CANCELED - 2020 IQBT NASAT - 6/20 & 6/21, Columbus, Ohio

[AKKOLADE]

PLEASE NOTE: THIS TOURNAMENT HAS BEEN CANCELED

International Quiz Bowl Tournaments (IQBT) is pleased to announce the 2020 National All-Star Academic Tournament (NASAT). This will be the eleventh NASAT.

NASAT will be hosted on Saturday, June 20 and Sunday, June 21 at the Ohio State University. The tournament will convene at 8:00 AM on Saturday and run until about 6 PM, then conclude from 8:30 AM to about 3:00 PM on Sunday.

This tournament will once again be open to all-star teams representing all states, the District of Columbia, all US territories, and all Canadian provinces and equivalents (as well as state or province-equivalent divisions of any other countries). Each state or equivalent may enter multiple teams, with up to six players on its roster, up to four of whom may be playing at any one time. Any player who was enrolled in the 12th grade or below in a school physically located in that state during the 2019-2020 academic year is eligible to play on his or her state's team. Generally speaking, home school students are also eligible; any questions about eligibility will be answered by IQBT as needed.

This tournament is intended for states seeking an all-star event. We encourage single-school teams looking for national championships to investigate two such championships run by groups that are unaffiliated with IQBT: the National Scholastics Championship run by the Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence and the High School National Championship Tournament run by National Academic Quiz Tournaments.

Teams travelling by air are advised that the closest airport is John Glenn International in Columbus. Dayton International Airport is also relatively nearby.

We will continue to keep cost under control; in line with that, the tournament will not be held at a resort, but rather on a college campus, much like many other high school quizbowl events held throughout the year. Furthermore, we will use a normal format comparable to regular-season events: games will consist of twenty tossups, with a thirty-point bonus being played after each correct tossup answer. Teams will play head-to-head, two at a time. "Performance-based," multimedia, calculation, and pop culture questions will not be used. Teams will play twelve to sixteen games, in line with other national championship events, over the two days of the tournament. Because this event will be played by highly skilled all-star teams, the question difficulty will be higher than that used at existing national championships such as the NSC and HSNCT. The style and subject distribution of the questions will be quite similar to existing “modified ACF” sets, such as the sets HSAPQ wrote in its past.

Vishwa Shanmugam will be the NASAT set’s head editor.

The entry fee is $650 per team with a $20 discount for bringing up to one buzzer system per team and a further $20 discount if we receive your payment by May 31, 2020 at our mailing address, which is available by request via email at [email protected]. Each state is welcome and encouraged to register additional (B and on) teams for NASAT. Each additional team will cost $500 per team, minus any discounts the state wishes to claim (mainly the buzzer discount). It is vastly preferred if you pay ahead of time if at all possible.

All teams must submit an application to IQBT for entry into the tournament. In the vast majority of these cases, applications will be accepted outright. However, if more than one contingent from a state seeks to enter this tournament, IQBT will evaluate applications from each potential team and determine who may represent their state at the National All-Star Academic Tournament. The only criterion that will be used in this decision is our assessment, based on a review of the players' achievements in the 2019-20 competition year, of which team is likely to perform the best at the tournament. Therefore, GPA, test scores, and non-academic extracurricular activities should not be included on any application; other academic extracurricular activities (e.g. Science Bowl) should only be included if there were limited opportunities for teams in the state to compete at quizbowl. IQBT plans to continue consulting with a regional network of advisors who will consult with IQBT on these decisions.

IQBT will once again use a rolling application procedure: teams who submit applications to IQBT on or before March 26 will be notified of IQBT's decision no later than March 31. We may also approve an application submitted from this point onward as soon as "immediately" if we find it unlikely that a stronger team from the state could be assembled. Teams who submit applications to IQBT between March 26 and June 1, inclusive, will be notified no later than one week after the application is received. In other words, March 26 is not a hard deadline, and you may still enter the tournament afterwards, though you are encouraged to start forming and fundraising as soon as possible so that a logistical problem does not cause an interested team to miss the tournament. Once a team from a state or state-equivalent has been approved by IQBT, IQBT will no longer accept alternate applications from that state, but will accept roster changes made by the official team contact (in most cases, the individual that submitted the application). Team applications and recruitment will be handled by Fred Morlan; you can email me at [email protected].

The tournament will be directed by Fred Morlan.

I’m very excited for this tournament and am looking forward to another wonderful competition!

[AKKOLADE]

registered teams listed here

[The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island]

The distribution of 2020 NASAT is below. Notable changes from previous years include the reduction of chemistry and math, and the notable increase in world literature (with a corresponding reduction in American and British literature)

Literature: 4/4

• 1/1 American
• 1/1 British
• 1/1 Euro
• 1/1 World + Classical + Misc.

History: 4/4

• 1.5/1.5 American
• 1.5/1.5 European
• 1/1 World

Science: 4/4

• 1/1 Biology
• .8/.8 Chemistry
• .2/.2 biochemistry, such that any packet with no chemistry has one biochemistry
• 1/1 Physics
• 1/1 other science , distributed roughly evenly between ES/Astro/CS/Math

Fine Arts: 3/3

• 1/1 painting
• 1/1 auditory
• 1/1 other, split evenly between auditory and visual

RMPSS: 4/4

• 1/1 Religion
• 1/1 Myth
• 1/1 Philosophy
• 1/1 SS

Other: 1/1

• .33/.33 Geography
• .33/.33 CE/"Modern World"
• .33/.33 Other Ac

[AKKOLADE]

As of today, March 9, IQBT's first statement regarding the status of NASAT due to the coronavirus outbreak can be found here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=23873

[AKKOLADE]

I am sorry to announce that the 2020 IQBT NASAT is canceled. We plan on hosting NASAT in 2021, at Ohio State if the scheduling works out with them and they would like to have us again.

I apologize to everyone for the inconvenience.