Help for Nationals? :)

Hello!
This is my first year to qualify, and I'm overwhelmed :P ANY help, tips, information. whatever you have to share would be GREATLY appreciated! :)

Memorize all the verses. :P

Memorize *all* the verses. :P

That I will try to do! :P

ANY help, tips, information. whatever you have to share would be GREATLY appreciated! :)

Same here!!!!! : )

This year will be hard for Greek/Hebrew word studies. I suggest knowing some of the key words in Hebrew and Greek.

I would suggest listening to sermons on Nahum. I did this for Jonah and it was really helpful. You could try using sermonaudio.com to look for sermons if you wanted to.
Also, memorize Nahum. That would be helpful as well. :)
And relax and have fun. :)

Thanks!

Hello! This is my first year to qualify, and I'm overwhelmed :P ANY help, tips, information. whatever you have to share would be GREATLY appreciated! :)

Ditto! :)

I'll say the one thing that I'm thinking about the most right now: Context of the memory verses. The only reason I wasn't in Semi-Finals last year is because I didn't know my memory verses well enough. Ephesians was a breeze (well, comparatively). Most of the questions on the test that I didn't know were about the memory verses, and a lot of that was context. I did a context study on each of the memory verses for Locals, and I plan to do that again for Nats though perhaps not as in-depth. Make sure you know who wrote it, to whom was it written, what is it referring to, when did it happen, why it was written, et cetera, et cetera. :)

Do you guys have any tips about studying the book? I've read through Nahum several times in the course of today and last night. To find cross-references, do you usually just pick out key words and look them up in a concordance?

I haven't tried this out before, but if I go to Nats (I did qualify, but I don't know if I'm going), I plan to study Nahum by going through the Sword Study (replacing all Jonah information with Nahum information, of course). For example, the day we made summaries of the verses in Jonah 1, make summaries of Nahum 1. The Sword Study breaks down the essentials of studying a Bible book into nice sections (days) - might as well take advantage of that for Nahum!
That gives me goals - what to study each day - rather than the vague goal of "Study Nahum" (idk about anyone else, but I don't work well with vague goals).
Btw, have you read Daniel Staddon's book, "The $100,00 Word"? It has LOTS of ideas for memorizing lots of verses. In case you haven't, or if you want more tips, this website is where he got a lot of those ideas:
http://mugglinworks.com/BibleBee2009/Site/Home.html
Are you on Quizlet? 'Cause there are a couple sets specifically for tips for Bible Bee.
Hope this helps!

I would also go to commentaries and study Bibles, which should both have quite a few cross-references.

Thanks for the tips! The website had very interesting ideas!

And don't forget to post what you choose for key words on the thread I'm going to make, so we can all pick the best ones! Two opinions are better than one.

Definitely look up the context to the memory passages…maybe not in as much detail as for locals, but still do something! I had no idea on any of the context questions last year.
Don't forget to review Jonah!!! I didn't really review 1 John last year, bunch of the questions I didn't know were on 1 John :P
If you're trying to memorize a verse and it just won't stick! No matter what! So frustrating! :P Work on something else and come back to that verse the next day…it's so much easier.

Anyone have any ideas on how to keep all the John passages straight?!

For John 4:35…"there are yet four months to harvest" …the chapter number is four ;-)

Anyone have any ideas on how to keep all the John passages straight?!

I just plan to memorize them in chronological order. Keeping references straight has never been that much of a problem for me personally though.

Anyone have any ideas on how to keep all the John passages straight?!

Memorizing them chronologically definitely helps. You could also try spreading them out a bit, taking several days on them, with other passages in between, rather than learning them all in the same day. Another thing that might help is to learn them in different locations–all the chapter 10 passages memorize in your room, all the chapter 14 ones in the living room, you could do some of them outside–basically anything to differentiate the passages in your mind. Memorizing them with someone else, or even talking about them to someone else is good too.

Memorizing them in different places sounds extremely helpful, thanks for the idea! =)

One thing I did was have my Mom say the reference and I'd say the first few words of the passage as fast as I could. This helps with the automatic response needed for the oral round. And definitely don't try to memorize all of them in one day; the result may be not so good. It's better to spread them out so that when one enters the long-term memory, it's automatic and doesn't need review. Therefore you need to keep track of less references.

What I thought was really neat is that in Ezekiel 31:1-18, the first words are (in ESV) "In the eleventh year [31:1-18], in the third month [31:1-18], on the first day of the month [31:1-18]…"
I know it's a little stretched, but it helps me! : P

Edit: The numbers inside the asterisks are supposed to be bold….

Thanks, guys! Those tips are great! I'm not feeling quite so daunted now. =)

For any one who might be struggling with keeping the John passages straight; a friend gave me really good advice! Read through the whole book of John and get really familiar with the content of each chapter. For example, John chapter one speaks first of the word, and of the man sent from God whose name was John and about what he called himself etc. then when John 1 something is called you can narrow down your options drastically and can most likely at that point hit upon the right verse! – I hope that helps!

Welcome to the forums, Christianna! I have approved your first post; all future posts will be automatically approved.

Welcome, Christianna!! =) Good to see you here! :)

Welcome Christianna!! Yes! I did that a little bit last year, when we had a bunch of John, Genesis, and Exodus passages, and it helped a lot!

That seems like a good way to go about it keeping those straight. Thanks for the suggestion!

Thanks, Christianna! That will be helpful. By the way, did you tie for 45th in Seniors?

The four that tied with you for 45th were Andrew Adams, Isabelle Ingalls (from our Locals xD), one of the Toths, and Christianna. :)

=)

You know who the Toths are? ^Sorry, just out of curiosity :P^

Well, I know they're from your bee… :) And I remember talking to them once or twice last year in a group conversation with your brothers.

Oh, okay. ;) 45th…that would be Nathaniel Toth.

Welcome to the forums, Hannah! I have approved your first post; all future posts will be automatically approved.

If you haven't already, make sure to read through the Competition Rulebook, or at least the parts important to you. :) http://www.biblebee.org/uploaded_files/files/2014%20Competition%20Rulebook%20-%20140401.pdf

If this is your first time at Nats, it's important to know what to expect. I'm expecting that they will also be posting updates on the FAQ page soon, particularly about the Oral Test, since the information in the CR this year is so unspecific.

Just wondering, what do you guys do when perfecting your verses?

Try to get them perfect in your head (or type it out and check your answer), then have someone quiz you. Then review it and quiz it over and over again until you get it perfect. Then quiz it regularly. :D

The part before before your last sentence, do you do that in one day? Or over a couple days?

And how do you keep all the And it came to pass/in those days it will come to pass/and at that time the LORD shall cause/etc, etc, etc straight??? xP

And how do you keep all the And it came to pass/in those days it will come to pass/and at that time the LORD shall cause/etc, etc, etc straight??? xP

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
lol

The part before before your last sentence, do you do that in one day? Or over a couple days?

It depends on how hard the passage is. :) Either way works.

To your other comment - I guess it just takes practice…I don't know that I have an actual technique. xP

Just wondering, what do you guys do when perfecting your verses?

Review a lot :P

Okay, great, thanks!! =D

Haha, okay. xD I'm thinking about coming up with different pictures/symbols for the phrases I have problems with, but we'll see. :P

Rachel: xP

Everett: I'm trying!!! xP

I barely ever have time to review!!! facedesk I'm in no way giving up though. ;)

I do that too: making images for certain words. For example, "that" is a hat.

Keep trying XP

When you say "making images" you're not actually drawing it out, are you?

xD

Rosie: Aww, yeah. :-/ Yes, keep going!! =D

Everything's in my head :)

I tend to work with images through the whole way of memorizing verses. I am most definitely a visual learner, so it helps me a lot to memorize the verse if I just picture in my head creatively what's going on, particularly if it's a long verse and I'm having trouble with the order.

Okay!! I drew out pictures (if you can call them that…I don't think anyone else would know what they were supposed to be. xD) for a huge list we had in our Revelation passage, but everything else I have pictures in my head! I should really do it more though, those/they, to/unto/ and shall/will drive me nuts!!