Central America
Knowledge Bowl is also organized in Central America by Association of American Schools in Central America (AASCA), and is limited to AASCA schools. International level competition is held in late November and features schools from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. The national level dates vary depending on the country, and are also held once a year. The national levels are also limited to American schools; the Honduran Knowledge Bowl nationals are organized by Association of Bilingual Schools of Honduras (ABSH) and are also limited to ABSH. In El Salvador, the national competition is organised by the Association of Bilingual Schools of San Salvador, for its five member institutions. Four are American and one is British.
In 2008, 2009, and 2010, the event was won by Colegio Maya of Guatemala for the junior varsity level, the most consecutive titles in the event's history. In 2011 and 2012 the title of varsity champions was won by the Escuela International de Tegucigalpa (EIT), with an outstanding performance of the two time MVP, Ricardo Cálix, becoming the first consecutive winner of the award in the history of Knowledge Bowl World Championships.
Although the Knowledge Bowl World Championships were paused in 2013, they resumed the following year. The International School of Panama claimed victory in 2014, where they became the undisputed champions in an effort that was led by Carlos Irisarri and Nicolas Braun Melendez, who came back the following year as team captain to lead his team to yet another championship. These consecutive wins by the Panamanian school became only the second time in the tournament's history that a school managed to win back to back championships. Nicolas Bran finished as the highest scorer of the competition in 2015 and was rightfully considered the unanimous decision for MVP that year.
In 2018, the National Knowledge Bowl, organised by ABSH (Association of Bilingual Schools in Honduras) was won by Macris School, which managed to win first places in the Varsity category and the Junior Varsity category, as well as second place in the Middle School category.
In 2022, AASCA Knowledge Bowl was won by the American School of Tegucigalpa (AST), who defeated Colegio Americano de Guatemala (CAG) in the finals. In 2023, CAG won in the finals against AST, who was the only team to defeat them in the round robin stage of the tournament. The following year, CAG went undefeated and once again bested AST in the finals for back-to-back championships.
Schools that participate in the tournaments play each other school during the round robin phase of the tournament on the first two days. Depending on the number of participating schools, the teams with the best records in the round robin phase will go to the elimination bracket on day three, with tiebreakers decided by head-to-head records against other tied schools, then by total points scored. Teams that lose in the semifinal round will play each other for the bronze medal, and those that win will play for the gold medal, with the loser of the final getting the silver medal.
A team is composed of five students, four of whom participate in a game lasting thirty minutes. After every thirty-minute game, substitutions can be made. In every game, only two teams compete against each other. After the thirty minutes are up, the game enters the lightning round (see below), a set of five final questions with mildly altered rules. If after the lightning round, there is still a tie between the two teams, the game enters a sudden-death mode, in which the first person to gain any number of points wins, but a team that loses a point also loses the match.
For a normal toss-up question, a team that buzzes in and answers correctly gains two points and a bonus question. In toss-up questions, team members are not allowed to communicate with each other, and are given 10 seconds to buzz in, and 30 seconds plus the use of scratch paper if the question is a math question. If a team member buzzes in and answers incorrectly, the team loses one point, and the question is repeated for the second team to answer. This is called a rebound. In rebounds, an additional 10 seconds are given for the second team, and team members can communicate with each other, but only the team captain can declare the answer. When a rebound question is answered correctly, one point is given. If a rebound question is answered incorrectly, no points are taken away. Bonus questions are similar to rebounds, but are a bit different. Only the team that acquired the bonus question by answering a tossup correctly can answer it, and team members can discuss the question, but again, only the team captain can give the answer. When a bonus is answered correctly, three points are given, whereas if it is answered incorrectly, no points are taken away. Bonus questions are not cumulative, and once one is answered, another toss-up is given. If no one buzzes in for a toss-up question, no one gains or loses points. It should also be noted that if rebounds are answered correctly, they do not bring with them a bonus question.
Once the 30 minutes of the match are up, the lightning round takes action. The only difference between this round and the normal round is that there are only 5 questions, and answering a rebound correctly is rewarded by a bonus question.
Some tournaments may allow bouncebacks on bonuses, which allow the opposing team to earn points for correctly answering bonus parts the other team misses.
