2025 COOT: Announcement

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I’m pleased to announce production of the 2025 Cambridge and Oxford Open Tournament (or COOT) has officially begun! The quiz societies of Oxford and Cambridge universities have come together to write a housewritten set, for an initial mirror to be held some point in early 2025, although this is subject to change. I, Rhys Lewis, will be head editing. The editors are:
Rhys Lewis (Biology, Other Science, Auditory Fine Arts, Other Fine Arts, Geography, Popular Culture)
Omer Keskin (European Literature, World Literature, Other Academic)
Linus Luu (Biology, Other Science, Social Science)
Ben Russell Jones (British Literature, Anglophone Literature, Visual Fine Arts)
Abigail Tan (Pre-1000 History, 1000-1600 History, 1600-1900 History)
Sam Foo (Post-1900 History, Philosophy)
Delia Cropper (Physics)
Agnijo Banerjee (Post-1900 History, Belief)
Alex Baker (Physics)
Maxwell Ye (Chemistry)
Ben Richards (Current Affairs)

Across 13 packets, the distribution for the set is as follows:
4/4 Science, broken down as:
1/1 Biology
1/1 Physics
2/2 “Chemistry and Other Science”, which is 11/11 Chemistry and 15/15 Other Science across the set

4/4 Literature, broken down as:
1/1 British
1/1 European
1/1 Anglophone
1/1 World

4/4 History, broken down as:
1/1 Pre-1000
1/1 1000-1600
1/1 1600-1900
1/1 Post-1900

3/3 Fine Arts, broken down as:
1/1 Visual
1/1 Auditory
1/1 Other

3/3 Thought and Belief, broken down as
1/1 Philosophy
1/1 Social Science
1/1 Belief

2/2 “Other”, which includes Geography, Current Affairs, Popular Culture and Other Academic

As with previous editions of COOT, Mythology will be spread across different categories (e.g. Geography, Belief, Literature); we are making a conscious effort to include 7.5/7.5 mythology across the set.

The difficulty of this set will be 3 dot, similar to that of ACF Regionals and Penn Bowl; although unlike Regionals, there will be powers. Tossups will be roughly 7-8 lines of size 10 Times New Roman.

We are aiming for the initial mirror to be held sometime in February 2025, going by previous editions, but this is subject to change.