AAUW Knowledge Bowl
American Association of University Women’s Knowledge Bowl (AAUW) is a league for teams in Ventura Country, California, which is just north of LA county. Despite its name, Knowledge Bowl has never used Academic Hallmarks questions and also predates other Knowledge Bowl events by nearly 20 years. Knowledge Bowl was created in 1964 by the Camarillo chapter of the AAUW, a national non-profit that seeks to advance equity for women and girls through advocacy, education, and research. Winners of the competition win a rotating trophy.
Format
Knowledge Bowl appears to use a 4v4 tossup/bonus College Bowl-esque format. Rounds consist of 35 one-line tossup questions. According to an article from 2009, bonuses are worth "20 to 30 points", implying that Knowledge Bowl utilizes variable value bonuses, a notable hallmark of bad quizbowl.
Rebecca Pecsok, a past event organizer, was quoted in a 1999 LA Times article as saying "It's a little bit hard to study for the Knowledge Bowl because the questions aren't based on anything in particular", suggesting neglect for a proper question subject distribution. Other reports suggest that wordplay and computational math questions are also used.
Games are played once a week after school over the course of four weeks during the spring.
Participants
Ten high schools participated in Knowledge Bowl during the 2012-13 season. Both public and private schools are eligible, and schools also do not need to be in Ventura County. It should be noted that most Knowledge Bowl teams do not usually participate in other formats.
- Buena
- Channel Islands
- Hueneme
- Oxnard
- Pacifica
- Rio Mesa
- Santa Paula
- St. Bonaventure
- Thousand Oaks
- Ventura
Past Participants
Results
| Year | First | Second | Third |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | Rio Mesa | Thousand Oaks | Ventura |