The Quizbowl Resource Center

NAQT is pleased to announce that its third annual Middle School National Championship Tournament (MSNCT) will be held at Chicago's Hyatt Regency O'Hare hotel on the weekend of April 26-28, 2013. This is the same hotel that hosted the 2012 championship.

The field for the tournament is limited to 96 teams.

Full details

Current field

Registration is now open.

Mr. Hoppes,
I am Bryant Cong of Challenger Berryessa. I was just wondering if there is any good study material for the 2013 MSNCT.

Thanks in advance,
Bryant

Welcome to the forums, Bryant!

For MSNCT practice materials, I would suggest using the two previous MSNCT sets (both available for purchase from NAQT) and your choice of easier high school sets (such as NAQT's A-series; note that there are a variety of quality non-NAQT sets available on the hsqb archive.)

Here are some hsqb archive searches that should be helpful to middle school teams:
Middle school sets downloadable from the archive
High school novice sets downloadable from the archive

Thank you Mr. Hoppes and Mr. Reinstein. I extremely appreciate the input.

Thanks,
Bryant

Wildcard applications for the 2013 MSNCT are now open. To apply, please send a summary of your team's accomplishments this year to msnct [at] naqt.com.

If you would like to add a team to the standby list for the 2013 MSNCT, please contact us at msnct [at] naqt.com.

naqt.com wrote:The format for the 2013 NAQT Middle School National Championship Tournament will be eight power-matched preliminary games on Saturday followed by double-elimination playoffs on Sunday; teams qualify for the playoffs by finishing Saturday with a winning record (5-3 or better).

Full details (pdf)

Will there be another explanation of this at the player meeting on Saturday?

Yes, we will explain the format at the opening meeting on Saturday.

Through Saturday preliminary play:
#1 Barrington A, 8-0
#2 Kealing A, 7-1
#3 Longfellow A, 7-1
#4 Kealing B, 7-1
#5 St. John's, 6-2
#6 Kealing C, 6-2
35 teams advance to Sunday play.

Are more detailed stats going online sometime tonight?

No idea. That's just what I transcribed from the posted listings downstairs.

MichaelFalk wrote:Are more detailed stats going online sometime tonight?

Yes. Stats from today are here.

bt_green_warbler wrote:

MichaelFalk wrote:Are more detailed stats going online sometime tonight?

Yes. Stats from today are here.

Thank you!

I personally wasn't at the MSNCT, but I've been hearing a lot of talk about really unprofessional and inexperienced moderators. Is there truth to this statement?

I had no bad experiences with the moderators yesterday, and I haven't heard of anyone who has had a problem with them.

I have not had any problems with moderators, although my teammates said there was one who was reading too quickly. Otherwise they were all very professional, kind, and efficient.

Congratulations to Barrington Station A for winning and all the other teams at the 2013 MSNCT!

Congratulations to Barrington Station A, which defeated Kealing A 650-220 in the second game of an advantaged final to win the 2013 MSNCT! Mesa Verde defeated St. John's 445-400 to claim third place.

There were a few instances where I wasn't happy with the moderators, but they were still largely better than what I encounter at an IESA match.
Round 1: A Player on Station A is negged on his 2nd buzz of the day on "(widely known fictional character)" and then the other team is awarded the TU when giving the exact same answer line. The mod AND scorekeeper both professed to have heard "(a nonsense term that shares the first two syllables with the answer line)"

Round 2: Another player on Station A is negged on the first TU attempted, being counted out for stalling. He was clearly trying to buzz first, yet his light wasn't lit on the moderator's panel. This caused confusion because, though the moderator looked at him, he knew it wasn't his light so he was hesitant about trying to answer but did quickly blurt out the book title as the moderator called time. NAQT rules say that ties go to the player, but I, understandably, never see that enforced. But even setting that aside, a Trickum parent pointed out that his buzzer had come unplugged from the system. In summary, it didn't seem like we should be negged for a problem caused by a combination of the lockout AND the moderator technically recognizing the wrong player.

Round 10: Buzz on (specific geologic feature) was not prompted in a downstairs room when a more general answer was given. Everyone else I've spoken with said it was prompted in their rooms when the same thing happened.

When will the set be cleared for discussion?

I also wasn't prompted when giving a general answer on the round 10 question. I would assume that it will be cleared for discussion soon unless NAQT wants to allow other tournaments to use this set.

According to the parents in the room (I was with my A team), Washington B had an issue with a coach more than a moderator. One of my players started an incorrect response, paused mid-word, and then said the correct answer. The moderator accepted it. The coach started to argue, and at one point was talking to (and starting to point his finger at) my player. Once a phone call was made and a response issued, the coach backed off immediately, though.

Our worst moderator was on Friday night. She was very slow, struggled mightily with pronouncing anything, and didn't finish the last tossup that she was on when the timer went off. Next time I saw her, my B players said she moderated the game with the coach incident. I don't know if that's accurate, but that game did have their lowest number of tossups read.

The only moderating issue we came across (other than an unusual 19-tossup game) was in a consolation match, when a moderator accepted three different "close enough" answers that were all technically wrong. This wasn't an unprofessional or inexperienced moderator, precisely, but in 13 rounds of play that's the only complaint I have. Otherwise the moderators were strong.

If this set isn't cleared for discussion yet, I'd like anyone with comments on specific biology questions to send them to the email in my profile. I edited about half of them and would like feedback especially regarding whether or not they were of appropriate difficulty.

I've started a new thread for question-specific discussion of this tournament. Please feel free to discuss individual questions in that thread.

Great run tournament. Card system very successful at matching up teams. Very happy with the outcome.

Going back to moderators, I did not have a problem with any moderators, though some of them did read very fast. One of them, however, forgot to reset the buzzer system, causing a problem in one of the matches my team played.

Is it true that next year's MSNCT is being held in Atlanta?

Yes. We will have a full announcement after HSNCT is over.