Hello wonderful people! Today I'm going to share with you a list of four ways you can skyrocket your quizzing experience! These are things that I've noticed in successful quizzers, things that I've had to learn (and am obviously still learning), and things I am thoroughly convinced will help improve your quizzing journey. I wanted to share these with you guys because I realized that I've mentioned them before, but always apart from each other, and almost never in a short-winded format. I would almost call these pillars, regarding quizzing with the right mindset. So anyway, I pray that these benefit you, and that I'm able to get across what I'm meaning to say :P 1. Setting priorities This can be difficult, especially if you're into other sports, hobbies, or have a part-time job. There's only 24 hours in a day, right? Sometimes squeezing quizzing in can be a challenge. Admittedly, there is a fine line between making studying a priority, and making it something your rely on for your worth and value (of whatever amount) because you care about it maybe a little too much. Staying on the right side of this line can be checked every once in a while by an easy rule of thumb: "Will I be okay if I don't perform well? And am I committing what is my best effort, right now, to quizzing?" If you can find the balance between the two extremes of excess and laziness, you'll be golden! I have a problem with this sometimes, especially when it comes to giving my best effort (because it always feels like I could be doing better, or be doing more), but I'm learning that the secret to living in the happy medium, the sweet spot if you will, is just focusing on being rooted in your relationship with our Father. Everything you do flows from the condition of your heart (Proverbs 4:23). And of course, the Maker of our hearts is the only One who can keep and fulfill it, in order that we can live life more abundantly (John 10:10). So our first priority must be guarding our hearts, and giving them to the God who nurtures them - everything else in our lives will follow along in peace and in joy. 2. Focus on yourself I talked about this in a previous post, but I'm going to hit it up as a summary in this format - think of it as a recap :P First, peer pressure and caring about what other people think doesn't do anyone any good, and you can find the same amount of motivation that would come from that, from other (less destructive) sources. Secondly, If you're just caring about what others think of you, then you won't get the opportunity (or as many opportunities) to encourage and build up other quizzers. Plus, when you put in the effort to give someone else a boost, that usually refreshes and motivates you as well! And lastly, peer pressure isn't something God intended - spurring each other on to do better is. Focus on yourself, and only be concerned with being better than yesterday, and an abundance of peace will settle on you. And as a cool bonus, when we're not stressed out about it, it'll be easier to give it our best. 3. Find and choose rivals, friends, and role models Focus on yourself, but don't be afraid to wade into the competition! Healthy competition and spurring each other on to do better go hand in hand, so don't hesitate to get in there and make a splash :P Having rivals in quizzing is a good idea, and usually comes easily (most of the time without even trying). These rivals can be from your team, district, region, or from somewhere totally different - or you can have multiple rivals from all of these. Having friends is equally important. If you keep yourself secluded from the social aspect of quizzing then you'll miss out on a lot of awesome friendships you could have been forming. But also keep in mind that it's never too late to start! Next, it's also a good idea to find role models for yourself. These are usually quizzers themselves, but sometimes they can be other people who also project the values related to quizzing, that you want for yourself. Through having role models, we can observe and learn to do better. I've benefitted a lot from this! 4. Have goals Its good to have short and long term goals - and you can apply this to quizzing as well! Here's why;
Having a goal-oriented mind, I have to remind myself occasionally that not everyone thinks this way. And I understand why you may think this doesn't apply to you, but let me ask you this - if you were trying to travel to a place you'd never been, how much easier would it be to get there if you stopped and planned out directions for yourself, before you started out? You have to know where you're going, and what to do at each turn and intersection, if you want to get to the destination safely, efficiently, and without losing your mind :P So there you go! I hope that these help you on your Bible quizzing journey, and that it encourages you to give quizzing to God, to only care about what He thinks of you, to make and nourish Godly friendships, and to know where you want to go!
This is pretty much it - the big tournaments are upon us, my friends. But don't fret! If you're worried, upset, or stressed out about it, I just want you to know that those feelings are not from God. They are either from the Devil, or from yourself under the influence of his temptations and deceit. It is not fun to feel this way! It causes you to get angry, tired, and frustrated, and sometimes even tempts you to give up. Paul says that we should not be oblivious of the Devil's tactics/devices (2 Corinthians 2:11 - shout out: who's getting pumped for next season?!). And, to remind us all to be on our guard against his voice, here are a couple of the lies he tries to sell to us - in order to steal our joy. And, to be perfectly honest, he's as dumb as a stump (seriously) so any lies he tries to use, will nine times out of ten, be one of these - only packaged differently. Test your thoughts.
And as a side note, the Bible says that whatever he steals from you and you catch him (as we are equipped to do right now), he has to return to us seven times as much (Proverbs 6:31). Guys, if you've had any kind of joy stolen from you by his lies, and you're ready to put the stinking slug in his place, you're going to have an over abundance of joy coming your way. Get ready, my friend, get ready! Keep on keeping on, anointed children of God! Have an awesome, awesome weekend and a wonderful time of peaceful preparation before our tournaments! Thanks for reading! Keep calm and quiz on (and out)! Your fellow quizzer, Mallory
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Hey y'all! I had a great time seeing everyone, and enjoying the competition at the Dallas Invitational! Congratulations to everyone for their great performances! I had something a little different planned for today, so I hope you enjoy it! I thought it would be cool for you guys to get the opinions and ideas of some other experienced and competitive quizzers, rather than just from me. So that led me, a couple of weeks ago (or maybe more like a month), to contact some of my quizzing friends from a few different districts and states, and ask them if they would like to help me out. Being the awesome people they are, they got back to me with some super great answers! Huge thank you to you guys! So here we go.... 1. How has quizzing positively affected you? "Quizzing was a great opportunity for me to draw closer to God and learn more about Him and His Word. Instead of playing video games or watching TV, quizzing was a more positive way for me to use my free time." -Emily Benn "It's helped deepen and expand my knowledge of the New Testament." -Josh Dunbar "I think that my first three years of quizzing I studied the material because I wanted to do well at the quizzes. This year though I have found more meaning in the scripture I have learned, and God has shown me that I need to use quizzing towards His glory, not just performance." -Gabe Randall "I think the most positive way quizzing has affected me is that it has given me the opportunity to learn God's Word in a really in-depth (and also really fun!) way." -Olivia "Quizzing has helped me in two significant ways: 1) It made me fall in love with the Word of God. 2) It gave me the opportunity to meet people all over the world." -Jonathan Acre 2. Do you have any advice to share about your specialty question type? "When I quizzed, my specialty was usually according to's. After memorizing a chapter, it helped me to review each individual verse and figure out all the multiple question and answer combinations. It was also useful for me to quote the verses after only hearing the references." -Emily Benn "Study the unique words and know what chapters they're in." -Josh Dunbar (general questions) "According to's are the hardest to learn, but they make the most impact on quizzes. You have to first memorize every chapter, and then I use flash cards to go over it and see if I can quote the verses from just the reference. It's not fun learning all of it, but then you can answer every type of question." -Gabe Randall "If you are going to specialize in memory questions, one thing that helps me is to have the pre-jumps completely memorized. For example, if you jump on 'th-' you should be able to remember how many verses start with a 'th-' sound. That way, you don't waste any time searching for a verse that fits." -Olivia "My specialty was General questions. My advice would be to jump aggressively on questions that begin with 'what' or 'who'. Those questions have the tendency of being key more quickly than other types of general questions." -Jonathan Acre 3. What's the best way to prepare before quizzes? "My tip is prayer. Quizzing is a lot of fun, but it is easy to get distracted by the competition part. Prayer is a helpful way to remind yourself of why you are quizzing and it helps give you awareness of how God can use you in the quiz." -Emily Benn "Try and get 8+ hours of sleep the night before the quiz." -Josh Dunbar "One and a half weeks before the quiz, you have to go out of your way to study. Study in the car, in the shower, when you wake up, and at lunch - I have always found my short term memory to be very good, so I just kinda cram everything in." -Gabe Randall "Studying in the car on the way to a quiz meet is really helpful. Granted, it's not the most exciting thing to do, especially when all your friends are talking or playing games, but the extra study time will definitely come in handy during the meet. One of my favorite ways to study is to listen to the Scripture on the Bible app." -Olivia "Take the week before the quiz to just review. Make sure everything you have worked on previously is solid. Also, eat protein for breakfast the day of the quiz. It helps with brain function." -Jonathan Acre 4. How do you balance school and quizzing? "The main way you can balance your schoolwork and studying is by setting your priorities. Everyone makes time for the things they want to do. If you make schoolwork and studying your top priority, it will be easier for you to get them done." -Emily Benn "Find a time that works best for studying each day, and make a study schedule." -Josh Dunbar "I'd say just find a method that works for you. If you are very organized, make a schedule. For me, I just study whenever I can, but if I focus it's just as valuable." -Gabe Randall "Lately I've been finding that managing both school and quizzing has been difficult. Although quizzing is important, I think God understands that school is a top priority, so don't feel badly if you find yourself falling behind in quizzing." -Olivia "I never really found a trick for this. It just boils down to a matter of hard work and making quizzing a priority. If you want to be one of the best quizzers, then you have to put in the work. Sometimes that even means you lose some sleep." -Jonathan Acre 5. What would be one piece of advice you would give to new quizzers? "New quizzers, don't be afraid to jump! Even if you get the answer wrong, jumping gives you experience and helps you become a better quizzer. Also, quizzing is a lot more fun when you make friends, so do not be afraid to get outside you comfort zone to meet new people from other places." -Emily Benn "Don't stress out over your first year if you aren't doing well, just enjoy it; it's a lot easier the second year." -Josh Dunbar "The most important thing for new quizzers is staying motivated. Find incentives to keep studying and you will find yourselves having more fun and meeting more people. Also, learn the memory verses. Its an easy goal and if you can master your jump, I can't tell you how many times memory verse quizzers slide into district and regional teams." -Gabe Randall "If you're new to quizzing, it can be daunting! Just remember that the whole point is to learn God's Word and have fun. Don't sweat it; just make friends and enjoy the process." -Olivia "Remember this: Anyone can be good at quizzing. You don't have to be born with some kind of special talent. All you need is a high amount of self-discipline. Find someone you want to be better than, and work hard until you are. More importantly than that, however, is to never forget the reason for this whole ministry. Radiate the love of Jesus to everyone you come in contact with. Go and live out the words you're studying." -Jonathan Acre
And there you have it! By the way, all these teens are at least in their third year of quizzing, have been on regional teams, and have done very well in competition otherwise, so they know what they're talking about :P Who's excited for the end-of-season tournaments to begin?! I am! :P Not because I want this season to be over, (because it's been great!) but because we're getting into the district finals, and then the regional quiz, where we find out who will be on our regional teams, and then finally the national quiz in Indianapolis! Pretty intense stuff coming up, but praise God, we are more than conquerors through Him! So until we meet again, happy, happy quizzing! Thanks for reading! Keep calm and quiz on (and out)! Your fellow quizzer, Mallory Hi everyone! As promised, this is going to be the second part to my previous post, "7 Secrets To Rocking Generals" in which I cover the first three secrets, which are essential. Here I will discuss the next three (equally important) secrets I've learned. The fifth tip I have for you, is to be very, very, persistent in going over questions in the passage your studying. Here are three reasons to add it to your study list;
Now, imagining might sound a little childish, but adults use their imaginations on a daily basis as well, even if they might not recognize it as their imagination. For example, giving someone directions, you don't have a passage memorized of words that you rattle off to people - you just see the streets, turns, and stop lights in your head, and that's imagination, because it is being able to form a picture of something that isn't real, or present. It's not just for fantasy and playing dress up :P And the final tip I have for you that I've learned about generals, is that it's important to take advice from other question specialists, because techniques they use than be applied (maybe not exactly the same way) to studying for generals as well. According to's, for example, spend a ton of time and effort memorizing huge passages of scripture, and for general specialists, it's a good idea to invest some time focusing on important sections, and especially lists (which are very, very important in the gospels and for generals). Another thing that according to specialists are quite skilled at is laying out multiples at every possible opportunity. For generals, especially at a high level of pre-jumping, it's profitable to learn to multiple effectively, with good organization, speed, and accuracy. And also, if you know any memory specialists, then don't be afraid to ask them to teach you about lip reading. Especially when you get to a fast pre-jumping quiz, lip reading becomes really important to be able to get that last little syllable. I hope that these little tips help you, and that it proves easy to remember the real reason we quiz. Keeping this in our minds makes quizzing a whole lot less stressful, and immediately shoots the fun factor way up! :P Keep calm and quiz on (and out)! And as always, signing off as your fellow quizzer, Mallory Hey guys! Hows y'all's studying going? Super pumped about the Luke season? Today I thought I would share with you some of the things I've learned about studying for and jumping on General questions, so lets go ahead and dive in! First of all, Generals have been the main thing I jump on the last three years, and they're by far my favorite (even though I enjoy Situation questions a lot as well!). However, even recently I've been learning more about them, so I don't have everything figured out, but I do believe that the things I'll share with you could help. A few people have asked me how I can quiz over the material without memorizing it (even though I do plan on doing that this year! How's the Learn Luke Challenge treating you, BTW?), and it took me a long time, but I finally figured it out:
Reading and listening to it while to do other necessary tasks that don't require thinking (I.e. washing the dishes, cleaning, showering/doing hair and makeup etc.) is one of the ways you can get a whole lot of easy, extra study time in. 2. Reflex speed General questions, like context questions, normally require a lot of reflex jumping, as opposed to the memory, according to, and situation types, which usually have a reliable syllable count before a good pre-jump. What, when, where, who, why and how have slightly different timings. Who is the quickest pre-jump, followed by why, what, where, when and how (in my opinion). Knowing unique and seldom-used words, and where they come from are essential for reflex jumping on General questions. Which leads me to the next point; 3. Pay attention to each word and use them to deduce where the question came from and what it is. I.e. "Where will John be..." - "John" which is obviously the most unique word in our pre-jump, is what narrows down our possibilities to verses and passages where he's mentioned. "Where" lets us know to think of where he is connected to a certain place. In chapter one, there's four places (Verses 15, 17, 76, and 80). "Will" of course means that whatever is happening will take place in the future, rather than if it happened in the past, or if it was a current event. This knocks out only the last possibility (leaving us verses 15, 17, and 76). "Be" eliminates verses 17 and 76 because in those he will be going on to a certain place, rather than being something in a certain place. This leaves us verse 15, in which John "will be great in the sight of the Lord." which makes the last word of the question "great?". I know that this isn't a perfect, or probably even a very good example, but it is an important process to understand, to improve your pre-jumping abilities. Also, when listening for the words, it's good to pay attention to the inflection as well, like according to quizzers do all the time. 4. Knowing the topics of each passage and what verses they begin at Knowing this will help you when you deduce word by word as in the example above. You'll be able to pull out every possibility, and then be able to make your educated guess with a more sure and stable base, making sure that you aren't missing a passage. I'll be posting part two of what I've learned about Generals soon, with the last three points. I hope that these help you in your studying, jumping, and answering, and that it brings more fun to each of them as well! Whether or not you're part of a super competitive district or not, know that it can always be changed, but that it doesn't necasarily have to for you yourself to improve. This is something I'm having to learn. The best of study and practice to you! Keep calm and quiz on (and out)! Your fellow quizzer, Mallory Hey Guys!
How y'all doing? Ready to use these next few months to get tuned up to crush the competition (nicely) at Q2016?! :D There's been something that I've wanted to talk about for a while, but just never got around to it. And that is, finding the balance of Quiz-Winning-Strategy and The good sportsmanship we as quizzers, need to display while quizzing. This is a hard subject for a lot of quizzers - both novice and experienced. On the one hand, you don't want to be super 'nice' and just sit back, or act like you don't care when you lose, but you also don't want to completely trample everyone, leaving them feeling discouraged, or be a bad sport when your team takes a loss. Now, I'm all for strategy, and giving you and your team your best chance at doing your very best, but even more so, I'm for letting each quizzer (ESPECIALLY the newer, novice quizzers) have their chance to show what they've learned, and are learning, and to use the skills they're building up. . One of the things you need to remember, is that as crazy as it sounds sometimes, in quizzing, you could end up being on a team or have to quiz with pretty much any quizzer you ever see. So it's usually a good idea to try and make the best impression you can, not only in the halls of the church or before or after the quiz, but when you're on the jump seats as well. A few, specific, ways you can have good sportsmanship, is by,
A good rule of thumb, is to ask yourself if what you're doing lines up with the main purpose of quizzing; learning the Word, and having good, positive fellowship where we build each other up, while having a fun competition. I think we quizzers do a pretty great job at showing good sportsmanship most of the time, and that makes me really happy. Whenever I've gotten to talk with one of my competitors, whether I know them or not,something as simple as joking around about the tournament, makes that positive, relaxed, friendly, atmosphere expand. And the other thing about showing good sportsmanship and having a genuinely good time with your competitors (and team mates) is that everyone just performs better - simple as that. One time recently, I was in a very stressful situation at a quiz tournament. I'd not only been stressed about how I'd done throughout the season and how I would place, but I had a bunch of other more personal worries that were weighing on my mind. All of that kind of just exploded, and a little less than half way through, it started showing between rounds, and during timeouts, and so on. It was just not a very good day. A little before the half way point, I got some help in readjusting my sights, and not beating myself up about stuff, and that helped me a ton, to say the least. Those first three rounds, I'm not positive, but I think I got like 0/3, 0/2 and then 0/2 again, or something along those lines. The next day, when we would do the second half, I was in dead last place with many, many negative points stacked against me. After chatting a little bit with my friends, both team mates and competitors, and some of my friends' moms, I felt even better than I did the day before when I got that readjustment. I joked around with people about the errors, and when I did that, it made me think more along the lines of, 'Oh, those are just questions that I jumped on, and had either bad luck, or wasn't prepared for, but that's okay; they're just questions.' rather than, 'Dang, look at all that mess I have to make up for today. It would have been a lot easier if I just had a big fat zero and could start today on a clean slate.' because, no matter how bad you want to, you can't change how you did, and I had to accept that in order to keep giving it my best. In that second half, I had several less errors, and a lot more correct (at least, a 'lot' from my standpoint at that tournament :P). I didn't make my goal, that I'd wanted so badly, but by the end, I could honestly say, 'You know what, I'm okay with that. I'm disappointed, a lot, but that's only normal. I know that I'm capable of doing better, and that's exactly what I am going to do.' and to make myself open up my quiz portion again, when I got home, I had to focus on two simple things:
I know I might have gotten a bit off subject with some of that, but I wanted to share with you guys what has been the hardest part of my quizzing career so far, to try and encourage you to push yourself back up on your feet if you're disappointed with how this season has gone, and to tell you that even the smallest, most insignificant thing you do, could help a quizzer rise up out of their valley. Good job showing good sportsmanship guys; keep it up! :) Had a great time quizzing with all of y'all at Extravaganza, and at the Dallas Invitational, and am really disappointed we have a looming few months before we meet again for Q. No matter how you've done this season, remember that you've studied, and heard the Word probably a lot more than you would have without quizzing, and that's something you can hold your head high about. A huge congratulations to how everyone did at these last two tournaments! Super exciting to see SNU's regional teams who will be representing our great region at nationals! And good luck to the Regional, District, and Local teams we'll be seeing at Q; lets make this a tournament to remember! :D Thank you again, for reading, and as always, keep calm and quiz on (and out)! Your fellow quizzer, Mallory |
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Trending Posts:Author:Mallory is a graduated Teen Bible Quizzer originally from the Southern region, moved to the Northwest, coaching quizzing over the book of Matthew. Check out our
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