- Certamen (quiz bowl)
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Certamen (Classical Latin: [kɛrˈtaːmɛn]), Latin for "competition", is a quiz bowl-style competition with classics-themed questions. The reference invokes the brief ancient Greek account of the Contest of Homer and Hesiod, Certamen Homeri et Hesiodi. The formats differ, but most are similar to the formats of quiz bowl. The questions are on topics ranging from the minutiae of Latin grammar and vocabulary, Latin-based etymology, Roman history and culture, and classical mythology. Certamina are organized by classics organizations, usually chapters of the Junior Classical League, and are held at local high schools, state forums or conventions, and the National Junior Classical League national convention.
Contents
History
Certamen was invented by Tony Ruffa, who taught in Richmond, Virginia in the 1960s and '70s. He invited all Virginia schools – both secondary and collegiate – who taught Latin to come to Richmond for the first tournament. This single-elimination event had local schools play on Thursday afternoon and out-of-towners on Friday; the winners of each division faced off the next week on taped public television.
The first two championship teams, in 1971 and 1972, were from Handley High School in Winchester, Virginia, and were coached by Latin teacher Susan S. Schearer. Schearer, Virginia state chair at the time and in charge of the 1972 NJCL convention at Virginia Tech, introduced the game to NJCL. There was only one level. Intermediate, then called Lower, was added two years later, and Novice in 1987. Tennessee won the first two national championships.
Virginia has won the most national certamen titles, with 36, Florida is second with 21, and Texas is third with 17. When an anonymous donor first gave $500 to the winning Advanced Level team, a Virginia team won and spent it on the Maureen O'Donnell traveling trophy, which spends the year in the state of the winning Advanced Level team.
The 2009 Advanced championship team from Florida used its $500 to create the Susan Schearer trophy for the National Novice division winner.
Certamen at National Junior Classical League conventions
The Certamen played at the National Junior Classical League Conventions (Nationals) are the most competitive and prestigious. There are three levels of competition: Novice (for students in Latin 1/2 or 1); Intermediate (for students in Latin 2); and Advanced (for students in Latin 3 and beyond). Students may play in a higher level than their completed Latin, but never in a lower level. Each team may only consist of students from the same state, and each state may only have one team for each level. Since three teams play against each other each round, the draws are composed of multiples of threes. Wild Card teams may be formed to balance out the draw.
Gameplay
A certamen match at Nationals has twenty toss-up questions which any player may buzz in on at any point of the question to try to answer. However, players may not at any time during a toss-up communicate with other players. If a player gets a toss-up correct, his/her team receives ten points. Then the whole team of that player is given two bonus questions to answer. The team now gets to talk among themselves to answer the bonus questions. Only the designated captain is allowed to answer bonus questions on behalf of the team, although he is permitted to defer to another player. The bonus questions are each worth five points. No penalties are given for wrong answers. Scores are read out loud after questions number five, ten, fifteen, nineteen, and after the round.
In a typical Nationals-level certamen match, three certamen teams each composed of four members play against each other. The teams are seated in chairs or desks in a semicircular fashion. The moderator reads the questions. A spotter announces which player buzzed in first to answer a question. This is done with the certamen machine, which is a buzzer system with a lock-out mechanism that registers a beep and displays the buzzer number of the first player to buzz in. A time keeper times the fifteen seconds allotted for bonus questions (boni). The time keeper and the spotter may be the same person. There is also a scorekeeper who records the scores of the teams.
Tournament setup
Three preliminary rounds of certamen are played with each team playing two other teams each round. The top nine teams based on the total scores in the prelims advance into the semifinals. Each team receives a seed based on the amount of points it received during the three preliminary rounds. The matchups in the three semifinal games are seeds 1-6-7, 2-5-8, and 3-4-9. The victor of each of the three semifinal rounds (regardless of previous scores or seeds) advances into the finals. The victor in the finals then captures first place. Unlike the three preliminary rounds, semifinals and finals are single-elimination matches.
Prior to each round, the moderator reads the Aurelia passage to the players as an example of how he or she pronounces each sound in Latin. The passage is "Aurelia, cui urbs placebat, erat in Aegypto cum familia sua ingenti et equo suo. Tredecim ludos magnos Iovis in amphitheatro Alexandriae spectabat. Deinde, equus iratus domum recurrere coepit. Eheu!" The tranlation is "Aurelia, to whom the city was pleasing, was in Egypt with her family and her horse. She watched thirteen great games of Jupiter in the amphitheater of Alexandria. Then, the angry horse began to return home. Alas!"
Questions
At national competitions, novice and intermediate questions are:
- 50% language skills, which may include grammar, vocabulary, translation, and derivatives
- 25% mythology
- 25% history and culture
On the upper level, literature is added to the topics since the players are now assumed to be reading real Roman writings.
- 40% language skills
- 20% mythology
- 20% history and culture
- 20% literature
Questions are usually worded like those of regular quiz bowl competitions. However, the NJCL Certamen Committee also includes questions that have a listening passage in which a paragraph of Latin is read aloud twice then succeeded by a toss-up question; visual aid questions, in which teams are given a sheet of paper with images to be identified; and command questions, in which the player must complete a Latin command read by the moderator.
Preparation and strategy
Some players arrive at nationals with hundreds of hours spent in preparation for the competition. Certamen player must not only be knowledgeable, but also quick at the buzzer.
Study techniques differ widely, depending on the player's level and area of focus. Source books are often very useful; the National Junior Classical League publishes a list of sources from which all its questions are drawn. A partial list includes:
- Language skills: Allen and Greenough's New Latin Grammar; a Latin dictionary, typically Lewis and Short's; and a thorough English dictionary.
- Mythology: Mark Morford's, Edward Tripp's, and Pierre Grimal's mythology handbooks.
- Roman history and culture: Edith Hamilton's The Roman Way, The Oxford Classical Dictionary, A History of Rome Down to the Reign of Constantine by M. Cary and H.H. Scullard, and A History of the Roman People, by Ward, Heichelheim, and Yeo.
- Literature: "Latin Literature: A History" by Gian Biaggio Conte; "History of Latin Literature" by Moses Hadas; "The Oxford Classical Dictionary"
Teams will try to have specialized players, having one grammarian, one historian, one mythologist, and one all-around. In National play, state teams may register up to four starters and four alternates. An alternate may be exchanged for a starter in any round, though no changes are allowed within a given round.
National championships
A victory at the national convention is the most prestigious achievement for a certamen player. The winning Advanced level team receives a one-year lease on the traveling Maureen O'Donnell Trophy, as well as $500 from an anonymous benefactor which is generally donated to a charity of the winning team's choice.
Those players who are on two or more winning Nationals teams are entered into the Certamen Hall of Fame.
At the 2007 NJCL Convention at the University of Tennessee, a new certamen competition was inaugurated, deemed the World Series of Certamen (WSOC). This competition, now an annual event, is open to all registered non-JCL convention attendees, and attracted twenty-one teams formed of Latin teachers, other adults, and SCLers[disambiguation needed
]. The event, which featured questions testing both the knowledge and sense of humor of the participants, proved to be very popular.Team JAKT from Ohio won the first WSOC championship. In keeping with the tongue-in-cheek spirit of the event, they received an equally ironic award: the traveling Susan Schearer spirit cane and a case of Red Bull for each member. Teams continue to modify the Schearer Stick.
List of national champions
Novice Intermediate Advanced 1972 N/A N/A Tennessee 1973 N/A N/A Tennessee 1974 N/A Georgia Virginia 1975 N/A Virginia Texas 1976 N/A Tennessee Virginia 1977 N/A Tennessee Virginia 1978 N/A Virginia Tennessee 1979 N/A Tennessee Tennessee 1980 N/A Virginia Virginia 1981 N/A Virginia Virginia 1982 N/A Virginia Virginia 1983 N/A Virginia Virginia 1984 N/A Virginia Virginia 1985 N/A Texas Texas 1986 N/A Texas Virginia 1987 Virginia Tennessee Tennessee 1988 Florida Virginia Tennessee 1989 Florida Virginia Virginia 1990 Virginia Wisconsin Virginia 1991 Texas Texas Tennessee 1992 Tennessee Texas Florida 1993 Virginia Texas Florida 1994 Virginia Texas Virginia 1995 Tennessee Virginia Texas 1996 Virginia Tennessee Wisconsin 1997 Virginia Ohio Virginia 1998 Ohio Florida Virginia 1999 Florida Florida Virginia 2000 Florida Florida Florida 2001 Virginia Florida Ohio 2002 Florida Ohio Ohio 2003 Texas Florida Florida 2004 Virginia Florida Texas 2005 Massachusetts Texas Ohio 2006 Texas Texas Florida 2007 Virginia Virginia Florida 2008 Massachusetts Florida Virginia 2009 Florida Texas Florida 2010 Florida Virginia Texas 2011 Massachusetts Florida Florida External links
Categories:- Quiz games
- American Classical League
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