PACE certified house-written question sets for the 2014-2015 school year. A committee of experienced authors and editors looked over complete sets of questions and offer extensive feedback to authors, with special attention to content, style, pyramidality, difficulty, and length. The purpose of the program was to improve the quality of house-writes used for weekend tournaments across the country.
On each set, PACE offered an overall rating of “Exceptional”, “Satisfactory”, or “Unsatisfactory.” Contributors to sets labelled Exceptional were recognized at the NSC. All sets submitted to the program were reviewed within two weeks and returned with an extensive breakdown offering both question-specific and general advice.
Sets could not be certified more than once, but PACE members offered follow-up advice to try and ensure that sets were of the utmost quality.
Joelle Smart, a member of the certification committee, at work. Photo by Colin McNamara.
A list of certified sets for the 2014-2015 school year may be found here.