How to excel at the Scholar's Bowl
One of the less stress-inducing events of the WSC, the Scholar’s Bowl is the only event where your team will collaborate for the entirety of the time. So below is the packing list and general tips for mastery of the scholar’s bowl.
Packing List for Scholar’s Bowl:
- Water Bottle
- Clicker (provided by WSC)
- Phone for a quick selfie with the clicker
General Tips:
- Assign a clicker master: Oftentimes, you’ll feel inclined to snatch the clicker away and click your own answer. Do not do this, you’re just straining the team bond and penalizing the amount of points you could be getting. Instead, assign one person (usually the one lacking knowledge in the resources) to be the constant master of the clicker. Have that person sit in the middle of the team, that way the other two people who’ve studied the syllabus can provide their thoughts to the clicker master. Generally, whichever answer suggestion the clicker master agrees with should be the one you submit, unless only one person has a suggestion.
- Study Again: Just like with the Scholar's Challenge, you can't expect to enter this event with no knowledge of the syllabus and hope to place high on the leaderboards (though miracles can rarely happen). The more each of your teammates studies their own focuses (i.e each teammate studies 2 of the 6 resources), the more confident your answers will be, the more likely you are to get a medal (or even trophy) for the bowl.
- Logic prevails: There will always be those questions where your entire team is stumped, wishing they’d further studied that particular resource, or cursing their memory for forgetting such a crucial fact. The only course of action then is to come to a conclusion as to which answer is most logically the correct one. Better than randomly guessing but slightly less effective than actually studying the syllabus.
- Be quick about it: Even though time might seem that time is on your side, it’s more ideal to get your first answer in within the first couple of moments you’re given. That way, incase your team agrees on a different answer later, you can submit it on the clicker without risking a timeout.
- Sneak a peek: While I do not recommend excessive use of this tip, it doesn’t hurt to try and sneakily glance at what teams around you are clicking. Even if you can’t hear their answer, try to eavesdrop on their conversations and find out which options aren’t the answer. In a counter to this tactic, whisper when discussing answers and try to confuse potential eavesdroppers.
That’s all the tips I have for the Scholar’s Bowl.