1st UK SCHOOLS QUIZ CHAMPIONSHIPS (August 16th-17th 2003)
and
1st UK SCHOOLS INTELLIGENCE CHAMPIONSHIPS (August 25th 2003)
In collaboration with EIC Manchester (Excellence In Cities) the Mind Sports Olympiad is organizing the first UK Schools Quiz and Intelligence championships. Both championships will take place during the 7th Mind Sports Olympiad which is moving to a new, permanent home in Manchester. The event is being hosted by UMIST and accommodation on campus is available for those pupils who will need it.
The 7th Mind Sports Olympiad is supported by UMIST and by Manchester City Council. The UK Schools Quiz and Intelligence Championships and the Brain Power Academy (see below) are supported by EIC Manchester.
The UK Schools Quiz Championships will start on Saturday August 16th with a team championship to find the best quiz school in the country. This will be followed on Sunday August 17th by an individual championship. The questions will be set by the British Quiz Association.
The UK Schools Intelligence Championships will be held on bank holiday Monday August 25th. There will be a team championship for school teams and an individual championship to find the country's most brilliant young genius.
Every school may enter the qualifying stage of these championships.
How to qualify
A qualifying competition can be organized in your own school on Monday June 30th, when all "A" Level and GCSE exams will be over. No travel is necessary to qualify. 100 schools will qualify for the finals of the team Quiz championships and 100 for the team Intelligence Championship. A school may qualify for the finals of both events. The finals will take place during the Mind Sports Olympiad in Manchester.
500 individual pupils will qualify for the individual finals of the Quiz Championship and 500 for the Intelligence Championship.
A school may enter either or both of the Quiz and Intelligence championships, and within each of these disciplines a school may choose to enter either or both of the team and individual events.
To enter the Quiz event a school should send an e-mail to schoolsquiz@msoworld.com. To enter the Intelligence event a school should send an e-mail to schoolsintelligence@msoworld.com. If a school wishes to enter both disciplines it must send an e-mail to both addresses.
The information required in the e-mail is:
- Name of school
- Full postal address of school with postcode
- Telephone number of school
- Name and home telephone number of teacher who will be the MSO contact point
- E-mail address of school
Additional qualifying competitions will be held in Manchester on Friday August 15th for the Schools Quiz Championships and on Sunday August 24th for the Schools Intelligence Championships, for those who have not already qualified.
How the qualification competitions work
Each qualification test will last 30 minutes. Every school may nominate up to 25 pupils to take part in each test. A pupil may take part in either or both of the disciplines so long as the total number for each test does not exceed 25. The entry fee for each discipline is £50 per school.
Schools that take part in the qualification competitions must be prepared to send a teacher to act as an invigilator at another school in the same area. In this way every school will have an independent invigilator as well as its own invigilator.
The questions for each qualification test will be e-mailed to the schools on the day of the tests (June 30th). All questions will be multiple choice. Along with the questions the independent invigilator is sent a form that must be filled in with the name, date of birth and age in years and months of each candidate. The independent invigilator then supervises the photocopying of the test questions, producing sufficient copies to have one per candidate and one for each invigilator. The independent invigilator retains possession of all copies and proceeds to the test room where the test will begin at the appointed time. The Intelligence test will begin at 11am and the Quiz test at 2:30pm.
All candidates will be given 30 minutes to answer the test paper. At the end of this period all the papers are collected by the independent invigilator. At 12:00 (for the Intelligence test) and 3:30pm (for the Quiz test) the answers will be posted on our web site together with a "score form". The independent invigilator marks each of the candidates' test papers. The school's own invigilator also marks each of the test papers. When the marks of the two invigilators agree they both sign the score form which is posted to our office. The independent invigilator also sends us the details and scores of the top six pupils in each test by e-mail.
School team qualification
A school team's score is the total of its four best scoring candidates. The schools with the highest 100 team scores automatically qualify for the finals of the team championship. Any ties will be resolved on the basis of the average age of the four highest scoring candidates from each school - the youngest average age team(s) will qualify. A school that qualifies for the finals may send any four of its pupils to be its team.
Individual qualification
The 500 highest scoring candidates automatically qualify for the finals of the individual championship. In many cases a qualifier for the individual championship will also be in a qualifying school team but our system ensures that individual candidates have the same opportunity to qualify, irrespective of whether or not their school qualifies for the team event.
Notification of results and finalists
A full list of finalists and their scores is now available. In addition all schools that qualify for the finals of the team championship and/or which have a pupil(s) who qualifies for the individual championship will be notified by e-mail and will be sent full details of the finals and how to apply for overnight student accommodation, which is located 2 minutes walk from the venue for the finals (the Renold Building at UMIST).
The Finals
The finals will take place at UMIST, located 5 minutes walk from Manchester Piccadilly station.
The Quiz Championship finals will be held on Saturday August 16th (team event), from 10am-2pm (qualifying round) and 3-6pm (grand final); and on Sunday August 17th (individual event), from 10am-2pm (qualifying round) and 3-6pm (grand final).
The Intelligence Championship finals will take place on Sunday August 25th, with the team finals from 10am-1pm and the individual finals from 2-5pm.
There will be two stages for the finals of the team championships. In the first stage each pupil will answer a 30-minute test paper. There will be four different test papers and within a school team each of the test papers will be answered by just one pupil. This minimizes the opportunities for pupils from the same school to help each other (which is forbidden at this stage). The 8 teams with the highest total scores will proceed to the next stage, the grand final. Any ties will be resolved in favour of the team(s) with the youngest average age.
In the second stage of the finals, which will decide the team medals, each team will be in its own room with an invigilator. One pupil from each team will be the team captain. These 8 teams will be given a 1-hour test paper and will be allowed to collaborate. The team captain must decide which answer to give to a question if there is disagreement within the team. If the team finishes the paper before the hour is up the captain may decide to hand in the paper in which case the invigilator will note the time. Tied scores for any of the medal places will be resolved in favour of the faster team. If there is still a tie then the average age of the team will decide.
There will also be two stages for the finals of the individual championships. A 30-minute test paper will be used to select the top 20 pupils. After a suitable break these 20 will sit a 1-hour test. Again, ties will be resolved on the basis of time taken and, if there is still a tie, it will be resolved in favour of the younger pupil.
Prizes and titles
All members of the top three school teams in the Quiz and Intelligence championships will receive MSO Gold, Silver or Bronze medals as appropriate. The winning school in each team championship will receive a trophy and the title: UK Schools Team Quiz Champions or UK Schools Team Intelligence Champions. The top three pupils in the individual championships will receive MSO Gold, Silver and Bronze medals as appropriate. The Gold medal pupils will be awarded the title: UK Schools Quiz Champion or UK Schools Intelligence Champion and will each be given a £1,000 scholarship when starting university or an alternative higher education establishment. Additional sponsored prizes will be awarded.
Entry Fees
The entry fee in the qualifying competitions for school teams is £50 (up to 25 pupils) for each championship. The entry fee for individual pupils whose schools do not enter the team championship is £10 per pupil. Qualifying schools will pay an additional £40 entry fee for the finals of the team event and £10 per pupil for the individual finals.
What is the Mind Sports Olympiad?
The Mind Sports Olympiad offers many opportunities for everyone to have fun and expand their minds. The event is an annual games and mental skills festival where the participants compete for Gold, Silver and Bronze medals, and for other prizes. In every tournament there are medals for the best "juniors" (aged under 19 on August 16th). There are also five one-day workshops - the "Brain Power Academy" - to teach learning skills: Mind Mapping, Speed Reading and Memory Skills. And the "Games Academy" offers five one-day workshops, each of which teaches three classic thinking games.
Other opportunities for pupils
Our philosophy at the Mind Sports Olympiad is that "Anyone Can Enter", and that includes children. (Entry fees for juniors in our other tournaments are half those for adults.) We have had players as young as six. In 1999 a six-year-old boy played in a Bridge partnership with his father, in a tournament that included two World Champions. And in 2000 we brought a six-year-old Go prodigy from China - he travelled with his teacher and was strong enough to win £200 in prize money. But beginners are just as welcome as experts and we have sessions to teach games to those who do not know how to play them.
Another of our events which has massive educational potential is the Mental Calculations Championship on the afternoon of August 23rd. We expect this to grow into one of the biggest tournaments in the entire Olympiad. No pre-qualification is necessary.
This year we are introducing two "academies", one for teaching learning skills and the other for teaching games.
The "Brain Power Academy" will run from Monday August 18th to Friday 22nd, 10am-5pm. Each day the academy will offer the same three subjects: Memory Skills, Speed Reading and Mind Mapping, ending the day with a Mind-Mapping competition. From Tuesday August 19th it will be possible for those who have attended one of the Brain Power Academy sessions to return for a study group on whichever of the three topics they wish. In this way the most enthusiastic pupils will be able to progress quite rapidly in just a couple of days. Participation fees for each of these academies is £20 per day for adults, £10 for juniors (under 19). And for juniors who live within the Manchester postcode area there is an extra discount to £5 per day.
The "Games Academy" will run in parallel with the Brain Power Academy and offers the same concept daily, 10am-5pm, from Monday August 18th to Friday 22nd. Three games will be taught each day from a roster of five: Chess (options for beginner level, to learn the moves, and for novice level, to learn the basic principles), Backgammon, Scrabble, Othello and Mini-Bridge. We have teachers provided by the English Bridge Union to teach Mini-Bridge and for the other games the teaching will be by MSO experts in each game. The brief for our teaching staff is to make the lessons entertaining. As well as learning the games the pupils will have the opportunity to take part in a competitive activity. Participation fees are £20 per day for adults, £10 for juniors (under 19).
What other games and skills are there?
The competitors at the Mind Sports Olympiad play each other at a variety of well known strategy games, such as Chess, Bridge, Backgammon, Scrabble, Othello and Go. In addition there are tournaments for a number of more recently invented games, which have achieved worldwide popularity, including Abalone, Continuo, Diplomacy, Lines of Action, Mastermind, Othello and Twixt. There are also tournaments for some of the best strategy games from Asia: Chinese Chess, Go and Shogi (Japanese Chess). All of these games require strategic and analytical skills.
We also hold several mental skills championships, including Creative Thinking, which tests the contestants' speed, flexibility and originality of thought. Speed Reading competitors are tested on an unpublished book to determine their average number of words read per minute and their percentage comprehension. The Mental Calculation championship finds the best at mental arithmetic. Memory Skills includes the ability to remember whole packs of playing cards, as many digits as possible of a long number, passages of text, etc.
For more detailed information please visit our web site: www.msoworld.com.
For general enquiries please e-mail: entries@msoworld.com or telephone: 01707 659080 (9am-9pm) or 07973 516718.
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