Quick trivia question- what is the longest running quiz program on TV? If you guessed It’s Academic, you would be correct!

It’s Academic is a quiz show, where teams of three students from three high schools meet together to compete. They are asked a variety of questions, from typical trivia subjects like math, history, and science. For example, competitors can be asked questions such as, “What is the three letter abbreviation for the one agency of the US government that acts as a watchdog for environmental matters?” (answer: the EPA).

There are two different rounds within the competition: the toss up round, where anyone can answer the question, and the round for team directed questions. Teams earn points by answering questions correctly, and whichever team has the most points at the end of the competition wins.
Three Oakton students participated in the It’s Academic competition that aired on NBC4 at 10:30 am on November 19, defeating both Walter Johnson High as well as Wilson High School.

The competition, however, was pretty close. Team leader for Oakton’s It’s Academic team, senior Anika Malik, said, “it was actually pretty close. I remember looking at the clock with 10 seconds to go, not even listening to the last question and just wondering- are we going to win?” The two other members for the winning team were Michele Wang and Sean Frankel, who represented OHS well by going on camera to compete. Additionally, one alternate and Dr. Fernandez were at the filming studio. Due to their success in the first competition level, Oakton’s It’s Academic team will be competing once again in the playoffs in March. Oakton has only made it past the first round once before, which was last year.

The people who compete on It’s Academic were selected from Oakton’s Scholastic Bowl team, which has around 12 members. They “scrimmage” with other schools around the area for competitions based off trivia and knowledge of different events. This helped the It’s Academic team prepare for the televised competition. Additionally, to prepare for the competition, Malik really had to work on her speed in being able to answer the questions. “I would go on YouTube and find past shows, and watch them to see the kind of questions to see if I could answer them. The actual content isn’t actually that hard, it’s just which team can answer the fastest,” said Malik.

Malik participated in It’s Academic this year for her second year in a row. However, she has been part of the Scholastic Bowl for three years now. “I heard about the Scholastic Bowl on the morning announcements while I was a sophomore, and I thought it would be cool to try and see what it is. I ended up really liking it”. When asked who would be good for the club, Malik remarked that anyone who is really good at one particular subject would do well in the Scholastic Bowl. Because it’s a team event, each team member can rely on others to fill in for the information that they don’t know. With the right combination of people, the team has the strengths for everything. “There’s a misconception that in order to be part of the Scholastic Bowl team, you have to know a lot about everything. Really, you don’t,” Malik said. For example, while Malik is better at the math questions, Frankel is really good at history. When people first join the club and are nervous about it, they learn over time how things work.

Oakton’s It’s Academic team deserves a huge shout out for their win in the competition. We wish them the best of luck in their next competition in March!