I'll have to figure out how to find a couple other local brainiac kids and see if we can't field a team with a full roster. Their little siblings won't be ready for prime time for some years yet.
---------------------------------
J. Sherman, Harlem High School 1996-00
Gave birth to children with quiz superpowers, apparently??
alexdz
Rikku
Posts: 464
Joined: Wed Sep 03, 2008 7:29 pm
Location: Conshohocken, PA

Re: National Science Bee & History Bee

Post by alexdz »

Irreligion in Bangladesh wrote: Tue Jun 18, 2024 7:25 pm ...there's not much in the way of elementary-level pyramidal competition...
Brad is right; elementary is a hard place to find contests. There's only a handful of events every year in Missouri targeted at students 6th grade and younger, and we have a fairly robust circuit of both high school and middle school events going on here. If your kids are up for a road trip or mini-vacation at some point, I'm sure you'd be welcomed at one of these events! Call it a history lesson to visit St. Louis. :)

Something else to put on your radar: Beta Club has quizbowl contests as well as multiple-choice academic tests as part of their contests, which start as young as 4th grade. I know Beta is active in Florida, so that might be something your kids can start doing in a few years; at least it's something before they get old enough to compete in the more active circuits for older students. (Full disclosure: I write the tests and packets for this.)
Alex Dzurick
====
Owner/Editor, SAGES Quizbowl Questions
Middle school teacher, Rohan Woods School
====
South Callaway '08 -- Mizzou '12 -- Illinois '17
SCMS coach '12-'13 -- EFIP coach '20-'21 -- RWS coach '22-present
Post Reply