WGBH hosted the High School Quiz Show where 16 schools in Massachusetts competed. This year, our school was once again represented as they played against the Needham Rockets in a rematch similar to last year. The team won 540-375, and the second episode, in which Brookline will be competing against Thayer Academy, will be aired on April 7 at 6 pm on WGBH. 

High School Quiz Show comprises of a series of four rounds with four people against another school with four people. It is a trivia competition so there are four rounds of questions.

Freshman Anisha Cherukuri joined quiz bowl at the beginning of the year.

“I joined because I really like trivia and learning,” Cherukuri said. “When we practice trivia, we are learning a lot at the same time.”

Last year, the team had four seniors who went to the competition, so this year the team advisor, math teacher Adam Fried, had to pick an entirely new team.

Fried typically picks students who have been doing quiz bowl for a few years since it tends to be that the students have gotten pretty good at it. He also bases it on merit in order to have strong players.

This year the team was nervous because all of the seniors were gone and folks who had still been active in the club now needed to step up. It was their turn to try and was their first time auditioning. They were not really sure how it was going to go.

They practiced a lot for the quiz show especially once they found out that they had qualified.

“For the people that are going to be on the show, we watch old episodes of the show, we transcribe questions from old episodes of the show,” Fried said. “We also run through a whole lot of old questions and practice those.”

Sophomore Bradley Wolf is one of the four members of the team this year.

“I haven’t actually been to many this year. I am still an active member of the team, but it is hard for me to go to the normal practices,” Wolf said.

Wolf mentions that in practice, they pick a subject and study it during the week. At the practice, everyone reviews the subject and competes with it.

“We also do practice packets which are all types of problems. We do history, science, the arts, everything,” Wolf said.

Fried also mentions that they read through old tournament questions and do some studying of artwork and artists, list of presidents, capitals and other things like that.

According to Wolf, he does have to do a lot of additional studying for the quiz show, but that is also part of the fun.

“For the science part, the older students have an advantage in chemistry and biology, but school really does help,” Wolf said. “What I learned in history helps with half the history questions I know.”

The taping of the show was on Saturday, Jan. 20 at WGBH studios.