The Quizbowl Resource Center

March 7th, 2009:

Housewritten, mACF style questions, tailored to a High School difficulty.

Editor's: Nick Petrilli, Aaron Cohen
Writers: Nick Petrilli, Aaron Cohen, Ian Drayer

Dist:
4/4 literature (1/1 American, 2/2 British, 1/1 Other)
4/4 history (2/2 United States, 2/2 World)
4/4 science (1/1 Biology, 1/1 Chemistry, 1/1 Physics, 1/1 Other)
3/3 arts (1/1 Music, 1/1 Fine Art, 1/1 Other)
2/2 religion, mythology, and philosophy
1/1 social science
1/1 geography
1/1 trash, current events, or miscellaneous

As of now, I am looking for an experienced editor (I.E. someone in the college circuit familiar with question writing) as I am a novice and so are the people helping me write.

More Information:
Base Cost: $80
Additional Teams: $75
Experienced Moderator/Scorekeeper Discount: -$5
Buzzer System Discount: -$5
Travel Discount: +300 Miles, -$10, more discounts to be determined.
Minimum Registration: $50

The field cap will be 24. I will cap the number of teams each school can bring to two if there is a high demand. There will be 4 brackets of 6 teams each.

Features of the Tournament:
- Individual and Team Stats (If anyone can donate a spreadsheet format that could be used for this tournament, lovely)
- I will attempt to provide real time stats if I can learn Avram's system.

Timetable:
8:00-9:00AM: Check in, moderator instructions, and buzzer set up
9:00-9:15AM: Welcome, Instructions, Schedules, Room Assignments
9:30-1:30PM: Rounds 1-5
1:30PM: Playoff Announcements
1:30-2:30PM: Lunch
2:30-5:00PM: Playoffs 1-5
5:00-6:00PM: Finals, Winners Trophy Given.

Registration Information:
School Name: __________________________________
Coach Name: __________________________________
Coach's Cell #: ( ) _________-________________
Coach Email: ___________________________________
# of Teams: ___________
# of Moderators/Scorekeepers: ___________________
# of Buzzers: _____________
Travel Discounts: _____________ (Miles Traveled)
Total Cost: $______________

If anyone from the community would like to volunteer, fantastic. All registrations and volunteer requests can be sent to [email protected]

Preliminaries will be 5 matches. Playoffs will be one championship bracket of six teams, and one consolation bracket of six teams. The brackets will play another round robin, and the top two teams in the championship bracket will play an advantaged final. If there is a tie for the finals, the tiebreaker will be head to head to determine the two teams.

Hey Nick,

I can help write some questions if that's necessary. I could also do some editing. Although I have no editing experience I do know a thing or two about good quiz bowl and what kind of questions would be appropriate for a tournament of this level.

p.s. Good luck with this tournament. I really hope it works out in the end because this is the first tournament of it's kind ever held in new jersey (at least that I can think of) and hopefully will start a trend in the state.

aarcoh wrote:Hey Nick,

I can help write some questions if that's necessary. I could also do some editing. Although I have no editing experience I do know a thing or two about good quiz bowl and what kind of questions would be appropriate for a tournament of this level.

p.s. Good luck with this tournament. I really hope it works out in the end because this is the first tournament of it's kind ever held in new jersey (at least that I can think of) and hopefully will start a trend in the state.

Contact me by Email and we can either discuss question writing through there or you can give me an AIM address and we can talk there.

Initial Post updated with final details. If anyone has an Email list for schools in the Mid-Atlantic and New England, could you please email it to me at [email protected] Thank you.

I think Brother Nigel of Kellenberg has such a list

Bergen is sooooooo interested...

"Bergen" in this case referring to me personally.

JFK - Iselin is also interested!

Caesar Rodney expressing mild interest in this tournament, as well.

I'm curious, is this Bloomfield's first Tournament? And CR is, as previously stated, interested in coming to the tournament, though nothing is certain yet of course. Good luck with organizing things and writing the packets, I am positive the questions will be good regardless of any lacking of experience, and by the way, I like the distribution.

Given my schedule and progress on the questions, I'm looking for another volunteer to help me and Aaron write questions. Preferably someone strong in Literature or Science.

This post will be used for field updates:

Tentative:
Seton Hall Prep (?)
North Myrtle Beach (SOLO?) (1)
St. Peter's (2)

Confirmed: (18/24)
JFK-Iselin (1)
Colonia (1)
Verona (2)
Woodbridge (1)
High Point (2)
Westfield (2)
Bergen (1-2)
Chatham (1-2)
Passaic Valley Regional High School (1)
Hunter (2)
Charter (2)

I'll try writing some lit and science, but I'm not really fully experienced as far as writing. My experience is pretty much ACF Fall and ACF Winter packet parts, and an American short stories tossups packet. I can probably get you about 20/20 of science and lit by January. I need something to do when recovering from my wisdom teeth being pulled. Any shot my old high school can get a small discount from this if they decide to come?

dinoian wrote:I'll try writing some lit and science, but I'm not really fully experienced as far as writing. My experience is pretty much ACF Fall and ACF Winter packet parts, and an American short stories tossups packet. I can probably get you about 20/20 of science and lit by January. I need something to do when recovering from my wisdom teeth being pulled. Any shot my old high school can get a small discount from this if they decide to come?

Just give me your email and we'll get into contact. I can provide a 10 dollar discount for 20/20 on Lit and 20/20 Science.

There is now a tentative plan to have UCLA host a west coast mirror of this event. If anyone in the Midwest/South wants to pick this up as well be my guest.

Put Byram down tentatively for 2 teams- I'll fill out the official registration after running it by the coach. I may be mistaken, but NAQT States for NY is currently between this weekend and the weekend after. You might want to check that, as it would probably impact attendance.

I do not think that NY State Championship has been set yet. White Plains and SHP (NJ) are looking to co-host again and, as of yet, a date has not been set.

Nick, please contact me off the board to talk about BATE.

Pax,

MTZ

On some Westchester schedule (mainly of the local tournaments) it was listed as either the 7th or the 14th but that could have just been speculation on the part of whoever typed up the schedule.

I could probably chip in a few lit/art tossups and bonuses.

As long as UD's Blue Hen Invitational is still held the 21st of March (and not earlier in March as it has been before), we'd love to come for this. So once again, we'll tentatively be bringing probably one team, maybe two. We'll see.

EDIT: Post 500.

Anti-Climacus wrote:I could probably chip in a few lit/art tossups and bonuses.

Sure, although I was hoping that WW might want to attend. If you're definitely not coming and won't be going to a mirror, then yeah I'll definitely accept your help. Just email at theczar1724 AT gmail.com

Hey Nick put me down as tentative, but only solo because I doubt my team will want to go to Jersey for this tournament.

Hey, I'd be happy to look over the questions and give you feedback on them before the tournament. My email is jsmagin at yahoo dot com.

Yeah same here if you want someone to look over science mrazvi-at-sas-dot-upenn-dot-edu.

Confirmed teams updated, and I'll talk to Aaron about that Mehdi and Jonathan.

Go ahead and add Chatham to the tentative list with two teams.

16 spots left now with about a month and a half to go. This tournament will also be a PACE qualifier more than likely as well now.

TheCzarMan wrote:Features of the Tournament:
- Individual and Team Stats (If anyone can donate a spreadsheet format that could be used for this tournament, lovely)
- I will attempt to provide real time stats if I can learn Avram's system.

I don't know if anyone's brought it up, but are you familiar with SQBS? It's a fairly intuitive stats program that can automatically post a results webpage that looks like this. Depending on the size of the tournament, you could probably provide almost-live results (i.e. results through 3 rounds posted in the hallway before Round 4 ends).

Field Updated

St. Joseph High School in Metuchen would be interested in attending.

Please add "Charter C" and "Charter D" to the list, with 2 buzzers and a reader.

Thanks

It's very unlikely that we'll be able to come to this tournament, as there are a large number of conflicts on this day including Science Olympiad, which a large percentage of the team is involved in. Don't quite take this as official word, but there sure isn't a lot of hope for it.

Here is the final field update.

JFK-Iselin (1)
Colonia (1)
Verona (2)
Woodbridge (1)
High Point (2)
Westfield (2)
Bergen (2)
Chatham (2)
Hunter (2)
Charter (2, B and C? or D?)
Secaucus (2)
Pingry (2)
Newark Academy (2)
Jonathan Dayton (1)

Wait List:
Kellenberg (2-3)

Based on my current understanding of who's going, calling the teams "Charter B" and "Charter C" would be somewhat close to the truth.

Updated Final Field Update

JFK-Iselin (1)
Colonia (1)
Kellenberg (2)
Woodbridge (1)
High Point (2)
Westfield (2)
Bergen (2)
Chatham (2)
Hunter (2)
Charter (2, B and C)
Secaucus (2)
Pingry (2)
Half Hollow Hills West (2)
Jonathan Dayton (1)

Results can be found and will be updated here:

http://results.scobo.net/MontclairState

Good luck to all teams attending tomorrow.

some quick stuff
Hunter A cleared the playoffs at 5-0. Hunter B was second at 3-2. Because of the two game difference, no finals were needed. High scorers in the prelims were Watson of BCA with arouns 106 ppg, Guy of Hunter A with around 90 ppg and Lily of Hunter B with about 71 ppg. Watson and Anton of Chatham both won the neg "prizes"

A quick comment, do not make any posts about the questions except for really generic posts (I liked the set, I didn't like the set). Basically, don't make any posts about questions in general. If you have a specific comment/issue/concern feel free to email me at [email protected].

A discussion thread will be made the 21st after Cameron Orth's Mirror.

Stats are finished, here is the link to Prelims and Playoffs.

http://results.scobo.net/MontclairState

A couple of quick things
-I think this packet hit the intended fairly well. Hunter A, the winning team, was at a little under 24 ppb in the prelims which to me seems about right, although I don't know what the rest of the board thinks

The one big thing I noticed was a bonus was repeated between two rounds. This was a clear oversight on my part and I take full responsibility. Hopefully, I imagine readers realized this and just skipped the bonus. THere were some grammar mistakes in the set, which I know isn't the biggest deal in the world, but I know is a pain for readers and in general good to root out.

In terms of pyramadility and stuff like that, I'd like the tossups by and large were quite good. It seems like most teams were able to get tossups by the end. One slight thing I noticed was a couple of tossups perhaps should have prompted on a more general term. Again, any issues/comments/criticisms of any sort should be sent to [email protected]. I will be spending the week fixing up sort of grammar issues/other issues I noticed and any sort of email is appreciated.

Corrections for prelim stats for Hunter A:
Paul: 11/0
Maggie: 15/4
David: 6/0

LargemouthLass wrote:Corrections for prelim stats for Hunter A:
Paul: 11/0
Maggie: 15/4
David: 6/0

I can't exactly fix it all that well unless you tell me which specific rounds are wrong.

Oh, that makes a lot of sense. Sorry about that.

Round 2:
Paul 2/0
Maggie 6/0

Round 4:
Maggie 3/2
David 1/0

Round 5:
Paul 2/0
David 2/0

Fixed