Our policy to group some states together to make viable contests available for all has been received with no negative feedback, so we continue to offer those contests by region. The states included in your region are The tests are self-scoring, computer contests of 100 multiple-choice questions. Areas covered include math, geography, government, sports, spelling, science, literature, English, history, general information and just plain fun trivia. It is meant to be a team activity with all takers around one computer or viewed with and InFocus type projection or smartboard. Two chances to answer correctly are given. Points are awarded based on how fast they answer as well as on accuracy. Therefore, teams who do well usually are teams who can come up with an answer quickly. There is to be no outside resources such as phones calculators, charts or electronic devices, but paper and pensile is ok. An adult is needed to monitor but no adult help can be given (a student should be chosen to do the answer keyboarding).

A contest must be purchased for each team. A school can have a 5 th grade team and a 6 th grade team but they would then need to purchase two team entries, the same would be true of a 7 th and 8 th grade team. You could combine grades like 5 th and 6 th and have just one team which would be listed as the highest grade level on the team. Each team’s contest may only be taken once, however the following year the contest becomes a practice contest that can be used over and over.

After the contest is taken on quiz bowl day, teachers do not have to phone in their scores because the sores are sent automatically. We rank them by high score and grade level the next Tuesday afternoon and will post the results on the Thinking Cap website. We award a team trophy and individual ribbons based on the number of teams participating. (Winning teams’ coaches will be contacted to verify that all rules were followed)

Students are given two chances to answer each question. A total of 60 seconds is allowed for each question. If the correct answer is given on the first try, ten points are awarded, plus bonus points based on the speed of the answer are earned as follows:

Time Bonus Points 60-56 seconds 5 55-51 seconds 4 50-56 seconds 3 45-41 seconds 2 40-36 seconds 1 35- 0 seconds 0

On the second try, just five points are awarded for the correct answer and no bonus points are possible.

A line will appear at the top of the answer screen to let you know how many points you got on the question or the correct answer if you did not get the correct question either time. If you want to stop or lose access, the contest will begin where you stopped so it can be done in two days or finished after a fire drill.