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High Quiz Bowl champions

Win culminates undefeated season for W-F team

By Angie Landsverk


Over the course of 20 minutes, a team of Weyauwega-Fremont High School students answered questions about science, math, literature, social studies and more.

The four students represented the school’s High Quiz Bowl A Team.

They capped off the A Team’s undefeated season with a 159-40 win over the team from Marion High School in the March 8 conference championship, at W-F High School.

Logan Bosquez, Camryn Hintz, Kati Kettleson and Gage Siebert were those four students.

When asked after the championship how they prepared for competitions, one smiled and said they “wing it.”

Hintz, who was the team’s captain, said she thought about looking at a map last weekend but ended up not doing so.

This was the fourth year Charlene Kuenzi coached the high school’s A and B teams.

She said the A Team is comparable to the varsity level and the B Team to the junior varsity level.

The questions the A Team are asked are more difficult than the B Team’s questions, Kuenzi said.

This year’s season began with a Jan. 4 competition.

W-F participated in the conference’s southern division competition.

The other high schools in that division were from Almond-Bancroft, Plainfield-Tri-County, Rosholt, Wild Rose, Manawa and Amherst.

The northern division consisted of Marion, Bowler, Wittenberg-Birnamwood, Iola-Scandinavia, Tigerton, Gresham and Shiocton high schools.
Kuenzi said six competitions took place – one with each team in their respective divisions.

For W’F’s High Quiz Bowl A Team, its last meet of the regular season was against Plainfield Tri-County.

She said both teams were undefeated and the competition that day was a close one.

W-F won that meet, capturing the southern division and thus moving on to the March 8 conference championship.

Questions, answers
Weekly practices for W-F’s students began in late November.

Those practices included acutal buzzers, preparing the students to be quick with their answers, Kuenzi said.

“I encourage them to answer all questions even if they are sometimes not quite sure of their answer, as you do not lose points for incorrect answers. The students’ well rounded knowledge just shines through,” she said.

During the competition, toss up questions are worth 12 points, Kuenzi explained.

The first team to buzz in correctly on the toss ups earns 12 points and gets bonus questions also worth a total of 12 points, she said.

There are two-part, three-part or four-part bonus questions in that rotating order, Kuenzi said.

The two-part questions are worth six points a piece.

The three-part questions are worth four points a piece, and the four-part questions are worth three points a piece.

The team gets the corresponding points for the parts of the bonus questions they get correct, she said.

There is the possibility of up to 24 points for a question.

For the toss ups, only the person who buzzed in may answer, Kuenzi said.

She said for bonus questions, team members may discuss the questions. It must be the captain who answers, though.

Toss up questions must be answered by either team in 10 seconds, or the moderator moves on to the next question.

The exception to that is when the question is a math problem and a computation is necessary.

In those cases, the students get 30 seconds to answer the question.

The time limit for bonus questions is also 10 seconds.

No points are lost if a team gives the wrong answer – unless the team hits the buzzer before the entire question is read.

When that happens, the team loses five points, Kuenzi said.

If a team gets a toss up wrong, the other team gets a chance to answer the question, she said.

Kuenzi gets students interested in High Quiz Bowl through a variety to ways.

“I make announcements, personally ask them, and the participants, themselves, recruit future members,” she said.

The enthusiasm of the students to compete makes it easy to recruit, Kuenzi said.

“Two years ago, I held a mock competition between team members and a team of teachers in front of the entire student body to spark interest,” she said. “The kids won.”

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