More Information About KBPractice.com
Why it Was Made
Knowledge Bowl Online is the product of over three months of work in an effort to create an online equivalent to Protobowl for Quizbowl, but for Knowledge Bowl. The question structure of Quizbowl is different from the questions of Knowledge Bowl’s in many key ways:
- Quizbowl questions are paragraphs long, and it is expected that you must buzz in during the question. Questions could be 4-6 sentences long. Contrastingly, Knowledge Bowl questions are most often one or two sentences.
- Quizbowl questions start hyper-specific and become more and more general until the last sentence, which will probably give it away to anyone who has even heard of the answer at some point in their life.
- Quizbowl questions are designed to award you based on how obscure your knowledge is. In contrast, Knowledge Bowl questions are usually very direct, and while they may vary in just how obscure or well-known they are, they are usually asking one question, rather than exposing players to tons of facts that might clue them in on what they’re looking for.
- Quizbowl penalizes early incorrect buzzes. Due to the relatively short structure of their questions, there are no negatives ("negs") in Knowledge Bowl.
Differences from Quizbowl
To demonstrate this difference, I’ll use an example of a random High School quizbowl question, taken from Protobowl:
This author wrote a book in which Dakin is one of a group of fruit pickers caught up in a strike led by Jim Nolan, called In Dubious Battle. In another of this author's works, treasure is sought on Saint Andrew's eve by Joe Portagee and Pilon, who, along with Danny, inhabit Tortilla Flat. Mack and his gang trying to throw a party for Doc in this author's Cannery Row. This author wrote a novel in which Ivy and Sairy Wilson accompany the central family, "Rose of Sharon" breastfeeds a starving man, and the Joad family flees Oklahoma for California. For 10 points, name this author of The Grapes of Wrath.
As you can see, this question begins quite vague, containing a tidbit of information you would have to have memorized in order to get the answer. Now, an average Knowledge Bowl question (taken from my own database of over 10,000 questions):
What is the collective name for relatively thick, wormlike, legless insect larvae?
Neither one is better, but the two are very different. Knowledge Bowl also becomes more about guesswork than black and white knowledge, and many questions may be sorts of puzzles that you have to think about rather than trivia, such as:
The odometer on Bob's Camaro reads 94682. What is the fewest number of miles he must drive before the numbers on his odometer form a palindrome?
This would not be seen in Quizbowl.
Challenges in the Creation of the Site
After seeing these differences, and not to mention other differences as well (like how much time is allowed after the question is read, or how much time is allowed for the answer to be submitted) I decided to make my own platform. As a kid in his freshman year at high school, I knew it would be a challenge, but I already had years of web development behind my back and thought it wouldn’t be too difficult.
Boy, was I wrong. Making KB Practice online proved to be one of the most difficult programming ventures of my life. I’ve learned a ton from it, and it was super valuable, but it was difficult, to say the least.
However, now that we’re at the end of the tunnel, the end product is an online multiplayer game that anyone can play to hone their Knowledge Bowl skills or just build their general knowledge and learn new things. The UI is fairly intuitive: press Next to go to the next question (only works if the question is done being read), buzz to buzz in, and the answer and answer box function as the place to type your answer and what to press to submit.
As Close to Real Life as Possible
It’s important to note that in order to most effectively simulate Knowledge Bowl, the answer must be submitted (press the “Answer” button or hit enter) in order for it to count towards anything. In real Knowledge Bowl, teams can discuss up until the last second, but the spokesperson must turn and address the reader before the buzz time runs out to give the final answer. The reader will not take the last answer they hear said by anyone in the group if the spokesperson does not provide an answer. They will simply ignore it. In a similar, submitting is necessary to finalize your answer on Online Knowledge Bowl Practice.