​Though this topic was recommended to me by a subscriber to this blog, I am writing it as much as a reminder to myself as I am writing it to share with all of you.
 
After our November quiz, the weekends get very busy. First up is Thanksgiving. A week later, my District participates in the St. Louis Top 10 quiz tournament. Not too long after that is Christmas followed one week later by New Year’s Day. So, like many of you, our District does not have a December quiz. For our small District, the St. Louis Top 10 quiz is our December quiz. But as God continues to bless our ministry, we continue to grow in numbers. So much so in fact that for the first time ever we will have more teens not quizzing at the St. Louis tournament than those who will be quizzing.

Challenges, rebuttals, and appeals. Sounds more like words you’d hear on a courtroom drama television show than in a friendly game of Teen Bible Quizzing. But in a way, you are on trial in front of a judge who is handing out a decision based on your testimony! While Quizmasters do their best to make a just ruling based on their interpretation of the Scripture and quizzing rules, they are human and therefore could make an error in judgment (though it is very, very rare, as I have been assured by some of them).

A check to their power exists in Teen Bible Quizzing in the form of challenges and rebuttals. The Captain of any team may challenge a Quizmaster’s decision on a Toss-Up question if there is reason to believe that the Quizmaster’s ruling is incorrect. Before the beginning of the next question, the Captain stands and gives a concise argument regarding why the ruling should be reversed. The opposing Captain is then allowed an opportunity to rebut the challenge, explaining why the Quizmaster’s original decision was indeed correct.

Keep in mind, however, that the team is penalized 10 points beginning with their 2nd overruled challenge in a game! So choose your battles wisely!

To better understand not only when but how to make an effective challenge, I consulted with several experienced Quizmasters to get their perspectives: JD Sailors (Quizmaster at District, Field and National competitions), Darrik Acre (Quizmaster and SNU Field Quiz Director), and Matt Thrasher (Quizmaster and Trevecca Field Quiz Director). 

For my day job, my responsibilities are to inspire performance, innovate products, improve the environment, invest in people, and ultimately to make a profit for my business unit. To do many of these things, I rely heavily on making data-based decisions.

As a Quiz Coach, I try to do the same when it is applicable. While I do rely on the Holy Spirit’s leading of my heart when it comes to interacting and mentoring the teens, I do use statistics at times to refine individual study and game-situation strategies. For example:

• Jaqueline is getting more than her share of According To questions during competition. Perhaps I should encourage her and provide resources to make those her specialty in the future.
• Blake and Aaron answer a lot of Context questions. I should put them on different teams so they don’t compete against each other for that question every game.
• It’s Question 16. What’s the probability that the last Memory Verse question will be asked next? Should I substitute my bench player now or wait?
• What are my quizzers’ current averages for this tournament? Who should I start the next game?

Effective August 2017, the Nazarene Youth Quizzing Official Rules & Guidelines were revised per the direction of the Quizzing Advisory Council (QAC). And while most updates to this manual are typically minor or clarifying in nature, this time a few rules were changed that could have strategic implications on how you play and coach the game.

​When compared line-by-line against the August 2015 Rules, here are the 3 notable changes made to the 2017 edition of the Official Rules & Guidelines:

Have you ​ever wondered how the Memory Verses are chosen for each season? For the longest time I had assumed there was some ancient World Bible Quiz Association parchment of pre-selected memory verses that all the member denominations were contractually obligated to follow. But now that I’ve been around long enough to see the same books come around at least 3 times, I’m noticing that each season’s memory verses are not the same as they were 8 years prior.
 
So what gives? Sure, we recently changed from NIV 1984 to NIV 2011, but that doesn’t explain how we went from 85 single memory verses in 1993 to a mixture of Singles and Multiples covering 116 verses in 2001! Important Bible verses are still important Bible verses, amirite?
 
Fortunately for all of us, Teen Bible Quizzing is a vibrant ministry! Over the years rules are changed, new types of questions are introduced, and the memory verses change each cycle. This keeps Bible Quizzing fresh and aligned with the changing dynamics and aptitudes of today’s youth.
 
Peeking behind the curtain, it turns out the majority of the Nazarene Bible Quizzing memory verse selection process begins in the very capable hands of one person – Karl Tabor.
 
Here is Karl’s story and how he chooses the memory verses that are considered for each season:

Having been involved with Teen Bible Quizzing for two decades now *shudder*, I thought I had a firm understanding of the fundamental structure and shifting trends within this wonderful ministry.

But what I have since discovered is that - for some things – I simply didn’t know that I didn’t know. 

Earlier this year, I invited subscribers to this blog to participate in a survey about their local Bible Quizzing ministry. As an amateur statistician, even I knew this would not be a scientific study and it would have a large margin of error. Of the estimated 3,000 Teen Bible Quizzers and Quiz Leaders in the U.S., my sampling method would only capture those Quizzers and Quiz Leaders who are subscribers of this blog.

“So, what is the margin of error?”, your inner geek asks. “16%”, my inner geek replies. But I wasn't necessarily looking for precision of values. Rather, I was looking for patterns of evidence.

​Here are the results to the survey questions and how they either fundamentally changed or affirmed my assumptions:

I love Amazon. One of the biggest perks of any online store is that you get to shop from the cozy comfort of your own home while wearing pajamas. And besides being able to compare prices without burning a tank of gas and wasting your day, have you ever noticed that Amazon uses “frustration-free” packaging? That means no impenetrable hard plastic clamshell cases or M.C. Escher-esque wire ties, and a lot less – if any – chances of being one of the nearly 6,000 people who go to the emergency room annually for an injury inflicted by the razor-sharp shards of packing material. Additionally, the majority of Amazon orders are shipped in corrugated containers that contain 43% recycled materials and are 100% recyclable. So, in effect, I am helping the environment by ordering from Amazon!
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But while Amazon takes this whole “shopping from home” thing to a whole new level by offering everything from toilet paper to video games, coffee, adult Madagascar hissing cockroaches and more, they fall short with resources for Teen Bible Quizzing.

Congratulations! By now most of you have completed the Bible Quiz season that covered the Gospel of Luke. As a faithful reader of this blog, I’m sure you prepared for the season by reading 1 chapter of Luke as part of your daily time in the Word during the summer. When the season started you set up a dedicated study area where you blocked off time to study in 25-minute chunks with 5-minute breaks every night immediately before you went to bed and got plenty of sleep. You followed a plan that varied what you studied every day to prevent mid-season burnout. You used the NPH Bible Quiz App to take advantage of the idle moments that happen randomly throughout your day. You asked others to hold you accountable and you rewarded yourself for achieving your study goals.  You dedicated yourself to learning 2 Memory Verses a week because you know it is the practically guaranteed* way to be a top 10 Bible Quizzer. But most importantly, as you read Luke God revealed Himself to you through the Scripture. With God’s leading, you are finding direction for your life and learning how to best serve the Lord who gave His life for you.
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And now here you are. Relieved that you made it through the longest book of the 8-year Youth Bible Quiz cycle. You are looking forward to the relative ease of studying 1 & 2 Corinthians next season.
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So to help you prepare after you return from your summer break, here is a brief statistical analysis of the upcoming quiz material:

​It happened a few years ago, but I still get triggered every time I think about it. 

I am coaching a team comprised mostly of first-year quizzers at an out-of-state mid-season invitational tournament. It has been thrilling for them to travel and meet other Christian teens from across the nation who share a passion for studying God’s Word. And despite our inexperience, we’re not embarrassing ourselves too often. Sure, we lost one game 350-10, but at least we didn’t go negative! In fact, that game was a real eye-opener of what we could accomplish with more experience and commitment to studying God’s Word! Later in the tournament we were put in a division of similar talent and we actually began to win a few games. 
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But then we played the team from Sassafras (that’s not their real name) who was leading our division at the tournament. Things aren’t looking good. We’re down 110-170 after question #18. I’m already looking at the schedule to see which room we go to next. We’re playing Kentucky? Cool, that’ll be fun.

In Pixar’s Finding Nemo (and again in Finding Dory), Dory has a problem encoding new information due to recursive anterograde amnesia. In other words, she has short-term memory loss. While the urban myth that goldfish only have a 3-second memory has been debunked by marine biologists, the movie plays on that misconception by having Dory forget everything every few seconds.

As a quiz coach, I’ve seen many Quizzers come down with something that resembles recursive anterograde amnesia. And no matter how much time they spend studying, the information doesn’t seem to stick. What I’ve come to discover, fortunately, is that how you spend your time studying is often more important than how much time you spend studying. So contrary to popular belief, “studying” doesn't have to be a combination of the words “study” and “dying”!

Years ago, I came across a lecture from psychology professor Dr. Marty Lobdell from Pierce College called “Study Less, Study Smart”. In it he presents several techniques, backed by research, that help students improve retention and perform better academically.