CALISTO (Regular HS, 2020)

[Arras Agility]

CALISTO (CALIfornia Spring TOurnament), a regular-difficulty high school set, will be available for mirrors starting January 4, 2020.

Writers/Editors

The set will be written by various Californians, and head-edited by Justin French. Our editing team also includes Shahar Schwartz, Avinash Iyer, Jeffrey Ma, Anishka Bandara, and me, Alistair Gray. Production will be overseen by Ankit Aggarwal and James Malouf. I will be handling set logistics.

Set Details

The set will be 15 packets of 20/20 power-marked tossups and bonuses, including a packet of tiebreakers and extras. Tossups will be capped at six lines of 10-point Times New Roman.

Our distribution is:
4/4 Literature (1/1 Long Fiction, 1/1 Poetry, .75/.75 Drama, .75/.75 Other Literature, .5/.5 Mixed)
4/4 History (1/1 US, 1/1 European, 1/1 World, .5/.5 British, .5/.5 Classical/Ancient)
4.5/4.5 Science (1/1 Physics, 1/1 Chemistry, 1/1 Biology, 0.5/0.5 Math, 1/1 Other Science)
3/3 Fine Arts (1/1 Visual, 1/1 Auditory, 1/1 Other)
2.5/2.5 RMPSS (0.75/0.75 Religion, 0.75/0.75 Mythology, 0.25/0.25 Philosophy, 0.75/0.75 Social Science)
2/2 Other (0.5/0.5 Geography, 0.5/0.5 Current Events, 0.5/0.5 Mixed Academic, 0.5/0.5 Popular Culture)

Mirrors

The mirror fee will be $10 per non-house team playing the set. We're looking for mirrors in all circuits; please email me at [email protected] if you would like to mirror, or if you have any questions about the set. Thank you!


edit 6/22: We've added Anishka Bandara as an editor and changed the distribution to have .5/.5 more Other Science, taking that space away from Philosophy.

[Arras Agility]

Current Mirrors:

• Pennsylvania: HVQR @ State College HS -- January 11 (cancelled)
• Ohio: SHATEYAHRONA @ Olentangy Berlin HS -- January 11
• Illinois: Loyola Ultima @ Loyola Academy -- January 18
• Northeast Missouri: PAWS @ Palmyra HS -- February 8
• Southwest Missouri: MARS @ Fort Osage HS -- February 8
• Northern California: California Cup 3 @ Evergreen Valley HS --- February 29
• New England: MIT Spring @ MIT -- March 1
• New York City: Columbia Spring @ Columbia -- March 7
• Mid-Atlantic: RM March @ Richard Montgomery HS -- March 22 (cancelled)
• Southern California: ReKT @ Westview HS -- March 28 (cancelled)
• North Carolina @ UNC -- April 18 (cancelled)
• Michigan @ DeWitt HS (cancelled)
• Online (Texas) -- March 22
• Online (General) -- May 16

[Abdon Ubidia]

Can you comment on the reasoning behind the unorthodox distribution of this tournament?

[Carlos Be]

Can you comment on the reasoning behind the unorthodox distribution of this tournament?

We elected to have a smaller than usual amount of philosophy (.25/.25) because we believe that philosophy is not commonly learned in high school classes and is not a large area of amateur interest among high schoolers. Note that .25/.25 still comes out to 4/4 over the whole set, so philosophy will still be noticeable, just as a minor category rather than a major category.

In place of philosophy, we are asking a greater amount of computer science, astronomy, and earth science since those categories are all either taught in school, have a large amount of amateur interest, or both. Although this makes science 4.5/4.5, upsetting the symmetry of the so-called "big three," science is such a diverse category that (in our opinion) it necessitates being larger.

The only other abnormality in the distribution is that we are distributing literature by genre rather than geography. This has been done by multiple previous HS tournaments, and, given the small askable range of geographies at this level, makes a lot more sense than a geographical distribution.

[Hypersmart]

We elected to have a smaller than usual amount of philosophy (.25/.25) because we believe that philosophy is not commonly learned in high school classes and is not a large area of amateur interest among high schoolers.

In place of philosophy, we are asking a greater amount of computer science, astronomy, and earth science since those categories are all either taught in school, have a large amount of amateur interest, or both. Although this makes science 4.5/4.5, upsetting the symmetry of the so-called "big three," science is such a diverse category that (in our opinion) it necessitates being larger.

While it is a good idea to include more "relevant" science and show love to categories which are underrepresented in quizbowl, I'm worried that it comes at the cost of other categories. For example, Math, Geography, CE, Social Science, and Trash have a greater distribution than Philosophy.
In my admittedly limited opinion, this might not be a good idea. Geography, Current Events, and Trash aren't really taught in school. Math and Social Science aren't taught (in high school) in a way thats naturally conducive to quizbowl.

I can't suggest a distribution that better either.

[Stained Diviner]

This distribution is good. It's not the only way to do things, but neither is any other distribution. I would prefer making the math 1/1 and the other science .5/.5, or making them both .75/.75, but it's not my tournament, and these are things that reasonable people can disagree on.

.25/.25 philosophy for regular high school difficulty is enough philosophy. If somebody else wants to do .5/.5, that can be done, but I think that Justin's assessment of philosophy is accurate. In higher difficulties, there should be more philosophy than .25/.25, but I don't see the need for more at regular high school difficulty.

[Carlos Be]

In my admittedly limited opinion, this might not be a good idea. Geography, Current Events, and Trash aren't really taught in school.

There is a lot of extracurricular interest in these categories (and also in math and parts of social science), unlike philosophy, which has a fairly small amount of extracurricular interest at this level.

Math and Social Science aren't taught (in high school) in a way thats naturally conducive to quizbowl.

I don't think this is true— anecdotally I've gotten lots of buzzes from high school math and economics, and we are writing our questions specifically to reward knowledge that is taught in school.

[Arras Agility]

CALISTO is 68% complete, and still looking for mirrors in many regions!

We have also decided, on Ankit's suggestion, to waive the mirror fee for teams that hosts would charge $10 or less from schools classified under Title I of the ESEA; we hope that this policy will help hosts in efforts to expand quizbowl to high-poverty schools that might be priced out.

[crbirdx]

We would like to use this set in Ohio 1/11/20.

[crbirdx]

We are excited to use the set.

[adhvaithr7]

I would like to know what set is similar to CALISTO, so that way I can accordingly study those packets.

User was reminded to enable a signature. --Mgmt.

[eygotem]

I would like to know what set is similar to CALISTO, so that way I can accordingly study those packets.

User was reminded to enable a signature. --Mgmt.

Check out sets labelled "(2)" on https://quizbowlpackets.com/ (i.e. WHAQ, LIST, etc.) - those should be around the same difficulty level.

[Arras Agility]

All mirrors have finished and the set has been posted.

I'm glad to hear the overwhelmingly positive response to the set, and would like to thank all the writers and editors who made it as good as it; in particular, Justine was an excellent head editor and contributed tons of labor to this project. I hope the set will serve as a model for high-quality questions at high school regular difficulty in years to come.