Panasonic Academic Challenge

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The Panasonic Academic Challenge (PAC) is one of a small number of national competitions (see also) that is held in June for high school quizbowl teams in the United States. The PAC has been run in June of each year since 1988.

1 Match Format
2 Topic and Question Formats
3 Tournament Format
4 Team Qualifications
5 Sponsorship & Prizes
6 History of the PAC
7 See also
8 External links

[edit] Match Format

The format used in the PAC is unique among all other national tournaments, and is based on the format used for the Commissioner's Academic Challenge, which is Florida's quizbowl tournament for school districts (separate from their actual high school championship). This tournament is used to select the team which represents Florida at the PAC.

While most tournaments involve two teams playing in a head-to-head format, the PAC involves matches of between four and six teams playing against each other in the same competition room. Each team starts with 100 points.

Each match is divided into three untimed periods. The first period consists of 20 questions, each worth five points. The second period consists of 20 questions, each worth ten points, and the final round consists of 25 questions, each worth fifteen points. Each question has a one minute time limit in which teams may answer. Teams answering incorrectly are penalized the point value of the question. A team is eliminated from competition if their point total reaches zero (a very rare event).

At the end of each period, each team participates in a written team question which has a variable time limit, and a variable number of questions. The written team question after each of the three periods is worth (respectively) a maximum of ten, twenty, and thirty points. There are no penalties for incorrect answers in this phase of the competition. These written questions are non-competitive, and each team may earn the maximum number of points.

At the end of each match, teams are ranked according to their point totals. A tie-breaker occurs only if a tie results among teams that will be advancing to a future match.

Aside from the written team questions, there are no bonus questions which are prevalent in most other quizbowl formats. There is also the absence of "rebounding" a missed question. That is, once a question is attempted, whether the answer given is correct or incorrect, the question ends, and no other team is given the opportunity to answer.

Adding to the challenge, each team is permitted only one button to indicate they are ready to answer, and to lock out other teams from responding (aka "buzzer"). Most other formats allow each player to have their own buzzer.

[edit] Topic and Question Formats

The questions used in the PAC are wholly unique among national tournaments. Unlike most other tournaments there are multiple choice and matching questions, some of which can be deceptively difficult. There are also "fill-in-the-blank style questions," as well as free response questions (standard to high school quizbowl).

While topics range across the academic canon, there is an overall de-emphasis of pop culture questions, and a marked increase in the number of mathematics questions (teams are provided calculators). Foreign language is also utilized often, with teams usually choosing from amongst French or Spanish questions (in the past, German and Latin were options, but these have been discontinued).

There are also visual questions displayed on a television monitor, and audio questions played from recordings. While these two question formats can be used for any question category, audio questions are most often used for music and foreign language questions, while video questions are most often used for art questions.

[edit] Tournament Format

The tournament is usually held during the second or third week of June, starting on a Sunday, and ending on a Tuesday. The tournament is usually held at the convention center of the Contemporary Resort Hotel at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida.

Teams are randomly assigned to a first round match (historically, each first round match has either four or five teams in each competition room). Winning teams automatically advance to the semifinals. Teams not winning in the first round are randomly assigned to a consolation match, and compete on Monday. Winners of each consolation match also advance to the semifinals.

There are usually three semifinal matches played on Tuesday morning. The top two teams from each semifinal advance to the championship round, held on Tuesday afternoon.

Coaches are not permitted to challenge the game officials, though players are permitted to do so. Each match generally has at least one judge who is a specialist in each academic area.

[edit] Team Qualifications

An unusual feature of this tournament is that teams do not qualify based on performance during the past season, as is the case in most other national quizbowl tournaments. The Board of Education (or equivalent body) of each U.S. state and territory is given the power to select a team in any way they see fit. Some teams come from a single school, and are usually the quizbowl champion of that state. In other cases, the Board of Education gives selection power to a committee who chooses an "all-star" team from among that state's best players. Thus each state or territory can enter only one team, and is referred to at the tournament as (for example) "Team Alabama" or "Team Arizona".

This is not without controversy. Many individuals have bristled at the inclusion of "all-star" teams, which historically have tended to do better (though many single school teams have done well enough to win the championship). In addition, because these "all-star" teams have no record that can be used for determining a seed, teams are randomly assigned matches, and there is no attempt to seed teams. Thus, some semifinal matches include a disproportionate number of top teams, while some semifinal matches tend to be easier.

In addition, the judging and moderation is mostly performed by the state of Florida hosts. Florida also sends an all star team, and as a result favoritism and corruption have been accused, specifically in 1999 when the winning team members own advisors were the judges.

[edit] Sponsorship & Prizes

Another unique fixture of this tournament are the resources committed by corporate and government sponsorship. Since its inception, the tournament has been sponsored by the school systems of the Florida counties of Pinellas and Polk, with the Florida Department of Education joining in the tournament's third year. Herff Jones and Publix Supermarkets have also been sponsors since the first year of the tournament.

Since 1992, Panasonic has been the title sponsor of the event. The Pepsi Bottling Group has also been a long time sponsor.

This corporate sponsorship allows for one of the largest prize packages in high school quizbowl. The top six teams each earn trophies, which are sent to the governors of the respective states or territories. The members of each of the top three teams earn scholarships ($2500, $1000, and $500 per team member, respectively), and earn championship rings. An "all-tournament" team is selected based on geography and individual performance in the first round of competition. These players earn medals and scholarship money.

[edit] History of the PAC

YEAR	CHAMPION	RUNNER-UP	THIRD PLACE	FOURTH PLACE	FIFTH PLACE	SIXTH PLACE
1988	Maryland	Tennessee	New York
1989	Maryland	Ohio	Virginia
1990	Kentucky	Georgia	Maryland
1991	South Carolina	Virginia	Wisconsin
1992	Maryland	Kentucky	New Jersey
1993	California	Maryland	South Carolina
1994	Virginia	Wisconsin	Kentucky
1995	Florida	South Carolina	Maryland	Pennsylvania
1996	Maryland	South Carolina	Alabama	unknown	Pennsylvania	unknown
1997	Texas	Maryland	Wisconsin	unknown	unknown	Pennsylvania
1998	Maryland	Florida	District of Columbia
1999	Florida	South Carolina	Maryland
2000	Maryland	Kentucky	Missouri
2001	District of Columbia	Florida	Maryland
2002	Maryland	Illinois	South Carolina
2003	Virginia	Florida	South Carolina
2004	Virginia	Missouri	Illinois
2005	Virginia	Maryland	Illinois	Florida		Colorado
2006	Maryland	Florida	Missouri	Pennsylvania	Virginia	Tennessee