The Rockford Quiz Bowl Company’s Novice sets began in 2010 as SCOP Novice. RQBCo Novice questions are written for young high school students who have not played quiz bowl in high school yet. These questions use very common and easy clues, and will be best for freshmen or sophomores who are just learning the game.
Past question sets can be downloaded from quizbowlpackets.com or from the bottom of the page. These free questions may be used for practice, but must not be used for competitions under any circumstances.
Available Dates
Our Novice question sets are available for purchase annually between the beginning of November and the end of April.
Question Set Format
The set includes eleven rounds of 20/20 (tossups/bonuses) and a half-packet of 10/10 replacement questions. Tossups are powermarked. Bonuses have three parts, which are designed to be read one part at a time. If you are planning to use this set in a non-standard format (e.g. if you’re planning to run your tournament in timed format or with more than two teams per room, or if you want to use a local match format that only uses bonuses in the second half, etc.), you must confirm this with the set editor prior to receiving the set or incur financial penalties.
Subject Distribution
RQBCo Novice’s distribution per round is:
5/5 Science (including 1/1 non-computational math)
4/4 Literature
4/4 History
2/2 Religion and Myth
2/2 Fine Arts
1/1 Geography
1/1 Current Events, Philosophy, and Social Science
1/1 Pop Culture
Fees
The fee to use RQBCo Novice is $17/team. This includes “house” teams representing the host school.
There is a $1/team discount for complete statistics posted publicly or emailed to the set editor within one week of your tournament date. Complete statistics must include full statistics for each individual player on every team for every round, and must be recorded either in YellowFruit or in SQBS with round report enabled. Because Neg5 does not validate game data effectively, Neg5 statistics are not accepted for the stat discount.
There is a $1/team discount if you choose to email or snail mail your raw scoresheets to the set editor within one week of your tournament date.
Illinois
Our Novice sets may only be used in Illinois by tournament hosts working with the Illinois High School Scholastic Bowl Coaches Association‘s Novice tournament series.
Contact us to reserve the RQBCo Novice question set for an upcoming tournament.
Download Past Question Sets
2023-24 SCOP Novice 13
Download Novice 13 (10 rounds, 1 replacement round)
The SCOP Novice 13 set was written by Brad Fischer, Charlotte Maher, Sinecio Morales, Adam Silverman, and Kristin A. Strey.
2022-23 SCOP Novice 12
Download Novice 12 (11 rounds, 1 replacement round)
The SCOP Novice 12 set was written by Brad Fischer, Charlotte Maher, Adam Silverman, and Kristin Strey.
2021-22 SCOP Novice 11
Download Novice 11 (11 rounds, 1 replacement round)
The SCOP Novice 11 set was written by Justin Abel, Brad Fischer, Jimmy Fischer, Pavithr Goli, Mike Laudermith, Jessica Markley, Sophie Netzel, Kristin Strey, Ethan Strombeck, Lana Kay Tutterow, and Tyler Vaughan.
2020-21 SCOP Novice B
Download Novice B (11 rounds, 1 replacement round)
Novice A and B were tossups-only sets used in online tournaments during the COVID pandemic. The SCOP Novice B set was written by Brad Fischer, James Fischer, Alec Krueger, Kristin Strey, and Tyler Vaughan.
2020-21 SCOP Novice A
Download Novice A (11 rounds, 1 replacement round)
Novice A and B were tossups-only sets used in online tournaments during the COVID pandemic. The SCOP Novice A set was written by Brad Fischer, Mike Laudermith, Kristin Strey, and Tyler Vaughan.
2019-20 SCOP Novice 10
Download Novice 10 (11 rounds, 1 replacement round)
The SCOP Novice 10 set was written by Lilly Chavez, Brad Fischer, James Fischer, Mike Laudermith, Jessica Markley, Sophie Netzel, Cooper Roh, Kristin Strey, Ethan Strombeck, Lana Kay Tutterow, Tyler Vaughan, and Justin Zhang.
2018-19 SCOP Novice 9
Download Novice 9 (11 rounds, 1 replacement round)
The SCOP Novice 9 set was written by Lilly Chavez, Brad Fischer, Natalie Howell, Clare Keenan, Mike Laudermith, Sophie Netzel, Lauren Onel, Aleija Rodriguez, Zane Smalley, Kristin Strey, Ethan Strombeck, Lana Kay Tutterow, Tyler Vaughan, and Trevor Vice
2017-18 SCOP Novice 8
Download Novice 8 (11 rounds, 1 replacement round)
The SCOP Novice 8 set was written by Michael Etzkorn, Brad Fischer, Clare Keenan, Mike Laudermith, Lauren Onel, Noah Prince, Jacob Simmons, Kristin Strey, and Tyler Vaughan
2016-17 SCOP Novice 7
Download Novice 7 (11 rounds, 1 replacement round)
The SCOP Novice 7 set was written by Brad Fischer, Clare Keenan, Alec Krueger, Lauren Onel, Noah Prince, Allison Salach, Zohra Sattar, Kristin Strey, and Tyler Vaughan.
2015-16 SCOP Novice 6
Download Novice 6 (11 rounds, 1 replacement round)
The SCOP Novice 6 set was written by Waleed Ali, Alston Boyd, Brad Fischer, Clare Keenan, Alec Krueger, Mike Laudermith, Elissa Pape, Anna Phillips, Allison Salach, Andrew Salij, Kristin A. Strey, Tyler Vaughan, Morgan Venkus, Mike Withey, and Michael H. Wong.
2014-15 SCOP Novice 5
Download Novice 5 (11 rounds, 1 replacement round)
The SCOP Novice 5 set was written by Alston Boyd, Brad Fischer, Becca Kobernat, Alec Krueger, Sabrina Lato, Mike Laudermith, Dylan Minarik, Dr. Noah Prince, Kristin A. Strey, Brittany Trang, Tyler Vaughan, Shreyas Vissapragada, Michael H. Wong, and Yinga Xia.
2013-14 SCOP Novice 4
Download Novice 4 (11 rounds, 1 replacement round)
The SCOP Novice 4 set was written by Brad Fischer, Jonah Greenthal, Becca Kobernat, Sabrina Lato, Greg Peterson, Jay Shirodkar, Kristin A. Strey, Mark Taylor, Brittany Trang, Tristan Willey, and Michael H. Wong.
2012-13 SCOP Novice 3
Download Novice 3 (11 rounds, 1 replacement round)
The SCOP Novice 3 set was written by Ben Chametzky, Megan Chen, Garrett Combs, Nick Conder, Lael Costa, Brad Fischer, Jonah Greenthal, Danielle Long, Dylan Minarik, Kristin A. Strey, Mark Taylor, Andrew Wang, Tristan Willey, and Michael H. Wong.
2011-12 SCOP Novice 2
Download Novice 2 (10 rounds, 1 replacement round)
The SCOP Novice 2 set was written by Ben Chametzky, Nick Conder, Brad Fischer, Webster Guan, Danielle Long, Nolan Maloney, Saieesh Rao, Kristin A. Strey, Tristan Willey, and Michael H. Wong.
2010-11 SCOP Novice 1
Download Novice 1 (10 rounds, 2 finals, 1 all-star round)
The SCOP Novice 1 set was written by Zach Blumenfeld, Ben Carbery, Ben Chametzky, Dan Donohue, Greg Dzuricsko, Brad Fischer, Jeff Geringer, Jonah Greenthal, Charles Hang, Abid Haseeb, Neal Kfoury, Mike Laudermith, Danielle Long, Kevin Malis, Eric Ordonez, Caleb Robbins, Kristin A. Strey, and a number of other volunteers.