Difficulty
The target difficulty of Terrapin Open is halfway between ACF Regionals and ACF Nationals. This corresponds to 3½ dots on the scale used by the college quizbowl calendar.
A third of the tossup answerlines will be ACF Fall difficulty, a third of the tossup answerlines will be ACF Regionals difficulty, and no more than a third will be above ACF Regionals difficulty (with at most one CO-only answerline per category).
Note that this means Terrapin Open will be more difficult than 2019 Terrapin, and will be similar in difficulty to PIANO, its predecessor in the pre-nationals spring open slot.
Eligibility
This is an open tournament, meaning that there are no eligibility restrictions.
Editing
The editing team includes myself (Caleb Kendrick), Emmett Laurie, Graham Reid, Ewan MacAulay, Joelle Smart, Naveed Chowdhury, Ophir Lifshitz, and Ethan Strombeck. Questions will also be written by Anson Berns, Justin Hawkins, Kai Smith, and members of MAQT, including Vishwa Shanmugam, Jack Lewis, Alex Echikson, and Jakobi Deslouches.
This set will have 15 packets plus an extra packet of tiebreakers. Tossup length will be soft-capped at 8 lines (in 10-point Times New Roman after power-marking), and bonus length will be soft-capped at 7 cumulative lines.
The set is about 15% written as of August 15.
Distribution
4/4 Literature
1/1 American Literature
1/1 British Literature
1/1 European Literature
0.75/0.75 World Literature
0.25/0.25 Classical Literature
4/4 History
1/1 American History
1/1 European History (Post-Classical)
1/1 World History
1/1 Other History (Commonwealth, Ancient/Classical, Historiography/Archaeology)
4/4 Science
1/1 Biology
1/1 Chemistry
1/1 Physics
1/1 Other Science
3/3 Fine Arts
1/1 Painting and Sculpture
1/1 Classical Music
1/1 Other Fine Arts
1.5/1.5 Beliefs
1/1 Religion
0.5/0.5 Mythology
2.5/2.5 Thought & Other Academic
1/1 Philosophy
1/1 Social Science
0.5/0.5 Other Academic
1/1 Modern World (incorporating current events and geography)
Mirrors
Terrapin Open will be available for mirrors starting on February 22, 2020, and ending on March 29, 2020. The most preferred dates for mirrors are February 22, February 29, and March 7, before most schools go on spring break.
The mirror fee is $50 per team (including house teams).
We are seeking mirrors of Terrapin Open in the following regions (subject to change):
Updated as of 3/19/2020
Northeast: Brown 2/29
Mid-Atlantic: UMD 2/22
Southeast: Georgia Tech 2/22
California:
Midwest:
Canada:
UK:
Online: 3/28 and 3/29
This post will be maintained with information about new mirrors, editors, progress updates, or any other changes.
EDIT: Naveed Chowdhury has joined the editing team as our religion and mythology editor.
EDIT 2: Kai Smith has joined the writing team.