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Central Minnesota seems to be a hotbed for trivia. Once a year, in February, SCSU‘s radio station KVSC, holds their massive on-air trivia weekend. Alumni, friends and newbies all hunker-down for an entire weekend of brain and internet digging. Of course, you can join us for free pub trivia at MC’s Dugout and The Water’s Edge.

But trivia and the gathering of knowledge isn’t unique to St. Cloud, our state, or the U.S. alone. It’s a world-wide phenomenon.

Have you ever wondered just how smart you are? Has anyone told you that you think you’re the smartest person in the room? Or in the world? Well, there’s a way to find out. The Trivia Ninjas are sponsoring The World Quizzing Championship this Saturday at the St. Cloud Public Library. The actual quiz is a written test that is given simultaneously around the world. It consists of 240 questions across a wide variety of subjects and is available in a number of languages. The event is open to the public.

The whole process of putting together the quiz takes approximately nine months and organizers say it is a real labor of love. The World Quizzing Championship website describes the process;

The International Quizzing Association (IQA) has a complicated matrix of questions that are required to ensure that all of the subjects are covered and that each region is fairly represented. Unlike a physical sport where you can level a track to make it fair, setting these questions is not an exact science. It takes great skill, care and experience to get it right.
Once the questions have been written, they go out to a wider panel of judges from all over the world for scoring and verifying. Then, the top scoring questions in each section make it through to the final selection.
Once this has happened, they come back into the IQA Directors, who produce the final sets and send them for translation. This year, they will be translated into 12 languages.

The World Quizzing Championships will be held Saturday June 6th in The Bremer Room at The Saint Cloud Public Library. To secure your spot, email trivia.ninjas@gmail.com. Or just show up, we’ll make sure you’re set up.