One Book Trivia Contest

On Wednesday, Nov. 1 at noon, 11 PVCC students gathered in the North Mall Meeting Room for a high-stakes Kahoot!. The contestants competed in a series of 15 questions about PVCC’s 2023 One Book, a book provided for free to all students and faculty, The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human by oncologist and science writer Siddhartha Mukherjee. Dr. Tamara Whyte, professor of English and co-chair of the One Book committee, hosted the event.

Contestants won points in the Kahoot! by answering correctly and by answering quickly. The top three contestants received prizes. For first place, the prize was the ability to take one three-credit class for free; for second place, a $100 Amazon gift card; and for third place, a $50 gift card for the PVCC bookstore.

Students sat at tables in a horseshoe formation, accessing the Kahoot! through their personal devices while Dr. Whyte read the questions as they were projected on the meeting room screen. The questions covered topics such as the author’s life, work, and previous books, as well as specific information from the book. Students were free to consult a playbook for the trivia contest, containing information such as an author biography and a summary of the book. They could also check hard-cover copies of the One Book or the internet. The trivia contest winners were, in order of placement, Benjamin Marcus, Alex Sanchez, and Lidija Westfall.

“It was fun,” Westfall said. “What you learned in elementary school is actually useful in life.”

All contestants left with hard-cover copies of The Song of the Cell if they had not already claimed one earlier in the semester, and it remains available for free to all PVCC students this semester.

Disclaimer: The author of this article was one of the contest winners.