Lightning round

A lightning round is a category round read on a strict timer, usually 60 or 90 seconds, which requires teams to manage their response time in order to hear as many questions as possible. In most formats, after time expires, questions which were fully read and not answered correctly by the first team may bounce back to the second team off the clock.

Though many bad quizbowl events use a lightning round, the presence of a lightning round is not inherently a marker of bad quizbowl; both NAQT and the LIQBA produce Lightning Rounds in the good quizbowl tradition. The third quarter of National History Bowl is a lightning round.

The origins of the lightning round may date back to It's Academic (1961), which, in its original format, consisted primarily of lightning rounds, albeit with several differences, such as point penalties for wrong answers, a smaller penalty for passing a question (but that allowed the other teams to attempt the question at the end of the round), and being able to answer a question interrupted by the timer after the timer sounds.

The former NAC, which calls it a 60-second round and claims that Mike Mastandrea invented it, used lightning rounds as their third quarter. This is likely not the actual origin of the Lightning Round; it is much more likely that Mike created the NAC rules for the lightning round, which eventually became standard, or was created through multiple discovery. It should be noted, though, that an edition of Campbell's Lightning Rounds by Patrick's Press includes, on the dedication page, a paean to Chip for inventing the lightning round, along with suggestions for improvement (which edition contained it is a bit of a mystery, and is actively being researched).

The NAC once included a sixty-second round of ten six-second audio clips, which meant that it was mathematically impossible for the first team to hear and answer all ten questions.

See category round and alphabet round for variants.