Search found 2189 matches
- Sun Jul 23, 2017 10:41 pm
- Forum: High school area archives
- Topic: Tiebreaker Distro
- Replies: 6
- Views: 4372
Re: Tiebreaker Distro
I'm not aware of any deep theory that's been written on tiebreakers. Below, I will talk a bit about the approach that I took to tiebreakers back when I was writing and editing lots of questions (which was a long time ago, but I like to think some of the ideas might still apply today). In my opinion,...
- Thu Jul 13, 2017 1:30 pm
- Forum: High school area archives
- Topic: Good books for studying history
- Replies: 7
- Views: 6619
Re: Good books for studying history
Definitely read the "books for quizbowl" thread, a running 198+ post affair where many different quizbowl players give their recommendations for good books to read, many of which are history books. You can find it here: http://www.hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=8159 The real...
- Tue Jul 11, 2017 10:26 am
- Forum: New Collegiate Teams
- Topic: The overwhelming lack of knowledge for the initiate
- Replies: 11
- Views: 16380
Re: The overwhelming lack of knowledge for the initiate
To summarize, if you have no knowledge outside of a bare-bones STEM education from high-school, where should you start as a new collegiate player? You're going to school in Florida, you say? Stick to STEM, and you'll score plenty of points against most teams here. The rest of quiz bowl subjects wil...
- Mon Jul 10, 2017 9:28 am
- Forum: New Collegiate Teams
- Topic: The overwhelming lack of knowledge for the initiate
- Replies: 11
- Views: 16380
Re: The overwhelming lack of knowledge for the initiate
Expose yourself to as many questions as possible. Ideally, attend tournaments as often as you can and attend practices as often as you can. If that can't happen, read packets in your spare time. Have a notebook and write down any answers you have not heard of, then look them up online. You can reall...
- Fri Jun 30, 2017 10:12 am
- Forum: High school area archives
- Topic: Would You Recommend Working for NAQT? Revisited
- Replies: 41
- Views: 31843
Re: Would You Recommend Working for NAQT? Revisited
Is it possible that NAQT's leaders dislike you for some reason unrelated to your work for its competitors, and they're using your NHBB connections as an excuse? I no longer moderate NAQT events (I think I still get invited to almost all of them), but when I look at pictures of NAQT events all the mo...
- Mon Jun 26, 2017 9:43 am
- Forum: High school area archives
- Topic: What tournaments are "must-attend" events, and why?
- Replies: 16
- Views: 11077
Re: What tournaments are "must-attend" events, and why?
As a player, I always liked variety. Playing the same teams over and over again in the same buildings got boring: it was cool when we traveled to a different part of the country and got to see new cities and new teams.
- Tue Jun 20, 2017 9:27 am
- Forum: High school area archives
- Topic: Giveaways for "lesser-known" stuff about common things
- Replies: 17
- Views: 9431
Re: Giveaways for "lesser-known" stuff about common things
I think it's been a few years since we've had an argument about this, but I think (and hope) that quizbowl theory's general position is still that you should make giveaways as easy as possible: at that point it's simply better for the long-term health of the game to increase tossup conversion rates....
- Mon Jun 19, 2017 11:52 am
- Forum: New High School Teams
- Topic: Books "for Quizbowl"
- Replies: 217
- Views: 225922
Re: Books "for Quizbowl"
https://www.amazon.com/Flayed-God-Mesoamerican-Mythological-Tradition/dp/0062507494 The Flayed God was recommended to me in 2004 by one of the greatest myth players in quizbowl history when I asked him how to get better at Mesoamerican mythology. The book was a decade old then and is now over two de...
- Mon Jun 05, 2017 1:46 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Limits of the "Back to the Classroom" Movement
- Replies: 33
- Views: 12287
Re: Limits of the "Back to the Classroom" Movement
As a historian, there's a lot of history tossups I can't convert...I think we have to be somewhat more specific here. I would go so far as to say that if you plucked a tenured academic historian out of his or her ivory tower and forced them to play an all-history packet against a slightly above ave...
- Wed May 31, 2017 4:06 pm
- Forum: High school area archives
- Topic: Writing common link tossups (especially history)
- Replies: 1
- Views: 2628
Re: Writing common link tossups (especially history)
Disclaimer: I haven't really played or written quizbowl in the last few years, so I'm not up on the latest trends, but I wrote hundreds of history tossups, including entire history-only tournaments, in the years 2007 - 2013 and perhaps not everything I know is obsolete. Also a lot of the sample clu...
- Fri May 19, 2017 11:40 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Different types of clues in the same tossup?
- Replies: 5
- Views: 3367
Re: Different types of clues in the same tossup?
This would be totally uncontroversial in most subjects outside of music. It's really common in literature, as Chris pointed out. In history, it would be nothing out of the ordinary if you, for example, put a clue like "Hannah Arendt called this battle the birth of the 19th century" at the ...
- Tue May 09, 2017 5:11 pm
- Forum: Databases and Quizbowl Software
- Topic: Help us map answer lines to Wikipedia pages!
- Replies: 6
- Views: 4592
Re: Help us map answer lines to Wikipedia pages!
Wait I don't get it. So right now for example "Caesar Rodney" is listed as an answerline, and "Julius_Caesar" is listed as the wikipedia article. Should I be deleting the entire row, or should I be changing the Wikipedia article to Caesar_Rodney?
- Mon May 08, 2017 2:10 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Subject-specific player polls
- Replies: 29
- Views: 16736
Re: Subject-specific player polls
My Science Rankings 1. Josh Alman (while cheating) 2. 2010 Eric Mukherjee 3. Andy Watkins (while cheating) 4. The Apocalyptic Figure that Results when peak Seth Teitler and peak Selene Koo do the Fusion Dance 5. 2012 Eric Mukherjee 6. 2014-5 Eric Mukherjee 7. Billy Busse 8. 2017 Eric Mukherjee 9. A...
- Mon May 01, 2017 2:33 pm
- Forum: High school area archives
- Topic: Activities Outside of Quiz Bowl
- Replies: 28
- Views: 3100
Re: Activities Outside of Quiz Bowl
I founded a satirical newspaper in 10th grade, making fun of events at my high school. It was a lot like the Quizbowl Tribune, except about my school.
They didn't let us run the "9th grade field trip to Iran ends poorly" article, my first experience with censorship.
They didn't let us run the "9th grade field trip to Iran ends poorly" article, my first experience with censorship.
- Fri Apr 28, 2017 12:57 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: João - Myth Shootout (HSNCT)
- Replies: 58
- Views: 49814
Re: João - Myth Shootout (HSNCT)
need a ruling on porkpie hats
- Wed Apr 26, 2017 12:55 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Difficulty Consistency in Finals Packets
- Replies: 19
- Views: 10662
Re: Difficulty Consistency in Finals Packets
I'll admit as somebody who has worked on ACF Nationals in the past, when you write an Editors tossup that is perhaps a tad bit hard, you feel a temptation to just sneak it into the finals packet, since you can figure that the best teams in the field will play it there and surely one of them might kn...
- Mon Apr 24, 2017 12:07 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: The Buzzer Dilemma
- Replies: 20
- Views: 11005
Re: The Buzzer Dilemma
If ACF owned buzzers where would they be stored and who would take care of them. This is a serious question. ACF has much less turnover and institutional buildout than NAQT or NHBB. There's not a Dave Madden or R. Hentzel type figure who will always be there; the closest ACF ever had to such a Heimd...
- Wed Apr 19, 2017 12:35 pm
- Forum: High school area archives
- Topic: Outreach for schools that play "bad" formats
- Replies: 10
- Views: 5295
Re: Outreach for schools that play "bad" formats
what's a good response to "our school doesn't take quizbowl very seriously", an excuse you do hear from schools who don't want to change what format they play
- Thu Apr 13, 2017 5:35 pm
- Forum: High school area archives
- Topic: Documenting plagiarism
- Replies: 20
- Views: 11252
Re: Documenting plagiarism
Might not be plagiarism. Might just be a mistake. I know that when I was actively writing, I had a big MS Word file filled with tossup, and sometimes I just pasted stuff from that Doc into a packet I was writing. I tried to immediately delete anything I pasted into a packet, but I'm sure somebody do...
- Tue Apr 11, 2017 9:41 am
- Forum: High school area archives
- Topic: Travel to HSNCT
- Replies: 5
- Views: 3419
Re: Travel to HSNCT
I attended HSNCT once as a moderator. I had never been to Atlanta before. I was able to easily take the MARTA (public transit) from the airport to just a few blocks away from the HSNCT hotel. I would recommend it. I don't think you even have to transfer trains. Apparently, the local population in At...
- Sun Mar 12, 2017 9:56 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Easy Parts
- Replies: 19
- Views: 9749
Re: Easy Parts
One thing that's cool to do in an easy part (and, more commonly, in the bonus prompt) is to have harder clues in there alongside the easy stuff so people learn from it.
- Wed Mar 01, 2017 3:19 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: ACF Nationals Planning
- Replies: 9
- Views: 5382
Re: ACF Nationals Planning
In the past, large groups of quizbowl players have stayed in hotels in Secaucus, NJ for tournaments held at Columbia, and then taken the commuter rail from there into New York City. My knowledge of New York City area geography is hazy, but I believe this is on the same rail line as Newark Internatio...
- Tue Feb 28, 2017 10:40 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: "Let's Remember Some Guys"
- Replies: 44
- Views: 25437
Re: "Let's Remember Some Guys"
If anyone needs help remembering MLB players from this era, I am linking to Frank Thomas's Hall of Fame Acceptance Speech. Scroll to the bottom and he gives a "verbal montage" of seemingly every middling player he was ever teammates with http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/whites...
- Mon Feb 27, 2017 1:47 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Pronunciation Guides in College
- Replies: 9
- Views: 5634
Re: Pronunciation Guides in College
I really want to second the idea of breaking up syllables of long science words. One of the greatest moments of my quizbowl career was when I realized that long names for chemicals are generally just the same few suffixes, prefixes, and short names strung together in different patterns, and that my ...
- Sun Feb 26, 2017 11:57 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Pronunciation Guides in College
- Replies: 9
- Views: 5634
Re: Pronunciation Guides in College
If you're bragging on Facebook that your tournament is finished 3 weeks ahead of time, adding this kind of stuff to the set might be a fantastic use of that remaining time.
- Thu Feb 23, 2017 10:39 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: State of tournament criticism
- Replies: 5
- Views: 4093
Re: State of tournament criticism
Perhaps it might help to think of what is actionable feedback for the writer. Much of the feedback we see in tournament threads (and this is unchanged since like 2009) is stuff like "dude, you put the Battle of the Gates of Trajan way too early in that tossup about Basil the Bulgar-Slayer, it's...
- Fri Feb 17, 2017 12:08 am
- Forum: High school area archives
- Topic: extremely good pet pictures
- Replies: 24
- Views: 1949
- Thu Feb 16, 2017 10:35 am
- Forum: High school area archives
- Topic: Frustrations
- Replies: 7
- Views: 4763
Re: Frustrations
There can only be one. Well, OK - so actually there can only be three (for high school) and two (for college) national champions each year in quizbowl, not counting subsidiary titles like DII, UG, Small Schools, etc. Two is not a winner, and three nobody remembers. Your odds of being one of those wi...
- Wed Feb 15, 2017 10:41 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2017 ICT bids
- Replies: 157
- Views: 81857
Re: 2017 ICT bids
An ICT bid is one of the few levers that NAQT can pull when it comes to convincing teams to do what NAQT wants (in this case, edit tournaments or host tournaments). Jeff Hoppes has more or less said in this thread that NAQT has had trouble convincing people to edit SCT/ICT or host SCT unless they ge...
- Tue Feb 07, 2017 5:03 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: SCT, autobids, and ICT size discussion
- Replies: 131
- Views: 57687
Re: SCT, autobids, and ICT size discussion
Insofar as the opinions of an undergraduate president of a 12-person club in a podunk circuit matter, here are mine. Insofar as the opinions of an undergraduate president of a different 12-person club in the same podunk circuit matter, here are mine and some of my teammates who I asked about the is...
- Tue Feb 07, 2017 3:11 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: SCT, autobids, and ICT size discussion
- Replies: 131
- Views: 57687
Re: SCT, autobids, and ICT size discussion
I feel compelled to briefly resurrect from quizbowl death to support the idea that neither NAQT nor other quizbowl organizations should rush to create rules that deal with unlikely scenarios. I think other posters have laid out solid, credible arguments for why the current rules are unlikely to be w...
- Fri Jan 27, 2017 8:55 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Saving the IRC
- Replies: 26
- Views: 16591
Re: Saving the IRC
Back when I hung out in the quizbowl IRC channel every night (like 2009 - 2010), whenever somebody started talking politics everyone else would quickly start a waffles vs pancakes debate. It was more of a way to shame the people politicking than anything else: if people started talking about waffles...
- Sun Jan 15, 2017 10:05 am
- Forum: New High School Teams
- Topic: Books "for Quizbowl"
- Replies: 217
- Views: 225922
Re: Books "for Quizbowl"
The English Civil War: A People's History by Diane Purkiss is described by one of its reviewers as "extraordinarily popular" and is the book I read about the English Civil War for quizbowl purposes. Also I once had a wild bird fly into my parents house, and of the hundreds of books I own ...
- Thu Jan 12, 2017 3:14 pm
- Forum: High school area archives
- Topic: Tournament Structure: Why Not Swiss?
- Replies: 2
- Views: 3255
Re: Tournament Structure: Why Not Swiss?
Swiss pairing is used for very large quizbowl tournaments. It is not used in smaller tournaments in part because shortening the tournament is NOT seen as good: people enjoy the act of playing quizbowl and would prefer to play 10 - 15 rounds while also getting to see all of the other teams there. Ind...
- Mon Jan 09, 2017 11:44 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: What keeps you doing quizbowl?
- Replies: 25
- Views: 15365
Re: Quizbowl?
I do not think you have identified issues unique to quizbowl. Instead, I think you have identified issues that are a fundamental part of the human condition. Humans are fallible beings. None of us have achieved perfection at anything. Even those of us who work hard typically end up failing to accomp...
- Sun Jan 08, 2017 1:39 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Is there a Harvard club?
- Replies: 3
- Views: 2674
Re: Is there a Harvard club?
Harvard's quizbowl team has almost certainly received more press coverage than any other college quizbowl team in history. I'm surprised she was not able to find google results confirming its existence...
- Thu Jan 05, 2017 11:30 am
- Forum: High school area archives
- Topic: 2016 Hit Songs Survey
- Replies: 25
- Views: 2371
Re: 2016 Hit Songs Survey
My top 10: 1. Closer (Chainsmokers) – This is probably the best song of the year. It’s catchy, it represents “what music sounds like in 2016” well, and it captures our contemporary society well. 2. Can’t Stop the Feeling (Justin Timberlake) – This song dominated for a good stretch of time. Gotta re...
- Wed Jan 04, 2017 4:55 pm
- Forum: High school area archives
- Topic: NAQT player and team highlights
- Replies: 22
- Views: 13256
Re: NAQT player and team highlights
I'm sure lots of people will think this sounds silly or frivolous, but I predict it will do a lot of good raising quizbowl awareness. Imagine each time a player gets honored by NAQT, it gets picked up by the school newspaper, maybe by a local paper, posted to social media by relatives, etc. That mig...
- Fri Dec 30, 2016 9:46 am
- Forum: New Collegiate Teams
- Topic: How to Study Quiz Bowl at the College Level
- Replies: 4
- Views: 11681
Re: How to Study Quiz Bowl at the College Level
Buy a big notebook. Take it to every practice and tournament you attend. Write down all of the answers that come up: tossup answers, bonus answers. Then go back through the notebook and look up anything you've never heard of or are curious about. Definitely read books too, and not just old packets. ...
- Thu Dec 22, 2016 5:01 pm
- Forum: High school area archives
- Topic: The Worst Christmas Song Ain't What You Think
- Replies: 15
- Views: 991
Re: The Worst Christmas Song Ain't What You Think
I'm sure the song is awful (I haven't listened to it yet), but is it really culturally salient enough to even be considered? It doesn't even have its own Wikipedia article (though the album its on, which is titled after the song, does).
- Tue Dec 20, 2016 11:17 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Continuing to rethink the distribution
- Replies: 54
- Views: 37254
Re: Continuing to rethink the distribution
As an ancient being who has seen generations of quizbowl players come and go I ask this: is "some veteran players have heard questions about this thing lots of times and are sick of it" ignoring the fact that at any one time there are new people entering the college quizbowl world to whom...
- Mon Dec 19, 2016 2:20 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: IRC Festivus 2016: Still Not Dead Yet
- Replies: 120
- Views: 67643
Re: IRC Festivus 2016: Still Not Dead Yet
Tonight somebody gave me a copy of the Rukhnama as a Christmas present. I am going to try to put together a small packet of questions based on my soon-to-be-real knowledge of the Rukhnama. I won't be able to attend Festivus so if you'd like to read this on my behalf please let me know. Edit - yes I ...
- Mon Dec 19, 2016 2:17 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Continuing to rethink the distribution
- Replies: 54
- Views: 37254
Re: Continuing to rethink the distribution
As an ancient being who has seen generations of quizbowl players come and go I ask this: is "some veteran players have heard questions about this thing lots of times and are sick of it" ignoring the fact that at any one time there are new people entering the college quizbowl world to whom ...
- Thu Dec 15, 2016 12:00 pm
- Forum: Quizbowl History Forum
- Topic: Greatest Upsets in Quizbowl History
- Replies: 75
- Views: 79242
Re: Greatest Upsets in Quizbowl History
Chris Ray at Terrapin 2016 is a pretty legendary upset notwithstanding its recency. Great moments involve Chris literally licking his lips as the science tossup in finals 2 was being read before he completely shafted Max on that question, Chris beating John Lawrence to a music question using his &q...
- Sun Dec 04, 2016 11:05 pm
- Forum: High school area archives
- Topic: On Note Taking
- Replies: 6
- Views: 4926
Re: On Note Taking
What you do is exactly what I did during my playing career. However, I believe the more common approach, which I've seen most elite players do, is writing down only the answer to every single question you hear. Then they go afterwords and look up everything that came up (or at least the stuff that t...
- Wed Nov 16, 2016 11:15 am
- Forum: High school area archives
- Topic: Contesting Statistics After a Tournament
- Replies: 11
- Views: 8609
Re: Contesting Statistics After a Tournament
If you look at post-tournament discussion threads on this forum, there are often one or two people asking for corrections. Moderators and stats people are fallible creatures who often make mistakes. My attitude is: if you care so much about your personal statistics that you are willing to expend the...
- Thu Nov 10, 2016 11:03 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: How to be a Good College History Player + other stuff
- Replies: 6
- Views: 4284
Re: How to be a Good College History Player + other stuff
20% of all the questions in a given game of quizbowl are going to be history questions. That is a significant chunk: no other subject gets more than that, and only two other subjects get that much. If all you can do is reliably nail down the history questions in a given packet, then you will be a ve...
- Tue Nov 08, 2016 10:04 am
- Forum: New High School Teams
- Topic: Studying Social Science and Philosophy
- Replies: 3
- Views: 11779
Re: Studying Social Science and Philosophy
Use question archives to find out which philosophers and social scientists are common asked about in quizbowl. Then do what Ankit says to learn them deeply.
- Tue Nov 08, 2016 9:52 am
- Forum: High school area archives
- Topic: What are/were your other extracurriculars?
- Replies: 8
- Views: 799
Re: What are/were your other extracurriculars?
I was editor of my high school yearbook. I joined the yearbook on a whim my freshman year, and quickly developed an inexplicable urge to one day be in charge around there. I worked very hard on yearbook for two years, I even attended a "yearbook camp" in Elmhurst, IL for a week in the summ...
- Mon Nov 07, 2016 10:55 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2016 ACF Fall general discussion
- Replies: 49
- Views: 26257
Re: 2016 ACF Fall general discussion
Ben has (thankfully) covered almost all of the points that still stick out in my mind, but I would also like to reemphasize the lack of alternate answerlines and prompts, for example on the Republic of China question, where a member of my team was negged on Kuomintang (I think) on the first couple ...