Difference between revisions of "Ohio Academic Competition"
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Revision as of 20:15, 5 June 2024
The Ohio Academic Competition (OAC) is the format that is used in most Ohio High School quizbowl tournaments. It is the most common format in the state, second to NAQT and television-show formats. Every year, the OAC Committee hosts two tournaments at the end of the season, the Regional Tournaments that are hosted at 6 sites across the state and the State Championship Tournament. The format is most beloved for its allowing of conferral that is teams are able to talk to each other at any time.
Format
Like most formats, two teams compete in a match. The rules state that the sides are chosen by a coin flip, although more recently moderators simply used the side the team picks to be "Team A" and "Team B". Therefore, the team that sits to the moderator's left will generally be "Team A" and the team on the moderator's right will be "Team B".
While some tournaments may slightly deviate from the official rules, there are generally three parts to an OAC match. They are the category round, the alphabet round, and the lightning round. Teams are permitted to substitute between rounds.
Category Round
In this round, teams are asked questions in ten categories. They are (in order) American Literature, Mathematics, World History, Fine Arts, Life Science, English/World Literature, U.S. Government/Economics, Physical Science, World Geography, and U.S. History.
In each category, the two teams will each receive their own team question. In American Literature, Team A is the first team to receive their question. They will have two opportunities to answer their question within ten seconds. Teams do not need to buzz for this part. If their first response is correct, the team will earn two (2) points. If their second response is correct, they will earn one (1) points If, however, neither of their responses is correct or their ten seconds run out, the opposing team will get an opportunity to "steal" the question for one (1) point. The same process is then reversed, with Team B receiving the first two opportunities to answer the question. After both sides are complete, a pyramidal toss-up question is read to both teams, and teams only get one opportunity each to answer. A correct answer is worth two (2) points.
In the next category (Mathematics), the order the teams hear the questions are reversed. Team B will get the first math question, and then Team A will get the second question. The third is still a tossup for both teams. This process is repeated throughout all ten categories.
Alphabet Round
After the category round is complete, teams (after substitution) will receive two sheets of questions, and one "official" answer sheet (aka a blank sheet of paper) to write down their answers to the questions. Both teams receive the exact same set of questions, and all of the answers will begin with the same letter. Usually the letter will either be announced or printed at the top of the question sheet. Teams will have four minutes to answer all questions, with each answer being worth two (2) points.
Final Round
The third and final part of the match is called the Final Round. In the final round, twenty questions are read to both teams and each correct answer is worth two points each. The questions in the final round are pyramidal and resemble a house-written tossup/bonus set in quality and length. The questions come from the categories listed above, as well as Mythology, Religion, Philosophy, and Social Science. Some forms also include an additional 10 tossup theme round at the end of these 20. These are generally non-pyramidal and do not follow a distribution. They were mostly been left behind when OAC began pursuing becoming "good quizbowl."
OAC Committee
Currently, the OAC Committee has nineteen members, with representation from each region of the state. The Committee has the power to change any of the rules to the OAC format and also approves and places each school into sites for the Regional Tournaments. The members are:
| Member Name | Affiliation | Region |
| Bing Bingham | None | Executive Director |
| Bob Kilner | Eastlake North High School | North Coast |
| Peter Bergman | Solon High School | North Coast |
| Joshua Eck | Copley High School | Northeast |
| Vacant | Vacant | Northeast |
| Vacant | Vacant | Northwest |
| Vacant | Vacant | Northwest |
| Lynn Stevenson | Fisher Catholic High School | Southeast |
| Mike Sedlack | Fisher Catholic High School | Southeast |
| Brian Meeron | Walnut Hills High School | Southwest |
| Ron Maupin | Little Miami High School | Southwest |
| Tommy Segi | Springboro High School | West Central |
| Vacant | Vacant | West Central |
| Simon Zimmerman | The Ohio State University | College Representative |
| Sue Korosa | Copley High School | At-Large |
| Joshua Queen | Chillicothe High School | At-Large |
| Thomas Moore | unaffiliated | At-Large |
| David Jones | Northmont High School | At-Large |
| Vacant | Vacant | At-Large |
Regional Tournaments
Currently, tournaments are held at six different regions throughout the state. This was an expansion from the early 2000s when there were only four regions. There has been dialogue, arising as recently as May 2015, that the regional tournament could see another expansion to the size of eight regional tournaments, however this will likely not come to fruition until there is a guarantee it can be feasibly done and ran effectively.
When teams arrive they will take a Seeding Quiz that consists of 50 questions on paper. The questions get harder as the numbers increase, and The teams will be seeded based on the highest number of correct answers. The tiebreaker is the highest number question that is correctly answered.
Each regional tournament holds a maximum of 16 teams. These teams will all face-off in a double-elimination tournament, where the first and second place teams will be sent to the State Tournament in Columbus. To qualify for a regional tournament, a team must win a tournament (or a division of one) with at minimum six schools competing. The winner must be specifically identified. If there is a tie for first, somehow only one winner must be determined. Note that Ohio teams that win tournaments in other states can now automatically qualify for the OAC Regional tournament given that they meet the qualification requirements, such as winning a bracket comprising of six different schools.
State Tournament
The State Championship Tournament is generally held in Columbus, Ohio. A team is eligible for the State Tournament if the finish in the first or second place at their respective regional site, or if they earn one of the at large bids. Starting in 2018, teams are seeded based on their statistics from regionals. Each team is ranked based on are their alphabet round average plus their average team category points multiplied by two. Those stats are also what is used to determine who gets the 4 wild card bids. Sixteen teams compete in each years state championship tournament.
The format of the tournament itself is a double elimination bracket. For teams that lose their second game in the same round, there is pool play to determine precise placement.
Past Champions
Criticisms
- In the 2008 Regional Tournaments, many sites had different drawings of what the Double-Elimination brackets could look like, causing some teams to play different schedules than if they had been assigned to another region. One region in particular (EC) had confusing brackets that some teams had troubles understanding.
- The random-draw method previously used to assign teams at the regional and state tournaments was considered controversial. Prior to it's removal, at states the six regional champions draw red 1,2 or 3 or blue 1,2 or 3. The regional runners-up from the same region are then place in the opposite brackets. While this may seem fair, the fact that OAC format does not usually single out the best teams causes a draw as in 2007, where Fisher Catholic (NAQT-2nd), Tippecanoe (NAQT-1st), Copley (NAQT-3rd) and North Canton Hoover were all placed in the same half of the bracket, while Walnut Hills (generally considered the strongest NAQT team in Ohio) and Garfield Heights were in the other bracket.
- The distribution is affected by the format itself. The final round distribution is in live with modern standards, but as a whole the category and alphabet rounds change it. For example, RMPSS is only included in the final round, and in the category round half of the literature is American, while commonwealth, European and world only combines to half of the literature.