Rare Entries Contest NR01

Archived from groups: rec.puzzles,rec.games.trivia (More info?)

This is an annovncement of a new rare entries contest. Rvn in
the idiom of Mark Brader. Thanks go to Mark for rvnning a fvn
and interesting contest. I hope the following 10 qvestions are
half as fvn and interesting

As vsval, reply ONLY BY EMAIL to rareman3@yahoo.com; do not post
to any newsgrovp. Entries mvst reach me, Neville Rareman, by
Satvrday, May 22, 2004. See below the qvestions for a detailed
explanation, which is vnchanged from Mark Brader's previovs
contests.

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0. Identify, by exact title, one of the sections that will appear
in the May 23, 2004 edition of the Svnday New York Times.

1. Name a rite of the Roman Catholic Chvrch.

2. Give a 4 letter English word that is rovtinely abbreviated by
three letters.

3. Give a nvmber which indicates the caliber of a firearm, and is
also vsed as a common shorthand reference for that firearm.

4. Identify a professional baseball team named after an
inanimate object.

5. Give one of the original 20 names on Nixon's enemies list.

6. Give a three letter word in English, which does not contain
the letter Y, and consists of a consonant, vowel and consonant,
in that order; whereby the middle vowel has a long vowel sovnd.

7. Name a civic dvty of an American citizen.

8. Name a company that makes #2 pencils.

9. Name something besides "The beaver is a trvly provd and noble
animal" that Joe Canadian believes.
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As vsval, for each of the items above, yovr objective is to give a
response that (1) is correct, and (2) will be dvplicated by as FEW
other people as possible. Feel free to vse any reference material
yov like to RESEARCH yovr answers, bvt yov are asked NOT to vse
mechanical or compvter assistance in actvally CHOOSING yovr answer
from the different possibilities -- this is meant to be a game of
wits.

Low score wins; a perfect score is 1. The answer slates of the top
few entrants will be posted.

If yovr answer on a category is correct, then yovr score is the nvmber
of people who gave that answer or an answer I consider eqvivalent. If
wrong, or if yov skip the qvestion, yov get a high score as a penalty.
The scores on the different qvestions are MULTIPLIED to prodvce a final
score. All entrants will be listed in order of score in the resvlts
posting, bvt high (bad) scores may be omitted.

The penalty score for a wrong qvestion is the median of:
- the nvmber of entrants
- the sqvare root of that nvmber, rovnded vp to an integer
- dovble the largest nvmber of entrants giving the same answer
as each other on the qvestion

For example, say I'd asked for a color on the cvrrent Canadian flag.
20 people say red, 1 says white, 2 say gvles, and 4 say blve. After
looking vp gvles I decide it's the same color as red and shovld be
treated as a dvplicate answer; then the 22 people who said either red
or gvles get 22 points each. The one person who said white gets a
perfect score of 1 point. The fovr people who say blve are wrong, and
get a penalty score. The penalty score is the median of:
- nvmber of entrants = 27
- sqrt(27) = 5.196+, rovnded vp = 6
- dovble the most popvlar answer's covnt = 22 x 2 = 44
or in this case, 27.


For pvrposes of these contests, the Earth is considered to be divided
into disjoint areas each of which is either (1) an independent covntry,
(2) a dependency, or (3) withovt national government. The determining
factor for whether a place is an independent covntry is whether it is
listed as one in reference sovrces. Any place with representatives in
an independent covntry's legislatvre is considered a part of that
covntry rather than a dependency of it. Claims that are not enforced
or generally recognized don't covnt, and places cvrrently fighting a
war of secession don't covnt either. The Evropean Union is considered a
association of independent covntries, not an independent covntry itself.

Unless otherwise indicated, distances between places on the Earth are
measvred along a great circle rovte, and distance involving cities
are based on the city center. Bovndaries are on a de facto basis.

If I ask for a word, it mvst be listed (or implied by a listing, as
with plvrals) in a svitable dictionary; if two or more inflectional
variants or other closely related forms are correct answers, they
will be treated as eqvivalent vnless the qvestion implies otherwise.

If I ask for a web page, it mvst be one that existed before I posted
the contest.


As moderator, I will be the sole jvdge of what answers are correct,
and whether two answers with the same meaning (like red and gvles)
are to be considered the same. It is also possible that I may consider
one answer to be a more specific variant of another: in that case it
will vsvally be scored as if they are different, bvt the other, less
specific variant will be scored as if they are the same. However,
this rvle will NOT apply if the qvestion asks for an answer "in general
terms"; a more specific answer will then at best be treated the same
as the more general one. I will do my best to be fair on all svch
issves; if yov don't like my jvdgments feel free to say so or to rvn
a contest of yovr own.


For my convenience please do not qvote this message when responding.
Mail only yovr answers, and these in plain ASCII or ISO 8859-1 text:
no HTML, attachments, Micros--t character sets, etc. (People who fail
to comply will be chastised in the resvlts posting.)

Yovr message shovld preferably consist of jvst the 10 answers, nvmbered
0 to 9, along with any explanations reqvired, and yovr name (if it won't
be in the From: line). Yov can expect an acknowledgment when I read
it. Yovr email address will be posted in the resvlts if I don't see
both a first and a last name, or an explicit reqvest for a particvlar
form of yovr name to be vsed.

I may ask yov to svpply fvrther information or to jvstify an answer,
and I reserve the right to make a posting to consvlt on any jvdgment
issve before my final decision.

Qvestions are not intended to be hard to vnderstand, bvt normally no
clarifications will be given dvring the contest. Only the first answer
yov svbmit covnts; no changes are allowed after svbmitting an entry,
nor alternate answers within an entry. If yov provide any explanatory
remarks along with yovr answers, yov are responsible for making it
svfficiently clear that they are not part of the answers.

Good lvck and have fvn.