WESTERN INVITATIONAL TOURNAMENT IX
(WIT IX)

Official Announcement

Western Invitational Tournament IX: A Fistful of Buzzers

What:

A Fistful of Buzzers: The Ninth Annual Western Invitational Tournament (WIT IX)

The tournament will consist of untimed rounds of 20 questions each. Due to the demise of the NAQT IFT and Berkeley Quizbowl's demand, the tossups will have power marks. We request that each participating team submit one packet of 25 tossups and 25 bonuses, complete with power marks. This request is backed up with cost incentives.

Following WIT IX, we intend, but do not promise to run a trash tournament, Unabuzzer 11, along with the second edition of BARS (the Berkeley Audio Recall Shindig), both of which will be formally announced at a later date, if both will occur.

When:
Friday October 19, 2001
Rules meeting: 6:30 p.m.; play starts at 7:00pm sharp!
Saturday October 20, 2001
Bagels 9:00 a.m.; play starts at 9:30am sharp!

Forfeit matches may be made up at winning team's discretion during lunch

Where:
University of California at Berkeley, Dwinelle Hall

Tournament Directors:
Matt Levine <arwmatt@uclink4.berkeley.edu>
Eok Ngo <_Hawkeye81@excite.com>

Admittance:
While the tournament is indeed called the Western Invitational Tournament, it is an open tournament in spirit. We just like the witty acronym (pun not intended).

Eligibility - Any team consisting of anyone who wants to register. This
means that you can make alumni teams, corporate teams, college teams,
cross-college teams etc.

If enough teams show up, perhaps we will split the tournament into JV and Varsity divisions. Otherwise, there will be one division for all skill levels.

Rules:
The Berkeley ACF Rules, which may be found at
<http://exuma.cs.berkeley.edu/quiz-bowl/resources/rules.html>, will be used.

Question Editors:
Questions will be edited by an experienced group of writers/editors
consisting of the senior members of Berkeley's quiz bowl team. We also
intend to exchange packets with other tournaments being held the same weekend, though no packet swap arrangements have been made as of now.

Schedule of Fees:
First Team $100
Second Team $80
Additional Teams $70

Packet Discounts for Open teams (only one applies)
Acceptable Packet by Sept 7 -$60
Acceptable Packet by Sept 14 -$40
Acceptable Packet by Sept 21 -$ 20
Acceptable Packet by Sept 28 -$ 10
Acceptable Packet by Oct 5 -$ 0
Acceptable Packet by Oct 12 +$ 15 penalty
No packet submitted +$ 50 penalty

Buzzer System Discount
Provide working buzzer system -$ 10/per

Reader/Staff Discount
Provide an experienced full time reader -$ 20/per
Provide an experienced full time statkeeper -$ 10/per

Crossing the Mississippi Discount: -$75
Not competing in WIT VII or VIII Discount: -$30

In no case shall admission fees be less than $25.

Packet Acceptability is determined by the tournament director.

Packet guidelines:

1. Question Balance
-------------------
Each packet shall consist of 25 tossups and 25 bonuses using the
following category distribution

History, etc. 6 TU/6 B (1 TU/1 B each from)
Note: History virtually includes anything you can find in a History textbook, so not all of these questions have to be on dynasties, wars, emperors, popes, and the like.
World History before 1492 C.E.
Non-North American History 1492 C.E. - 1945
North American History 1492 C.E. - 1945
World History 1946+
Government/Politics
Current Events

Fine Arts 7 TU/7 B (1 TU/1 B each from)
American Literature
Literature in the English Language (not American)
Literature not in the English Language
Literature of any sort
Art, Architecture
Music
Film/Stage

Humanities and Social Science 4 TU/4 B (1 TU/1 B each from)
Philosophy/Religion/Mythology
Economics/Business/Management
Psychology/Linguistics/Sociology/Archaeology/Anthropology/Cultural Studies
Geography/Demographics

Science 5 TU/5 B (1 TU/1 B each from)
Physics/Astronomy
Biology
Geology/Environment/Meteorology/Technology/Engineering/Physical Geography
Chemistry
Mathematics/Computer Science

Popular Culture/General Knowledge/Sports 3 TU/3 B (1 TU/1 B each from)
Sports
Popular Culture or General Knowledge
Popular Culture or General Knowledge or Sports

Please keep in mind spatial and temporal considerations when balancing the pack, in addition to the above categorical distinctions. Don't make all of your questions about French People. Also, please distribute across types of answers (people, places, things, ideas, movements, events, etc.)


2. Question Quality
-------------------

The ACF Question writing guidelines at
<http://www.inform.umd.edu/StudentOrg/maqt/acf/acfguide.html>
should be used. Power marks should be added at a point in the tossups that could distinguish an expert from a casual observer on the subject of the tossup. Crispness in questions is encouraged; no tossup question shall be more than 5 lines in length (80 chars. per line). No more than 1 six-part bonus per round is acceptable. All bonuses shall be worth 30 points. Please use the standard "inverse pyramid" structure, with the hardest facts first, followed by progressively more well known information.


3. Question Purity
------------------
Questions from one team shall be blind to all other teams at this and
other tournaments, including teams from the same school. For example,
the packet by Berkeley A shall not have been seen, heard, or hinted at
to Berkeley B and vice versa. Because questions are being shared with
tournaments across the country, questions need to be newly created for
this tournament.

4. Question Difficulty
----------------------
This is one of the first tournaments of the season for many teams. This is *not* a masters tournament. While the questions should challenge experienced players, they should not offend novices. Strive for 20 out of 20 tossups gettable by a well-balanced undergraduate team if read to their completion without interruption, and on average 15 points per bonus answered by the same team. Average total score per room of good teams should be about 500 points.


5. Question Formatting
----------------------
A. Tossup questions shall be formatted as follows, the first line shall
contain category information, the second line shall contain the question (preceded with the word "Tossup:", the third line shall begin with the word "Answer:" and the answer (with essential information underlined or marked by underscores) on a separate line from the question. Each tossup should contain a power mark (*) that distinguishes the knowledge of an expert on the subject from a casual inquisitive mind. The power mark should be included right before the beginning of the first word of the non-expert clue.

Examples:

Tossups

Category: World History 1492 - 1945
Tossup: 1. Its cause was the issuance to native troops of the Enfield
Rifle. The problem was that the (*) cartridges were greased with a mixture of cows fat and hogs lard, thereby inflaming both Hindus and Moslems. FTP, what 1857 uprising ensued?
Answer: _Sepoy_ Rebellion

B. Bonus questions shall be formatted as follows, the first line shall
contain category information, the second line shall contain the questionintroduction (preceded with the word "Bonus:", in the case of a
multi-part bonus, the next line shall contain the first part of the
bonus, proceeded with a letter to designate the part "a)", with the
points per part in parentheses "(10)", if the answer is to be given, the next line begin with the word "Answer:" and the answer (with essential information underlined or marked by underscores) on a separate line from the question, and so on.

Examples:

Category: World History 1492 - 1945
Bonus: 2. Identify the following Chinese uprisings from a brief
description for the stated number of points:
a) (10) It was a Buddhist cult that opposed domination by the manchus of the Ch'ing dynasty. From 1796-1804 they conducted a guerrilla revolt in the mountains of China in protest to poverty and taxes. They were put down, but revealed the imperial government's weakness.
Answer: _White Lotus_
b) (10) This uprising from 1850-1864 against the Manchus was a precursor to later rebellions. Its leader Hung Hsiu-ch'uan believed he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ. He formed a new religion in the Kwangsi province based loosely on Christianity and communism.
Answer: _Taiping_ Rebellion
c) (10) Two wars between the Chinese and European powers took this
name, concerning China's attempt to ban the eponymous substance.
China's defeat gave Hong Kong to the British. The second was settled by
the 1858 Treaty of Tientsin and the Conventions of Peking in 1860.
Answer: _Opium_ Wars


Category: Religion/Mythology
Bonus: 3. 30-20-10 Name this American book.
a) (30) Although not all historians agree as to its origins, some say it is the work of a clergyman, Solomon Spaulding. It relates the story of an ancient migration led by the prophet Lehi.
b) (20) It was first published in 1830 in Palmyra, New York. The original translator claims he returned the manuscript to one of its authors.
c) (10) One version of its history claims it was written on gold plates by the father of Moroni. Moroni supposedly then made additions to the work and buried the plates in upsate New York.
Answer: _Book of Mormon_


6. Question Submission:
-----------------------

Please submit rounds via Email as internet standard MIME attached Rich Text Format, text format, MS Word or Wordperfect 6.0 or lower formatted files. (None of this uuencoded stuff, please).

Please send e-mail with any questions or interest to me, Matt Levine
<arwmatt@uclink4.berkeley.edu> or Eok Ngo <_Hawkeye81@excite.com>. For further information visit the Berkeley quiz-bowl website <http://exuma.cs.berkeley.edu/quiz-bowl/>.