Collaborative Middle School Tournament Available for Mirrors

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Collaborative Middle School Tournament Available for Mirrors

Post by cvdwightw »

The 2010 Collaborative Middle School Tournament will be available for hosting from March 6, 2010 until June 12, 2010. There is no fee to use this set of questions at your middle school tournament. This tournament is written and edited by members of the high school and college quizbowl communities.

This set will consist of 10 rounds of 20 10-point toss-ups and 20 three-part, 30-point bonuses, plus tie-breaker questions. Each set of 20 questions consists of:

1 American History
1 European History
1 World/Ancient History
1 American Government

1 American Literature
1 British Literature
1 Other Academic Literature
1 Juvenile Literature

1 Life Science
1 Chemistry/Physics
1 Astronomy
1 Earth Science
1 Mathematics

1 Geography
1 Current Events

1 Religion
1 Mythology

1 Visual Arts
1 Auditory Arts

1 Popular Culture or General Knowledge

Tie-breaker questions will be taken from any of the above categories except popular culture. No computation will be present in mathematics tossups; instead, tossups will focus on concepts learned in pre-algebra, algebra, and geometry. Computation parts may exist in science and mathematics bonuses.

Bids should be e-mailed to Dwight Wynne at dpwynne at gmail dot com and include:
-The name of the school(s) interested in hosting, and the name(s) and contact information of coach(es) serving as prospective tournament directors. High school and collegiate hosts may have players serve as prospective tournament directors in lieu of or in addition to coaches. We do not require previous experience.
-The prospective area from which you would draw teams (e.g. single school, single district, municipal area, state). We are happy to have multiple sites in close proximity, so long as the addition of one site will not severely impact the field of a second site.
-The date(s) on which the tournament would be held. Bids to use these questions for league play are welcome; however, we will give preference to schools that wish to host a weekend tournament.
-Fee structures. Since there is no fee to use these questions, we suggest a base entry fee of no more than 70% of the normal fee in a school’s area.
-An estimated maximum field size.
-Anything else you consider relevant to our consideration of your bid.

While it is not vital to bid acceptance, we would like to see hosts provide the following:
-In some areas it is customary to bring one team with more than eight players and have many students rotate playing. We believe that it is a more fun experience if all students play most of the time. We would like hosts to suggest to participating schools that they split their contingent into multiple teams, each with no more than eight players, and offer large “multiple team” discounts as incentives to do this. However, we understand that staffing and room constraints, as well as the number of chaperones available for a particular school, may make it unfeasible for some hosts to mandate this.
-We would like to see how well our target audience is performing on these questions. To that end, we suggest that hosts compile team and individual statistics using a quizbowl statistics program, for instance, SQBS or Taft. Dwight Wynne and Donald Taylor will be modifying their Fall Novice Tournament Guide to SQBS for use at the middle school level; please indicate in your bid whether you would like a copy of this guide.
-We would like hosts to provide the greatest number of meaningful games for all teams, and are happy to assist hosts in devising a format to that end. We suggest that the top preliminary teams advance to a round-robin playoff bracket, and that consolation matches be set up for non-playoff teams that are interested in playing more questions.

Any questions concerning bidding or the tournament itself should be e-mailed to Dwight Wynne at dpwynne at gmail dot com.
Dwight Wynne
socalquizbowl.org
UC Irvine 2008-2013; UCLA 2004-2007; Capistrano Valley High School 2000-2003

"It's a competition, but it's not a sport. On a scale, if football is a 10, then rowing would be a two. One would be Quiz Bowl." --Matt Birk on rowing, SI On Campus, 10/21/03

"If you were my teammate, I would have tossed your ass out the door so fast you'd be emitting Cerenkov radiation, but I'm not classy like Dwight." --Jerry
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Re: Collaborative Middle School Tournament Available for Mirrors

Post by the return of AHAN »

Does anyone know if TAFT can handle > 8 players in a match? I know SQBS doesn't handle large teams so well.
Jeff Price
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Barrington Station Middle School Coach (2013 MSNCT Champions, 2013 & 2017 Illinois Class AA State Champions)
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Re: Collaborative Middle School Tournament Available for Mirrors

Post by kayli »

I asked my coach, and Pensacola is going to try to mirror this on March 20th.
Kay, Chicago.
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Re: Collaborative Middle School Tournament Available for Mirrors

Post by Avram »

Woody Paige wrote:Does anyone know if TAFT can handle > 8 players in a match? I know SQBS doesn't handle large teams so well.
QBSQL can handle > 8 players per match out of the box. Take a look at the test installation (http://quizbowl.gimranov.com/qbsql/tournaments.php) and see if it will fit your needs. If you notice oddities with large numbers of players, let me know and I'll address them ASAP. As I've noted in previous threads, I can also provide free hosting for those who don't have the resources/expertise to set up their own copy of the code (http://code.google.com/p/qbsql/). QBSQL plays nicely with SQBS and can even read and write SQBS files to a limited extent, in case someone is aggregating results across mirrors.
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Re: Collaborative Middle School Tournament Available for Mirrors

Post by cvdwightw »

This is just a bump to remind schools that we are still accepting bids. We have approved bids for tournaments at the following schools:

Barrington MS, Station Campus (IL) on 3/13
Chattahoochee HS (GA) on 3/20
LASA HS (TX) on 4/10 (tentative date)
Dorman HS (SC) on 4/17
Illinois Valley CC (IL) on 4/17

I have heard tentative interest from schools in FL and NC but have yet to see any official bids. If you send me a bid, and you don't get a response within 72 hours, chances are your bid somehow ended up in my spam folder; if that's the case, post here or contact Donald Taylor or Andy Watkins (their addresses should be in their profiles).

We are offering you the opportunity to use this 10-round set of high-quality questions (three-line pyramidal tossups and three-part, ACF-style bonuses) for the low low price of $0. If you have not yet secured a question provider for your spring middle school tournament or league, or are looking to start up your own middle school tournament or league with minimal initial costs, I would encourage you to send me a bid.
Dwight Wynne
socalquizbowl.org
UC Irvine 2008-2013; UCLA 2004-2007; Capistrano Valley High School 2000-2003

"It's a competition, but it's not a sport. On a scale, if football is a 10, then rowing would be a two. One would be Quiz Bowl." --Matt Birk on rowing, SI On Campus, 10/21/03

"If you were my teammate, I would have tossed your ass out the door so fast you'd be emitting Cerenkov radiation, but I'm not classy like Dwight." --Jerry
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Re: Collaborative Middle School Tournament Available for Mirrors

Post by the return of AHAN »

So, how is this set looking? I was told there was a chance it might have powers. True or false?
Jeff Price
Barrington High School Coach (2021 & 2023 HSNCT Champions, 2023 PACE Champions, 2023 Illinois Masonic Bowl Class 3A State Champions)
Barrington Station Middle School Coach (2013 MSNCT Champions, 2013 & 2017 Illinois Class AA State Champions)
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Re: Collaborative Middle School Tournament Available for Mirrors

Post by dtaylor4 »

Moving Day wrote:So, how is this set looking? I was told there was a chance it might have powers. True or false?
No powers.
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Re: Collaborative Middle School Tournament Available for Mirrors

Post by the return of AHAN »

Cool. And I hope to God this set is as good as I've been promising people it's going to be. Today, at halftime, just after a Normal Metcalf player got supremely hosed for knowing too much (trust me, it was bad), I made a point of telling him and his coach that this WON'T EVER happen at my tournament March 13th....
Jeff Price
Barrington High School Coach (2021 & 2023 HSNCT Champions, 2023 PACE Champions, 2023 Illinois Masonic Bowl Class 3A State Champions)
Barrington Station Middle School Coach (2013 MSNCT Champions, 2013 & 2017 Illinois Class AA State Champions)
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Re: Collaborative Middle School Tournament Available for Mirrors

Post by cvdwightw »

Hey, if you e-mail me about using the CMST questions (or did recently), I'm going to break my three-day response rule since I'm going to be spending most of my free time until Saturday finishing ACF Regionals. Please contact Andy or Donald if you have a question that can't wait until Sunday.
Dwight Wynne
socalquizbowl.org
UC Irvine 2008-2013; UCLA 2004-2007; Capistrano Valley High School 2000-2003

"It's a competition, but it's not a sport. On a scale, if football is a 10, then rowing would be a two. One would be Quiz Bowl." --Matt Birk on rowing, SI On Campus, 10/21/03

"If you were my teammate, I would have tossed your ass out the door so fast you'd be emitting Cerenkov radiation, but I'm not classy like Dwight." --Jerry
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Re: Collaborative Middle School Tournament Available for Mirrors

Post by cvdwightw »

All 10 packets have been written, edited, and proofread. We probably still have a few issues to iron out (no set is ever 100% perfect), but we think we have a really solid set that middle schoolers should like to play. We attempted to adapt what I see as the four core tenets of the ACF philosophy (95+% academic content, pyramidal tossups packed with knowledge-rewarding clues and not filler, bonuses with clearly defined easy/medium/hard parts, and answer choices that are accessible for the target audience) to the middle school level, and we think we succeeded in all four of those goals. We look forward to the inaugural use of this set at Barrington this weekend and will be receptive to their comments on how we can improve the set before its next use.

We are still accepting bids, from those of you who wanted to wait until the set was definitely finished as well as from those of you who haven't been able to organize a tournament until now. Bids can be for any tournament date between now and June 12.

With that said, I'd like to publicly acknowledge the following members of the Collaborative Middle School Tournament team: Nick Bergeon, Matt Bollinger, Matthew Dirks, Zach Foster, David Garb, Jeff Hoppes, Sandy Huang, Idris Kahloon, Tanay Kothari, Kay Li, Charles Martin, Trygve Meade, Aidan Mehigan, Charlie Rosenthal, Donald Taylor, and Dwight Wynne (I apologize if I've forgotten anyone or misspelled anyone's name) contributed questions to this tournament. Andy Watkins oversaw the whole project and was instrumental in making sure that this tournament never got too far behind schedule. Donald Taylor was the Chief Editor for this project; Jeff Hoppes and Dwight Wynne also did major editing work. Jeff Price did a lot of proofreading and made several helpful comments that gave the editing team a window into how questions would play among middle schoolers.

We will hold public discussion of the set until after June 12, at which time the questions will be sent to the archives for public consumption; however, you are welcome to email myself, Donald Taylor, or Andy Watkins privately with questions or comments about the set.
Dwight Wynne
socalquizbowl.org
UC Irvine 2008-2013; UCLA 2004-2007; Capistrano Valley High School 2000-2003

"It's a competition, but it's not a sport. On a scale, if football is a 10, then rowing would be a two. One would be Quiz Bowl." --Matt Birk on rowing, SI On Campus, 10/21/03

"If you were my teammate, I would have tossed your ass out the door so fast you'd be emitting Cerenkov radiation, but I'm not classy like Dwight." --Jerry
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Re: Collaborative Middle School Tournament Available for Mirrors

Post by the return of AHAN »

A moderator in my building, who has read a certain provider favored by the IESA for over 10 years, looked at the CMST questions and said, "These guys will put those guys out of business."
:grin:
Jeff Price
Barrington High School Coach (2021 & 2023 HSNCT Champions, 2023 PACE Champions, 2023 Illinois Masonic Bowl Class 3A State Champions)
Barrington Station Middle School Coach (2013 MSNCT Champions, 2013 & 2017 Illinois Class AA State Champions)
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Re: Collaborative Middle School Tournament Available for Mirrors

Post by the return of AHAN »

And here are the first SQBS statsfrom the first CMST played... thoughts anyone?

Note: cross-posted in the tournament announcement page.
Jeff Price
Barrington High School Coach (2021 & 2023 HSNCT Champions, 2023 PACE Champions, 2023 Illinois Masonic Bowl Class 3A State Champions)
Barrington Station Middle School Coach (2013 MSNCT Champions, 2013 & 2017 Illinois Class AA State Champions)
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Re: Collaborative Middle School Tournament Available for Mirrors

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

Wow, Longfellow converted every single bounceback? Crazy...
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Re: Collaborative Middle School Tournament Available for Mirrors

Post by the return of AHAN »

Carangoides ciliarius wrote:Wow, Longfellow converted every single bounceback? Crazy...
Ah, I think the point total you see is how many points per "other team's bonus" Longfellow converted. To whit, they scored 100 bonuceback points on the 5 bonuses Frankfort Summit Hill controlled. I think this may be one of the things people don't like about bonucebacks; the stats aren't necessarily useful. But in this case, there was clearly a huge disparity in what Longfellow could answer relative to their opponents in the preliminary rounds.
Jeff Price
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Barrington Station Middle School Coach (2013 MSNCT Champions, 2013 & 2017 Illinois Class AA State Champions)
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Re: Collaborative Middle School Tournament Available for Mirrors

Post by dtaylor4 »

Carangoides ciliarius wrote:Wow, Longfellow converted every single bounceback? Crazy...
Not exactly. That stat means they averaged ten points per OPPOSING bonus. When I do manual bouncebacks, the BB heard is equal to the number of tossups the other team got.
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Re: Collaborative Middle School Tournament Available for Mirrors

Post by Stephen Colbert »

From what I can tell, it looks like Longfellow had the opportunity to answer 33 bonus parts missed by their opponents. They converted on 25 of 33 parts or at a rate of 7.57 points (out of a possible 10) per bouncepark part. I don't know how that compares to the rest of the field or if it's at all useful.
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Re: Collaborative Middle School Tournament Available for Mirrors

Post by the return of AHAN »

Well, there are 3 tournaments completed. Does anyone know if Chatahoochee has any stats posted? It seems "King's Academy" was a solid addition to the field in Oglesby, IL. Looking at bonus conversion, it seems no team had > 20 PPB. I'm interested in hearing from the staff as to how the tournament was received and, especially from Nathan as to how the set played relative to how it played in Barrington...
Jeff Price
Barrington High School Coach (2021 & 2023 HSNCT Champions, 2023 PACE Champions, 2023 Illinois Masonic Bowl Class 3A State Champions)
Barrington Station Middle School Coach (2013 MSNCT Champions, 2013 & 2017 Illinois Class AA State Champions)
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Re: Collaborative Middle School Tournament Available for Mirrors

Post by Eric Huff »

Results from the Dorman mirror:

http://results.scobo.net/SQBS.aspx?org= ... =standings

Most of the tossups seemed to get answered by the end, but a few of the bonus parts seemed a bit too hard. Still, I thought that it was by far the best middle school set I've seen. I would definitely mirror as many of these sets as are produced. Kudos to all involved. Well done!
Eric Huff

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Re: Collaborative Middle School Tournament Available for Mirrors

Post by the return of AHAN »

OK. I'd like to reserve a spot in this thread to compile the results of each CMST tournament....

Barrington Invitational Tournament [Barrington, IL] (3/13/10)

Preliminary Rounds Stats
Playoff stats ?

Chattahoochee Middle School CATT [Chattahoochee, GA] (3/20/10)

No stats posted

Albus Dumbledore Memorial Tournament [Oglesby, IL] (4/17/10)
Stats:
Prelims, without crossover matches
Prelims, including crossover matches
Playoffs only
Overall, except crossover matches
Overall, including crossover matches

Dorman Middle School Challenge [Spartaburg, SC] (4/17/10)
Stats

Texas Middle School Championships [Katy, TX] (5/1/10)
Complete tournament stats
Last edited by the return of AHAN on Sun May 02, 2010 9:59 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Jeff Price
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Barrington Station Middle School Coach (2013 MSNCT Champions, 2013 & 2017 Illinois Class AA State Champions)
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Re: Collaborative Middle School Tournament Available for Mirrors

Post by Coach K »

The Danville Middle School Invitational finished up a few hours ago using these questions. Everyone loved the set and kept asking me where we got them. Campbell County Middle School finished in 1st place and Holy Name Middle School finished 2nd. I'll get stats posted within the next day or two and link them in this thread.
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Danville High School
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Re: Collaborative Middle School Tournament Available for Mirrors

Post by Cassian »

LASA had to forego its planned mirror of this since we didn't get enough middle school teams to register for our April 10 tournament. TQBA took the set and used it for the inaugural Texas Middle School championship yesterday. Stats can be found here -

http://www.texasquizbowl.org/d/10msstate/

Most of the teams (with the exception of Kealing, which is LASA's main feeder middle school) were competing in their first tournament. I wasn't there, but according to what I've heard everything went well. I guess Thomas or someone can post their impressions of how it actually played.

I would also say that Kealing A and B played their first tournament on IS94 in March and had a bonus conversion of around 13, as compared to 20+ on this set. It also looks to me from the stats that there weren't many dead tossups in the Kealing games. Anyway, thanks to everyone who worked to put this set together. I hope we see something comparable for next season.
Jason Flowers
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The Liberal Arts and Science Academy
Austin, TX
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Re: Collaborative Middle School Tournament Available for Mirrors

Post by cvdwightw »

At this point we are no longer accepting additional bids to host the Collaborative Middle School Tournament. We will release the set for public consumption on Monday; at that time we will also start a feedback thread in this forum allowing for question-specific discussion.
Dwight Wynne
socalquizbowl.org
UC Irvine 2008-2013; UCLA 2004-2007; Capistrano Valley High School 2000-2003

"It's a competition, but it's not a sport. On a scale, if football is a 10, then rowing would be a two. One would be Quiz Bowl." --Matt Birk on rowing, SI On Campus, 10/21/03

"If you were my teammate, I would have tossed your ass out the door so fast you'd be emitting Cerenkov radiation, but I'm not classy like Dwight." --Jerry
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