Harvard Fall Tournament XIII Available for Mirrors (2018-19)
Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2018 11:06 am
Hello everyone, it is my pleasure to announce our 13th edition of the Harvard Fall Tournament set, HFT XIII. The set will be available for mirrors from 11/10/18 (HFT main site) to 5/19/19 (the Sunday before the 2019 HSNCT).
Production Details
I will be head-editing the set with help from Jiho Park, Jakob Myers, and Raynor Kuang. The questions will be written by myself, Michael Yue, Alex Cohen, Kelvin Li, and the rest of the Harvard team, with additional contributions from alumni Robert Chu and Jiho Park. Will Alston, and Jordan Brownstein will also provide feedback for the set. As of today (6/7/2018), we have written roughly 20% of the set.
Set Details
HFT has traditionally been one of the most well-known high school regular-plus difficulty housewrites, with last year's HFT XII scoring a 1.96 on Fred Morlan's adjustments. (For reference, the NAQT IS-series is deemed to be the standard for high school "regular" difficulty and is thus scored a 0. The harder a set's bonuses are, the higher the adjustment score.) We plan to keep difficulty around the same, while keeping the tossup-difficulty a bit more uniform than last year. HFT XIII will consist of 15 power-marked rounds: 13 regular-plus difficulty rounds, and 2 harder difficulty rounds intended for finals that may approach HSNCT-level difficulty. All tossups will be 5-6 lines of 10 point Times New Roman font including powermarking. A tiebreaker tossup and bonus question from the Big Three (literature/science/history) will be provided with each round, in addition to emergency backup questions.
The distribution is unchanged from last year, and is the following:
4/4 Literature (1/1 American, 1/1 European, 1/1 British, 1/1 World/Ancient/Miscellaneous)
4/4 Science (1/1 Biology, 1/1 Chemistry, 1/1 Physics, 1/1 Math/CS/Earth Science/Astronomy/Other)
4/4 History (1/1 American, 1/1 World, 2/2 European/British/Ancient)
3/3 Fine Arts (1/1 Painting/Sculpture, 1/1 Classical Music, 1/1 Other Arts)
1/1 Social Science/Philosophy
1/1 Religion
1/1 Mythology
1/1 Geography/Modern World
1/1 Popular Culture
Like previous years, we will tweak some of the subdistributions to emphasize certain topics appropriate for high school, while de-emphasizing others that are less appropriate for high school. Popular culture questions will also aim to be more culturally relevant and less "trashy."
Mirrors
We welcome any and all mirror requests! The mirror fee will be $15 per non-host team present at the mirror site, and can potentially be negotiated for special considerations like very low/high attendance, etc. This negotiability is completely at our discretion and is in no way set in stone. If there is more than one mirror request for the same geographical region, mirrors will be awarded based on attendance size, quality/consistency of program, and first-come first-serve (not in any particular order).
If you are interested in mirroring HFT XIII or have any questions about it, please contact me at [email protected]. I'll try my best to reply to emails with all possible haste, and will make regular updates to mirror sites in a separate post below. At the end of the mirror period (currently 5/19/19), we will upload the set, hopefully in time for teams to use as practice material for the 2019 HSNCT.
Final Comments
HFT XIII will be the third HFT I'm involved with, and I'm very excited to write and edit the set. Last year's HFT XII was mirrored all over the country, and we're aiming to generate the same (if not more) interest with HFT XIII. We will ensure that the set will continue to be innovative and of the highest quality. Lastly, we appreciate any questions or comments regarding anything about the set -- we're here to work with you and your tournament! Just shoot me an email and we'll get the ball rolling.
Production Details
I will be head-editing the set with help from Jiho Park, Jakob Myers, and Raynor Kuang. The questions will be written by myself, Michael Yue, Alex Cohen, Kelvin Li, and the rest of the Harvard team, with additional contributions from alumni Robert Chu and Jiho Park. Will Alston, and Jordan Brownstein will also provide feedback for the set. As of today (6/7/2018), we have written roughly 20% of the set.
Set Details
HFT has traditionally been one of the most well-known high school regular-plus difficulty housewrites, with last year's HFT XII scoring a 1.96 on Fred Morlan's adjustments. (For reference, the NAQT IS-series is deemed to be the standard for high school "regular" difficulty and is thus scored a 0. The harder a set's bonuses are, the higher the adjustment score.) We plan to keep difficulty around the same, while keeping the tossup-difficulty a bit more uniform than last year. HFT XIII will consist of 15 power-marked rounds: 13 regular-plus difficulty rounds, and 2 harder difficulty rounds intended for finals that may approach HSNCT-level difficulty. All tossups will be 5-6 lines of 10 point Times New Roman font including powermarking. A tiebreaker tossup and bonus question from the Big Three (literature/science/history) will be provided with each round, in addition to emergency backup questions.
The distribution is unchanged from last year, and is the following:
4/4 Literature (1/1 American, 1/1 European, 1/1 British, 1/1 World/Ancient/Miscellaneous)
4/4 Science (1/1 Biology, 1/1 Chemistry, 1/1 Physics, 1/1 Math/CS/Earth Science/Astronomy/Other)
4/4 History (1/1 American, 1/1 World, 2/2 European/British/Ancient)
3/3 Fine Arts (1/1 Painting/Sculpture, 1/1 Classical Music, 1/1 Other Arts)
1/1 Social Science/Philosophy
1/1 Religion
1/1 Mythology
1/1 Geography/Modern World
1/1 Popular Culture
Like previous years, we will tweak some of the subdistributions to emphasize certain topics appropriate for high school, while de-emphasizing others that are less appropriate for high school. Popular culture questions will also aim to be more culturally relevant and less "trashy."
Mirrors
We welcome any and all mirror requests! The mirror fee will be $15 per non-host team present at the mirror site, and can potentially be negotiated for special considerations like very low/high attendance, etc. This negotiability is completely at our discretion and is in no way set in stone. If there is more than one mirror request for the same geographical region, mirrors will be awarded based on attendance size, quality/consistency of program, and first-come first-serve (not in any particular order).
If you are interested in mirroring HFT XIII or have any questions about it, please contact me at [email protected]. I'll try my best to reply to emails with all possible haste, and will make regular updates to mirror sites in a separate post below. At the end of the mirror period (currently 5/19/19), we will upload the set, hopefully in time for teams to use as practice material for the 2019 HSNCT.
Final Comments
HFT XIII will be the third HFT I'm involved with, and I'm very excited to write and edit the set. Last year's HFT XII was mirrored all over the country, and we're aiming to generate the same (if not more) interest with HFT XIII. We will ensure that the set will continue to be innovative and of the highest quality. Lastly, we appreciate any questions or comments regarding anything about the set -- we're here to work with you and your tournament! Just shoot me an email and we'll get the ball rolling.