UA News

After reading 3,600 pages and being tested on the content, a team of UA Eller College of Management students placed third in a nationwide competition.

The Wall Street Journal is made up of nearly 100 pages printed daily, covering corporate and economic news, money and investing, personal finance and more. 

Multiply the number of those pages by six editions a week for a six-week period.

That's 3,600 pages – the amount of information three University of Arizona students studied in the weeks leading up to the Ohio State Biz Quiz competition, which was held at the end of the fall semester.

The group began meeting at the start of the fall semester to prepare for the 2009 Nationwide Fisher Biz Quiz.

"I had no prior knowledge of the event, but after doing a little research on it I felt that it was an extremely valuable opportunity to be able to compete while learning more about my major and current events. Not to mention it was a free trip to Ohio," said Yuan, a UA sophomore.

The Biz Quiz, sponsored by Nationwide Insurance and hosted at Ohio State's Fisher School of Business, involved teams of three from 18 universities across the country. Each team received a free, six-week subscription to the Wall Street Journal before the competition and prepared to answer questions on any of the material.

"What we needed to know out of each article was the basic stuff like who did what, where it happened, when it happened, and what its significance was," said Trainor, a junior Honors College student at the UA.

If they used any sort of business terminology in the article we had to be responsible for understanding what that is and being able to define it," she said.

Trainor acted as captain of the team, which included Mitch Eich, who was a senior during the competition and has since graduated. Also, Dave Wietecha, the senior academic adviser for Eller Undergraduate Programs, advised the group.

"It's an intense competition," Trainor said. "You really couldn't anticipate what was going to be asked until it was asked."

It was an intimidating demand, but the Eller College of Management students prepared by assigning different sections of the paper to specific team members, quizzing each other with an estimated 600 to 800 flashcards, playing games like "Guess the CEO" and fueling with energy drinks and Lucky Charms cereal.

During a sudden death round, Trainor answered a question regarding the branding of iSnack Vegemite 2.0 correctly, winning the trio a spot in the final round. The UA team placed third in the Biz Quiz, jumping seven slots from their previous highest placement in 10th place.

This year's success has inspired the team to consider competing in Biz Quiz 2011. Trainor and Yuan hope to return and eventually place first place.

"If I am given the chance again I would absolutely rejoin the team for next year," Yuan said. "It's an opportunity that I would not want to pass up."