SATURNALIA (Hard HS, 2020-2021)

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Carlos Be
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SATURNALIA (Hard HS, 2020-2021)

Post by Carlos Be »

I am pleased to announce SATURNALIA, a hard ("regs+" difficulty) high school set that will be available for mirrors beginning September 12, 2020.

Writers/Editors

I, Justine French, will be head editor. The set will be produced by a diverse group of high school and college writers who were selected through an open application process as described in this thread. The subject editors are as follows:

Literature: Robert Condron and Connor Mayers
History: Avinash Iyer and Laurence Li
Science: Eric Yin, Justine French, and Karan Gurazada
Fine Arts: Dylan Bowman and Jeffrey Ma
Religion: Nick Dai
Mythology: Justine French
Philosophy and non-Econ Social Science: Ethan Ashbrook
Economics: Justin French
Geography: Daniel Ma
Current Events: Benjamin McAvoy-Bickford
Popular Culture: Lalit Maharjan
Other: Benjamin McAvoy-Bickford

Set Details

Tossups will be hard-capped at 6 lines of 10 point Times New Roman. Bonuses will be kept concise. We will use the following 20/20 (20 tossups, 20 bonuses) distribution:

4/4 Literature
1.25/1.25 Long Fiction (i.e. novels, novellas, epics), .75/.75 Drama, 1/1 Poetry, .5/.5 Short Fiction (i.e. short stories), .5/.5 Other

4/4 History
1/1 US History, 1.5/1.5 European History (including ancient), 1.5/1.5 World History (including ancient)

4.5/4.5 Science
1/1 Biology, 1/1 Chemistry, 1/1 Physics, .5/.5 Math, .33/.33 Astronomy, .33/.33 Computer Science, .33/.33 Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Science

3/3 Fine Arts
1/1 Painting and Sculpture, 1/1 Classical Music, 1/1 Other

2.5/2.5 "RMPSS"
.75/.75 Religion, .75/.75 Mythology, .33/.33 Philosophy, .66/.66 Social Science (split evenly between Econ, Psych, and Other)

2/2 Other
.75/.75 Geography, .42/.42 Popular Culture, .42/.42 Current Events, .42/.42 Other

Mirrors

The mirror fee will be $20 per team, except for house teams, which will be free. We're looking for mirrors in all circuits— please email me at [email protected] if you would like to request a mirror, or if you have any questions about the set. Thank you!

We will be offering a $5 per team discount (so that the mirror fee is $15 per team) for hosts which record individual question stats. For tossups, this means counting the number of powers, negs, 10s, and times the tossup was read. For bonuses, this means counting the number of teams that convert each part as well as the number of times the bonus was read. If you plan on using online scoresheets, Shawrisheets has added the ability to record the individual question stats that we are looking for.

It is looking less and less likely that it will be possible to host in-person mirrors of Saturnalia, particularly in the fall. If in-person mirrors are unsafe, we will aim to have regional online mirrors instead. If a host would like to hold a mirror targeting multiple regions, we will allow this, provided enough teams in the targeted regions agree that this is a good idea. Similarly, if a team cannot attend its region's mirror, then we will allow them to attend another mirror if there is space.

Note: the college set IO SATURNALIA will be converted from SATURNALIA. If your circuit uses undergraduate staffers and those staffers wish to play IO SATURNALIA, then we will request that SATURNALIA be mirrored after IO SATURNALIA so that the set is not spoiled for the staffers.
Last edited by Carlos Be on Thu Jul 02, 2020 2:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Justine French
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Carlos Be
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Re: SATURNALIA (Hard HS, 2020-2021)

Post by Carlos Be »

Mirrors:

1/16: California Cup 3
1/17: Ridgewood, New Jersey (online) (PA, NY, ME, NH, MA, RI, CT, NJ, DE, and VT)
2/6: Illinois mirror hosted by UIUC (online)
2/27: Virginia Spring Tournament at UVA (online)
4/3: LIST IX hosted by Ladue (online)
4/24: Ohio mirror hosted by Copley HS (in-person if possible, otherwise online)
Last edited by Carlos Be on Mon Mar 15, 2021 1:20 pm, edited 9 times in total.
Justine French
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Carlos Be
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Re: SATURNALIA (Hard HS, 2020-2021)

Post by Carlos Be »

Saturnalia is now 90% written and 55% edited. The original post has been updated to reflect the following announcements:
Carlos Be wrote: Thu Mar 05, 2020 6:04 am We will be offering a $5 per team discount (so that the mirror fee is $15 per team) for hosts which record individual question stats. For tossups, this means counting the number of powers, negs, 10s, and times the tossup was read. For bonuses, this means counting the number of teams that convert each part as well as the number of times the bonus was read. If you plan on using online scoresheets, Shawrisheets has added the ability to record the individual question stats that we are looking for.

It is looking less and less likely that it will be possible to host in-person mirrors of Saturnalia, particularly in the fall. If in-person mirrors are unsafe, we will aim to have regional online mirrors instead. If a host would like to hold a mirror targeting multiple regions, we will allow this, provided enough teams in the targeted regions agree that this is a good idea. Similarly, if a team cannot attend its region's mirror, then we will allow them to attend another mirror if there is space.
Justine French
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Carlos Be
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Re: SATURNALIA (Hard HS, 2020-2021)

Post by Carlos Be »

Saturnalia is now almost completely edited. The next week and a half will be spent making final revisions and proofreading.

We have prepared a half-packet sample for prospective hosts. The questions in this sample will be used in the set, so do not share it with anyone who should not see unclear set content. To minimize question security risk, please send us both an email AND a forums DM if you would like to request a sample.
Justine French
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Carlos Be
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Re: SATURNALIA (Hard HS, 2020-2021)

Post by Carlos Be »

Based on some of the arguments in this thread, we have decided to format our packets by placing tossups between bonuses, rather than at the end. Moderators are expected to skip the paired bonus if a tossup goes dead; there is a note clearly stating this at the beginning of each packet. The questions are NOT paired thematically, and tossups may still lead to bonuses of the same or similar category. If any host decides that this change is inconvenient, then they may request a version of the set with the traditional formatting.
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Carlos Be
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Re: SATURNALIA (Hard HS, 2020-2021)

Post by Carlos Be »

We're still looking for mirrors in a number of circuits, including New England and the DC metro area. Please reach out to us if you would like to host Saturnalia in a circuit that does not already have a mirror. For circuits where we cannot find a host, we will either host the mirror ourselves or we will host a national online mirror towards the end of the year, so that the teams will still have a chance to play.
Justine French
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Carlos Be
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Re: SATURNALIA (Hard HS, 2020-2021)

Post by Carlos Be »

Apparently there have been rumors spreading around that Saturnalia as difficult as 2019 NSC or close to it. Although there are a few outlier answerlines that would not be out of place in 2019 NSC, it is clear from the stats that Saturnalia as a whole is significantly easier. For instance, the UIUC mirror alone has almost as many teams over 20 PPB as the entire NSC. The stats at Cal Cup 3 and the competitive division of Maroon Bowl tell a similar story. The set is still hard, of course, but it is well within the range of "regs+" or "hard hs" difficulty, as we targeted.
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