Knowledge Masters Open

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Have any of you ever competed in this while in grade school, junior high, or high school?

I was in it for two years, 1991 and 1992. Of all the things I can remember from grade school, this event sticks out the best.

I had my first introduction to it back in 1990 when I was fourth grade. It was the first time my school was competing in it, and the team was choosen based upon popularity, needless to say, I didn't come anywhere close to being on the team, and I pouted quite a bit about the whole thing because I knew I was smarter than half the kids who were on the team.

Needless to say, the 1990 team didn't do so hot, they only got 570 points out of 1000 possible.

1991 was my year to shine, gaining entry onto the team meant taking a 30 question fill in the blank test, no guessing or multiple choice. I got 27 right which was the highest score in class.

I had to sacrfice my noon hours ever other day for the three weeks that we had to prepare for the contest which was held at the end of march. During practice time, I was often the loudest one. I wasn't yelling or shouting out answers, but the coaches had to tell me to tone done my enthusiasim becasue my booming voice was being heard down at the third grade classroom halfway across the building.

The day of the contest came and we were all crammed into the tiny music room, the atmoshpere was electric that day, we all knew we were on the verge of something special. It almost ended in disaster, the password to start the game wouldn't work, you only had three chances to enter it, and after the second failure, we found out that you needed to have the CAPS lock on to enter it correctly. The third time worked and we were on our way. I purposely toned down my voice to avoid being a distraction, but helped out where I could. The 100 questions flew by pretty quickly, and when all was said and done, we had scored 701 points out of 1000 possible. We all had not expected ourselves to do that well. We were even more shocked to find out that we had taken third place in the state.

It was such a prestigious moment for my teacher that when we all got back to class, the sliding wall that divided the two fifth grade classrooms was opened up and all the fifth graders on the team gave a "de-briefing" to everyone else.

About a week later the local newspaper did a story on our team and I got my picture in the paper.

1992 was no different than the year before, I had no trouble getting on the team, but when contest day came about, the atmosphere just wasn't the same as the year before, to make matters worse, I had one of my patented migranes during the contest and I just wasn't with it, as was what seemed to be the case with the rest of the team. Result, we only scored 605 points, no mention of it in class afterwards, no write up in the local paper.

And top off that experience, we were studying J.R.R. Tolkien in reading class, and when I got to class, migrane and all, I had to suffer through three reels of Bass and Rankin's 1977 animated version of "The Hobbit"

http://www.ccs.k12.va.us/News_Archive/2 ... ledge.html

Ive never heard of the knowege masters open, although it souns like fun!

I have never gotten my pic in the paper, although i came close last year when my 8th Grade Politics teacher managed to get representatives from the Democratic & Republican parties to come to a debate in class to prepare us for the mock election we were holding. Unfortunately, the Commercial Appeal (Memphis newspaper) went to those sons of b****es in 3rd Period and interviewed them. i was homiciadally jealous for a full week.

However, i did get myself an interview with a reporter for News Channel 3 when i was one of the first in the whole city to recieve my Amazon.com-reserved copy of Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire via the new FedEx Home Delivery Service. The only problem was that i was still very naive at the time (I was only 9, and my AS had a lot to do with it too), so when the reporter asked me what i was gonna do for the rest of the day, i could only say "Well, first i'm gonna go into my room and read the whole thang."(Note the heavy Southern Accent. Come to think of it, i didn't get a chance to finish it till three days later.) That was the only time i got to get in the news. Basicly, what i'm trying to say here is that I AM SO JEALOUS!! !! !! !! !

I got my picture in the paper as well as an article about it. Alex posted something about it a long time ago. See the link.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=20&mode=thread&order=0&thold=-1

As for this knowledge masters thing, it sounds really cool. I wish I could do it.

I'm suprised you two have never heard of KMO. It's quite the contest since not only are you scored on accuracy, your also scored on time.

You should go to your principal and ask, no DEMAND that your school compete. It sounds like you two would do good in it.

I don't know how they do this today, but 14 years ago when I was in it, we did it on the old Apple ][e computer with the 5 1/4 floppy disk drive that was hooked up to an early version of an LCD projector so everyone could see the question.

It should be easy for our school, since we have a wireless network infrasturcture in the entire school, two computer labs, and several laptop carts that can be rented by the teachers to help with class activities. We are probably the msot technologically advanced school in the district, despite budget cuts by a lousy mayor & city council and more.

Archmage