Packet

A packet is the set of questions used in a particular round at a given tournament. In most mACF tournaments, an edited packet consists of 20 tossups and 20 bonuses, as well as one or more tiebreaker tossups and one or more extra bonuses.

At packet-submission tournaments, teams are asked to write a packet of questions and send them to the editors, who convert them to their final forms. Due to things like the very real possibility for repeats, submitted packets usually contain between 22 and 26 tossups and an equivalent number of bonuses. ACF Fall 2004 asked for packets of 30 tossups and 30 bonuses, believed to be the modern record. Each packet is to be further subdivided by category and subcategory; for the modern ACF distribution see Comparison of distributions in collegiate formats.

For some reason, quizbowl players in Canada usually say "packs" rather than "packets;" some Canadians make matters even more confusing for American listeners by using the word "packet" to refer to an entire question set.