British Student Quiz Championships 2014 (17th May, Oxford)

[Edmund]

BuzzerQuiz is pleased to announce that, in association with NAQT, this year's British Student Quiz Championships will be held on Saturday May 17th 2014 in Oxford. The exact location(s) and cost per team are pending.

The field will be capped at 16 teams unless interest is greatly larger than expected. I will accept one entry per university institution until Saturday 26th April, whereafter I will accept entries from B teams as far as space allows.

To enter a team, email ejfdickinson AT gmail.com.

Games will be untimed rounds of 24 starter questions of NAQT length and style, according to the following distribution:

4/4 Literature (of which 2/2 British)
4/4 History (of which 1.5/1.5 British)
4/4 Science and Mathematics
2/2 Fine Art (1/1 visual, 1/1 musical)
2/2 Geography (of which 0.5/0.5 British)
2/2 Religion, Mythology and Philosophy
1/1 Current Events (of which at least 0.33/0.33 British)
1/1 Social Science
2/2 Popular Culture (of which at least 1/1 British)
2/2 Miscellaneous (including 1/0 that augments the three core topics)

The questions are derived from Division II of the NAQT Intercollegiate Championship Tournament. BuzzerQuiz adapts the questions for the sake of cultural balance and relevance to the attending field, and writes some questions to augment those provided by NAQT. We normally write about 4/4 brand new per packet. For obvious reasons, players intending to participate in BSQC have a personal responsibility to ensure that they avoid contact with the NAQT ICT 2014 question set and discussion following it.

Current field:

Cambridge
Imperial
London School of Economics (LSE)
Manchester
Open University
Oxford (4 teams)
Oxford Brookes
Sheffield
Southampton
University College London (UCL)
Warwick (2 teams)

[Edmund]

Oxford A and Oxford B both came to the end of the playoffs with one loss. Oxford B defeated Oxford A 410-385 in a one-game final, their captain Ewan MacAulay top-scoring.

I believe that the British-authored questions read at this tournament will be used, as in 2013, for a small British-themed side event at Chicago Open. Therefore I request those who heard these questions today to avoid public discussion for the time being; private feedback is naturally welcome.

[Kyle]

This result should silence any complaints about how Oxford A always wins this tournament.

[Red Panda Cub]

This result should silence any complaints about how Oxford A always wins this tournament.

Oxford A could reasonably be defined by whichever team has Ewan on it.

[Edmund]

Full stats are now available:

http://www.hsquizbowl.org/db/tournament ... s/prelims/
http://www.hsquizbowl.org/db/tournament ... /playoffs/
http://www.hsquizbowl.org/db/tournament ... /combined/

In the prelims, the top scorers were Zac Vermeer (Oxford A), and UK stalwarts Tris Cole and Hugh Bennett (playing as a pair), all on ~70 PPG. Well done to them! Ewan MacAulay (Oxford B) and Jonathan Elliott (Sheffield) also performed notably.

A special mention is also due to Jimmy Chen (LSE), playing his and his team's first collegiate event, who top scored by some margin in the bottom playoff bracket.

Thanks are due to all teams for attending and to all the readers and scorers who volunteered their time on the day to allow this event to happen. Thanks also to NAQT for allowing us to take liberties with the ICT Div II set.