Colorado Knowledge Bowl

Knowledge Bowl originated in 1976 as a project within the San Juan Board of Cooperative Services,a small educational service cooperative in Durango, Colorado. It was response to a request by a group of area student body leaders who asked for some kind of competitive academic activity. The first meet was held in Pagosa Springs and involved just three high schools. Within two years, it evolved to include scores of invitational meets in addition to regional competitions and a Colorado state championship that has been held annually ever since.

State championship history

The first statewide Colorado State Knowledge Bowl was held in 1978 at Fort Lewis College in Durango. Most of the competing teams that year came from schools in mountain districts. One of the few Colorado Front Range schools in the competition that year, Green Mountain High School in Jefferson County won the first statewide championship. Green Mountain would go on to triumph in three of the first four years of the competition, taking first place in 1980 and 1981 as well.

Meet Format

In Colorado, the meets start off with the written round. This round comprises 40 or 60 multiple choice questions that the team attempts to answer correctly. The team can discuss the question only during the written round. Depending on the school, the team may have between 2 to 5 people. The scores from the written round determines which teams will compete against each other in the first oral round.

Following the written round teams compete in four oral rounds of forty or fifty questions each. Only four members of a team may take part in these rounds, so if the team has more than four members, the other members may substitute in after half of the questions in that round. Three teams compete against each other in a single room. Each question has a subject line that is read before the question. Teams can buzz at any time, even before the reader has finished reading the question. The team may not talk about the answer to the question, but they may talk about who will answer the question (In the Colorado Springs area meets, no talking period is allowed. However, teammates may use hand signals to determine who will answer). A sheet of paper is allowed for computations and for keeping score. If the first team to buzz in fails to answer the question in 15 seconds or answers incorrectly and no other team has buzzed in either of the other two teams may ask the reader to finish the question and/or repeat the question only once. After each round the scores are totaled and the teams reorganized and assigned to rooms according to their scores. After the final round, the team with the highest score wins the meet.

Knowledge Master Open

Twice a year, a set of 200 questions are sent to the teams of Colorado. The entire team meets, and gathers around a computer to answer these questions. The questions are in multiple choice format. The first answer, if correct, earns you the most points, as bonus points are awarded for the speed of the answer. If the question is answered incorrectly, the team is given a second chance, for the base point value with no bonus. That second answer is final. At the end, a team can see how they did in different subjects such as Current Events and Useless Trivia. The score is sent in, and in a few weeks, the results of how the team fared against other Colorado teams is received by the coach.