Manhattan Beach Middle School held the scholar quiz finals on Wednesday, April 26th. Many people helped out to make the scholar quiz possible. More than 100 parents, teachers and community volunteers ran the daily games, helped to keep score of the points during the matches, and became the flag-judges. The scholar quiz is an important part of MBMS, according to mbusd.org the scholar quiz has been happening since 1990 and it is now a MBMS tradition. About 1,500 of the MBMS students volunteered to participate in the 2023 scholar quiz.

According to this year’s sponsor, Study Hut, the “Scholar Quiz premise is the same as that of the popular game ‘Jeopardy’. The game consists of two teams of four students each, a Reader, Judge, and a Scorer.” The Reader reads the questions out loud, the Judges help monitor which team raised their flag first, and the Scorer helps keep track of the score. Teammates go against their classmates, battling their knowledge with red flags and blue flags, answering questions about math, science, history, literature and pop culture. These games help the students learn new things.
This year, all 8th graders were in the finals. Mila Long, Madeleine Shahneen, Frederick Prelle and Dane Stever were on the blue team. Their opponents, the Red team, were Sam Cato, Alexander Clapp, Katherine Maloney and Sean Liu. Both teams worked hard during the game, and the red team came out as proud winners. Smiling big, red team finalist, Katherine Maloney, said “It felt really good to win. I was really proud of myself and my team. I think the opposing team was very intelligent, and they did really well, too.” During the game, Katherine felt really nervous, and was scared that she would let her team down by messing up. Both teams had good sportsmanship, and they were happy for one another. Mila Long, a blue team finalist said, “It was really fun, and I got to hang out with my friends who were also on my team. Sometimes, it was really scary because everyone was watching me, but I was glad to show off all my intelligence. I think the red team did really well.” The final score was 175 for the red team and 135 for the blue. Both teams did an excellent job and tried their best during the games. They were both proud of one another.

Many students thought the questions were harder this year than they were in previous years. 7th grade student Emma Rosenthal said “When I was watching my friends play in the scholar quiz, I was surprised that I didn’t know any answers to any of the questions.” Though the questions may have been harder, that challenged the students to think harder. “I actually learned a few things from the questions,” Emma said. Emma thinks that the questions should have been easier, to make it fair for the 6th and 7th grader students.
The scholar quiz is one of MBMS’s most important traditions and has been going on ever since MBMS was a school. It’s a great way to put your knowledge and your understanding to the test! It’s a way that teachers can see what you’ve learned, by answering questions in a fun way. The scholar quiz is very important to this school, and winning is one of the main reasons why students participate in the scholar quiz. Most students who play in the scholar quiz are very determined and they always work hard to make themselves and their team proud.