Information:

The Detached Solutions Test of Knowledge Contest is a quiz-type contest where participants will answer 40 questions based on facts about our organization and our software. The top 20 participants who answer the most questions correctly will receive one of our Detached Solutions Slidecases as an award for their extensive knowledge and interest in our organization, as well as being a true user of our software. Participants will have two weeks from the start of the contest to determine the answers and submit their entry by the deadline in order to be considered for a prize. The inspiration for this contest comes from the fact that we had several DS Slidecases remaining after the last TI-83 Plus Application Programming Contest, and we needed to give the slidecases away but still require the recipients to put some effort into earning them. We decided to allow the Fans of our organization to win the slidecases through their knowledge of Detached Solutions and our software developments, as opposed to hosting another programming contest where only experienced Assembly coders might win. Read the sections below for specific information about the Test of Knowledge Questions, as well as details about the Prizes, Grading procedure, Results, and How to Enter the contest.

Contest began on:  Tuesday, June 12th, 2001
Entries are due on:  Tuesday, June 26th, 2001
We will announce the winners on:  Sunday, July 1st, 2001

(Winners actually announced on:  Friday, June 29th, 2001)

Questions:

The 40 questions that make up this Test of Knowledge Contest vary in their subject matter, but all of them pertain to the Detached Solutions organization in some way. They relate to either facts about our staff and activities or questions that are specific to the applications and programs we have released. The first 10 questions deal with facts about DS; the second 10 pertain to MirageOS, the next 6 to CalcSys, the next 6 to Calendar, and the final 8 questions to PuzzPack. All of these software developments are ones that can be found on the Features Page of our website, and each of the questions are meant for the latest version of our software as of June 12th, 2001 (MirageOS v1.1, CalcSys v1.2, Calendar v1.0, and PuzzPack v2.0), unless specified otherwise in particular questions.

The questions in this contest vary in difficulty, with some being easy enough to know from memory, others being moderately challenging that will take a bit of work to solve, and still others that are very hard and that we expect few people to get correct. The majority of questions, however, can be found by looking around our website, either in the main sections: Main Page, About Us, Features, Upcoming, Contact, and Contest, or within one of the Homepages of our software: MirageOS, Calendar, and PuzzPack (Note: There currently is no CalcSys Homepage, but information can be found in the Readme files of its Zip file). The 40 questions are arranged by subject in no way does their order reflect the difficulty of the questions.

Most of the questions require Free Response answers, meaning that you will type some kind of Text response to answer the question; either one word, a few words, a sentance, or even a couple setances for the questions that ask to 'Describe'. The number of words or the length needed for an answer is not specified, although the number of answers is sometimes specified for particular questions. You should read the questions carefully and be sure you have provided all the information required for a complete answer. Although the majority of questions are Free Response, a few of the questions are Multiple Choice, with answers that are designated to the letters A through E. A participant should select one and only one of these choices, and provide the letter and the text following that letter for a complete response.

Some of the questions in this contest have wording and terminology that may be challenging for most participants (for instance, the CalcSys questions), and this is done on purpose to test the experience of users of this software. The questions will not be debatable by participants with the Detached Solutions staff, nor will we explain or give insight on how to determine the answers for such questions. Extensive programming experience is not required to solve any of the questions; only familiarity with the software is needed, and this may be acheived by researching the software through the online documentation or readme files. Almost all the questions have specific answers, and do only a few have answers that may slightly vary in their wording by the contest participants.

View the Test of Knowledge Questions Page!

View the Test of Knowledge Answers!

Prizes:

The prizes for this contest consist of Twenty (20) of the limited-edition, colored TI-calculator Slidecases with our Detached Solutions logo on it. These cases were produced by Texas Instruments Incorporated as prizes for our last TI-83 Plus Application Programming Contest, and we had several cases left over that we are able give away in this Test of Knowledge contest. One slidecase will be awarded to each of the top 20 winners of the contest, and these winners will be determined by the number of questions answered correctly. See below for more information about the Grading procedure and Results. The prizes will be shipped to the recipients at the expense of the Detached Solutions staff, so it is important that we have your personal information and mailing address as part of the entry submission process.

We have taken photographs of the DS Slidecases so that visitors who are interested in participating in the contest may see what the slidecases look like. There is a small image to the right of this paragraph that shows a picture of the orange slidecase, but you should also view the Slidecases Page in order to see three larger pictures we have arranged and posted. You will notice the logo of our organization that says "DS" and "Detached Solutions" underneath it. This logo has been "silk-screened" onto the bottom side of the case, and shows through its top side due to the semi-transparent nature of the case. Only 45 of these limited-edition cases have ever been made, with 5 going to our original staff memebers, 20 going towards participants of the App Programming contest, and then the remaining 20 as prizes for this contest. We highly suggest to everyone to enter this Test of Knowledge Contest in order to be one of the lucky winners of our last few DS Slidecases!

Grading:

The submitted entries for this contest, consisting of text solutions to the 40 questions, will be manually graded by the staff members of Detached Solutions according to specific, predetermined answers. Each question will be worth 5 points, for a total of 200 points, and only questions with complete answers (with all required parts) will be given credit; no partial credit will be given. Most questions have exact answers; however, a few of the questions allow for the responses to have variant wording by the contest participant, and we will use our best judgement to determine the correctness of the answers. The points awarded will be at our discretion, and all decisions about the determination of contest winners will be final.

Results:

The results of the Test of Knowledge contest and the places of the winning participants will be posted on July 1st, 2001. The list of names of the winners, as well as their E-mail addresses and number of points accumulated in the contest, will be displayed on the Main Contest page as well as the Results Page for this contest. The Answers to the questions will be posted on July 1st as well, so that participants may see what they answered correctly and incorrectly, in order to know the justification of their place among the winners. Entries will not be returned to the participants of the contest, since that would take too much effort to manage, so then it will be the individuals' responsibility at their own interest, to cross-check their answers with the actual answers. The winners of the contest will be E-mailed on July 1st, 2001 to confirm their E-mail address and mailing address, before the Slidecases can be shipped. If you become one of the winners and you do not receive an E-mail at that time, be sure to E-mail us immediately at contest@detacheds.com.

How To Enter:

In order enter this Test of Knowledge Contest, you must first Download the following Text File of the contest questions: DSTOK.txt (4941 bytes). This text file will be the method used to submit your entry of the answers to our staff for grading. It contains all of the questions that you can see on our Questions page, numbered 1 to 40 and split up into each of the 5 contest subjects, and this file is what you will use to work in as you progress in solving the contest questions. You will provide the answers to each of the questions on the line directly underneath the corresponding question, and should separate each question/answer set with a blank line. When you have completed as many of the questions as you can, then you will submit your file through our Submission page.

On the Submission page, there is a form that requires you to input your Personal Information, consisting of your Full Name, E-mail Address, Mailing Address, and Phone Number. This information is necessary for us to have, in order to contact you if you become one of the top 20 winners. We must also have your correct Mailing Address and Phone Number in order to ship the DS Slidecase prize to the winners. All of this information you provide will be kept confidential and will not be known to anyone else except for the Detached Solutions staff. However, the winners of the contest will have their names and E-mail addresses posted on the Main Contest page and the Results page for this contest on July 1st, 2001. You must agree to these terms before submitting your entry, and if you do not wish to provide this information to our staff, then you cannot be eligible to win one of our prizes.

All entries must be submitted to our website before or on the date of Tuesday, June 26th, 2001, and no more entries will be accepted at 12:00 AM CST (Midnight) on July 27th, 2001. You may submit your entry any time before that date, and the date/time in which you submit may have a factor in the determination of winners. Contest winners will first be based on the number of correct questions in the contest, but in the case of a Tie on the 20th place, then the DS Slidecase will be awarded to the participant who submitted their entry the earliest. It is important to note that you may only submit One entry into our contest, and we have taken precautionary measures to prevent a person from posting an entry twice. Be sure that you have answered all the questions that you can correctly, because you will not be able to submit again if you determine another answer after your first submission. Thank You for your interest in our organization and for your participation in this Test of Knowledge Contest.