‘We’re a lot more fun than you think’: Meet the Vice President of Brookes’ quiz society

By being the Vice President of Brookes’ Quiz society, I am also the captain by default of Brookes’ quiz team. Yes, that’s a thing. 

The world of competitive quizzing is a strange one: one where “impossible” questions are considered easy, yet where the simplest pop culture trivia can go completely unanswered. And for a year, now, I’ve been a part of this world.

It all started with University Challenge. As someone who likes to think they know more things than the average punter, I find the extreme difficulty of the show appealing and when I got the email calling students to audition for Brookes’ team, I jumped on the occasion.

Back then, Brookes were on a good run on the show, reaching the quarter finals with a team that included Brookes legend Clubber Steve.

With another three students (plus one reserve), I made the team that would audition for the 2015-16 series (the one on TV right now). You’ll notice we did not make it.

But either way, we were determined to get some practice, and therefore entered our first Quizbowl competition. Quizbowl, by the way, is the official name of University Challenge-style quizzing.

Our first competition was Penn Bowl, which is regarded as one of the hardest tournaments of the year. We lost every game.

Yet, undeterred, we went to audition for the series. And failed.

However, that same day, we were invited by Oxford University’s Quiz Society to come around for their quiz practice. That evening, I got three starters right (“Sardinia”, “Millard Fillmore” and “Belgium”), and I was hooked.

The team

Since that day in January 2015, I’ve led the loose bunch of people we call the Brookes quiz team to tournaments in Oxford, Warwick and Cambridge, in which we’ve won a grand total of two matches.

But more important than the results, we got to meet some University Challenge legends, such as “that guy who was surprised by a buzzer” and “the guy who can do modular arithmetic very quickly.”

The two dominant universities in quizbowl are, unsurprisingly, Oxford and Cambridge. They have the advantage of being able to field multiple teams on University Challenge, exposing more people to quizzing and getting more people interested.

Playing in such a competitive environment is what makes it so difficult and so satisfying when you buzz in first and get to say “angular momentum” before the opposing team.

Yet despite the high level of knowledge and heavy Oxbridge bias in the game (at least in Britain), I have never met a single player who was in any way arrogant or snobby.

It doesn’t matter where you’re from or who you’re friends with. No one will judge you on how you came to know what you know, just as long as you know it. As a friend of mine (and fellow player) once said: “There is no shame, only points.”