The Yale University quizbowl team is pleased to announce that this year's Bulldog High School Academic Tournament (BHSAT XXV
) will be available for tournament mirrors in the spring of 2016. As is traditional, BHSAT 2016 will be written and edited by members of the Yale quizbowl team. I (Jacob Reed) will be returning to head-edit the tournament this year. Last year was something of a learning experience in terms of both production schedule and actual question-writing, so I promise a set that has much more of its strengths and many fewer of its weaknessses; we're aiming to meet or exceed the lofty quality standards of years past.The main site of the tournament will (tentatively) be hosted on Saturday, 13 February at Yale University in New Haven, CT. We are currently seeking mirror sites in as many locations as possible (previous iterations of this post have said "all across the country," but given quizbowl's international explosion, I wonder if that's aiming too low!).
The set will be available for use from the weekend of February 6th onwards. After the last mirror, the set will be uploaded to the archive for public reference.
If you are interested in mirroring BHSAT 2016, please email me at jacob.reed@yale.edu and wait for confirmation (if you don't receive it within 3 business days, feel free to send another). We're also happy to have BHSAT used at singles tournaments, state All-Star Team tryouts, etc. - just email me at the above address and we'll work out a suitable arrangement.
The mirror fee, payable to "Y. Student Academic Competitions" (exactly as written) is $10 per non-house team in attendance. In the case of multiple bids, we will, as in previous years, show a preference for hosts who demonstrate their capacity for outreach to a wide range of teams in their area.
Set details:
The set will consist of fourteen (14) packets of equal difficulty (no special "finals" packets). Tossups will be five to six lines long in 10 point Times New Roman. Before powermarking, all tossups will be six lines long, or shorter; no bonus part will be longer than two lines. All tossups will be powermarked. Host sites must agree not to modify, subtract from, add to, or edit the set. We are certainly open to any reasonable changes (i.e. playing the set without powers)—just send me an email at jacob.reed@yale.edu.
This set is not to be distributed electronically by anyone except the editors of the set. While paper copies may be given out to tournament attendees by tournament directors, requests for electronic copies of packets should be submitted to jacob.reed@yale.edu. (Exceptions will be made for tournaments run on electronic packets, insofar as tournament directors will be permitted to distribute electronic packets to staff readers.) Recipients of electronic copies are not permitted to share them. Please do not discuss any question content publicly until BHSAT mirrors have concluded for the year. After the first mirror, we will set up a private discussion forum, to which you can direct any discussion, comments, errata, etc. (To join the forum: find "User Control Panel" near the top left, then go to Usergroups > BHSAT 2016 Discussion. We will verify that anyone who is attempting to join has either played or read the set before joining.)
The difficulty of this year's BHSAT will be in the same range as the BHSAT sets from past years (2011-2015), i.e. aiming at the "core" of an advanced high school curriculum. You can peruse those to your heart's content on quizbowlpackets.com.
Packets will be distributed as follows:
4/4 Literature (at least 1/1 each American, British, European, .5/.5 one more of the above, .5/.5 World)
4/4 Science (1/1 biology, 1/1 chemistry, 1/1 physics, 1/1 other science, with a heavy focus on math)
4/4 History (1/1 American, 2/2 European/British/Ancient, 1/1 "World"; Canadian/Australian where appropriate in context)
3/3 Fine Arts (1/1 Visual, 1/1 Auditory including jazz, 1/1 "audiovisual"—ballet, film, opera—and "usable"—architecture, design, ceramics, etc.)
2/2 "Beliefs" (1/1 Religion, 1/1 Mythology)
1/1 "Thought" (roughly .5/.5 each Social Science and Philosophy)
2/2 "Modern World" (1/1 split approximately 2:1 between geography and current events, 1/1 pop culture/Trash)
Each packet will feature an extra tossup and bonus for use as tiebreakers and/or replacements; these could come from any academic (non-Trash) category.
We hope you'll help us make BHSAT a nationwide success again in Spring 2016. Please contact me at jacob.reed@yale.edu to secure a mirror in your region. Thanks!
Scheduled sites:
Eastside (Covington, GA) Spring Tournament (6 February)
Yale BHSAT (13 February)
WUSTL (MO) WUHSAC (13 February)
University of Kentucky Spring Championship (27 February)
Michigan State tournament (13 February)
Galesburg (Western IL) (27 February)
University of Minnesota (2 April)
Northern Illinois ATROPHY (16 April)
Homestead High School [Cupertino, CA] (16 April)
University of South Carolina tournament (date TBD)
IHBB Canadian Championship (Ottawa; 2 May)
IHBB European Championship (Berlin; 30 May)
IHBB Asian Championship (Khao Lak, Thailand; 14 June)
[UCSD Triton Winter (cancelled for now)]
