During Current Events, players are faced with questions about major events that have happened worldwide during the past year. The Categories for Current Events will include—but are not limited to—Culture, Economics, History, Politics, Science, Technology, Sports, Entertainment, Personalities
Theme questions refer to a social studies research Theme topic, selected every other year by students at the national tournament. Subtopics are devised for each Theme. These become the Categories for the Theme rounds. The Theme topic for school years 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 is The Medieval Period (500 - 1450 AD) Worldwide. This includes Europe, Asia, Africa, and the present-day Americas.
- Personalities, such as but not limited to:
- Royalty (Arthur, Alfred the Great, Pepin, Charlemagne, Richard the Lion-hearted, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry II, etc.)
- Explorers (Marco Polo, Leif Erickson, etc.)
- Religious Leaders (Joan of Arc, Thomas á Becket, Boniface, Mohammed, Confucius, Buddha, etc.)
- Warriors & Invaders (Genghis Khan, William the Conqueror, etc.)
- Daily Life and Culture, such as but not limited to:
- Chivalry (courtly love, heraldry, etc.)
- Clothing (armor, women's, men's, children's, nobility, peasants, etc.)
- Economics & Trade (guilds, apprentices, journeymen, Hanseatic League, slave trade, spice trade, etc.)
- Education (libraries, universities, town & gown, philosophy, etc.)
- Feudalism (manorial life, serfs, peasants, vassals, lords, class or caste system, etc.)
- Food (agriculture, hunting, gathering, cuisine, etc.)
- Nationalism (formation of nations, dynasties, empires)
- Recreation & Leisure Activities (tournaments, jousting, heraldry, games, etc.)
- Rise of Towns & Cities
- Status of Women & Children
- Tribes & Clans
- Warfare & Military Strategy (Samurai, Moghuls, Mongols, Vikings, Huns)
- Religions, such as but not limited to
- Christianity (pilgrimages, Papacy, monastic orders, Templars, etc.)
- Judaism (Jewish ghetto, anti-Semitism, etc.)
- Islam (Moors, Turks, Mecca, etc.)
- Oriental Religions (Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Shinto, etc.)
- Arts and Culture, such as but not limited to:
- Architecture (sacred space, cloisters, cathedrals, monasteries, Romanesque, Gothic, flying buttress, mosques, pagodas, temples, shrines, etc.)
- Literature (Domesday Book, chronicles, drama, poetry, romances, oral tradition, epics, legends, mythology, fabliaux, bestiary, etc.)
- Music (chants, polyphony, motets, instruments, secular, bards, etc.)
- Visual Art (painting, tapestry, sculpture, mosaics, icons, illuminations, etc.)
- Science and Technology, such as but not limited to
- Alchemy
- Astrology
- Discoveries
- Inventions
- Lapidaries
- Martial Arts
- Medicine
- Transportation
- Weapons
- Events and Movements, such as but not limited to
- Battle of Hastings
- Black Death
- Byzantine Empire
- Crusades
- Danelaw
- Dark Ages
- Disasters
- Exploration
- Fall of Rome
- Great Schism
- Holy Roman Empire
- Hundred Years War
- Inquisition
- Magna Carta
- Middle Ages
- Ottoman Empire
- Peasant's Revolt
- Wars & Rebellions
Previous Theme topics have included Ancient Egypt, Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's, United States Geography, American Revolution, U. S. Inventors of the 19th and 20th Centuries, World War I, History of Space Exploration (1900-2004). No Theme topic is repeated within a ten year period.
Each player may have as many reference books as he or she wishes. The player may refer to the books during the Theme questions but may not use references during the Current Event questions. Reference books may be any available nationally published volume. Students may also bring one constructed notebook on the Theme, which abides by the following rules:
- The notebook must be bound together by some means.
- Each page must be numbered in consecutive order. If a photocopy of a published page is included, the old page number must be scratched or whited out, and the new page number written (pen/pencil) or typed in.
- The notebook must be typed or, if written in pen/pencil, photocopied to prevent students from adding to the notebook during rounds. Information may be tabbed, highlighted, or underlined.
- The notebook must contain no more than 50 pages (25 if photcopied front and back), not including the index. The index is limited to 10 pages and must be ion index or table of contents format. It must conain only topics, page numbers, and/or column designations (e.g. 29 and/or 29A, 29B are appropriate).
The rules of question reading and wagering are the same for both Theme and Current Events.
- A central reader announces a Category before each question.
- Students are asked to wager either 6 or 4 or 2 points that they will know the answer to the question.
- All wagers in a grouping are revealed simultaneously and recorded on a common score sheet before the question is read.
- The central reader reads the question and four alternative answers aloud twice and only twice.
- Players are encouraged to take notes about the alternatives.
- The reader may wish to spell difficult words aloud or write them on a central board--especially in the Elementary Division.
- Students are not to write their answers down until they hear the central reader say, "You may answer the question now." Failure to follow this rule will result in a first-time warning. The second time the player answers before the command, he/she loses his/her wager.
- Players understand that, if they answer:
- A correct answer will earn plus the number of points wagered.
- An incorrect answer will earn minus the number of points wagered.
- A further twist is that if a player does not answer:
- Each player has two Abstentions that may be used in each round to accept a score of zero on a question—even after hearing the question and choices.
- A player neither gains nor loses points unless the Abstention limit is exceeded.
- If a player does not answer or Abstains on a question after having exceeded the Abstention limit, that player loses his/her wager for that question.
- In the Theme rounds, players may earn a Bonus of four points for finding the answer to the question in one of their reference books.
- From the end of the second reading, each player has two minutes to find the answer and page number within his/her own reference which substantiates that answer.
- At the end of one minute, forty seconds (1:40), the central reader will give a 20 second warning by repeating the alternatives.
- As in the Current Events rounds and subject to the same penalties, students are not to write their answers down until they hear the central reader say, "You may answer the question now."
- If a player can substantiate any answer other than the designated answer, the player wins his/her wager and the four Bonus points. In the Theme rounds, therefore, players have the option of writing their own answers if the answer they find is not one of the alternatives given by the central reader.
- Players are, thus, rewarded both for preparing ahead of time with knowledge of the Theme topic, for developing their own research skills, and for proficiency in skimming topic sentences and using indices and/or tables of contents.
