The Hard Questions and The Sweet Ask
The Survival of the Fittest… or should we say smartest? Brain bowl is one of the major homecoming events that showcase the academic buffness of each grade. Instead of a duel of the most athletic, most coordinated, or most musically or artistically gifted, this is a duel of the minds, of who can remember and correctly respond to the most questions with the limited amount of time they receive.
Last year, Student Government, particularly Mr. Gillego, took over the workings of the academic bowl; although their (his) intentions were good, the outcome was less than satisfactory. The questions asked were not teacher produced and the competition felt discombobulated. This year, students and teachers alike, breathed a sigh of relief when SG announced that Mr. Woodburn, Mr. Konen, Mrs. Lucchi, and Mr. Hutsko would take over this homecoming event again.
The 2014 Academic Bowl began with Mr. Konen stating that, “this is the new and continued version of the brain bowl after it was brutally murdered last year.” With the mounting pressure, the freshman seemed nervous with the first question of the brain bowl which caused the seniors to come in with a steal and put the first points on the board. During the next moments of first round, the student body saw the sophomores, juniors, and the seniors tally up points on the board.
Coming into the second round, the seniors began “stealing” the show answering questions left and right without hesitation or remorse. A battle was being raged and the hope that the seniors would win seemed closer than ever. To take the edge off the tense atmosphere, during the 40 second wait of an advanced science question for the seniors, Mr. Konen jokingly said “You need to provide units for this question because, unlike math, this is the real world.”
During the last two rounds of Brain Bowl, the juniors stole a question from the seniors. “Would this be the turning point in the competition?” some wondered. Although, the juniors put forth a valiant effort, they would have to settle for second place.
Everyone was anticipating the final question of the day, the question Mr. Konen kept referencing that would be open and free for every grade to answer; this could be the deciding factor between first and second, second and third, or third and fourth. Finally, the last round ended and the final question would be revealed. The question that appeared on the screen drew looks of puzzlement from the crowd until Paul Giraud stood up and asked Lucia Arriola to Homecoming. Today was truly a day made for the Class of 2015.
Final Score:
Seniors: 83
Juniors: 55
Sophomores: 19
Freshman: 33
Jodi Bauson is a senior at Country Day. Her special talents include eating an entire 12inch thin crust pizza in one sitting, movie marathons until the...
Ian • Oct 22, 2014 at 9:59 pm
Commenting on the statement, “Last year, Student Government took over the workings of the academic bowl; although their intentions were good, the outcome was less than satisfactory,” in all honestly, last year’s disastrous brain bowl was 100% Gillego. Allow me to explain. No members of student government wanted brain bowl to be a competition that advisories competed against each other in rounds and rounds for various reasons. For example, it makes no sense to have advisories face off each other to see how makes the final round of something like brain bowl when the rest of the week is a week of the four grades each united in competition against one another. On top of that, it took up way too much time. Instead of one brain bowl event, two more preliminary rounds were added, taking away time for more events. And finally, brain bowl is an opportunity for students with “academic ‘buffness’ to strut their stuff, which, sometimes, they don’t necessarily get to do in other athletic events. And in saying that the disaster was 100% Gillego, what I mean is that despite the wishes and decisions made by the twelve student members of student government, Mr. Gillego, decided to go ahead and reform the event, resulting in an absolute catastrophic mess. Now, were his intentions good? Of course they were, he’s a really nice and cool guy, but the “student government taking over” last year’s brain bowl was his action and his action only.