National Academic Quiz Tournaments

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National Academic Quiz Tournaments
Abbreviation NAQT
President R. Robert Hentzel
Website www.naqt.com

National Academic Quiz Tournaments, LLC is a question-writing and quizbowl organizing company founded by former players in 1996. It is unique among U.S. quiz organizations for supplying questions and hosting championships at the middle school, high school, and college levels.

The format is a set of questions that are read until the time expires, making it similar to College Bowl. However the question difficulty for the college level is higher, and the question topics somewhat more academic. The company also writes practice questions and questions for high school and college invitational tournaments, as well as the quiz bowl game show QuizBusters. Its model is more centralized than Academic Competition Federation in that all questions are centrally produced, rather than produced by the teams and centrally edited.

The national tournaments are divided into divisions, unlike other formats, so that a clear undergraduate champion is determined (all formats allow graduate students to compete in some form).

Contents

At the college level[edit]

Collegiate divisions[edit]

Division I Open[edit]

NAQT's eligibility rules state that any student taking at least 3 credit hours towards a degree at a university may compete on that university's team, and indeed may not compete independently if such a team exists. If no program exists at their university's campus, they may compete on the team for another campus of the same university, with the provision that they must leave that team should their home campus organize a program. In principle, a team can be as large as desired, but no more than four players compete at any time, and teams larger than seven players are rare. If any member of a team has an undergraduate degree, the team competes in the Division I competition, and is only eligible for the open championship (i.e. the overall championship).

Division I Undergraduate[edit]

At Sectional Championship Tournaments (SCTs) and the Intercollegiate Championship Tournament (ICT), teams that do not meet the Division II requirements play together. However, awards are given, including bids to the ICT, for the top Undergraduate team. A team is eligible for the Undergraduate championship if all members of the team are undergraduate students, and none of them have played in four years of NAQT collegiate competition prior to the current year. The Undergraduate championship was first awarded in 1998.

Division II[edit]

Also introduced in 1998, Division II is intended to give first- and second-year students an opportunity to compete against other players and teams of the same level of experience. Division II plays an entirely separate competition from Division I at the ICT, but SCTs where there are not enough teams may merge the two.

The rules of Division II eligibility are that one must be eligible for D-1 Undergraduate (i.e. no degree, and less than four years of experience), and in no year prior qualified for or participated in ICT. Some schools do not send teams for all divisions, and a student eligible for D-2 may compete on a D-1 team at an SCT or ICT. If he competes on a D-1 team at a 2006 SCT, and the team does not qualify for the ICT, he may compete in D-1 or D-2 in 2007. If he competes in a D-1 SCT again in 2007, he forfeits D-2 eligibility for 2008 and beyond, but may play in the 2007 D-2 ICT. In addition, if his D-1 team qualified for ICT in 2006, he could compete in either division at the 2006 ICT, but could not compete in D-2 afterwards. While this last set of rules are quite confusing, they are rarely needed, because a student who competes in D-1 one year rarely returns to D-2 the following year.

Exceptions to the eligibility rules have been granted to deal with special circumstances in past years; however, as they are controversial when they occur, they do not occur often.

Community colleges[edit]

Two-year colleges usually compete in separate SCTs each February (it is permitted, but rare, for teams from these schools to compete in D-1). Eight teams qualify for the Division II ICT, where they compete alongside other D-2 teams in a manner analogous to that of D-1 Undergraduate teams. However, students at two-year colleges are exempt from the D-2 eligibility restrictions. In fact, they have three years of eligibility at the D-2 level.

Winners of NAQT Intercollegiate Championship Tournament[edit]

Year Host / Location Division I Overall Division I Undergraduate Division II Overall Division II Community College
1997 Penn Chicago N/A N/A N/A
1998 Vanderbilt Stanford Swarthmore Harvard N/A
1999 Michigan Chicago Carleton Princeton N/A
2000 Boston U Illinois Princeton Harvard N/A
2001 Washington, St. Louis Chicago Princeton Pittsburgh N/A
2002 North Carolina Michigan Princeton Yale Valencia CC
2003 UCLA and Caltech Chicago Harvard Berkeley Valencia CC
2004 Washington, St. Louis Cal-Berkeley Illinois UCLA Valencia CC
2005 Tulane Michigan VA Commonwealth Chicago Faulkner St CC
2006 Maryland Cal-Berkeley Williams College Stanford Broward CC
2007 Minnesota Chicago Carleton Maryland Valencia CC
2008 Washington, St. Louis Maryland Harvard Carleton Valencia CC
2009 Dallas, Texas Chicago Minnesota[Note 1] Chicago Northeast Alabama CC
2010 Chicago, Illinois Chicago[Note 1] Minnesota Brown St. Charles CC
2011 Chicago, Illinois Minnesota[Note 1] VCU[Note 1] Yale Chipola
2012 [1] Chicago, Illinois Virginia Ohio State[Note 2] Harvard Chipola
2013 Chicago, Illinois Yale Ohio State Stanford Chipola
Notes
  1. ^ a b c d Though Harvard had initially won these events, in 2013 NAQT vacated their wins after Harvard player Andy Watkins was found to have access to the questions used prior to the tournaments.
  2. ^ MIT had initially won the 2012 ICT DI Undergraduate event, but their win was vacated after MIT player Joshua Alman was found to have unauthorized access to the questions prior to the tournament.

At the high school level[edit]

Teams qualify to the High School National Championship Tournament through a variety of methods. Most commonly, a team qualifies by finishing in the top 15% of the field at an invitational. If a school wants to send more than one team to nationals, the school must qualify all said teams at the same time during a single tournament.

The small school award is given to a public school with a non-selective admissions policy and less than 500 students in grades 10 through 12.

Winners of NAQT High School National Championship Tournament[edit]

Year Location Champion 2nd 3rd Small school
1999 Norman, Oklahoma Detroit Catholic Central Walton Brookwood A N/A
2000 Atlanta, Georgia State College A Maggie Walker A Eleanor Roosevelt N/A
2001 Ann Arbor, Michigan Detroit Catholic Central Detroit Country Day State College A N/A
2002 Austin, Texas St. John's School Irmo Detroit Catholic Central Kent City
2003 Myrtle Beach, South Carolina Thomas Jefferson A Dorman A St. John's School Cutter–Morning Star
2004 Houston, Texas Thomas Jefferson A Maggie Walker St. John's School A Cutter–Morning Star
2005 Chicago, Illinois Thomas Jefferson A Lakeside State College A Danville
2006 Chicago, Illinois Richard Montgomery State College A Maggie Walker A Danville
2007 Chicago, Illinois Maggie Walker A State College A Thomas Jefferson A Danville
2008 Chicago, Illinois Thomas Jefferson A Charter School of Wilmington A Walt Whitman A Russell
2009 Chicago, Illinois Charter School of Wilmington A Dorman A State College A Ottawa Hills
2010 Chicago, Illinois Maggie Walker State College A LASA A South Range
2011 Atlanta, Georgia State College A LASA A Bellarmine George Mason
2012 Atlanta, Georgia Bellarmine A Detroit Catholic Central A LASA A Beachwood
2013 Atlanta, Georgia LASA A Ladue A Loyola Macomb

At the middle school level[edit]

For the 2010-2011 academic year, NAQT has introduced a program for middle school. There was a corresponding middle school national championship in 2011 held at the Hyatt Regency O'Hare in Chicago, called the MSNCT. The first middle school national champion was Kealing Middle School. They successfully defended their title at MSNCT 2012.[4]

For the 2012-2013 academic year NAQT is offering three Middle School Series sets.[5] The third MSNCT will again be held in Chicago from April 27, 2013 to April 28, 2013.[6]

Winners of NAQT Middle School National Championship Tournament[edit]

Year Location Champion 2nd 3rd
2011 Chicago, Illinois Kealing A Barrington, Station Campus A Longfellow
2012 Chicago, Illinois Kealing A Longfellow A Westminster A
2013 Chicago, Illinois Barrington, Station Campus A Kealing A Mesa Verde

Jeopardy![edit]

Various NAQT employees and former NAQT players have appeared on the game show Jeopardy!.[7] Over 30 NAQT players or employees have participated on the show, including 17 who qualified for the Ultimate Tournament of Champions, including two finalists, Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings. Jennings writes questions and edits the literature and mythology categories for NAQT. Due to the success of these players, adults trying out must now declare any affiliation to NAQT or quizbowl on their information sheet. It is unclear whether this helps or hurts those trying out. (See Jeopardy! audition process for further discussion.)

In 2006, competitors in the High School National Championship Tournament were given the opportunity to audition for the Jeopardy! Teen Tournament and the Jeopardy! College Championship. Ben Schenkel of Moravian Academy (Allentown, Pennsylvania) qualified for the Teen Tournament at this tryout, and finished as the tournament's first runner-up.[8] Meryl Federman of Livingston High School (Livingston, New Jersey) qualified for the second edition of the teen tournament, called the Jeopardy! Teen Tournament Summer Games, and won.[9]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ [1]
  2. ^ http://www.texasquizbowl.org/2012/04/23/kealing-takes-2nd-consecutive-msnct/
  3. ^ http://naqt.com/ms/hosting.html
  4. ^ http://www.naqt.com/ms/msnct/2013/details.html
  5. ^ [2]
  6. ^ http://www.lehigh.edu/dmd1/Desktop/dmd1/yesterday/public/www-data/mcallarticle07.pdf
  7. ^ http://www.cbspressexpress.com/cbs-television-distribution/releases/view?id=16457

External links[edit]

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