Olympia Academic Competition Questions
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| President or CEO | Charles Hang | |||
| Location: | Saint Charles, MO | |||
| Status | CLOSED | |||
Olympia Academic Competition Questions, LLC was a company that provided "good", high quality Quiz Bowl questions, particularly at the middle school level. It was led by Charles Hang, who founded the company in Fall 2010.
The company closed in 2013.
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 at the middle school level 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]
Former Products
ACF Format Sets
Olympia's flagship product was the ACF format set, which followed a format similar to that pioneered by the Academic Competition Federation. One or two sets were produced per season.
Other Middle School Sets
Olympia also offered question sets in various formats (such as those of GATA and IESA) which shared questions with its ACF format sets.
Additional Sets
Olympia also offered a number of additional sets for sale from its operations in 2009-2010, including its sets from the Barrington Quads and Richland Varsity tournaments.
Missouri Scholars Academy Scholar Bowl
Charles Hang 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.
The 2010 Scholar Bowl set was available for sale on Olympia's website, and Olympia offered free questions to summer gifted programs and other programs seeking to host free summer Quiz Bowl tournaments.
Writer Structure
Olympia's writer structure was unique in that all writers were required to complete a monthly assignment of a predetermined number of questions. In turn, writers were paid standard amounts per tossup and per bonus written, which were dependent on a pay tier. Though this system was derived from the compensation structures of both HSAPQ and NAQT, it differed from both. Unlike with HSAPQ, which supplied writers with assignments, writer assignments do not vary with requirements and pay was constant rather than varying with the number of times a set was mirrored. Unlike with NAQT, which offers standardized compensation for tossups and bonuses, writers had regular obligations to write a fixed number of questions rather than writing as many as they chose.
Olympia is also unique in that it offered bonuses for early completion of assignments as well as for questions written in addition to one's assignment.
Full Writers
Olympia's full writers received $2.00 per tossup and $0.50 per bonus part. They were obligated to write twenty tossups and twenty bonuses per month. Those rates were considered high at the time.
Associate Writers
Olympia's associate writers received $1.00 per tossup and $0.25 per bonus part (or $0.75 per three part ACF bonus). They were obligated to write ten tossups and ten bonuses per month. Those rates were low to average at the time.
Additional Personnel
Olympia also retained a dedicated copy editor from time to time, who proofread all questions before distribution. The copy editor was compensated at a flat rate of $40 per ACF-format set and $15 per derivation.