Foiled again: Quiz Team defeated by McAuley
When I finally get my way, things go horribly awry.
The St. X Quiz Team played McAuley on all three levels today at Cincinnati State. The Varsity team didn’t fare so well, getting lost in a quagmire of obscure questions. But more on that later. The Junior Varsity avenged the defeat with a resounding victory, and the Second Reserve team finished the day with a convincing win.
After I publicly complained about not playing Varsity last week, Mr. Weisbrod put Michael Knadler and me in as replacements for Bret Seifried, who (for sinister reasons, I’m sure) wasn’t able to come to the match today.
We started off poorly in the Category Rounds, but quickly regained our strength, tying with McAuley after three rounds. But McAuley soon took off, with one member in particular answering a multitude of questions so obscure that I can’t even paraphrase them here for you. According to some of my teammates, these questions were “the kind that only girls would get.”
I will, however, hand it to the quizwriters for coming up with a novel approach to American literature: they describe the publisher’s rejection letter(s), you supply the author. One I liked went something like this:
- “Too short.”
- “Too long.”
- “Too traditional and straightforward.”
- “Too different and complex.”
- …
No one got it, of course. Though studying more would’ve undoubtedly helped us out, most of the questions we left unanswered were simply unanswerable: we would have never encountered this material before. I hope someone was taking notes.
These questions, combined with the shrill din of giggling McAuley students and buzzer systems, doomed us to a six-point loss. (My advice to Harrison: get these highly-advanced little things called earplugs.) At the end of the game, McAuley scored 48 points to our miserable 42. As a point of reference, our score has historically been twice that of McAuley.
The Junior Varsity (First Reserve) avenged the defeat with a resounding victory, starting out strong and ending much the same way. They received much more reasonable questions this time, and they answered very well, winning the game 69–28 – much in keeping with the historical score that I mentioned above.
The Second Reserve (Freshman) team played convincingly against McAuley, also winning the game 58–40. Kudos to Ken Schweiter for his answer to the following question:
- What do Mexicans call the river that forms much of the border between Mexico and the United States?
St. X’s next Quiz Team appearance will be for Varsity-only matches against Mercy and Mt. Notre Dame, both next Tuesday the 15th. Despite our frequent Varsity losses this season, St. X guaranteed its spot in the annual GCAL Spring Tournament by finishing first in the Fall Tournament.