Contrary to popular belief, Hi-Q and Knowledge Bowl are not the same thing. Knowledge Bowl (or KB) is a trivia based game. There are three teams, A, B, and C. One question is asked  to all three teams, and if at any point during the reading of said question a team thinks they know the answer, they can buzz in. At this point, the orator will cease reading the question and the team that buzzed has fifteen seconds to answer. If they are correct, then the orator moves on to the next question. However if they are wrong, the other teams (assuming they haven’t buzzed in as well) can ask the orator to “repeat and complete” the question. In one round of Knowledge Bowl, there are fifty questions, and a game consists of two rounds.

Hi-Q is much more structured. There are also three teams, one per school that attends the match, and four players per team. The first half of a Hi-Q match consists of a question for each of the following topics: Biology, Current Events, Sports, American History, Mathematics, Shakespeare, Geography, and Literature. The second half consists of questions from Chemistry, Physics, Art History, Government, World History, Math, and more Literature, Shakespeare, Geography, and American History. The catch is that each team gets their own question for each topic i.e., other teams cannot interject.

For the past several years, Arlington High School has hosted the State Knowledge Bowl meet, and will continue the tradition again this year. Hosting the meet saves the cost for a long bus ride and overnight lodging, but also runs the risk of embarrassment if Arlington does not qualify. Last year the “A”-Team from Arlington, A.K.A. Die Flammenschiessenden Kraken qualified for the state meet, and got 16th of eighteen teams. “We feel good about our chances,” said Coach Mendro, who, along with Ms. Joselow, prepares the KB players in practice. “We have a good returning core and strong returning sophomores.”

The host of the State Hi-Q match is the team that has the highest cumulative season score, whereas the host school volunteers to host the State KB match (schools from all over Washington come to the State KB match, and a total of three come to the State Hi-Q match). The Arlington Hi-Q team qualified for and placed third in the State match in 2014, and plans to make a return this year. “There are only ten teams playing …  it’s pretty lame if we don’t qualify,” said Coach Mendro. Mendro and Joselow help out in both Hi-Q and KB, so it’s expected that there would be an overlap of participants between the two extracurriculars. This overlap brings strength and hopes of a good season to both Hi-Q and KB this year.