The Manual

Written by James Lex

Published on January 9, 2011

Getting Started
Start by making several copies of E-Score and saving it to several places on your computer
and on a portable storage device like a flash drive. By doing this, you will have several
backups if you accidentally delete the program or you experience technical difficulties.

At the beginning of your quiz day, make a copy of E-Score and place on your desktop (or
some other place on your computer that is easy to get to). Rename the file to the name of the
event (i.e. Districts). Now open up the file. It takes about 10 seconds to open up the program
depending on your computer. Once the program opens, you can leave it open all day. There is
no need to close it and reopen it again and again.

At the end of every round, it is important to save the scoresheet. There are 3 ways to do this:
 Click „File‟ at the top of the screen, and click „Save‟.
 You may have a little floppy disk icon at the top of the screen. Click it.
 Press <Control> + <S> on your keyboard.

It takes no more than 10 seconds to save the file (again, depends on your computer)

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The Roster and Settings page
Open up the file you just made. Then, go to the Roster and Settings page. It should already be
open.

The Roster
Under the Roster, put in your team name and quizzer‟s name. Here are a couple of rules to
keep in mind when naming teams and quizzers:
 DO NOT ADD SPACES AFTER NAMES! E-Score reads “James ” and “James” as two
different quizzers.
 Enter names, not numbers, for the quizzers.
 The order of the quizzers does not matter at all.
 Whatever names you put in here, use them throughout the entire program. Don‟t name
a quizzer “Elizabeth” here and “Beth” on the scoresheets. The name needs to be the
same throughout the program.
 Although the names need to be the same, E-Score is not case-sensitive. So if you type
"James" here and "james" somewhere else, E-Score will read it as the same quizzer.
 If you don‟t put in any names, E-Score will not keep track of any data.

The Settings
In the Settings section, put in the settings you want to use for the day. All scoresheets will be
affected by these settings.

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Where’s my GPS when I need it? Navigating through E-Score
Now it‟s time to go to round 1. There are 2 ways to go to any page in E-Score.

 Click on the tab scroller. (the little arrows right under row 30)
Click on the left arrow (the one all the way to the left pointing to the left) to go to the
beginning of all the tabs.
Click on the 2nd arrow (the one pointing to the left without a line in front of it) to move to
the left 1 tab.
Click on the 3rd arrow (the 2nd one from the right without a line in front of it) to move to
the right 1 tab.
Click on the right arrow (the one all the way to the right) to go to the end of all tabs.
Familiarize yourself to this by clicking on all 4 buttons.

 Click on the Name Cell box. 

A drop-down box appears and you can select what page you want to go to.

Let’s Quiz! The round pages…

Here is a round that is waiting to be started. In D2 (the cell selected below) click on “1” or
“BYE”. Then proceed to enter in all other pre-round info (i.e. Set number, room number, etc.).
Notice that there is a start time
and end time. If you type
<Control>+<Shift>+<;> at the
same time on your keyboard,
the current time will appear in
the selected cell. Do this at the
beginning and end of every
round. E-Score keeps track of
the time spent in rounds so you
can see just how long your
rounds are.

Note: If you choose to type in

the time, it HAS to follow this
cadence: 1:10 pm. It can’t be
1:10pm.

There‟s one more thing to do

before entering in quizzer
names. See that box that says “Color” (F13). Next to it, you can enter in the color of the top
team (in the below example, the top team is “Team Gospel”). If you type in all of the names
and find out the colors were wrong, just change it!

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Now you can put in the team and quizzer names of your team that match the names you put in
the Roster page.
The 1st thing you do after all the pre-round info is to click on question #1‟s box (E5). When you
do, a drop-down box will appear

Select the point value.

Note: If you have the settings set in the Roster and Settings page so that there are not any 10’s, 20’s, or
30’s, there won’t be a point value in this drop-down box.

One more thing: It is VERY important that you put a value in this box. You can‟t enter ANY
information unless you put a point value in. Contests, fouls, points - nothing will go in. If enter
information here like you normally would on a paper scoresheet, things will work out fine.

This match is officially open - Entering in the points.

After you have put in the point value, select the cell that you want to put the score in. When
you click the cell, there will be a drop-down arrow just the right of it. Click it. For the above
example, the question is a 10 pointer. The 10 and -5 values are what you would expect; 10
points and negative 5 points. But what about that “IF”? That‟s short for “Individual Foul”.
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Because the words “Individual Foul” are too long for the cell, it has been abbreviated to “IF”.
So IF would give a quizzer -5 points.

The 10/IF would give the quizzer 5 points (10 points for the question, -5 points for the foul).
The -5/IF would give the quizzer -10 points (-5 points for the question, -5 points for the foul).

E-Score is equipped with Advanced Error Checking to avoid making simple mistakes (like 2
quizzers answering the same question correctly). Although Advanced Error Checking is great,
the following statements are very important:

 Negative points must be put in before positive points

 If any quizzer answers a question correctly, all the cells lock. At that point, the only
thing you can do is give a quizzer an individual foul

If that confused you here‟s an example:

Matthew answers question 1 correctly for 10 points.

Brady answers question 2 correctly for 10 points.

But you mistakenly try to put Brady‟s 10 points in the column for question 1 instead of question
2. Here is what would happen

The reason you can‟t see the other values (10, -5, 10/IF, -5/IF) for Brady is because the cell
„locks‟ when any quizzer answers a question right. This eliminates simple errors.

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Here‟s another example: Let‟s say that Brady interrupted and answered question 1 wrong for
-5 points.
Matthew got the reread correct for 10 points.
But you score it as Matthew: 10, Brady: 0. You forgot to give Brady the -5.

At the end of the match, you realize you made a mistake. However, you wouldn‟t be able to
enter in Brady‟s -5 because his cell locked. Remember, negative points have to be entered
in first, then positive points. In this case, you would have to delete Matthew‟s 10, enter
Brady‟s -5, and then reenter Matthew‟s 10 back in.

Keep in mind that this rarely happens. Most scoresheet errors are caused when you are writing
things (like 10‟s left, running total etc.) other than the actual score. But with E-Score, all you
have to do is put in the point value, select the cell of the quizzer that‟s answering, wait for the
QuizMaster to give the judgment, and enter in the score. Everything else is automated (i.e.
running total).

There are other locks placed on cells. For example, when a quizzer quizzes out, you can‟t
enter in anymore values for that quizzer. This eliminates a quizzer answering 6 or 7 questions
correctly in a round because of a simple error. Another lock is the „No Quizzer Lock.‟ For any
quizzer spot that is empty, NO value can be entered in any cell in that row. Here‟s an example:

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The End is Near – This Round is officially OVER!
After the round is over, select the cell at the top next to “End Time”. Type
<Control>+<Shift>+<;> at the same time on your keyboard. The current time will appear in the
cell.

Scroll down the page to the “Round Results” area. This is the area where you would normally
have to write a thousand words a minute and inform your quizzers of the score as fast as
humanly possible. Not anymore thanks to E-Score. It automatically places teams and quizzers
in their proper order for you!

The ‘Other’ Stuff - Contests, Fouls, etc.

CONTESTS: The contests are in a drop-down box and they have been abbreviated as follows:
SC  Successful contest
UC  Unsuccessful contest
WC  Withdrawn contest

Whenever there is a contest, click the drop-down box and select the outcome. E-Score keeps
track of all contests. If you‟re in JBQ, just pretend that contests are appeals 

TEAM FOULS: Click the drop-down box and click on the “-5”. If there are 2 fouls,
select “-10.”

TIME-OUTS: Just click on the „3‟ and hit the <Delete> button on the keyboard. Do this to the
other 2 numbers next to it whenever a team calls a time-out. When there are no more
time-outs left, the cell that says “Time-outs left” changes to “No time-outs!” and turns red. This
prevents a team from calling for a 4th timeout.

The Result pages

Team Results and Individual Results are automatically tracked throughout the day.

Team Results:
Overall Team Results – This is the basic stuff that the main stat-guy uses to determine the
positions of the teams. “Record” is short for “Win/Loss record”. Winning Percentage is the
number of wins divided by the number of rounds (i.e. If you win 9 games out of 10, your
winning percentage is 90%).

Overall Team Statistics – This is the fun part of E-Score. Believe it or not, this box contains
valuable information that can give you a huge advantage over other teams!

The first 4 lines provide basic data. I use it to compare points with accuracy. Does the most
accurate team score the most points? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. With E-Score, you can
find out after about 3 rounds of quizzing.

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Next comes the percentage of 10‟s, 20‟s, and 30‟s
hit. Here is an example of a real results page taken
from the 2010 PreNationals tournament. My team
hit 72% of all 10 point questions asked, correct or
incorrect, and opponents were held to 63% (it
doesn‟t add up to 100% because of rereads).
Notice the percentage of 30s hit. It looks low in
comparison with the 10s or 20s. But compared to
our opponents, we were definitely commanding
them in the matches. And if you look down, you‟ll
see that our team had a 93% accuracy on those
30s! That‟s why those two sections are so close.
It‟s easy to spot the strengths and weaknesses of
the teams.

Round by Round Results – This is pretty easy.

The winning team is on the left and the losing team
is on the right. If you click on the round number,
you will go down the Team Results page to that round‟s Advanced Round by Round Results.

Advanced Round by Round Results – Contains additional information. Click on the image
under team results to navigate directly to that round!

Individual Results:
General Results – This displays the typical information you would expect to see after a meet.
But as you move from left to right, the columns start providing data you normally would not
know. Perfect scores are automatically calculated based on the Roster and Settings page.
“Quiz-out Percentage” is the number of quiz-outs (NOT strike-outs) and divide it by the number
of rounds. So if you quiz-out 9 times in 10 rounds, your “Quiz-out Percentage” is 90%. And
lastly, E-Score displays the number of correct and incorrect answers and automatically
calculates accuracy.

Advanced Results – This takes the last three columns in “General Results” and divides it up
into 10‟s, 20‟s, and 30‟s. I used this all the time as a quizzer and always showed me where I
needed to improve for the next meet. Expect to use this section a lot.

Round by Round Results – This is a really great part of E-Score. You can instantly look down
a column and see the quizzers round by round performance and identify any weak points. For
example, I have found that some quizzers are “asleep” the first few rounds and “wake-up” for
the end of the day. I have also found that sometimes quizzers are “up and down” in their
scoring: Two rounds with good scores, two rounds with bad scores, two rounds with good
scores, etc… This shows you what kind of quizzers you have, and helps you prepare them for
the next meet. I also use it when confirming scores with the official statistician, something I‟ve
had to do on several occasions.

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Printing Pages
After a long day of quizzing, you want to show your quizzers how they did. One of the best
things about E-Score is printing the results and showing them to your quizzers. It‟s as easy as
1-2-3!

1. Select the cells you want to print

2. Click on “File” then “Print” OR hit <Control> + <P> on your keyboard
3. Click “Print”.

Wrapping things up…

Thank you for purchasing E-Score! We hope you have had a great time learning about this
product. If you have ANY questions regarding E-Score, please contact James Lex at:

James Lex
770.926.4456 (H)
678.294.2043 (C)
james@jameslex.com
www.jameslex.com/e-score

Thank you, and may God bless your quizzing!

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