Set details
The set will be written and edited by the Hunter team in collaboration with Zach Pace and Matt Hill at the University at Buffalo. The set consists of 14 packets for gameplay plus an emergency packet. All packets will be written at the same difficulty. Each packet contains 20 pyramidal tossups and 20 three-part bonuses, while the packets for gameplay contain an extra tossup and bonus for tiebreakers. Tossups are not power-marked and are worth 10 points from top to bottom. Each tossup will be 5-6 lines long and each bonus part no more than 2 lines long in 10 point Times New Roman font.
Prison Bowl is a regular high school difficulty set. This year’s set will feature more common-links, descriptive answer-lines, and cross-categorical/interdisciplinary questions than previous Prison Bowls. The latter will not exceed 0.5/0.5 a round, and are included in whatever category the majority of the question falls into for distribution purposes below. We also aim to write original questions on regular difficulty topics, so the set should be enjoyable to play by top-tier teams, while remaining suitable and engaging for lower-tier teams. We're also keeping aware of some uneven bonus difficulty in the last iteration, so we are taking steps to make sure this year’s difficulty is appropriate for the regular high school field.
For a sense of the difficulty and style, see previous Prison Bowls here, and previous set announcements.
Distribution
Packet distribution is as follows. Hosts should note that since last year’s Prison Bowl, Arts has increased to 3.0/3.0 from 2.5/2.5 at the expense of Geography, now reduced to 0.5/0.5 from 1/1.
4/4 Literature
> 1/1 American
> 1/1 British
> 1/1 European and Russian
> 1/1 World and Ancient/Classical
4/4 History
> 1.3/1.3 American
> 1.3/1.3 European
> 1.3/1.3 World
4/4 Science
> 1/1 Biology
> 1/1 Chemistry
> 1/1 Physics
> 0.5/0.5 Mathematics (entirely non-computational)
> 0.5/0.5 Astronomy/Cosmology and Earth Sciences
3/3 Fine Arts
> 1/1 Painting and Sculpture
> 0.5/0.5 Other Visual (including Architecture, Photography, Film, Dance, Performance, Decorative, Design)
> 1/1 Classical Music
> 0.5/0.5 Other Auditory (including Opera, Jazz, Musicals, World Music)
2.5/2.5 RMP
> 0.75/0.75 Religion
> 1/1 Mythology
> 0.75/0.75 Philosophy
1/1 Social Science
0.5/0.5 Geography
0.2/0.2 Current Events
0.8/0.8 Trash and Pop Culture
1/1 Tiebreaker (Literature, History, Science, or Fine Arts)
EDIT (4/6): I'm pleased to report that conversion stats from our main NY site show that our 0.75/0.75 Philosophy and 1/1 Social Science are pretty convertible (0.88 and 0.94 tossup conversion rate, 18.04 and 17.45 average ppb, respectively). Since tournaments of comparable difficulty have moved away from philosophy and social science, I hope these statistics alleviate any worries about our distribution.
Prospective Mirrors
The mirror fee is $10 per attending team, a whole $4 cheaper than last year's! All we ask is that hosts not alter question content in any way. We’re interested in establishing mirrors all over the place (your place too!), so contact us with hosting offers and questions at [email protected]!
Scheduled Sites
Northeast: Prison Bowl VII @ Hunter College High School (NY) on 3/22. Stats. Contact Marianna Zhang at [email protected]
Mid-Atlantic: Virginia Tech Spring Invitational @ Virginia Tech (VA) on 4/12. Stats. Contact Hank Alexander at [email protected]
Tennessee: Vanderbilt Pre-Nationals @ Vanderbilt University (TN) on 4/19. Stats. Contact Rohan Nag at [email protected]
South: canceled:
Midwest: canceled: