For some students, learning in school is about more than just getting a good grade or test score. For the IHS Brain Team, knowledge across a range of subjects has translated into national recognition on the academic quiz bowl circuit.
On February 9, Brain Team attended a tournament at Geneva High School to play a tournament using the latest question set from National Academic Quiz Tournaments (NAQT), the primary producer of questions for quiz bowl tournaments. Not only did IHS win the Geneva tournament with an undefeated 9-0 record, but the Ithaca A team of Isaiah Gutman ‘19, Julian Perry ‘19, Kaelan Imani ‘20, and Rohit Lal ‘22 broke the national record for the highest points per game on a standard NAQT high school question set. With 632.22 points per game, IHS beat a record set almost two years ago by Hunter College High School of New York City. Since the tournament, IHS has risen to a rank of 11th in the country on hsqbrank.com’s rankings of high school quiz bowl teams.
Academic quiz bowl is played in games between two teams of up to four players each. Each game consists of 20 paragraph-length “tossup” questions, which begin with obscure information about a topic before moving on to easier clues. Each team races to be the first to buzz in and state the correct answer. Each of those questions is followed by three “bonus” questions for the team that answered the tossup question. Questions ask about a range of subjects including history, literature, science, fine arts, and even popular culture. The wide range of topics rewards teams for having knowledge of diverse subjects, with each team member having their own specialties. In a given game, a team might have to answer questions about topics ranging from Shakespeare to calculus to the history of Wakanda.
IHS started the season off strong, retaining almost every player from the previous year’s team. The season began with a tournament at Columbia University, where Ithaca A won with a victory over Hunter College High School in the final. Hunter, a longtime rival of IHS and winner of multiple national championships, had been the highest ranked team in New York for the previous three years. On the most popular site for quiz bowl rankings, IHS now holds that distinction. “Being on a highly ranked team is something new for me this year,” says Isaiah Gutman ‘19, Brain Team president. “There is some pressure associated with it since we now have a target on us. Luckily we aren’t the number one team in the country; I’d be a lot more stressed if that were the case.” The team plans to attend national championship tournaments at the end of the year in Atlanta and Washington, DC.
Although Brain Team has found competitive success, to its players, quiz bowl is about more than just winning tournaments. “Quiz bowl has taught me how to work with others towards a collective goal,” Gutman says. “The best part of my four years in quiz bowl has been the bonds I’ve formed with my teammates,” says Vaynu Kadiyali ‘19, who was on the team from Ithaca that tied for fifth place at the 2017 National Championship in Atlanta. He adds, “Quiz bowl has also broadened my worldview and increased my number of interests. I came in as a 9th grader only being able to get questions in one category, but through quiz bowl, I’ve gained an appreciation for varied topics like music and art, mythology, and science. I find myself having greater interest for content taught in school too, because the fun competition that quiz bowl creates has encouraged me to broaden my horizons.”
Even though the “A Team” of IHS’s top four players competes at a highly competitive level, students of all skill levels are able to join Brain Team, and IHS sends more than one team to most tournaments. Brain Team meets every Monday after school in G102, the classroom of team coach Mr. Kirk.