What Topics Are in Knowledge Bowl?

A Wide Variety

Knowledge Bowl is an academic bowl that is closely related to quizbowl. Knowledge Bowl questions usually have one or two sentences and players buzz in to guess an answer. Knowledge Bowl topics are valuable to know if Knowledge Bowl is something you are interested in competing in.

Academic Fields

Questions in Knowledge Bowl can quite literally be about anything; however, that does not mean that all topics come up as frequently as others. In most meets, geography will be the most common topic in Knowledge Bowl. Grammar, history, literature, and math are the most common runners-up to these. Many questions in Knowledge Bowl may not have a subject at all, but may rather be puzzles or examples of wordplay that an individual or group is tasked with providing the answer to. Animal science, plant science, geology, government, Native Americans, and the Arts all also come up, but much less frequently.

How Recent Can Knowledge Bowl Questions Be?

Knowledge Bowl questions can be asking about things that have happened as close to the past month, though that’s quite rare to see. Pop culture questions in general are not as common as one might think they would be in Knowledge Bowl. In quizbowl, of course, there is an entire category of questions devoted to “Trash” which surrounds pop culture and relatively recent events. This is not the case in Knowledge Bowl. Most often, a pop culture question will ask about something that is at least two years away from the time the question is being answered. One reason for this could be that within two years, the greater scope/”big picture” of an event is easier to see and the lesser details work themselves out, while a question about an event asked a month ago could become outdated quickly.