Studying

Studying is the process of learning information which appears in quiz bowl questions, allowing a player to improve by various metrics (converting more bonuses, powering more tossups, etc.). It is usually understood to indicate active, dedicated work akin to the studying done for academic coursework, rather than the passive accumulation of knowledge from playing the game or simply existing in society.

Studying is an answer to the question "how do I get good at quiz bowl?", along with things like "attending tournaments" and "going to practice."

Methods

At their core, all study methods rely on obtaining and retaining information for the purposes of answering quiz bowl questions. Most "study methods" are specific approaches to these tasks and not standalone processes - as such, it is typically the case that a player will employ many of these methods at the same time while studying.

This section is incomplete.

Packet studying

Main page: packet study

Packet study is a quizbowl study method that involves reading packets to learn the canon of quizbowl as well as specific clues for various answerlines. Since many topics and answerlines recur from tournament to tournament (even though the questions in "good quizbowl" events are always new at each tournament), reading old packets is an excellent way to learn clues and be alerted to topics that might come up at future tournaments.

The key resource involved is the packet archive, which retains all non-NAQT sets written since the late 90's, but also useful are the numerous question databases which allow for search and filtering functionality. The growth of online packet archives has contributed to the popularity of this study method.

Study guides

Raj Bahn's guide on improving at quiz bowl has been preserved here: How to Get Good at This Game.

There is a dedicated page for becoming a good science player, which describes resources and methods for studying science.