National Biology Bee

For the Varsity and Junior Varsity Divisions, students first compete in the Qualifying Stage through the National Qualifying Exam. For these divisions, the National Qualifying Exam is a 50 question multiple choice exam. All questions have 4 possible answer choices. The National Qualifying Exams are scored on the basis of 2 points for a correct answer, 0 for a question left unanswered, and -1 point for an incorrect answer. This scoring system rewards partial knowledge but not random lucky guesses. Students who have no clue about a particular question should thus leave it unanswered, but if they can narrow down the answer choices, they should likely then take their best guess even if they are not 100% sure.

Students qualify for Nationals through the National Qualifying Exams in one of three ways.

Students may take the National Biology Bee National Qualifying Exam online, at all in-person National History Bee and Bowl Regional Tournaments during the lunch break, at all in-person National Science, History and Geography Bees, or at select all-subject quiz bowl tournaments that are not run by International Academic Competitions. There are three versions of the National Qualifying Exam, which are known as Set A, Set B, and Set C. For National Qualifying Exams that are offered at National History Bee and Bowl tournaments, the Exam Set corresponds to the question set that the tournament is using. If the Exams are taken at National Science, History and Geography Bee regional tournaments, then if the tournament is run on Red Set, the Set C exam version is offered. If the tournament is run on White Set, the Set B exam version is offered. If the tournament is run on Blue Set, the Set A exam version is offered. If the tournament is run on Gold Set, then typically the Set C exam version is offered, though IAC may contact students to see if they prefer to take the Set B or Set A versions instead.

For the National Biology Bee, the questions on all three versions of the National Qualifying Exams follow the National Qualifying Exam Question Distribution.

If taking the National Biology Bee National Qualifying Exam online, students have a 20 minute time limit.

If taking the National Biology Bee National Qualifying Exam at an in-person National History Bee and Bowl tournament, students may also take the National Qualifying Exams for the National Geography Bee / US Geography Championships / US Geography Bee (one exam is used for all 3 of these competitions), National Humanities Bee, National Political Science Bee, US History Bee, and National Science Bee. If a student takes just one exam, they have 20 minutes. If a student takes two exams, they have 40 minutes, but if they take three, four, five, or six exams, they still only have 40 minutes (as time is limited during the lunch break of a tournament).

If taking the National Biology Bee National Qualifying Exam at an in-person National Science, History, and Geography Bee tournament, students may also take the other five National Qualifying Exams as listed in the above paragraph. At these tournaments, National Qualifying Exams are not timed on an exam-by-exam basis, but rather, students can take them in the designated Exam Room whenever it is open. Students cannot leave the Exam Room and come back to an exam that they had previously started. Students should be mindful of their schedule for the day and plan the times when they wish to take exams accordingly.

Students qualify for Nationals through the National Qualifying Exams in one of three ways:

Students need only to qualify on any one version of the National Qualifying Exam in any given academic year to be able to compete at the National Championships. If a student qualifies on one version of the Exam, and then takes a different version of the exam but does not qualify on that version, they remain qualified.

The cost is $20 per Exam Version per student.

For all questions on the National Qualifying Exams of the National Biology Bee, please email hs-info@iacompetitions.com.