The largest rodent in the world is the capybara.
Jeff Cohen didn’t know he knew that.
But as a participant in this year’s College Bowl on the Hill, the second-year history student is rediscovering his knowledge of all sorts of trivia.
Cohen is a member of The Harkirinians, a wild-card team in the Hill-wide trivia competition.
This is Cohen’s first foray into the jeopardy-style competition. The games began winter quarter with competitions within each of the Hill dormitories, and the winners of each building moved on this quarter, said Scott Carter, assistant director for the Office of Residential Life.
“The building winners come into this tournament,” Carter said. “They’re the best of the best.”
In addition to bragging rights, the winning team gets a trophy that has been passed through the Hill since 1982, as well as cash and other prizes.
Cohen said he is participating as a fun experience with friends. He and his team practice about an hour a week using the quiz website Sporcle, and they rely on their general knowledge to answer most of the questions, Cohen said.
In addition to the approximately 16,000 to 18,000 questions in ORL’s test bank, pop culture questions are thrown in, and faculty in residence on the Hill are invited to contribute, Carter said.
For others, the College Bowl is part of their competitive style.
Third-year applied math and physics student Ian Drayer has been collecting trivia since high school. One of the reasons he decided to come to UCLA is the strength of the club college bowl team, he said.
Two years ago, Drayer reached the finals of the Hill-wide competition, and last year, he helped edit the questions for the tournament.
This year he decided to return as a participant, well-seasoned from club college tournaments.
“I’m not that athletic,” Drayer said. “This is a good way to stay competitive with others in a team-based activity.”
The Hill tournament has a slightly more relaxed nature than the club tournaments Drayer participates in, however.
Drayer and his team added their own element of fun to the competition this year by naming themselves “Huitzilopochtli’s Heroes.” They chose the name based on a god from an Aztec myth, with the goal of confusing people.
“We wanted to go for a little bit of alliteration and a fun, difficult-to-pronounce name,” Drayer said.