Charter Academic Bowl

Charter Challenge

Rules

Changes anticipated for Charter Challenge VI are indicated in red.

Description of format

The Charter Challenge is played in four periods, two tossup and two bonus periods.

At the outset, the moderator will read the five category titles. The teams will decide which players are starting the first period. Then a coin will be flipped, and the winner of the toss will choose first.

• 1st period: All bonus topics have a total of eight answers worth 10 points each. The first and third periods will be played on the clock, and team will have ninety seconds to complete their category. They may pass on any question and return to it if time remains. Missed questions will not rebound to the other team, so the moderator can indicate answers immediately.
• 2nd period: Sixteen tossups worth 10 points apiece.
• 3rd period: Identical to the first  period, except that the team behind in score will choose first, and that correct answers are now worth 15 points each. As there are five bonus categories available, one will not get used.
• 4th period: Similar to the second period, except that the tossups clues will sometimes be more difficult, and that all correct answers will garner 15 points.

General rules of the competition:

• Unless noted in a question, teams have 5 seconds to respond after a moderator finishesreading a tossup. Computation tossups always get 10 seconds. Generally, a moderator will prompt for an answer before calling time.
• Moderators will read tossups a maximum of two times, and will probably only give the last clue in the reiteration. A moderator may not reread a tossup when someone has buzzed in periods 2 and 4. After a buzz, the team must respond within the five seconds. During the bonus categories you may ask for as many rereads as you want until time expires.
• On bonus categories, moderators are instructed to take the first answer directed towards them from the team captain. On tossups, moderators are instructed to take the first answer directed towards them from the person who buzzed in. We suggest if you need to confer, that you do so using quieter voices so it is clearer to the moderator what answer to consider.
• Computation questions must be done without the aid of any device (i.e. calculator)
• Teammates may confer at any time of any question. However, on tossups we suggest conferring after someone on your team has hit the buzzer.
• Factual errors in a question may be challenged by a team and scores will be adjusted if the question is found in error. If necessary, a replacement question will be read. Judgments by a moderator (e.g. what they heard the player say, when they called time) are not protestable.
• Players will not be penalized for reasonable mispronunciations. Generally the "consonant rule" applies: the letters of the answer should be present in the correct order without additional letters.

  For example, ANN-en, and ah-NON are reasonable answers for the U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. However, on a question about Asian houses with multiple roofs, "pan-goda" is not acceptable for pagoda.

• The last name of a person will usually suffice. If the answer needs to be made more precise, the moderator will say "prompt" or "be more specific". Characters (literary, television, etc) can often be identified using a first name only.
• In preliminary rounds, ties after the fourth period will not be broken. Each team will have earned half a win. In a playoff round, three tossup questions will be read. If the score is still tied after that, sudden death tossups will be read and the next correct answer wins the round.

Important rules regarding participation

• Once a student plays a match for a team, they are committed to that team for the tournament. If your school has multiple teams, each student must be assigned to a single team and not assist any other team.
• The only people who should be communicating during questions are the eight students sitting at the buzzers. Answers that are mouthed to students, especially from parents, are not acceptable. The following penalties will apply in cases where a team has been unfairly helped:
  1. The first offense will be a warning, and team is not be allowed to answer the question on which the incident occurred.
  2. The second offense will be a 100 point deduction from the offending team's score, and the team is not be allowed to answer the question on which the incident occurred.
  3. The third offense disqualifies a team from the entire tournament. If this happens in the last round, the team is ineleigible to receive a trophy.
  These offenses are culmulative through the tournament. All offenses will be reported to the tabulation room and subsequent readers for the team in question will be warned to watch for this unacceptable behavior.
• While most Charter Challenge teams are composed of students from a single school, there are occasionally hybrid teams. In particular, some gifted students have no teacher helping them participate, or are unable to find teammates from their school We would never deny such a student an opportunity to participate in our competition. Any teams we know about that have students from multiple schools (e.g. collections of friends) have received our permission to participate.

In general, moderators' decisions will stand. Appeals to the tournament directors will be considered but will hopefully be rare.