Bible Quizzing Study Methods

To complete the WEEK'S STUDY PLANNING SCHEDULE AND GOAL SETTING SHEET, the quizzer will need help with study ideas. Numerous quizzers have used the following study methods with differing degrees of success. Some may work for your quizzers just as they are written below. Others may have to be adjusted or used only as a springboard to other ideas. At least you will have some suggestions for them as they complete their schedule. These study suggestions are given with the realization that they are just tools to understanding. Knowing the material is basic to an ability to quiz. If you impress this fact upon your team, the foundation for good quizzing is laid. Make sure each quizzer understands what he studies. Under- standing the Word is the key to spiritual growth which is our primary motive in the quiz program. It is also a MUST for winning in competition. Effective study must attain a balance between per sonal and group efforts. USE THESE HINTS FOR EFFECTIVE QUIZZING: 1. Find the best time for study. There is a time, whether it is in the. morning, afternoon, or evening, when your quizzers will find it easiest to study. It may be necessary for you to sit down with them and discuss the various possibilities. 2. Use spare time for study. Write the memory verses or questions on 3 x 5 cards. This way the quizzer can study the material while he is waiting for a friend, etc. He is able to "redeem the time." A cassette recorder is another effective tool. Listen to the recorded Scripture while helping around the house or walking down the street. 3. Follow a schedule. Consistent, systematic study is one of the keys for a successful Bible quizzer. A definite number of chapters should be studied every week, plus reviewing the previous week's material. Use the WEEK'S STUDY PLANNING SCHEDULE AND GOAL SETTING SHEET with the coach's help, to set realistic goals for each week. Do not forget to include review along with the new material. Space it out. One suggestion is to divide the material according to the number of days. For example, if there are six 'days in which the quizzer must know seventy-two verses, then he must learn twelve verses per day, plus review. 4. Increase the pace of study after the initial study has been completed. It is suggested that the pace might be increased to include four chapters or more per week. This would include the chapters to be reviewed. 5. Review continually. Develop a system of review that would have you reviewing four or more chapters each week. One of these four should be reviewed in detail and the others casually. 8. Seek to understand the material. This may be accomplished in various ways. Reading a more modern translation will add light to the more obscure passages. Studying the passage from a commentary or working through a question and answer study book may or may not aid in the develop ment of the quizzing skills, but they will aid in the development of the quizzer. With these guidelines in mind the following suggestions can become very helpful: 1. Read. This could be restated read, Read and READ. Effective study involves transfer into the mind. This begins with the first reading and is not transferred until there is a mastery of the material-complete familiarity. It is suggested that at the beginning of the year the quizzer sit down and read the entire quiz book in one sitting. This will give him an overall familiarity with the direction of the book so that as he begins a chapter~y.chapter study he will sense the overall message of the book. This is essential to a meaningful understanding of the material. The average teen can thoughtfully read most chapters in about five minutes. Each study week should begin by reading the new material through at least two or three times. 2. Restatement. When you have completed reading the new chapters, try to restate them in your own words. Try to hit the major points. Later in the week you may want to try and give a phrase or sentence or word about each verse. Notice the people-who is saying what to whom? What spiritual concepts are discussed in this chapter? 3. Outline. There are several possibilities here: Chapter thought: work on being able to give the general idea of each chapter. It may contain more than one thought, but try and reduce each chapter to one or two ideas. The word "love" would describe I Corinthians chapter 13; "vine" might be used for John 15; Acts 9 might be described by "Saul chosen." Detailed outline: outline the chapter verse by verse. Break down each verse into as many points as possible. Try not to miss anything. General outline: write down the main divisions of each chapter by paragraph and fill it in loosely with subpoints; just enough to keep the chapter straight in your mind. People outline: write down all the individuals and groups of people in each chapter. Include the events, activities and sayings of each person. When new things are learned about these people in later chapters, add it to your sheet on that person. This could help greatly when doing a character study. When studying any book, a WHO's WHO IN ________ book could be made. Just write their name, place of birth, relatives, activities, jobs, what happened to them, etc. on a single sheet of paper. New information can be added as it is learned. Not all the information listed above can be found for each person, but write in what you can. You might even have an artist in the group draw pictures of some of the people, or you might find some pictures in old Sunday school papers. Place outline: this is best done with a map. Trace Paul's journeys from Acts or Christ's journeys from the gospels. Miracles: list the miracles, mentioning what happened and all that was involved in these miracles. Parables outlined: consider the lesson they taught and whether they were explained. What did they mean? To whom did Jesus teach the parable? What is it about? Word outlines: take key thoughts or key words and work your way through the book. Try to take one word or idea from the beginning, the middle and the end of each chapter. Other outline possibilities: you might outline events, objects, numbers, days (what happened on various days, when day changes occurred), lists, measurements, situations, etc. 4. Charts. Just about anything that can be outlined can be charted. Look over the outline list- what would you like to work on? One team keeps a growing chart on the wall in their quiz room. The coach could keep the chart up4o-date as new material is covered, or various quizzers could be responsible for adding the new material each week. One team discovered that the miracles of Jesus make a very effective chart. Each miracle was written on one page of two columns at the top. The right hand column had an illustration of the miracle clipped from old Sunday school papers. The left hand column had the portion of Scripture containing the miracle. Underneath both columns were the questions: (1) Who performed the miracle? (2) On whom was the miracle performed? (3) Where was it performed? (4) When was it performed? (5) Why was it performed? (6) What happened? As each page was completed, it was added to a loose leaf notebook. The book is now part of the church resource center and is used by some of the younger classes when they study the life of Christ. This idea could be used with many themes-so use your imagination. In addition to producing a useful book, this project is also a valuable learning experience. 5. Make lists.If you are not comfortable outlining or charting, you may want to make lists of the more imp6rtant things, such as important people, places, things, journeys, parables, miracles, repeated words, phrases, etc. 6. Write questions. This is an excellent means of finding out the what, why, when, where and how of any verse. Question writing is covered in detail later in this chapter. Some of these suggestions should be shared with the quizzers. When writing questions, use 3 x 5 cards. Write the question on one side and the answer and reference on the other. You can use these to drill yourself or have your parents or friends drill you. One quizzer recorded his questions and answers on fape. He then built a quiz seat which he plugged into the recorder. He would start the recorder and then sit on the seat. When he sat down, the recorder began to play. As he listened to the questions, he would anticipate the key word. As soon as he thought he knew it, he would jump. Once he was off the quiz seat the tape recorder would stop. He would then try to answer the question and sit down, thus turning on the recorder (this enabled him to check his answer). 7. Use resources. The quizzer could keep on hand the same aids that a coach uses in his study: (1) a modern paraphrase of the New Testament (2) a copy of Webster's dictionary (3) a good Bible dictionary (4) concordance (5) a Bible study workbook (these are question and answer books that may be good for the team Bible study) (6) a good commentary (7) records or tapes of the Scripture portion. 8. Memorize. The 1970 Youth For Christ Quizzer's Manual has some very good ideas on memoriz ing for quizzing. Every good quizzer should attempt to memorize those verses and phrases which can be classified as finish the verse or finish this. These memorized portions will stay with you the rest of your life. Memory tends to consolidate permanently the studied facts. By committing the high points of the material to memory, you will be able to preserve the essence of the entire material for the rest of your life. Memory of an individual verse comes from familiarity with the entire quiz material. This means you should not attempt to memorize until you are familiar with all the quiz material being studied during any given period. For example, if the material assigned is a section of four chapters to be studied during a two-week period, your memory work should be done during the second week. During the first week you would notice the key verses and phrases as you worked through all the material. The second week you would devote a part of your total study time to the memory of these key passages. Having made your selection of the portions to be memorized, sit down and type (or print) these on three by five cards. Write the first five words near the top of the card on the left hand side, with the reference in the right hand corner. Skip a couple of lines and write the rest of the verse. When you have all the cards complete, read through all of them several times, mixing them up to change the order. Then work on each verse individually. Read the verse several times and then say it in your mind a couple of times. Carry the cards around with you and work on them at odd hours during the day-on the school bus, at school, during TV commercials. etc. As you review these over several days, you should be able to progress to the point of being able to finish the verse in your head after seeing the first five words. Keep in mind the need for continuous review. Other quizzers have found that they can memorize the entire book-and eventually this is what happens with some quizzers. 9. Marking your Bible. The following suggestions have been taken from Design for Quizzing, published by the Free Methodist Youth. Many teams find it helpful to use colored pencils, special notebooks and a color or symbol key to represent certain related or repeated ideas, words or phrases. Following are some suggestions: Use large-letter paperback editions of the Scripture portion. Mount each page on an 8-1/2" x 11" sheet of white paper and place it in a three-ring notebook. This system allows ample space for notes and makes study quite easy. Colored pencils can be used either on the text pages or in the margins. These could show repeated ideas, important words and phrases, names of persons, groups, places, times, numbers, and so on. (NOTE: you will need two Scripture portions to mount them on the larger pages.) Use an old, regular size Bible or pocket-size New Testament that you will feel free to mark. It is important to develop your own system of marking so that (a) colors mean something when you look at a page and (b) the finished page is not so cluttered with different colors that it is too blotchy to be helpful. Keep your marking basic and simple. You can underline, circle or color through words you want to highlight. A suggested pattern follows: (a) draw a thin horizontal line with ballpoint pen to divide verses into paragraphs (paragraph divisions are indicated in many translations) (b) use red to mark the references to Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit (c) use yellow to mark references to time and numbers (d) use green to mark references to places: e.g., Bethlehem, Judea, upper room (e) use blue to mark names or references to individuals and groups. Some coaches encourage much more thorough marking, using more colors and using symbols in the margins. The important thing, however, is to work out a system that you under stand and from which you can benefit.