2018 Stevenson Memorial Tournament (SMT)
Posted: Wed Sep 13, 2017 12:21 am
I am pleased to announce the Stevenson Memorial Tournament, a regular-minus undergraduate tournament written primarily by former and current students from Adlai E. Stevenson High School for Spring 2018. This tournament is intended to be in the same vein as MUT and last year’s EMT, and thus, is intended to fill the early March slot in the season.
The set will be head-edited by Jordan Brownstein, with help from subject editors Ewan MacAulay, Kai Smith, and Anderson Wang. Brad Fischer will also be looking over the set for quality control advising. We’re interested in others contributing in the same way as Brad – if anyone else is interested in looking over our set for quality control advising, feel free to contact me. In addition to Stevenson writers (me, Olivia Lamberti, Deepak Moparthi, Conrad Oberhaus, Govind Prabhakar, and Ali Saeed), two writers from last year’s EMT will be contributing (Charles Hang and Jacob O’Rourke).
This set aims to, like EFT, be appropriate for collegiate novices and strong high school players while including enough fresh clues to be meaningful to more experienced undergraduate players. Unlike EFT, the difficulty is intended to be closer to ACF Fall than ACF Regionals, with answerline accessibility comparable to 2013 Michigan Fall Tournament.
Our eligibility policy will be similar to past years’ MUT and EMT. Only undergraduate and high school students can play this tournament. "Undergraduate" in this case does not follow the traditional ACF definition--fifth-year (or greater) undergraduates with no bachelor's-level degree are still eligible to play. People who were eligible under this policy at the start of the academic year remain eligible until the end of the academic year, even if they obtained their bachelor's-level degree during the year.
Less-experienced grad students (i.e. grad students who have not played a tournament before this school year, with slight exceptions granted at our discretion) can request permission directly from us to play the set (by contacting me at [email protected]), and if granted will be able to play at a mirror. Otherwise, they will not be allowed to play. This policy should be made clear in all mirror site announcements so that grad students know how they can request permission to play.
All in-person US sites will be completely closed for college teams. Hybrid high school teams (that is, teams composed of students from different high schools) will not be allowed unless the host of a mirror specifically requests that it be allowed at their site. Such a mirror will publicly announce that policy in their tournament announcement. Every other mirror will be completely closed for high school teams as well.
Exceptions to the above rules can be granted provided the permission of me and our head editor.
The distribution of this year’s tournament will be as follows:
4/4 Literature:
1/1 American Literature
1/1 British Literature
1/1 European Literature
1/1 World, Classical, and Other Literature
4/4 History:
1/1 American History
2/2 European/British History
1/1 World/Other History
4/4 Science:
1.2/1.2 Biology
0.8/0.8 Chemistry
1/1 Physics
1/1 Other Science
- 0.45/0.45 Math
- 0.25/0.25 CS
- 0.3/0.3 Astronomy, Earth Science, and Other
3/3 Fine Arts:
1/1 Painting and Sculpture
1/1 Music and Opera
0.5/0.5 Other Audio (e.g. ballet, dance, and jazz)
0.5/0.5 Other Visual (e.g. architecture and film)
We’re borrowing the painting and sculpture / music and opera coupling from This Tournament is a Crime, since we agree that “there is substantial overlap between those artforms with respect to who created them and how they are talked about”.
2/2 Beliefs:
1/1 Religion
1/1 Mythology
3/3 Thought and Other:
0.75/0.75 Social Science
0.75/0.75 Philosophy
0.5/0.5 Current Events
0.5/0.5 Geography
0.5/0.5 Trash
1/1 Tiebreaker and Extra Bonus (drawn equally from the above categories besides Current Events, Geography, and Trash)
The set will consist of 15 packets of power-marked questions, with tossups capped at 7 lines pre-powermarking in 10-point Times New Roman. 2 packets will be finals packets and will be somewhat harder than the main tournament packets.
We are looking for mirrors in all regions, and charge a mirror fee of $40 per non-house team playing this set. Please contact me via [email protected] if you’re interested in hosting a mirror. Mirrors can be held from the weekend of March 10th into May, and are required to provide buzzer discounts of $5 or more and travel discounts of $10 or more for teams traveling 200 or more miles.
There will be an open playtest Skype tournament on February 24th. Details can be found here.
Why is it called Stevenson Memorial Tournament?
Because Dwight D. Eisenhower, opponent of Adlai E. Stevenson II in both of his presidential campaigns, died on March 28, 1969.
The set will be head-edited by Jordan Brownstein, with help from subject editors Ewan MacAulay, Kai Smith, and Anderson Wang. Brad Fischer will also be looking over the set for quality control advising. We’re interested in others contributing in the same way as Brad – if anyone else is interested in looking over our set for quality control advising, feel free to contact me. In addition to Stevenson writers (me, Olivia Lamberti, Deepak Moparthi, Conrad Oberhaus, Govind Prabhakar, and Ali Saeed), two writers from last year’s EMT will be contributing (Charles Hang and Jacob O’Rourke).
This set aims to, like EFT, be appropriate for collegiate novices and strong high school players while including enough fresh clues to be meaningful to more experienced undergraduate players. Unlike EFT, the difficulty is intended to be closer to ACF Fall than ACF Regionals, with answerline accessibility comparable to 2013 Michigan Fall Tournament.
Our eligibility policy will be similar to past years’ MUT and EMT. Only undergraduate and high school students can play this tournament. "Undergraduate" in this case does not follow the traditional ACF definition--fifth-year (or greater) undergraduates with no bachelor's-level degree are still eligible to play. People who were eligible under this policy at the start of the academic year remain eligible until the end of the academic year, even if they obtained their bachelor's-level degree during the year.
Less-experienced grad students (i.e. grad students who have not played a tournament before this school year, with slight exceptions granted at our discretion) can request permission directly from us to play the set (by contacting me at [email protected]), and if granted will be able to play at a mirror. Otherwise, they will not be allowed to play. This policy should be made clear in all mirror site announcements so that grad students know how they can request permission to play.
All in-person US sites will be completely closed for college teams. Hybrid high school teams (that is, teams composed of students from different high schools) will not be allowed unless the host of a mirror specifically requests that it be allowed at their site. Such a mirror will publicly announce that policy in their tournament announcement. Every other mirror will be completely closed for high school teams as well.
Exceptions to the above rules can be granted provided the permission of me and our head editor.
The distribution of this year’s tournament will be as follows:
4/4 Literature:
1/1 American Literature
1/1 British Literature
1/1 European Literature
1/1 World, Classical, and Other Literature
4/4 History:
1/1 American History
2/2 European/British History
1/1 World/Other History
4/4 Science:
1.2/1.2 Biology
0.8/0.8 Chemistry
1/1 Physics
1/1 Other Science
- 0.45/0.45 Math
- 0.25/0.25 CS
- 0.3/0.3 Astronomy, Earth Science, and Other
3/3 Fine Arts:
1/1 Painting and Sculpture
1/1 Music and Opera
0.5/0.5 Other Audio (e.g. ballet, dance, and jazz)
0.5/0.5 Other Visual (e.g. architecture and film)
We’re borrowing the painting and sculpture / music and opera coupling from This Tournament is a Crime, since we agree that “there is substantial overlap between those artforms with respect to who created them and how they are talked about”.
2/2 Beliefs:
1/1 Religion
1/1 Mythology
3/3 Thought and Other:
0.75/0.75 Social Science
0.75/0.75 Philosophy
0.5/0.5 Current Events
0.5/0.5 Geography
0.5/0.5 Trash
1/1 Tiebreaker and Extra Bonus (drawn equally from the above categories besides Current Events, Geography, and Trash)
The set will consist of 15 packets of power-marked questions, with tossups capped at 7 lines pre-powermarking in 10-point Times New Roman. 2 packets will be finals packets and will be somewhat harder than the main tournament packets.
We are looking for mirrors in all regions, and charge a mirror fee of $40 per non-house team playing this set. Please contact me via [email protected] if you’re interested in hosting a mirror. Mirrors can be held from the weekend of March 10th into May, and are required to provide buzzer discounts of $5 or more and travel discounts of $10 or more for teams traveling 200 or more miles.
There will be an open playtest Skype tournament on February 24th. Details can be found here.
Why is it called Stevenson Memorial Tournament?
Because Dwight D. Eisenhower, opponent of Adlai E. Stevenson II in both of his presidential campaigns, died on March 28, 1969.