Guest article by Aaron Collins
Studying the concordance is a very unique way of studying the Scripture. In quiz, there is a way to do it, and a way not to. In this lesson you will learn how to effectively study the concordance so that you can both do well at quiz, and learn the Word of God in a deeper and more meaningful way.
First, I must point out that studying the concordance is usually reserved until after the material has been mastered and the quizzer can quote the required material word perfect, with references, and knowing the chapter analysis.
Second, much of the work concerning the basics has already been done. If you wanted to do the basic concordance work required for nationals, all you would have to do is go to the “Concordance Lists” section and learn or have your quizzer learn every one of those lists. However, I will still show you how to find concordance and reference questions that might be asked.
You must first notice what types of questions are frequently asked in chapter questions. For example, when you hear a question that asks for all of the things described as being “of God” in a certain chapter, know that if it is givable, at Nationals they will ask for the quizzer to give all of the things described as “of God” from the entirety of the material being studied.
Question writers often like possessives and “of”s (i.e. Jesus’, God’s, Simon’s, of God, of Christ, ) So be sure to know all of those. If multiple words begin or end a certain phrase, (i.e. Kingdom of, of the Holy Spirit, etc.) be sure to know those as well.
If you want to be National Champion, though, you must go a lot further than this. This is how you do it:
Go to the concordance and look for things that are similar in different verses. The most obvious are the ones where two verses contain an identical unique phrase like “In the same way” or “province of Asia.” Question writers will either ask for these by saying quote Luke__ and Luke__ , or they will say quote the two verses which contain the phrase ______. This goes a step further and is applied to words that stand out like “Greeks” or “Super-Apostles”. I can assure you that this year you will hear the 2 questions, Give the 4 verses that mention Greeks and Give the 2 verses that mention super-apostles, multiple times. The words must not only stand out but they must be found in multiple verses. Study so that you can quote and give the references to all words like this in under 30 seconds each. Also, study words that stand out and are found in consecutive verses, (i.e. the 3 consecutive verses that mention Jews).
Be on the look out for words that are only found in one verse, but who have a counter part that it can be asked with. For example, Quote the two verses that mention the New Covenant, and the verse that mentions the Old Covenant. “Old Covenant” you wouldn’t normally study because it is found in only one verse, but now that you know it has a counterpart, you do study it. And now you can hit the question at “Quote the two verses that mention the New/” and know what it is going to be. This is how great quizzers can interrupt reference questions and know what they are going to be before they hit. After studying this type enough, you will begin to think like a question writer and learn how to finish these types of questions without having studied them before. Since great quizzers can’t always find every possible question they often have to just put two and two together and figure out the question without having studied it. For example, here’s any easy one that a great quizzer will know, even if they have just finished memorizing 1 Corinthians Chapter 1, and haven’t heard any questions. 2 Part Quotation Question. 3 Part Answer. From 1 Corinthians Chapter 1. Quote the two verses which mention Greeks.
A great quizzer will know instantly that the completion is /and the verse which mentions Gentiles. This is because by studying other reference questions, their mind has learned how to quickly make correlations between different verses. The above question could probably be figured out by quizzers that weren’t great, but great quizzers can figure out much harder ones than this one.
The next step is to buy every question that is written to prepare you for nationals and Memorize Them. Don’t memorize the question word-for-word so to say, but know the answers to all the questions that are found in those National level practice sets. Make sure there isn’t one question that is being sold that you cannot answer. And be sure to hear them multiple times.
This next part takes a lot of dedication and a lot of work, but if you do it, you will more than likely be the best quizzer of your time. First, go through the concordance and study the words that only appear in one verse. Study so that you are able to quote and give the reference for any of those verses when asked to. It is easy to find them in the concordance because they will only have one verse reference next to them. Most are found in the Unique Word List, but some words, like “abound” are found twice in one verse, but are still included in this category.
Next, go through the concordance and study the words that appear it two verses. Study them so that you are able to quote and give the references for the verses that contain those words when asked to. Be able to do this on demand, with any of the words. It is easy to find them in the concordance because they will only have two unique verse references next to them.
Now, go through the concordance and study the words that are found in 3 verses. Study them so that you are able to quote and give the references for the verses that contain those words when asked to, in under 30 seconds. Be able to do this on demand, with any of the words. It is easy to find them in the concordance because they will only have three unique verse references next to them.
After this, go through the concordance and study the words that are found in only 4 verses. Study them so that you are able to quote and give the references for the verses that contain those words if asked to, in under 30 seconds. Be able to do this on demand, with any of the words. It is easy to find them in the concordance because they will only have four unique verse references next to them.
Then, go through the concordance and study the words that are found in 5 verses total. Study them so that you are able to quote and give the references for the verses that contain those words if asked for, in under 30 seconds. Be able to do this on demand, with any of the words. It is easy to find them in the concordance because they will only have five unique verse references next to them.
Lastly, go through the concordance and study the words that are found in 6 verses altogether. Study them so that you are able to quote and give the references for the verses that contain those words when asked for, in under 30 seconds. Be able to do this on demand, with any of the words. It is easy to find them in the concordance because they will only have six unique verse references next to them.
I have never seen a question demand more than 6 verses with references, so there is no need to study that way with a higher number of “repetitions”. In other words, there is no need to do this same pattern with words found in 7 verses, 8 verses, 9 verses, etc. What you do need to do next is the following:
In the concordance, go through and find all the words that are repeated 7-15 times (i.e. found in 7-15 verses) and beginning with the words found in 7 verses, be able to give all the references for those words in 30 seconds. Then do the same thing with words found in 8 verses, words found in 9 verses, words found in 10 verses, all the way up to words found in 15 verses. Be on the look out, though, for words that stand out that are found in like 20 verses, (thus you would not normally study them) but are found in a certain chapter 4 times. (i.e. I missed a question years ago that asked for the four verses of a certain chapter that mentioned “mercy”. I hadn’t studied “mercy” because it was found in like 20 verses.) For these types of words, the Chapter Concordances that are found on this web page will help you to find all the words that might be asked this way. If you go through and do this right after you memorize a chapter, it will be ten times easier in the long run than waiting to do it until you have finished all the material, and you will know the material a lot better and know a whole lot more concordance in general.
NOTE: I did not say that all of these questions will be asked at Nationals. But if you study this way, you will know the answer to every question at Nationals, you will know the material in a deeper and more meaningful way, and you might possibly never forget it for the rest of your life.
There you go, now all the “secrets” of Reference Questions and Concordance work are unveiled.
These are the things you have to do to achieve the status you want or to obtain the abilities you desire.
How far do you want to go? How good do you want to be? That depends on how much you want to study.