Let's think this through. John's position in the quiz is twelfth from the top and also twelfth from the bottom. If we count from zero, the number of people who placed above John is 11 and the number of people who placed below him is also 11.
So, to know how many people were in the quiz, we need to count the people who scored higher than John, John himself, and the people who scored lower than John. Let's perform these calculations:
- People who scored higher than John: 11
- John himself: 1
- People who scored lower than John: 11
Adding these together gives us:
11 (above John) + 1 (John himself) + 11 (below John) = 23 people.
Therefore, there were 23 people in the contest.