Stateline Quiz Bowl Juniors

Stateline Quiz Bowl is an annual television competition for high school teams in the Rockford, Illinois area. Since 2021, Stateline Juniors has offered the same opportunity to middle school teams, with questions written by SCOP.

Stateline Quiz Bowl-formatted scoresheet
For sample questions, use the Questions menu to download past years’ Stateline Junior question sets. These questions are not archived on quizbowlpackets.com.

Question Philosophy and Distribution

Stateline Quiz Bowl has four quarters per game. Each quarter is timed, so

Buzz-In Round (quarter 1) consists of short tossups.
This round includes up to 20 tossups; 14-16 are usually played in this segment. The first 16 tossups’ distribution is:

  • 2 History
  • 2 Geography
  • 3 Science
  • 1 Math (not computational)
  • 2 Literature
  • 1 Language Arts
  • 1 Myth or Religion
  • 1 Visual Art
  • 1 Music
  • 2 Popular Culture

The four extra questions include one tossup each from history, geography, science, and literature.

Tossups are pyramidal, so even though they are short, they begin with slightly more difficult clues and become easier later in the question.

Volleyball Round (quarter 2) consists of short teamwork questions.
This round includes up to 15 teamwork questions; 8-10 are usually played in this segment. This section’s distribution is:

  • 2 History
  • 1 Geography
  • 3 Science
  • 1 Math (not computational)
  • 3 Literature
  • 1 Myth or Religion
  • 1 Visual Art or Music
  • 2 Popular Culture

These questions are played like one-part bonuses and are therefore not pyramidal, since teams do not have to buzz in on them. The questions increase in difficulty over the round.

Lightning Round (quarter 3) consists of ten-part lightning rounds.
This round includes up to 3 teamwork questions. Each team may choose one from among the list of three. Each round includes:

  • 1 History, Geography, Science or Math
  • 1 Literature, Myth, or Fine Arts
  • 1 Popular Culture, Miscellaneous, or Geography

Final Challenge (quarter 4) consists of short tossups.
This round includes up to 20 tossups; 10-12 are usually played in this segment. The first 12 tossups’ distribution is:

  • 2 History
  • 2 Geography
  • 2 Science
  • 1 Math (not computational)
  • 2 Literature
  • 1 Myth or Religion
  • 1 Visual Art or Music
  • 1 Popular Culture

The remaining 8 tossups’ distribution is:

  • 1 History
  • 1 Geography
  • 2 Science
  • 1 Math (not computational)
  • 2 Literature
  • 1 Visual Art or Music

Tossups are pyramidal, so even though they are short, they begin with slightly more difficult clues and become easier later in the question. Because these questions are worth 20 points instead of 10, the tossups in this round are slightly harder than the tossups in quarter 1.