Official Rules

Updated January 13, 2010 - Tournament Committee

General Information

A. Participants

  1. All participants are presumed to be responsible individuals and will be treated as such. Teams are responsible for any liability arising from their conduct while at the tournament, or while traveling to or from such events.
  2.  A team consists of three players and up to two alternates who meet all eligibility rules. However, no more than three of a team's players may be actively competing at any one time.
  3.  No player may play for two different teams in the course of a tournament.
  4.  A team may substitute one or more players after the first round. Players substituted for may re-enter the game at a later opportunity.
  5. A coach is a person who acts in a recognized advisory role to a particular team. A coach may not be a player for any team in the tournament. A team can have more than one coach, but only one may be designated the official coach prior to each match. A person may act as a coach, official or otherwise, for any number of teams. If a team has only a single coach, that person will be assumed to be the official coach.

B. Team Composition

  1. A team consists of three players with up to two alternates.
  2. One player must be designated team captain at the beginning of each round.
  3. Substitution of one or more players may be made between rounds, but substitutions are not permitted during a round.

C. Round Composition

  1. Rounds will consist of 20 questions.
  2. A team will be randomly chosen to go first and begins the round by selecting a category and point value.
  3. The Moderator will read the question in its entirety, after which the Primary Judge will recognize the first team to signal.
  4. A correct response earns the point value of the question, and gives the answering team the right to select the next question.

D. Schedule

  1. A schedule listing team match-ups and room numbers will be provided at registration on the day of the tournament.
  2. Each match will start on-time. Teams must report to the designated competition room 5 minutes before the start of the each match.

Rules

A. Questions

  1. A question may be answered by the team captain from either team.
  2. After being recognized by the Primary Judge as the fist team to signal in, the team captain has up to (10) seconds to render an answer.
  3. If a team captain begins an answer before being recognized by the Primary Judge, the answer will be ruled incorrect and the opposing team will be given an opportunity to answer that specific question.
  4. A question will be read in its entirety only once.
  5. There are no penalties for incorrectly answering a question.
  6. No conversation or consultation will be allowed while the Moderator reads the questions. If such occurs, in the judgment of the judges, the opposing team and only the opposing team may answer that specific question. Consultation includes, but is not limited to, speaking, looking, nodding, gesturing, suspicious coughing, and note-writing. The decision of the judges is final and cannot be appealed or protested in this situation.  
  7. Conversation and Consultation will be allowed once the Primary Judge has identified the first team to buzz in. The team captain will have up to (10) seconds to render his team’s answer.
  8. Team players will be allowed to write out the answers to Math questions only, while the Moderator reads the question. There is still to be no conversation until the Primary Judge recognizes the first team to signal.  
  9. If the Moderator inadvertently provides the correct answer to a question following an incorrect answer, that question will be eliminated.
  10. Giving multiple pieces of information related to the question, hoping to get the correct answer somewhere in the string, is considered an incorrect response; i.e., no "blitzing" or "spewing" is allowed. The team captain will give only one answer, and the Moderator will interpret the first piece of information given by the player as the player's answer.
  11. If the answer to a question is a name or other multi-word item, all parts must be correct; e.g., "NATO" or "North Atlantic Treaty Organization" would be a correct answer to a question about trans-oceanic alliances but "Northern Atlantic Treaty Organization" would not.
  12. Each question has a value of 100- 400 points. There are no penalties for incorrect answers.

B. Protests

  1. Protests may be lodged only by an active player or by the official coach at the end of a round. All                 protests about events in the first round must be lodged before the second round begins. All protests about events in the second round must be made within 5 minutes of the end of the game and before the protesting team leaves the room.
  2. Active players and official coaches may indicate their intention to protest during a round by quickly saying "protest" after an answer or action they deem to be incorrect. So long as this does not disrupt or delay the academic bowl, the Moderator will acknowledge the intent (by saying "noted") and continue with the round. The nature of the protest should be taken up at the end of the round.
  3. The person making the protest should briefly explain the nature of the protest to the moderator, other game officials, and a representative of the other team. Protestable matters include the acceptability of an answer, the execution of game procedures, scoring errors, insufficient prompting, and like factors that have a concrete and quantifiable effect on the bowl.
  4. If a question contains a verifiable factual error which misled a player into giving a reasonable response, the response given will be accepted as correct only if the information available when the team signaled uniquely identified the given response. Otherwise, the question will be replaced as if the moderator had prematurely revealed the answer.
  5. Technical protests, such as an incorrect score, as well as protests that can be quickly resolved, may be handled by the judges. Insofar as possible, the academic bowl must not be delayed because of protests. Similarly, while protests may be lodged during breaks, protests will not be adjudicated until the end of the round, except in exceptional situations in which the moderator decides the problem can be quickly corrected within a 30-second timeout period.
  6. For protests lodged in the first round, judges will try to quickly resolve the protest to both teams' satisfaction. If this cannot be done, the protest will be deferred to the end of the second round. No protest(s) will be adjudicated unless it (they) could change the outcome of the match. For example, if one team loses by 200 points and protests a 100 point answer, the protest will not be considered. If the judges are unable to resolve a protest quickly to both teams' satisfaction, the protest may be appealed to the tournament director.
  7. The tournament director may resolve a protest with or without a protest committee, depending upon the protest (e.g., one that simply requires verifying the correctness of an answer with a reference source). If the tournament director gives a decision, it is final.

 C. Ethics and Conduct

  1. All players, coaches, institutional representatives, and other persons associated with a team are bound by an honor code to behave responsibly and ethically. This includes, but is not limited to: treating all other participants and staff with courtesy, neither giving nor receiving impermissible assistance, not creating the temptation for another to cheat, abiding by all decisions of the tournament staff, not colluding with another person to "fix" a match result, not intentionally "throwing" a match, honestly reporting details of situations to tournament officials, and promptly reporting violations of this honor code to a tournament staff member.
  2. Any tournament official may find that a player, coach, institutional representative, or other person associated with a team during the tournament has committed misconduct. Misconduct includes disruptive behavior, unethical behavior, any violation of the honor code, or other unsporting conduct. Officials may interpret these categories broadly. Teams are responsible for the conduct of all persons associated with that team.
  3. All instances of misconduct must be reported to the tournament director at the conclusion of the game, or as soon as practical.
  4. Instances of misconduct may result in sanctions to be determined by the tournament director. These sanctions include, but are not limited to, suspension of a participant from one or more matches, loss of game(s) for a team, score or clock adjustment, or expulsion of an entire team from the tournament.
  5. Unless the tournament director decides otherwise, other staff may not impose sanctions, except that a Moderator must eject from a game any person found to have committed misconduct a second time during that game (i.e., a tournament director may give the staff greater powers to sanction than this minimum.) A player ejected from a game may not be replaced during that game.

  D. Miscellaneous

  1. Players may not have reference books or other aids, including calculators, student-made charts, electronic devices, etc., during rounds.
  2. All teams will be provided clean paper and pencils for each round.
  3. Cell phones, beepers, alarms, etc., must be turned off or left outside the playing room during play. 
  4. Once the doors to the room have been closed for each round, no player, coach, or spectator may enter or exit the room until the door is opened at the end of the round.

Definition of Terms

Academic Bowl
A competition employing buzzer systems in which teams complete by answering questions on academic subjects.

Buzzer System
Signaling device used by players to indicate their desire to answer the question and which determines the first player to signal.

Computer Operator
The Computer Operator is responsible for running the PowerPoint board and identifying the first team to indicate they know the answer via a buzzer system.

Judge
Judges are responsible for adjudicating protests, tracking time and keeping score.

Moderator
The Moderator is responsible for introducing the tournament, reading the categories at the start of each round, and reading the questions. The answers will appear on the screen. If no correct response is given to a question, the Moderator will read the answer.

Proctor
The proctor is responsible for monitoring the room and tracking each round.