Abigail Tan

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

Abigail Tan is a mathematics graduate and former player for Cambridge. 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 on Cambridge C as a novice science specialist, and played on both the Committee team and the A team in the 2021 Cambridge-Oxford Varsity match.

Abigail won ACF Fall 2021 after a 310-285 final against Oxford A, and started switching specialisms to (mostly pre-modern) history from late 2021, learning many topics effectively from scratch. Abigail played on Cambridge B at BSQC 2022, finishing in 6th place. At Varsity 2022, she played for Cambridge B again, winning 375-250 against Oxford B.

In third year, Abigail played on Cambridge A primarily as a history specialist, winning ACF Winter 2022 and placing 2nd at ACF Regionals 2023, in addition to being President and Squad Captain of the society. At BSQC 2023, Abigail played on Cambridge A with teammates Harrison Whitaker, Liam Hughes, and Oscar Despard. They eventually placed 3rd, winning 9 of 11 games and being two tossups away from clearing the field, only losing on single tossups to Imperial A and to Oxford A, where not negging a tiebreaker on the Arpads with Magyars by forgetting the "this dynasty" indicator would have resulted in them making the final. The same team won Varsity 2023 by 310-280, the first Cambridge victory over Oxford in 4 years. 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 continued to play open tournaments since graduating in 2023.

Editing and Writing

Abigail is an active quizbowl editor and writer, notably editing for four iterations of the Cambridge and Oxford Open Tournament (COOT) to date, as well as writing multiple vanity packets focused mostly on ancient and medieval history. She has worked on the following tournaments:

• 2021 British Novice (editor for Chemistry and Other Science)

• 2023 COOT (editor for Pre-1100 and 1100-1600 History)

• 2023 British Novice (editor for Ancient History and Other Science)

• 2024 COOT (head editor; editor for Pre-1000 and 1000-1500 History, Belief, British Literature, Anglophone Literature, Biology and Chemistry)

• 2024 British Novice (consulting editor for Ancient History)

• 2025 ACF Regionals (editor for Other History)

• 2025 COOT (editor for Pre-1000, 1000-1600 and 1600-1900 History)

• 2025 Chicago Open (upcoming; freelancer)

• 2026 COOT (upcoming; editor for Pre-800 History)