On April 6, KAIAC international schools competed in the final KAIAC AQT team tournament of 2024. The SIS team was the defending champion team, having secured a first place victory in the previous year, and were determined not to lose this position to their strongest competitor, KIS. However, that view had been dashed after KIS teams showed up with less competition than they had in the past.
It was soon recognized among players that the competition had to be levied against a more suitable opponent.

“I think that KIS is no longer our rival,” Chong Min (11), current captain of the NAQT team, said. “They’re in the mud right now. We should be more focused on beating SFS, but with a lot of their players leaving next year it should be for us to win first place in the league.”

The goal of the team is to continue gaining awards in a way that will motivate more members to join next year and bring better results. Ultimately, this tournament will serve as an opportunity for new members to truly prove themselves as competent and skilled in certain fields, and so far progress has been good with new recruits such as Dom Min (9) now specializing in categories such as literature. It is hoped that the intense and competitive nature of the team will carry on next year and hopefully translate to serving as motivation for new members to join. Commentary from new members also revealed that intense dedication was needed to succeed.

Quiz team members and captains were asked which tournament they had participated in this year was the most memorable and how they had improved over the course of the season. While many aspired to do better next year, many also recognized their efforts to improve this year, including advancements in certain categories they focused on.

“I think maybe, the category that I improved the most is science,” Russell Jin (10), a new STEM category player, said. “I feel like this happened because I did a protobowl everyday for around 5 hours.”

Overall the sentiment was that the team had developed and grown throught the year. There were no worries about the future of the team, they had succeed this year and would undoubtedly do so in the following year as well.

“I’m really proud of how we did this year. I think we grew and I’m extremely proud in general of the efforts and the success of our teams,” William Hastings, advisor of the NAQT team, said. “and I’m very happy because at the end of last year there was a prediction that AQT would disappear but it hasn’t and I think that’s due to the dedication of our team.”

Recently a new competition has taken place among the team. Certain members are placing “bets” on fellow teammates to try and determine who will get the most points. Oftentimes this involves members of the same team who constantly strive to outperform each other, showing a dedication to their topic of interest while prioritizing the needs of the team. This trend will likely continue next year as it has been a significant source of competitive drive.