The Quizbowl Resource Center

Middlesex Middle School in Darien, Connecticut will be hosting the inaugural Charter Oak Scholastic Open on Sunday, January 29th. Currently, the competition has a field of nine teams. We are still accepting registrations, and will up to January 20th.

We are using NAQT's MS-02 question packet. Please contact me if you are interested or if you have any questions.

Coach Romeo,

I just sent you a private message with some suggestions for revision of your format (it is fairly straightforward to guarantee all teams at least five games and use bracketed playoffs instead of single elimination).

Also, please let us know which question set this tournament plans to use! (so teams can make sure they haven't heard the same questions elsewhere)

Some changes to the format, thanks to some good advice from a poster:

Tournament play: Each team will play three games in the morning to determine seeding for the afternoon elimination tournament. The top eight teams will play in the afternoon. Teams that do not qualify for the elimination tournament and teams that are eliminated in the afternoon are permitted to stay and either watch other matches or scrimmage each other using the playoff question packets. Seeding is determined by the team’s won-lost record. Tie-breakers are as follows:
Head-to-head results
Total points scored
Point differential
Sudden-death toss-up questions

Instead, the tournament will consist of 6 guaranteed contests for each team, and the team with the best record will be crowned the champion. Tie breakers are TBD.

The questions will be written by Questions Unlimited. They have assured me that no team in our tournament will have prior knowledge to any question prior to this competition.

Please continue to contact me with your questions, comments, and concerns.

romeokar wrote: The questions will be written by .

I think you can be assured that no coach who reads these boards will have a team that has heard your question set. But applaud your effort of trying to start a tournament of SOME sort. There aren't enough on the middle school circuit. Best of luck.

romeokar wrote:The questions will be written by Questions Unlimited. They have assured me that no team in our tournament will have prior knowledge to any question prior to this competition.

Please continue to contact me with your questions, comments, and concerns.

Concern: You are buying awful questions from a known plagiarizer and nobody who has any respect for quizbowl or academic integrity should attend your tournament.

romeokar wrote:The questions will be written by Questions Unlimited. They have assured me that no team in our tournament will have prior knowledge to any question prior to this competition.

They produce middle school sets now? Regardless, please consider switching to one of NAQT's Middle School sets, if available. They're of much higher quality, and you should be able to attract more teams from around the region. As someone who plays on both Questions Unlimited and NAQT sets, my experience playing on NAQT sets has invariably been better than that of playing on Questions Unlimited.

Your objections to QU are noted. I am currently looking into alternatives.

For the reasons stated above, and for many more, I'd be willing to encourage the high schools who attend Yale tournaments to contact their respective middle schools about bringing teams to this event. However, I'd only do that if and only if it uses questions of an acceptable standard that Questions Unlimited violates in all sorts of ways.

In terms of alternative options, the best option I can think of is an NAQT Middle School set, which is written to similar standards as the NAQT Middle School National Championship Tournament, and would let the top 15% of teams who attend qualify for a chance at national competition. Feel free to email me if you have any questions or want any help - good tournaments in Connecticut are wonderful, and I'd love to be able to throw some support from a member of Yale's squad behind this one once a new question source is secured.

We used an NAQT MS set at out middle school tournament a few weeks ago and (with a few outliers, as are in every set), the vast majority of it was appropriate and enjoyed by the field.