Just a reminder announcement about Mad City Masters this summer, in just over a month. Register by e-mailing Jordan Zweck at jlzweck_at_ wisc.edu SATURDAY JULY 13 - MAD CITY MASTERS (at the University of Wisconsin-Madison). In 1999 the Mad City Masters succeeded the Minnesota Masters (Paul Bunyan/All-Onion), held since 1993, as the upper Midwest's summer open tournament for three-person teams. For the past four years, the event has been run by Eric Hillemann, an entity which may return in the future. Meanwhile, this year's version will be sponsored by the University of Wisconsin Quiz Bowl team, led by Jordan Zweck and Joe Gratz. This year's Mad City Masters will again be a Saturday-only, packet-submission, open quiz tournament featuring teams of _THREE_ or fewer players, not four. As an open tournament, anyone is welcome to play regardless of age or student status. The tournament will generally employ NAQT game rules, except that games will be untimed. Field size will be capped at a maximum of 22 teams, and I welcome team registrations from this point forward. ENTRANCE FEE: $45 per team whose acceptable packet is received by June 18. OR $75 per team whose acceptable packet is received by June 30. OR $100 per team whose acceptable packet is received by July 4 OR $135 per team whose acceptable packet is received by July 10. OR $309.00 per team sending no acceptable packet but willing to pay to play anyway. (What we really want is all packets by June 30!) PACKET WRITING: The required packets should have 25 tossups and 25 bonuses, balanced across subjects as per the following ranges for each set of 25: 4-5 History (mixing eras and geography of course) 4-5 Literature (ditto) 4-5 Science/Math (mixing subcategories) 1-3 Geography 1-2 Sports 2-3 Film or TV or Pop Music or other Pop Culture topic 2-3 Fine Arts (Music other than Pop, Visual Arts, etc.) 1-2 Philosophy/Religion/Mythology 1-2 Social Sciences (Soc, Anthro/Archaeology, Econ, Poli Sci, Psych, Law,etc.) 1-4 General/Miscellaneous (other topics, mixed topics, current events) Acceptable packets must have subject distribution that falls within these ranges. The text of tossup questions (not including spaces or answers) should generally fall between 200 and 500 characters in length--that's roughly two and a half to at most six lines of text in most fonts. Bonuses should all be worth a total of 30 points, with partial points possible. What to say about desired difficulty? Questions should be interesting and challenging for experienced players, as befits a Masters event; at the same time, however, we desire packets that can be played with enjoyment by an average college-circuit-ability team. Tossups in particular should rarely go unanswered if read to completion to such a team. As one benchmark, any packet within the range from typical NAQT Sectionals difficulty on the low end to typical NAQT Division I ICT difficulty on the other (average to well above-average invitational circuit difficulty) would be appropriate and successful, but that writers should aim to avoid writing a packet with a difficulty level outside that range in either direction. (Roughly the same in ACF terms: anything from ACF Regionals to ACF Nationals in difficulty is fine.) Finally, an acceptable packet should show some evidence of having been prepared with care, and _proofread_ prior to being sent off. Yes, it will be edited, but you should submit it in a state that you believe is ready for play as is. The editors reserve the right to reject any packet they deem unacceptable. Teams should reserve places by contacting Jordan Zweck at jlzweck_at_ students.wisc.edu Packets should be submitted to Joe Gratz at jcgratz_at_ mywisc.edu Also: If anyone would like to help out as a moderator, we will pay $15 each for a full commitment of roughly 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. We're not desparate, but in the immortal words of Mike Zarren: "You can never have too many game officials." Brian, heavily cutting and pasting from Eric's last announcement ************************************************************************ Brian Ulrich bjulrich_at_... Dept. of History st_aidan_at_... University of Wisconsin Sage of the Lake "Nothing is more misleading than the illusion created by hindsight in which all the traces of a life, such as the works of an artist or the events at a biography, appear as the realization of an essence that seems to pre-exist them." -Pierre Bourdieu (The Logic of Practice) ************************************************************************ _________________________________________________________________ Join the worlds largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com
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