Novice:
1st - Virginia
2nd - Florida
3rd - Massachusetts
Intermediate:
1st - Florida
2nd - Illinois
3rd - Georgia
Advanced:
1st - Florida
2nd - Ohio
3rd - California
MVPs Winners:
Novice: Simon Van de Weide, VA
Intermediate: Joyce Hu, FL
Advanced: Sameer Apte, OH
A hybrid creation between The Convention Ear and Competitive Certamen comes the ninth installment of the World Series of Certamen. For those unaware of this incredible sport, whether because you were a newbie this year, at the Farewell Dance, or just stumbled upon this edition of the Torch: U.S., World Series of Certamen is a noble sport played exclusively by non-JCL convention goers.
Where the tables have turned and JCLers cheer on their teachers or favorite SCLers as they duke it out using the famous Certamen format. The questions in these rounds drastically jump from extremely obscure Latin knowledge to crazy Pictionary questions involving Susan Schearer. The stakes for World Series may be much lower than that of Competitive Certamen, but all those who participate hope to walk away with the ultimate prize: The Old Cane of Susan Schearer. Each winning team has added an item to the cane over the years; so much so that it is almost unrecognizable as a cane to this day.
This year after question after question involving hungry Velociraptors, three teams emerged out of the Jurassic Tournament victorious: 1. Tom Reed Gets Buckets (Gabe Molina (FL), Connor Harrison (FL), Michael Cookie Howard (MA), and Sheri Hausey (MA)) 2. Bad Larrys (Bad Larry, Bad Brian, Bad Dave, and Bad Tino (All from the State of Denial)) 3. That’s EnterCHANGment! (Howard Chang (VA), Ryan Vinson (TN), Andrew Rist (TX), and Woojin Kim (TX/VA)). Thank you to Chris Sloan, Vasilijie Dobrosavljevic, Ken Andino, Generosa Sangco-Jackson, Kyle Smith-Laird, Susan Schearer, and the Velociraptors for organizing this great event.
Hope to see more great teams duke it out next year for the tenth anniversary of World Series of Certamen. In the meantime enjoy the new Jurassic “Aurelia” passage from this year’s final round.
BY TRACE TURNER
2016 NSCL President
Your heart pumps hard, harder than you’ve ever felt before. Sweat forms on your brow and not just because it’s incredibly hot outside. You begin to develop tunnel vision, staring at the mouth of the person in front of you say “Tossup…”
Competitive Certamen is the most intense, quiz-based game offered in the Junior Classical League. The National Convention is the playing field for Certamen teams to come and see if they have what it takes to become number one in the nation.
Certamen is a quiz bowl game that employs buzzer technology similar to that of Jeopardy. There are twenty questions, or tossups, in each round worth ten points. Upon getting a tossup right the team is given two bonus questions, worth five points each, that the team is allowed to confer on. Three teams are competing in each round for glory. Each team can only play up to four players in each round. Players have “specialties” or focuses of knowledge within the realm of classics. These specialties are, but not limited to: mythology, history, Latin literature, and grammar.
The finals rounds this year were very intense in competition. Despite the high stakes of the round Florida player Sindee Lee recounts, “[we] were having fun and playing a good round, which is really the point of certamen.” After each of the extremely competitive final rounds of Certamen we emerged from [Finals Location Room] with three champion teams for each of the levels.
The Novice team to walk out with a trophy was Virginia. The winning Intermediate team was from Florida. And finally, the winning Advanced Certamen team was the team from Florida. Each year MVPs are chosen for each respective level. The Novice level MVP was Simon Van de Weide (VA), the Intermediate MVP was Joyce Hu (FL), and the Advanced MVP was Sameer Apte (OH). Congratulations to the winning teams and a big thank you to all the participating teams this year. See you in Indiana!
Tossup One
Any team, any player
Competitive
World Series
Competitve Certamen Results
Top Left: The Ohio Intermediate Team ready for a tossup.
Left: The Bad Larrys answer a dramatic interpretation question.
Below: Tom Reed recited the Jurassics Park version of the Aurelia passage.
Above: Certamen MVPs at NJCL 2015.
CERTAMEN · Torch:U.S. · Fall 2015
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