Calculus Bowl

calculus bowl 2010

Calculus Bowl Rules

  1. Teams and Equipment
    1. Teams must consist of at least three, but no more than five, players.
    2. One player must be designated as the Team Captain, and will be responsible for representing her/his team in random drawings.
    3. Calculators may be used.
  2. Structure of the Contest
    1. A random draw for seating positions will be held.
    2. The final round will consist of 40 questions.
  3. Rules for Answering Questions
    1. Responses to questions may be made only via pressing the InterwriteTM clicker buttons. No voice responses are allowed.
    2. Each team is allowed only one response per question. Thus, once a response is made, it cannot be changed.
    3. After a question is presented, each team has 60 seconds to respond. Responses made after 60 seconds will not be recorded.
    4. Information on the elapsed time, and on how many teams have responded by that time, will be available on the problem-viewing screen.
    5. The responses of the teams already responding will NOT be available during the 60-seconds question period.
  4. Scoring
    The wireless clicker system records the responses in the order in which they are made. Since it is possible that more than one team may respond with the correct answer, the following scoring system will be used:
    1. The first team to respond with the correct answer will be awarded three points.
    2. The second team to respond with the correct answer will be awarded two points.
    3. The third team to respond with the correct answer will be awarded one point.
    4. Teams responding with the correct answer, but not among the first three correct responders, will receive no points.
    5. Teams responding with an incorrect answer will lose one point, regardless of their position among responders.
  5. Operating the InterwriteTM Clickers
    calculus bowl equipment
    1. To send a response, the letter (A, B, C, D or E) must be keyed, followed by hitting the ENTER button (green arrow). The response is not sent to the system until the ENTER button is pressed!!!
    2. Do NOT turn the power off!!! This will disconnect your clicker from the system and prevent you from sending responses.
    3. Avoid pressing keys other than A-E and the ENTER key. This may prevent you from sending your responses to the questions.
    4. If for some reason your clicker disconnects from the system, the judge will help you reconnect AFTER the current question is finished.
    5. Dealing with the "Sleep Mode" feature of the clickers: The sleep mode interval has been set at two minutes. If your clicker goes into sleep mode, pressing any key (only once) will reactivate it.
  6. General Rules of Operation
    1. For each question, after 60 seconds (or after all teams have responded) the responses will be displayed. The correct answer will be announced and the scores updated per the rules above.
    2. There are two score verifiers in the audience keeping a written copy of the score as the game progresses. If an error is made on the scoreboard, it is the duty of the score verifiers to stop the game AT THE END OF THE QUESTION to correct the scoreboard. THE DECISIONS OF THE SCORE VERIFIERS ARE FINAL!
    3. In the unlikely event of failure of the clicker system, play will continue using hand-held cards. In that case, the team captain (only) raises her/his team card to indicate the order of response, which will be recorded by the judge. At the end of one minute, the judge calls on each team captain for her/his team's response. The score is tallied as described above.
  7. Determining the Winning Team
    1. To win the contest, a team must:
      • have the highest score after 40 questions in the final round; OR
      • be in a tie after 40 questions and win the ensuing tie-breaker (see below).
    2. Ties for first place in the final round.
      • If two or more teams are tied for first place after 40 questions, ONLY THESE TEAMS will continue in a sudden-death tie-breaker of up to five more questions.
      • If EXACTLY TWO teams are tied for 1st place, then the loser of the tie-breaker is awarded 2nd place and the winner of the tie-breaker is awarded 1st place. If the two teams are tied at the end of the tie-breaker, then the winner will be determined by random draw.
      • If MORE THAN TWO teams are tied for 1st place, the first team to move ahead will be declared the winner and the remaining teams will continue to compete for 2nd place. Any team falling behind will be immediately eliminated from the competition. The tie-breaker continues until the 1st and 2nd place teams are unambiguous, or up to five questions. Any remaining ties will be resolved by random draw.
    3. Ties for second place in the final round
      • If the 1st place team is determined after 40 questions, but there are ties for 2nd place, the tied teams will continue as above in a sudden-death tie-breaker.

Practice Problems