The Order of Merit ranks will ordinarily be based on players’ performances over a whole season. However, as we’ve never had a season before, for the opening edition of the Circuit, we’ve had to look elsewhere for data, and have based these initial rankings on four events held in the last 15 months, the latest of which was the one staged on 10 February 2018 with the express purpose of helping us assign these initial ranks. The other events are the Individual competition at the inaugural Quiz Olympiad in Athens (November 2016), the World Quizzing Championships (June 2017), in which approaching 300 people from North America played, and the Grand Prix quiz staged at TCONA7 (August 2017).
We then looked to establish a hierarchy of results to assign the ranks Grand Master, Master, Candidate Master, and Sage. Everyone beneath that hierarchy will begin with the rank of Novice. We should stress also that in this context the terms “Grand Master” and “Master” etc. are entirely gender neutral. We hope no one is offended by the use of what may be seen as ‘male’ terminology.
So, based on the four events mentioned, how did we assign the ranks?
We looked for players with one or more “top 10 finish”, and those with finishes in the top 20. For the purposes of the Olympiad and WQC, a qualifying “top 10 finish” means a player with one of the best 10 scores among players from the Americas AND placed 50th or better in the competition as a whole (i.e. encompassing all nationalities). Similarly, to register a qualifying “top 20 finish”, the player had to place 100th or better overall. By way of an illustration, while all top 10 Americas players registered scores among the 50 best global WQC results, only six did so at the Olympiad.
So who are the Inductees into the Order of Merit?
Grand Masters
Masters
Candidate Masters
Sages
*Note, employing our Circuit Directors’ discretion, we name Paul Paquet a Candidate Master. This is in recognition of the fact he’s made strong showings in past quiz events, just not the four under consideration here – two of them because he wrote or co-wrote the quizzes, another due to his commitments at TCONA, and finally, having to cancel his attendance at the Olympiad.
We hope you can join us in congratulating our Order of Merit inductees, especially our first Grand Masters. If someone spots an oversight on our part (i.e. you believe you have not received due recognition) then please get in touch. We still have time to correct any egregious omissions before our inaugural Grand Prix on March 10th, 2018.
There are four ways that you can join in with our quizzes:
Anyone can. These are open events with no qualification process. Everyone is welcome!
Just head to quest.quizzing.com, click ‘Register’ and complete the form. Please note that your password must contain a minimum of eight characters that include at least one upper-case letter, one number and one non-alphanumeric character such as a question mark.
Note also that event bookings close 72 hours before the quiz starts at your venue.
A video showing you how to register an account can be found by clicking the button below.
If you have any problems, please email quest@quizzing.com.
Watch the Video
The standard fee for playing in a circuit quiz is $17 (US) plus any local fee incurred by the proctor to cover the cost of the venue. Full-time students pay a fee of $8.50 plus any local fee.
Our February 2018 pre-launch contest is available at a discounted price (i.e. half price) for everyone and, as with all future events on the circuit, the Americas quiz comes bundled with the Hot100 – a monthly 100 question internationally-themed quiz – at no extra cost.
A payments system is being built for the site, but in the meantime the fees are payable at your venue.
Our quizzes take place all over the world and you can play along at home too!
Visit QUEST to find your nearest venue!
Find a Venue
Home players are sent the questions the day after the rankings events are played. The cost is the same as for the proctored events. To apply to be a home player, please register here.
UK and Americas Quizzing Circuit Individual Quiz Rules
All individual quizzing circuit quizzes, known as ‘Grands Prix’ follow the same format:
Scoring
Genres
Each genre forms a separate contest. Tied genre scores are separated by reference to the tiebreakers, which are worth just 0.1 point each. If players are tied on both main score and tiebreakers, they remain tied.
The topics appearing under each genres can be viewed here.
We employ numerous measures to prevent cheating in order to protect the rankings system and events that we have spent many years establishing and building up.
Our QUEST database holds results. Visit QUEST to see the results, schedules and register to take part.
Visit QUEST
If the missing/incorrect score is from the current season, please contact your proctor who can add the score in or correct it.
If the missing/incorrect score(s) are from a previous season, you’ll need to get in touch with us. Because we’ve been gathering scores and data for many years, sometimes people’s names get spelt differently or an extra account is created by accident which means some of your scores may not be attached to your user account. It’s easy for us to fix though. Just email us quest@quizzing.com
The American Order of Merit is reviewed annually at the start of a season. All qualifying events attended in a circuit count towards your year-end total for that circuit (many players will hold ranks both in their local circuit and the International Order of Merit at the same time).
In order to attain the highest rank – ‘Grand Master’ (GM) on the Americas circuit – the bar is set at 50% of the seasonal maximum aggregate of available ranking points.
To achieve ‘Master’ status you will need to garner 30% of the seasonal maximum available (i.e. a little over half of what is needed for GM status).
To become a ‘Candidate Master’, you will need at least 15% of the available maximum points in a season.
‘Sage’ rank is achieved by attending a minimum of four ranking events or scoring 5% of the total rankings points available. Once attained, ‘Sage’ rank cannot be lost. You can be promoted, but you cannot be demoted to ‘Novice’.
New attendees, and anyone not achieving the minimum requirement for ‘Sage’ status, are accorded ‘Novice’ status.
At the end of each season the directors of the circuit (i.e. the owners of quizzingamericas.com) have discretion to grant dispensations in exceptional, deserving cases.
While the Order of Merit is re-set annually, there is another tally of points that rolls over two years. This produces a ranked table of all players on the circuit, with players ordered by reference to their total tally of rankings points (i.e. regardless of Order of Merit rank).
This will be set up once we have some results.
YES!
Proctors are people who host and run quizzes locally for you to attend.
We welcome applicants who would like to host an event. Applicants should be individuals who are already playing in our events, applying either in their own right or on behalf of an established, reputable, non-profit making quiz league. In order to run one of our events, here are some things you should consider:
What are the duties of the host?
What’s in it for the host?
If you’d like to be a proctor, please email proctors@quizzing.com
We welcome applicants to set quizzes for us. Having a variety of writers keeps everything fresh and helps reduce and bias. Setters need to have experience in writing questions to a high standard and will need to undertake to have the set they are writing ready and with us 10 weeks before it is due to be used in order to give us time to have the set properly verified and edited. We send out full instructions and templates.
It is fine to get a team together to share the work, as long as a full set of questions is sent to us by the deadline, and as long as confidentiality and discretion is upheld.
We pay for the questions as soon as they are used upon presentation of an invoice.
For further details, please email setting@quizzing.com
Yes!
Our Quizzing Store has LOADS of past papers you can buy and answers you can download.
Visit the Store