Seven students at Coupeville High School are showing off their brain power this week.

The team competed against Meadowdale High School and Monroe High School in the state Hi-Q competition earlier this week. They took third place.

“They were really proud of what they did,” said coach Chic Merwine. He said the two schools Coupeville competed against had large student bodies to draw from.

Approximately 20 schools in Snohomish, Skagit, and Island counties participate in the competition.

The seven students participated in a question-and-answer style competition at Meadowdale High School in Edmonds. The Coupeville team will compete against Meadowdale High School and Monroe High School. Competitors are quizzed on a variety of subjects ranging from physics to current affairs.

“It’s hard and there’s a lot of pressure,” said Hi-Q member Aaron Gavin in an interview before the competition. Competitors were quizzed on 14 subjects and had 60 seconds to answer a math question and 15 seconds to answer remaining questions.

There are some limits to what students study to prepare for certain subjects. Team members had to be familiar with two Shakespeare plays and a recent issues of Newsweek.

While it limits the amount of material competitors had to cover, they had to thoroughly know the subject matter.

“You have to know obscure details that wouldn’t come up in conversation,” said Amanda Sterling.

Along with Gavin and Sterling, Rebecca Olson, Sean Parshall, Barbara Clark, Emily Miller and Aaron Krill are also members of the Coupeville High School Hi-Q team.

The team had three matches this year. The post season competition consisted of a tie breaker match and a semi-final match.