Peter also asked for clarification as to whether or not Division II would be playing on the same questions as Division I at this year's SCTs. Yes, one set for both. We've done it both ways at multiple past sectionals, and have judged, for now at least, that not enough is gained by having separate SCT sets to make it worth the extra labor. We are committed to always now having separate sets for the two divisions at the ICT, where the Div. I difficulty rises quite high, but believe that for SCTs a single set aimed at an average collegiate-event level of difficulty, or slightly below that, will be satisfactory for both. We think that competition limited to similarly-experienced players is more important for Div. II success than is having markedly easier questions. By the way, with editing now virtually complete, I can say that the 2002 SCT set--the product of 35 different writers--looks to be up to our highest standards of both writing and editing. Discontinuing the fall collegiate tournaments made it easier for us to produce a very clean, top quality set of questions for the SCT, both by expanding our time for attention to just one set, and by not depleting our store of collegiate-level questions just before starting to bring the SCTs together. Whatever your preferences with regard to ingredients, we think that we are serving you an SCT pie this year that has been ably baked. Eric
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0: Sat 12 Feb 2022 12:30:45 AM EST EST