Do Not Fear The GEPCP Year

Many teens express feelings of dread when they realize how many books are covered in the upcoming Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon (GEPCP) quiz season. “Five books?! Those “Book and Chapter” questions are going to be really hard!”

Seriously? That’s a lot of angst and unnecessary worry because of one question in a game.

Instead, quizzers should be excited to quiz on Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon. These 5 books contain only 528 verses to study. That makes GEPCP the second-shortest in terms of total verses compared to other quiz seasons. Hebrews, 1 & 2 Peter has the fewest verses with 469. Next year’s Luke has the most with 1,151! Compared to last season’s Acts, GEPCP has 48% fewer verses and 56% fewer total words to read! That’s just about half!

Studying memory verses is the epitome of Teen Bible Quizzing: learning God’s Word. And as a faithful reader of this blog, you already know that quizzers who commit to learning the memory verses perform exceedingly well in competition. So if you were considering learning memory verses, this is one of the best quiz seasons to do so. Don’t pass it up! Here's why:

WHY THIS IS A GREAT YEAR TO LEARN THE MEMORY VERSES

The 87 GEPCP Memory Verses - comprised of 113 total verses - represents 21% of the entire scripture material for the year.

While there are only 3 Memory Verses in a quiz match, a Poisson Distribution calculates that 70% of games played will have 3 or more additional questions that are derived from a memory verse.  In other words, most of the time you will have at least 6 opportunities to know by heart the entirety of the exact verse on which the question is based.

Need more incentive? How about this: GEPCP Memory Verses have 17% fewer total words and 18% fewer words in a verse than Acts memory verses. Simply put, GEPCP memory verses are shorter than Acts memory verses.

How To Quickly Learn The Memory Verses

As of this writing, there are about 130 days until most of you begin the GEPCP quiz season. Using simple math, that means you can take your time and learn 2 verses every 3 days or so.

Or wait 40 days from now and learn 1 verse every day until the first quiz meet. Either way, you’ll have all of the verses memorized before the season even begins!

But these methods aren’t quick. If you are the kind of person who likes challenges or are just impatient, try these methods:

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The Two-Week Plan
Knock out the entire season’s Memory Verses in 2 weeks at the end of your summer break! Then, you can spend the rest of the quiz season learning the General Knowledge material.  All you need to do is set aside 2-3 hours a day:

Choose one (or more) of the Memory Verse learning methods described in the section titled “Day 4: Learn Memory Verse(s)” in my Beginner’s Guide On How To Study For Bible Quizzing post: Phrase Repetition, Verse Repetition, Writing Repetition, or Flash Cards.

Follow this schedule:
                             Week 1                     Week 2     
Sunday:          learn 8 verses        learn 6 verses
Monday:        learn 8 verses        learn 6 verses
Tuesday:        learn 7 verses        learn 6 verses
Wednesday:  learn 7 verses        learn 5 verses
Thursday:      learn 7 verses        learn 5 verses
Friday:           learn 6 verses        learn 5 verses
Saturday:       learn 6 verses       learn 5 verses 

The One-Month Plan
Can only afford 1-2 hours a day because you are so busy sleeping until noon and playing video games during the summer? Learn the entire season’s Memory Verses in a single month following this schedule:

                                 Wk 1                      Wk 2                      Wk 3                  Wk 4  
Sunday                                              Review                 Review                Review
Monday               6 verses               5 verses               4 verses               3 verses
Tuesday               6 verses               5 verses               4 verses               3 verses
Wednesday         6 verses               5 verses               4 verses               2 verses
Thursday             6 verses               5 verses               4 verses               2 verses
Friday                  6 verses               5 verses               4 verses               2 verses
Saturday              Review                 Review                 Review                Review

The Brace Yourself, Quiz Season Is Coming Plan
If the summer passed you by and it is time to start studying for the new quiz season, then this is the Memory Verse study plan for you. Unfortunately, you will now have to factor in school and several other holiday activities into your study time. That leaves very little opportunity to study the General Knowledge material in addition to learning these Memory Verses.

Option 1: As you find or make time every day, pick up your Memory Verse list or your flash cards and learn a new verse or two. Learn 3 memory verses a week for the duration of the season. All you need is 15-30 minutes a day.

Option 2: Learn a new verse every Monday, Wednesday and Friday during the season.  All you need is 15-30 minutes a day.  Review the verses you have learned right before your weekly quiz practice.

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