Abigail Tan

Abigail Tan
Noted subjects	History
Current college	Cambridge (2020-2023)
Stats	HDWhite • NAQT

Abigail Tan is a player for Cambridge and has been playing quizbowl since 2020. Abigail is primarily a history specialist, particularly in ancient history. She played for Cambridge A in the 2022-23 academic year.

University Career

In her first year (2020-21), Abigail played mostly as a novice science specialist. Abigail played on Cambridge C at BSQC 2021, ending on a 20th place finish. In the 2021 Cambridge-Oxford Varsity match, Abigail played on both the Cambridge Committee team and the Cambridge A team.

Abigail won her first tournament at ACF Fall 2021 after a 310-285 final against Oxford A. Abigail started trying to switch specialisms to (mostly non-20th century) history from late 2021, learning most topics effectively from scratch, though she still attempts to cover science when playing on teams without specialists. Abigail played on Cambridge B at BSQC 2022, finishing in 6th place overall. At Varsity 2022, she played for Cambridge B again, winning 375-250 against Oxford B.

In her third year, Abigail played for Cambridge A primarily as a history specialist. With Harrison Whitaker, Liam Hughes, and Krishnan Mulholland, she won ACF Winter 2022 after an advantaged final against Oxford B. At BSQC 2023, Abigail played on Cambridge A with teammates Harrison Whitaker, Liam Hughes, and Oscar Despard. They eventually placed 3rd while also being two protest-resolution replacements away from clearing the field; Cambridge A won 9 out of 11 games, only losing on single tossups to Imperial A and to Oxford A, where Abigail managed to neg a history replacement on a clue she knew by forgetting the question’s indicator and saying the wrong type of answer, without which they would have made the final. Abigail played on the same A team for Varsity 2023, securing a Cambridge victory over Oxford for the first time in 4 years with final scores of 310-280. At MRNA II, she played on a team that eventually finished 2nd after Imperial A, while being one of only two teams to win a match against Imperial A since the beginning of 2023, having done so 375-175 during the tournament playoffs.

Abigail has written several vanity packets such as COHORT and The Last 1022 Years Were Boring Anyway. She also edited the pre-1600 history for the 2023 Cambridge and Oxford Open Tournament (COOT), and will be head-editing the 2024 edition of that tournament.