Teen Bible quizzing, at its most basic level, is made up of rounds of 20 questions each, where 2 to 3 quiz teams, each made up of 2 to 5 quizzers and each from a different church or entity, compete to win the round by earning points for their team by answering questions from that year’s chosen portion of the Bible.

At the end of the round, the points each team were awarded determine the placement each team came in for the round. Results of earlier rounds are often used as team seeding in a tournament bracket later on, where teams compete head to head to claim the top spot in the tournament!

Each of the 20 questions of the round have a question type. The year’s chosen Scripture portion determines which 7 question types are used for all quiz rounds that year out of 8 total question types. Each round has a specific quantity of each question type:

Each quizzer on each team is assigned a number from 1 to 4 (or 5) based on the seat chosen either by themselves or by their coach. Quizzers can score points for their team in 2 main ways:

Jump first and answer correctly to earn 20 points (answering the “toss-up” question correctly), or if a quizzer on another team that is the same seat number as you jumps first and gets it wrong, you are read the same full question and have a chance to answer for 10 points (answering correctly for the “bonus”).

The quizzer that answers the bonus correctly receives half the amount of points for the bonus because they (1) didn’t jump first (if at all), because they (2) have the benefit of knowing at least one answer that is incorrect, and because they (3) have the benefit of getting to answer having been given the FULL question (*not always true for the person who jumped first). Altogether these factors make it easier to answer the bonus.

The first person to jump does NOT always hear the full question before they can answer, however, to be ruled correct for the question, they must finish the question correctly AND give the correct answer to earn the available 20 points. When a quizzer jumps before the question is finished being read, this is called a “pre-jump”.

Quizzers aim to “quiz out” by getting 4 questions correct in the quiz round (20 points * 4 = 80 points). Once they quiz out they can no longer jump on or answer any more questions; they are done quizzing for the round. If the quizzer quizzes out without error (excluding bonuses), they earn an additional 10 points also. On the flipside, if a quizzer gets 3 errors, they “error out”, receive a 10 point deduction, and can no longer jump on or answer any more questions for the round.

Additionally, quizzers can earn extra bonus points for being the 3rd (+10 points), 4th (+10 points again), or 5th (+10 points again) person on their team to get a toss-up question correct in the same quiz round.

The person who reads the questions to all quizzers at the same time is called the “quizmaster”. The quizmaster may or may not also have a “content judge” to help them with their rulings. It is the quizmaster that decides if the quizzer is correct or incorrect. The quizmaster starts each question with some pre-amble so that quizzers have time to prepare to jump, for example: “Question number 1 is a General question. Question number 1, question:”.

The quizmaster truly is the master of the quiz round. Their ruling is final, but this doesn’t mean their mind can’t be changed:

At the start of each round, each team designates 2 quizzers, one as “captain” and the other as “co-captain”. The captain has special abilities in the quiz round, and when the captain is no longer able to quiz in the round then the co-captain replaces him as the new captain. If the captain believes the quizmaster may have ruled incorrectly, and the captain of the quiz team believes they can convince the quizmaster that their ruling should be changed, they can “challenge” the ruling, and give their case as to why the ruling should change. Then the other teams’ captains are given a chance to give a “rebuttal” of the challenger’s case. After rebuttals are given, the quizmaster decides whether to “accept” or “overrule” the challenge.

To look at another scenario, if a captain on a team believes a parting shot is not fit for competition and should be replaced with another question of the same question type, then the captain can request to “appeal” the question, and state their case to the quizmaster as to why it should be done. The quizmaster then decides whether the question should be thrown-out or kept. The quizmaster also can throw-out a question at any time if they themselves believe the question is not fit enough to compete on and should therefore be replaced.

The captain and coach of each team have the ability to call a 60-second “timeout” between each question before the quizmaster begins reading the next question. In a 2-team round each team gets 2 timeouts per round. In a 3-team quiz round each team gets 1 timeout per round.

At any point, the quizmaster can issue a foul to any person or team, including audience members and coaches. Deductions of 10 points are issued on the 2nd foul issued to a team or quizzer. On the 3rd foul the person must leave the quiz area/room, and on the 3rd foul for a team, the result is disqualification of the team putting the team in the last position for the round. Fouls are not very common, but they sometimes are necessary for everyone’s enjoyment of a fair quiz round.

Though not tallied shown visually in the quizzing software used, record is kept for quizzer individual scoring and can be viewed at the end of the quiz meet to see how each quizzer did amongst their peers. This score is based solely on questions they’ve either gotten correct or incorrect on toss-ups. The only bonus points that factor into individual results are those earned via “quiz-out without error” for the round.

Teen Bible Quizzing is for teens grades 6 through 12. Generally speaking, year-1 and year-2 quizzers make up the “Novice” division while quizzers with 3+ years of experience compete in the “Experienced” division, creating a separation between higher and lower levels of competitiveness based on experience. (We don’t want teens to be discouraged at the start of their quizzing journey just because of the competitiveness of other quizzers who have more experience than themselves.)

There is no requirement for participating teams to be of the Nazarene denomination; everyone can participate! Nazarene-style Bible quizzing does, however, use the 2011 NIV Bible for study and question/answer generation. Any entity willing to host team quiz practices and travel to quiz meets are welcome to join Nazarene-style teen Bible quizzing!

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