Approaching the Open Round
Listed Round Format
The first round of the contest, the Open Round, usually contains 6-9 problems and is 3 hours long. It is taken at the times listed below:
| Timezone | Start | End |
|---|---|---|
| Hawaiian-Aleutian | 7:00 AM | 10:00 AM |
| Alaskan | 8:00 AM | 11:00 AM |
| Pacific | 9:00 AM | 12:00 PM |
| Mountain | 10:00 AM | 1:00 PM |
| Central | 9:00 AM | 12:00 PM |
| Eastern | 10:00 AM | 1:00 PM |
| Atlantic | 11:00 AM | 2:00 PM |
This information is taken from the NACLO Student Handbook.
The top 10% of students on this round advance to the Invitational Round.
Based on recent contests, this round usually has 8 or 9 problems. Traditionally, the contest has problems worth 5, 10, 15, or 20 points, for a total of 100. Recently, however, problems with 20 points have not appeared as much, and most of the problems are either 15 or 10 points.
Starting the Contest
Unlike many other contests, the problems in the NACLO are not arranged in order of difficulty. This means that it's often a good idea to spend a few minutes at the start looking through the problems and deciding which ones are most approachable for you.
Often times, by practicing different categories of problems, you will find that some come more naturally than others, so what's often a good idea is to make a small table at the beginning of each contest and crossing them off one by one.
In addition, look at the point distribution! It is often the case that although the NACLO jury tries their best to match point distribution to difficulty, this difficulty is very hard to predict (and varies wildly from person to person), so you shouldn't take it as how hard the problem will be for you.
Time Management
Managing your time is crucial in the NACLO. With only 3 hours to solve 8-9 problems, it's important to allocate your time wisely. One common strategy is to spend the first 5-10 minutes reading and understanding the problems, then choosing the easiest ones to solve. As you work through the problems, keep an eye on the clock and make sure you're making steady progress.
It's always okay to skip problems and come back to them later! In fact, by skipping a problem, you can let it simmer in the back of your head while you approach other problems, and perhaps by the time you come back you might have another idea on how to solve it.
Partial Credit
The Open Round does not feature fully explained "solutions", only specific answers. However, there is still often partial credit for some answers that are close to the correct answer (for example, swapping two words in a sentence or omitting a certain word), so it is often recommended to write something down for every problem on the contest, just to maximize your chances of partials.