About
Zak Kimble
Keeping it in the family
Zak Kimble, middle son of Harvey and Shirley Kimble will be taking over the day to day operations of Thinking Cap Quiz Bowl. Harvey and Shirley who started TCQB over 30 years ago are looking forward to retirement and turning over the business to their son. Zak is excited to work with you and continue the legacy of Thinking Cap Quiz Bowl.
You can still contact us here at Thinking Cap Quiz Bowl by email at ThinkingcapQB@gmail.com or by phone (682) 593-6336.
How TCQB Got Started
Harvey and Shirley Kimble started the Thinking Cap Quiz Bowl in Iowa over 30 years ago. Harvey Kimble is a retired High School History Teacher/Talented and Gifted Teacher and High School Football Coach. As a TAG Teacher, Mr. Kimble became the Quiz Bowl Teacher at Urbandale High School. After participating for years with his teams, he and his wife, Shirley, decided to take a big leap. Mrs. Kimble stopped teaching English when they set her up to run their new adventure, the Thinking Cap Quiz Bowl and decided to try their hand at 5th/6th and 7th/8th Grade Quiz Bowls.
The Philosophy Behind TCQB
We intend for the students to have fun while doing an academic computer team competition online in their own school. We have tried to keep it inexpensive so that many students can participate. The number of students per team is up to the teacher, and schools may do as many teams as desired. Some teachers and teams enter it to win and hand-pick selective teams, while some teams do it for a fun, educational activity, including any interested students.
How It Works
The tests are self-scoring, with online computer contests of 100 multiple-choice questions. Areas covered include math, geography, government, sports, spelling, science, literature, English, history, general information, and just plain fun trivia. It will be a team activity with all takers around one computer. Two chances to answer correctly are given. Points are awarded based on how fast they answer and on accuracy. Therefore, teams who do well usually are teams who can come up with a consensus answer quickly. An adult is needed to monitor, but no adult help can be given, including keyboarding.
Some Key Notes:
The 5th/6th and 7th/8th grade and High School contests differ in question difficulty.
Schools can enter as many teams as they want, but each contest must be purchased (for example, a school may wish to have a 5th-grade team and a 6th-grade team which would mean purchasing two contests, or they could combine 5th and 6th graders into one purchased contest).
At the 7th/8th grade level, a contest must be purchased for each team.
The contests may only be used once this school year, but the contests will appear next year as practice for free and can be used over and over.
After The Contest Has Been Completed
After the contest is taken on quiz bowl day, the teams' scores are recorded automatically. For exceptionally high scores, the teacher will be asked to verify the team followed the rules. We rank them by high score and grade level the following Monday and will post the results on the Thinking Cap website. We award a team trophy and individual ribbons based on the number of teams participating.
