Humor will not be tolerated!! -Portia

I'm theoretically participating in a writing competition. The weekends it takes place have been particularly busy, though, so I didn't submit.

Here's how the math works:

There is a given number of writers in your bracket. In mine, there are 29. The top 15 stories get points corresponding to their placement: 15 for 1st, 14 for 2nd, 1 for 15th. The same process is repeated for the second round. The placements are added and determine whether you advance.

I got 0 because I didn't submit.

My question is, could we use probability to determine the possibility of advancing? I would arbitrarily say that your first round results are 60% predictive of your second round, with the rest being random. So it should be unsurprising if a 2nd place writer gets 1st place in this next round, though it's not impossible for a 0-point writer to vault into 3rd place for the second round (though rarer).

Anyone want to run the math on this? My gut feeling is a 5% or less chance of advancing, but not 0%.

I've been entering this contest about once a year for the past five years, and by far the best-received story I ever submitted for it was about Mountain Meadows. I'm quite proud of it. If anyone wants to read it, I'd email it to you. Start up critiques again!

How many points do you need to advance?

Shrinky Dink wrote:How many points do you need to advance?

There's not a set number. It's the top 5 combined scorers, regardless of the actual score. So realistically, even if the current top 5 ALL get 0, that means I'd HAVE to be the top scorer to be in the running, right?

Current top 5 all got 0? You'd have to be the top scorer, and the other people scoring in your top 5 would have to be 0 or other low scorers.

Violet wrote:Current top 5 all got 0? You'd have to be the top scorer, and the other people scoring in your top 5 would have to be 0 or other low scorers.

Yeah, can we generate semi-random scores and average them?

Here's a probability question and answer for you:

(Q) What's the probability your Comcast Internet will be down when you need to submit?
(A) 100% SUCKAS

Portia wrote:can we generate semi-random scores

At Random.org, they use atmospheric noise to generate their random numbers.

Digit wrote:

Portia wrote:can we generate semi-random scores

At Random.org, they use atmospheric noise to generate their random numbers.

Nice. I've used that site before but only for super-simple tasks, like determining whether a round of Dominion should include Colonies.