With more and more Quiz Bowl meets just around the corner, Quiz Bowl club adviser Peter Dangerfield works to facilitate more productive practices for all of the club’s members.

Dangerfield said the club’s recent growth presents new challenges for its previous practice techniques because with so many people, not everyone gets a chance to participate.

“Practice has started to grow to a point where now I need to consider adding materials so that I can break it up into two groups so everybody can get an opportunity to get their hands on a buzzer,” Dangerfield said. “While participating in a large group is awesome, it can also hinder it when kids who are sophomores are competing with seniors who just have two more years of experience and knowledge.”

Sophomore Quiz Bowl member Jenna Cook said she enjoys the Quiz Bowl practices because the trivia questions are similar to Jeopardy, one of her favorite pastimes.

“We just kinda sit around and answer questions about random trivia,” Cook said. “We have 10 buzzers and we have five people on each team. We sit across from each other and pass out the buzzers and Mr. Dangerfield or someone else will read the standard extra questions.”

Cook said although she has yet to compete in a meet, she anxiously awaits her opportunity to showcase her new-found knowledge at one of the upcoming competitions.

“The first meet that happened after I joined was a couple days after the first practice I’d went to, so I didn’t feel that prepared, but now I’ve been to a few practices and I’m really excited,” Cook said.

According to Dangerfield, at the last meet, Quiz Bowl did not do as well as the members hoped. He said the A team went 2-2 and the B team 1-3, but the upcoming meets in January will provide Quiz Bowl members more opportunities to test their skills.

“At the tournament on (Jan.) 14 I expect us to do well, but competing with those schools is always a difficult challenge,” Dangerfield said. “I also am really looking forward to seeing how we stack up compared to other teams in our conference, such as Chaska-Chanhassen, because I think that is a level that we can have a very strong opportunity to compete at the top level.”

According to Dangerfield, the three upcoming competitions take place Jan. 14 at Rosemount High School, Jan. 26 at Eden Prairie High School and Jan. 28 at Chaska High School.