Kirtland Society Places First at BLS Certamen

On Saturday, the Kirtland Society competed at the Boston Latin School’s Certamen competition. The advanced team won first place, with the intermediate and novice teams placing second and third in their divisions, respectively.The Kirtland Society is a club which promotes the study of the classical world, literature and language. The current co-heads are uppers Kofi Ansong, Lyle Seeligson and senior Andre Oravitan. The club adviser is Nicholas Unger, instructor of classics. The club is largely student-run, with the co-heads and other team members coordinating most club activities and meetings. The Kirtland Society trains teams to compete in Certamen, a classically themed quiz bowl, hosts the Latin Conversational Club on Fridays during dinners and offers tutoring services in Classics and organizes events such as museum trips and caroling.Questions in Certamen are centered around the history of the Roman Republic and Empire, analysis of Latin grammatical construction and translation, Greco-Roman mythology, Latin literature and Roman culture. There are three rounds in each competition, typically followed by a semi-final and a final competition. Three teams of four people compete in each round of Certamen, and they attempt to answer the most questions correctly. To succeed in competition, “a team has to specialize in subjects, to increase depth for bonus questions and to be quick on the buzzer,” according to Ansong.

“We’ve really taken off as a result of these meetings, especially in terms of our buzzing speed, which is, in my opinion, the most crucial element of the game.”

In the competition, a moderator asks a toss-up question, worth 10 points, which anyone on any team can buzz in to answer. If the first contestant to buzz in answers incorrectly, no one else on their team can answer, and other teams are given the opportunity to answer. When a contestant answers the toss up question correctly, the moderator asks the contestant’s team two bonus questions, each worth five points. Team members can confer with each other before they answer these bonuses. After the bonus questions are answered, the moderator asks another toss-up question.In addition to the weekly meetings on Friday nights, the co-heads instituted Sunday study meetings to give the team more time to prepare for competitions. Upper Bliss Perry credited a large part of the team’s victory to the extra preparation. “We’ve really taken off as a result of these meetings, especially in terms of our buzzing speed, which is, in my opinion, the most crucial element of the game,” Perry said.This year, the tournament organizers created a combination of entertaining and challenging questions. The tournament’s theme was Star Wars, and many of the questions featured Latin passages about Star Wars or connections between the movies and Roman history.The intermediate team entered the finals in second place because the Roxbury Latin team had placed first by a landslide—400 to its 225. However, the first-seeded ended up being disqualified due to their members having “too many years of Latin [experience],” Perry said, so Exeter’s team ended up first in the semifinals.The last round of the advanced division contest was held in an auditorium so the whole team could watch. Exeter’s team found themselves slightly behind at the first score check. They were buzzing tentatively because it was their first time competing in front of a crowd on a stage. However, the team gradually gained momentum. Although Perry appreciated the importance of each vital teammate, he especially recognized Seeligson and Cherenfant’s knowledge of mythology. “It was the mythology questions and not literature, language or history that made the real difference,” Perry said.Another factor to the team’s strong performance was the club’s boosted team spirit. “We all encouraged and cheered one another onwards, which makes a huge difference when on stage in front of a crowd somewhat larger than usual,” Perry said.Ansong echoed Perry’s comments, emphasizing the support of each member in the club. “More rewarding than winning advanced; however, is that the novice and intermediate teams also won their divisions,” Ansong said.Exeter’s strong performance was especially exciting due to the fact that the Kirtland Society was facing harsher competition than they had before in New Hampshire. Unlike Exeter, schools that compete in the Boston Latin School Certamen, such as Roxbury Latin, specialize in teaching the classics and also have large Certamen squads trained by teachers. Schools in the greater Boston area have more classics programs than in New Hampshire; thus the teams faced by the Kirtland Society at the Boston Latin School Certamen were more competitive than those faced earlier in the year at the Granite State Certamen. In the past, Exeter had struggled with placing in the top three in any division at the Boston Latin School Certamen.Unger was thrilled for Exeter’s success, especially because the Boston Latin School has been a “Certamen powerhouse.” To excel in Certamen, the students must train outside of class in order to master obscure knowledge not covered in the syllabus. “Such a result testifies to the hard work and dedication that the students put into it,” he said.Classics instructor Simon Allcock was particularly impressed by the skill level displayed by members of the Kirtland Society. “It’s amazing to see Saturday interscholastic matches played in Latin! The standard is particularly high in pupils’ knowledge of mythology and their ability to translate Latin that they hear read to them,” he said.Perry expressed great hope for the Kirtland Society moving forward this year. “I’m very pleased with my own effort and that of everyone else who attended, and, with two more months of studying, who knows what we are capable of at our next competition at Harvard in late March?”