Olympia Academic Competition Questions
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| President or CEO | Charles Hang | |||
| Location: | Saint Charles, MO | |||
| Status | {{{status}}} | |||
Olympia Academic Competition Questions, LLC is a company which provides high quality Quiz Bowl questions, particularly at the middle school level. It is currently led by Charles Hang, who founded the company in Fall 2010.
History
The idea of Olympia was first conceived in late 2009 in response to a perceived lack of providers of good questions serving the middle school level. The success of founder Charles Hang's early forays into question writing, including the writing of the 2009 Varsity tournament at Richland and a Quadrangular set for Coach Jeffrey Price at Barrington Station convinced him that a question writing company could be a viable business. Furthermore, the success of the Collaborative Middle School Tournament indicated that an ACF format set could be successfully mirrored all around the country. Thus, Olympia was officially incorporated in October of 2010 in order to provide high quality questions at the middle school level. [1]
Products
ACF Format Sets
Olympia's flagship product is the ACF format set, which follows a format similar to that pioneered by the Academic Competition Federation. For the 2010-2011 season, Olympia plans on producing two ACF format sets. [2]
Other Middle School Sets
Olympia also offers question sets in various formats (such as those of GATA and IESA) which share questions with its ACF format sets. [3]
Additional Sets
Olympia also offers a number of additional sets for sale from its operations in 2009-2010, including its sets from the Barrington Quads and Richland Varsity tournaments. [4]
Missouri Scholars Academic Scholar Bowl
Since 2009, Charles Hang has helped provide questions for the Missouri Scholars Academy Scholar Bowl tournament held at the University of Missouri-Columbia. In 2010, Olympia wrote the entire tournament, a total of seven rounds of forty tossups each. The set was also mirrored at the Arkansas Governor's School Quiz Bowl tournament held at Harding University. [5]
The 2010 Scholar Bowl set is available for sale on Olympia's website, and Olympia intends to continue offering free questions to both summer gifted programs, as well as any other programs seeking to host free summer Quiz Bowl tournaments, in upcoming years. [6]
Writer Structure
Olympia's writer structure is unique in that all writers must complete a monthly assignment of a predetermined number of questions. In turn, writers are paid standard amounts per tossup and per bonus written which vary depending on the position a writer holds in Olympia's two tiered writer structure. Though this system is derived from the compensation structures of both HSAPQ and NAQT, it differs from both. Unlike with HSAPQ, which does supply writers with assignments, writer assignments do not vary with requirements and pay is constant rather than varying with the number of times that set is mirrored. Unlike with NAQT, which does offer standardized compensation for tossups and bonuses, writers have regular obligations to write a fixed number of questions rather than writing as many as they choose. [7][8]
Olympia is also unique in that it offers bonuses for early completion of assignments as well as for questions written in addition to one's assignment. [9]
Full Writers
Olympia's full writers receive $2.00 per tossup and $0.50 per bonus part (or $1.50 per three part ACF bonus). They are obligated to write twenty tossups and twenty bonuses per month. [10]
Full Writers
Associate Writers
Olympia's associate writers receive $1.00 per tossup and $0.25 per bonus part (or $0.75 per three part ACF bonus). They are obligated to write ten tossups and ten bonuses per month. [13]
Associate Writers
Additional Personnel
Olympia also has a dedicated copy editor to proofread all questions before they are distributed. The copy editor is compensated based on the number of tournament sets which he proofreads at a rate of $40.00 per ACF format set and $15.00 per set derived from one of Olympia's ACF sets. [16]
Copy Editor