I’m not an enthusiastic reader. Since the start of high school, I have read a total of 1.25 books outside of school assignments: Flowers for Algernon and The Great Gatsby. The Great Gatsby is the book I am currently reading for English class, making my independent read redundant, and Flowers for Algernon was too long for me to complete in a reasonable amount of time. I always claim I do not have enough time to read but that’s frankly not true; I would rather consume internet brainrot than read.
Despite this clear gap between me and other students in terms of reading, I have become the go-to literature specialist for my Quizbowl team is just a few months. As displayed by my reading track record, this is obviously not because I suddenly decided to pick up and read hundreds of books, poems, and plays. Rather, it is because I have decided to systematically memorize key words and phrases of literary works and regurgitate them when they are referenced in the question. This strategy works remarkably well; in no other way would I be able to learn as many works as I did in a few short months. However, I feel that, in a way, this sort of diminishes the purpose of Quizbowl competitions. When one thinks about Quizbowl and its derivatives, one thinks about Jeopardy! champions and intelligent people who know every factoid about every book out there. However, as shown by my literature situtaion, that is not necessarily the case. Quizbowl enthusiasts have learned to simply memorize concepts instead of actually learn them and learn what they mean. For me, my performance has become directly correlated with how much time I dedicated to memorizing characters of literary works rather than actually reading them.
This meta strategy changes the game, but it still makes the game enjoyable and worthwhile. Natural skill and knowledge, although impressive at first, will quickly become useless in the competition. Even the most proficient of readers are not reading the hundreds of works required to even be considered good at literature. Therefore, the game becomes not about your reading, but your memorization. How much time you dedicate to studying for this silly game played between high schools. How much you truly value general knowledge as opposed to specific facts. This means that anyone can become good at Quizbowl competitions as long as they dedicate enough time to the cause. No matter what high school classes one has taken, a little self-studying every day can go a long way. The contrapositive of this is also true: if someone doesn’t dedicate enough time to the cause, they will not become good at Quizbowl. People who are naturally talented and hold understanding of some topics will quickly start to suffer to people who know a word or two about a wide variety of topics. Players can have great potential, but that potential goes untapped if studying does not become a regular habit.
Overall, being good at Quizbowl is not what people expect; however, the true strategy of Quizbowl changes the game to make it about perseverance and dedication. Those two qualities are what should be seen in a truly great player and a truly great person.