(Apologies for the inevitable cross-posting.) The UTC Academic Trivia Association will host its 7th annual Sword Bowl in scenic Chattanooga, TN. This academic quizbowl tournament will be a one-day event Sat., Jan. 22, 2005. Sword Bowl is a "junior bird" tournament. Because it's the same weekend as Penn Bowl, Sword Bowl is designed as an alternative for less experienced quizbowl teams. It's also a good warmup for all those February regionals. Packet submission is not mandatory, but is strongly encouraged, including a partial packet option for the least experienced teams (see below.) ELIGIBILITY: The tournament is open to the following: * Teams from 2-year or 4-year colleges/universities composed entirely of freshmen and/or sophomores and/or upperclassmen in their first or second year [academic calendar] of intercollegiate quizbowl competition. (Important note: since the untimed game and ACF-style format differs so greatly from the CBI style, participation in CBI and HCASC tournaments will *not* be counted as previous intercollegiate experience.) Note: Teams which have players with limited experience that technically stretches out across more than two years may still be ruled eligible. If your team is in such a situation, contact me with the details (how many players, how much experience, etc.) Eligibility for such schools will be considered on a case-by-case basis. * High school teams willing to take their chances with the above. Multiple teams may participate from the same school. However, players on any given team must be enrolled in the same school; open or mixed-affiliation schools are not accepted. FORMAT: This will be modified or "softcore" ACF style, meaning untimed rounds of 20 tossups (worth 10 pts. each) and up to 20 bonuses (worth a possible 30 pts. each.) Questions will be distributed across various academic categories, with a smattering of pop culture thrown in. FIELD SIZE: Owing to the number of readers expected, we have tentatively capped the field at 36 teams. If we get more readers we may be able to expand this, but I think it's unlikely we'll need to. SCHEDULE & LOCATION: We'll be in Grote and Holt Halls on the UT- Chattanooga campus, with tournament headquarters in 129 Grote Hall.Registration will begin at 9:00 EST Saturday 1/22/05, with announcements at 9:45 and the tournament beginning at 10. I'll have a better idea of when it will end when I have a better idea of the size of the field, but typically we'll be finished or at least in the finals by 8 PM. FEES: Base fee per team: $95 Minimum fee after discounts: $60 (with one exception noted below.) Discounts -- Working lockout buzzer system: $5 (1 discount per team; if you bring a 2nd buzzer and we actually need to use it we'll knock off another $5) Experienced reader: will be given their choice of $10 off the fee, or the same bribe we offer our house readers, dinner at Provino's. (Guess which one they'll take.) Additional teams from same school: $10 Distance >400 miles (one way): $10 Full packet meeting guidelines below, submitted by midnight Tue., Dec. 28: $20 Full packet meeting guidelines below, submitted after 12/28 but by Tue., Jan. 4: $10 Full packet meeting guidelines below, submitted after 1/4 but by Tue., Jan. 11: $0 Partial packet of 13 tossups and 12 boni, distributed across categories and meeting guidelines below, submitted by Tue., Jan. 11: $10 penalty (penalty waived for schools participating in their first independent UTC tournament and/or composed entirely of first-year players; also waived for 3rd, 4th, and subsequent teams from a given school.) Full packet meeting guidelines below, submitted after 1/11 but by Sun., Jan. 16: $10 penalty [plus you have to notify me by 1/11 if you're taking this option.] No questions submitted at all: $20 penalty [This is not purely mercenary on our part. For one thing, we always need more questions, but for another, we want every team to develop their question-writing skills.) There's another way to earn an extra discount, and this one can take your fees down to a minimum of $45: Original high school-level packet (for our March 19 HS tournament), meeting guidelines below, submitted by Fri., Jan. 21: $15 PACKET GUIDELINES: First of all, *questions must be blind to all other teams, including the other teams from your school.* In some cases we can make exceptions, but PLEASE check with me first. It's not mandatory, but it'll make life easier on me if you can e- mail the packet as either an MS Word or RTF file, if the essential parts of the answer are in bold, and if you insert the word "Answer:" before each answer. To encourage participation by Division II teams, we prefer a degree of difficulty considered easy to moderate by current invitational standards. While not beginning with giveaway clues, most tossups should be answerable by most teams by the end of the question. Bonuses should be such that a novice team stands a good chance of getting at least 10 pts., a good team 20, and the best teams all 30 pts. DISTRIBUTION: To make editing easier, we ask for 25 tossups and 25 bonuses per packet, distributed as follows: Literature 5 Recommended: at least 2 20th century, at least 2 pre- 20th century at least 2 U.S./Canadian, at least 2 non-U.S./Canadian Sciences 5 Required: at least 1 each of biology, physics, and chemistry History 5 Recommended: at least 2 20th century, at least 2 pre- 20th century at least 2 U.S./Canadian, at least 2 non-U.S./Canadian The remaining 10 should contain at least 1 each and no more than 3 of: Philosophy/religion/myth Fine arts Social sciences incl. geography Popular culture General knowledge/interdisciplinary [Note -- if submitting a high school round as part of a discount, please include at least one math/computer science question and one geography question.] STYLE: Tossups -- average length 3 sentences. We want questions that begin with lesser-known details and gradually get easier. And please don't violate the pronoun rule -- e.g.,, if your first pronoun is "He..." the answer should be a person, not a title. Bonuses -- all bonuses worth a possible 30 pts.; no single- part all-or-nothing bonuses. We don't want 6-part boni unless they're very, very short, and even then use sparingly. Also use the 30-20-10 format sparingly. ACCOMMODATIONS: We haven't reserved a block yet, but the Clarion Hotel downtown is generally willing to give the discount rate ($66/night) if you.tell them you're with the UTC quizbowl tournament. The Clarion's number is (423) 756-5150; . DIRECTIONS: Come towards downtown Chattanooga on I-24. Take the freeway splitoff labeled US 27 North - Downtown Chattanooga. Follow US 27 North to Exit 1A, 4th St. (Don't worry about which way to turn on 4th St. - it only goes one way.) Follow 4th St.about ½ mile. Shortly after you see the McKenzie (UTC) Arena on your right, 4th St. will bear slightly left and merge with 3rd St. Once you pass the cemetery on your right, turn at the 2nd street to the right, Palmetto St. Go two blocks and turn right on Vine St. Follow it to the last available parking lot on your right before the road is closed. Grote is the building closest to that parking lot. Enter at the back door by the dumpster; tournament HQ would be Grote 129. WHO'S IN CHARGE HERE: To no one's surprise, the tournament director is Charlie Steinhice. If you have any questions, I can be reached at (423) 877-2706 or 504-8255, or by e-mail at steinhic [at] bellsouth [dot] net.
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