Harvard Crimson Global Quiz Bowl - Math and Science | Lower Primary (Grades K-2)

The Harvard Crimson Global Quiz Bowl Math and Science Lower Primary category is for students in Kindergarten to Grade 2, which the organiser also writes as Year 1 to Year 3. It is administered by AlgoEd under The Harvard Crimson brand and it runs entirely online, so a school in any country enters on the same terms.

A team is 2 to 5 students from the same school. Every member sits the preliminary test individually and the team score is the sum of the two highest individual scores, so a young team is not punished for the range inside it. The Lower Primary test runs 45 minutes.

Questions in this category cover basic number concepts, early operations, pattern recognition and the relationships between numbers and shapes, alongside science drawn from the familiar world such as living things, physical interactions, light, weather and how objects behave. The preliminary paper mixes multiple choice, fill in the blank and short questions; the later rounds are read aloud as rapid-fire questions over Zoom.

The top 25 percent of the preliminary round are named Honor and the top 50 percent Merit. The 15 highest scoring teams in the category go to the semi-final, the top 5 from there reach the final, and the final decides the global champion, second and third place, with the teams placed fourth to eighth recognised as Global Finalists. Medals are presented at a ceremony at Harvard University.

Lower Primary and the other primary category are entered separately and shortlisted separately, and the registration fee is charged per student per category.