2014 Changes

What do you think of the 2014 changes? (Yeah, we won't be able to discuss this until tomorrow, when they open registration. I'm making the thread ahead of time. ;) )

I smell a rat.

I strongly dislike a lot of changes, but I don't think they've told you all, so I'll wait for… SEVENTY-THREE MORE MINUTES!!!!!

Very sad….In my opinion won't be as fun, but I can't name specific things till exactly ten minutes from now :)

So there's no orals?

No orals, online written testing. You don't have to get together, unless the host chooses to! Which means you get to encourage each other less, and you don't meet all the wonderful people you otherwise would. Mom is going to try to keep our Bee pretty much the same, though!

Well, I don't really like that. It pretty much takes away the entire atmosphere of Bible Bee! Do we know anything about Nationals?

EDIT: I don't feel that strongly now. :P

There is an oral round at Nats. They're letting non-citizens of the U.S. compete at locals, but not Nats. (Guess that dashes Sam's dreams :P jk) There's a U.S. family in China that will compete because of the online testing, but I don't know if they'd be allowed to come to Nats if they had the scores.

There is also only 100 test questions for primaries, which can be good or bad depending on how you look at it, but 100 questions does seem more manageable for 7 year olds. For the 10 year olds though, 200 would have been fine. They still give everyone 1 hour for the test, and as far as I know, the junior and senior test is 200 questions. But I really wish that there were orals at Locals. :( That was my favorite part.

It sounds to me as if they are trying to start a regional competition in between locals and nationals as early as next year. Did you see how many local competitions there are??? O_O

I'm rather glad about the 100 question test for them, because even my (then) nine-year-old sister got through just over a hundred.

I'm really upset about them cutting orals. I loved my judges, and I love reciting. Maybe we'll just have an oral round at our Bee for those who want to participate. (That one was my idea)

A regional????

EDIT: Last time I checked, there were 130. How many are there now? Some of them might also be proctors for the online testing.

That sounds great! :) I wish we could have an on-stage final challenge round, since I haven't done that since my first year, in 2011. It was fun! :) I only wish that I had done the Bible Bee more years. :P

They would definitely need more competitors to start that up, but with the extended options they now have, who knows what might happen?

The home page says 500 locations. What is the difference between a Local Contest and just a proctor?

I really enjoyed the final challenge, but the only problem was, every year there was a (major) judging mistake, and since I'm a host's daughter, Mom couldn't correct it. It doesn't help that I've been in every judge's training session we've ever had, and I knew there was a mistake in the judging.

Where's the Competition Rulebook???

It's sad……………………

I really enjoyed the final challenge, but the only problem was, every year there was a (major) judging mistake, and since I'm a host's daughter, Mom couldn't correct it. It doesn't help that I've been in every judge's training session we've ever had, and I _knew_ there was a mistake in the judging.

Come to think of it, seems to me that might be a major reason for removing the oral test at Locals. We've also had our share of judging errors.

The proctor pretty much oversees the online testing. I think parents are allowed to do it for their kids. A Local Contest is actually a central location that (I believe) oversees some proctors and also does written testing, and all of the 'extra' stuff we like to do. (Like meetings and celebrations)

At least they haven't changed much at all at Nationals that I know of. Still, having to get to Nats to do Orals is sad. :( Hopefully the changes will cause more kids to sign up, so the Bible Bee won't just stop someday. Now that would be really sad… What would we do all summer? :P

WHY NO ORALS?!? THAT WAS THE BEST SCORE I HAD LAST YEAR! BIBLE BEE, NO LIKE!

Otherwise, I like mobile versing.

At least they haven't changed much at all at Nationals that I know of. Still, having to get to Nats to do Orals is sad. :( Hopefully the changes will cause more kids to sign up, so the Bible Bee won't just stop someday. Now that would be really sad... What would we do all summer? :P

Post on the Forums? :P

True! I guess we can look at the bright side. :)

We already do that! :P

Post on the Forums? :P

Awesome! :P ^laughing really hard^

From the Competition Rulebook:

Those who desire to be eligible to participate at Nationals will be required to recite a list of SKF-specified passages before an audience of two or more adults who are not immediately related to them. This is a non-scored, informal Oral Recitation, to be performed prior to the Local Contest. Those who choose not to attempt this segment will still be allowed to participate in the Local Contest; however, they will not be invited to Nationals, regardless of their score on the Written Test.

At least you get to say your verses to someone. I wish you could get scored though. :( How many verses will be memorized? 24 passages or 24 verses?

Another small change - The extra Bible Memory passages and the additional Bible Knowledge book of the Bible for the National Contest will be posted on the Bible Bee website on or before the Friday following the Local Contests. So it's Friday, not Wednesday? Still less time? :\

24 passages (about 60+/- verses).

They didn't give us the time limit for the Oral Round at Nats…

The Final Challenge Round is also slightly modified. There will be six written questions and two recitations.

Those are all the changes I can find right now.

Thanks! And more verses than last year! :D I wonder what the time limit is? Probably ten minutes like the other years, but I guess that depends on how many verses are in the divisions.

One thing that they didn't change was the Bible Bee Age deadline… :( xP

Last year actually had 61 I believe.

That's what I'm thinking too, but we'll have to wait and see… I hope they tell us more when Nationals rolls around!

Me too! :)

GTG now… :( Hopefully I'll be on later! And by then I'll be signed up! (I hope. :P) :)

There's a Proctor location in our town - one of the nice changes, I guess. Otherwise we'd have to travel at least 3 - 4 hours!

I'm so sad about not having a real oral test at locals this year. :( that was my favorite part, but I guess at least we still get to do one.

Does the website say anywhere how many people have signed up so far? I can't find it. I always like watching that number go up.

Also…what's all this saying Host registration is closed for 2014??!! I'm SURE on the webinar last night they specifically said hosts would still be able to register.

I dislike most of the changes. I don't know how the can eliminate the oral round (that was my best part and the funnest!) but I guess we'll have to see how it goes.

HATE the changes. Not sure if I want to do it this year. :-(.

Where did all the fun go? No fellowship? There is not a bee hosted by a 'host' for 3 hours!

I don't like the changes they made to the bible bee:(

I'm not sure if all of y'all know but I think they are still having the oral round but you can't earn 300 points off it like last year, all of the points come from the written test

I wonder why they made all the points come off the written and none from the oral?

Well if you make it to Nationals you can do orals.

No orals, online written testing. You don't have to get together, unless the host chooses to! Which means you get to encourage each other less, and you don't meet all the wonderful people you otherwise would. Mom is going to try to keep our Bee pretty much the same, though!

I totally agree!!:( :( But my mom's going to try to keep ours the same too:):)

Another small change - The extra Bible Memory passages and the additional Bible Knowledge book of the Bible for the National Contest will be posted on the Bible Bee website on or before the Friday following the Local Contests. So it's Friday, not Wednesday? Still less time? :\

WHAT!?????! How ever are we going to be able to survive????! It was bad enough having to wait till Wednesday. And yeah, that's sure not going to be very much time to study for nats. :-/

The proctor pretty much oversees the online testing. I think parents are allowed to do it for their kids. A Local Contest is actually a central location that (I believe) oversees some proctors and also does written testing, and all of the 'extra' stuff we like to do. (Like meetings and celebrations)

I think the proctor didn't proctor online testing only…they could do the regular testing.

Don't give up! Sadly, that's all I can think of to say. :P So many people miss Orals that Memverse should put together a petition to add it back next year. That will probably never happen though. :P

Yeah, we should!!! xP :)

What on earth??????? :(

People could cheat if they do it online!!!!