The Quizbowl Resource Center

master15625

Does anyone know when the audio-recordings of the PACE rounds will be up? Whoops, I thought I had lost these by not backing them up when I reformatted my new laptop, but it looks like I was indeed smart enough to upload these before I did that. I'll edit them and post these today. Also, I was wonde...

master15625

Um, does anyone know how many math theory tossups there were in this year's HSNCT? It really seemed to be a small amount. So hopefully, HSNCT will increase the number of math theory tossups rather than just get rid of the math computation tossups and replace it completely with tossups from other sub...

master15625

Dr. Bunsen Honeydew wrote: On another note, as i read through it comprehensively i'm noticing that the Four-Quarter Set is WAY harder than any of the ACF-style sets, but perhaps that's just my opinion.

Could you give some reason as to why you think that?

master15625

Alas, someone got this topic started. Thanks Zhao. Um, DCC I believe is losing almost all their team, but Michael Yurko is coming back. I know that he is a good science player. And DCC, year after year, when one thinks that they are not going to be that great, they become a phenomenal and difficult ...

master15625

Dwellers in the Crucible wrote:I have always seen those listed as science.

But it still involves some aspect of math calculation that makes it a speed race, right?

master15625

I was just wondering. Which ACF-style this year was intended to be the hardest of the four? It seems as if ACF-3 was the hardest of the four, so I was wondering if because of the power marks that this was the reason why ACF-3 was intentionally made the hardest?

Thanks

master15625

The person who was doing that question was obviously very sleepy...i hope. But luckily the problem was minor, since Crater Lake is pretty big in Oregon. I hear Portland is pretty big as well. Portland is really big in Maine as well, so that is why we can't really consider it as the main defining cl...

master15625

The person who was doing that question was obviously very sleepy...i hope. But luckily the problem was minor, since Crater Lake is pretty big in Oregon.

master15625

Isn't Sigfried a famous hero in Norse Mythology? Wouldn't that be somewhat a well known and important part? Does the fact that you are asking if he is the answer your second question? I'm not saying that it is too hard of a question, but it is not easy enough to be the easy part of a bonus at this ...

master15625

Answer the following about some named items from Norse myth, for 10 points each. [10] The sword known as Nothung, Balmung, or Gram was owned by this son of Sigmund, killer of Fafnir, and hero of the Volsungcycle. ANSWER: Sigurd [or Sigfried; prompt on “Hart“] [10] Examples of these items include Fr...

master15625

Can you post the Strindberg tossup please? Also, I believe that there were some questions/answers written that I felt needed to be edited better. For instance in #79 Packet 2 Question 1. The answer given was just 82.5 degrees, I said 165/2 degrees, and the moderator negged me for that and it took so...

master15625

Difficulty is variable--I would hope good teams who have heard a lot of questions and studied packets would be able to buzz at some of those points. I don't see that as inherently a problem because I'm pretty sure there's still going to be a lot of teams who couldn't buzz there (plus a few teams wh...

master15625

Can you provide specifics for ACF-4? I guess I consider it somewhat easier is that lots of famous clues come somewhat earlier on in the questions than I feel they should. I should revise the statement completely easier to just somewhat easier, as I realize that the questions in Packet 1 are not com...

master15625

It's kind of difficult to debate this over this forum, since that would involve posting direct comparisons of a number of tossups, but I've noticed this trend in other HSAPQ sets (namely, acf4) as well. Again, the quality of the questions they produce is still admirable for their first year as an o...

master15625

Packet 12 Says wrote:[10] This second novel by Fitzgerald
ANSWER: The Beautiful and Damned

I was just wondering, what did the moderators end up saying when they had to read this clue? It seems to me that there would be more information than just saying, "This is the second novel by Fitzgerald."

master15625

So the present standard is that 5/2, 2.5, and 2 1/2 are all acceptable, but 10/4 is not. Should we consider changing this? Absolutely! Again, these are the same number. I don't know what this "mathematical norm" is that Kay speaks of but it's nothing more than custom. Any answer that is e...

master15625

Bird Sonata wrote:
master15625 wrote:Does anyone remember the tossup in IS-83 that Ike said had a bad leadin, and sent it to NAQT?
Which round was it from? I can look for it.

I don't even know the question that he said had a bad leadin, I was wondering if anyone knew what question he was referring to.

master15625

Does anyone remember the tossup in IS-83 that Ike said had a bad leadin, and sent it to NAQT?

master15625

Cheynem wrote:
I know that it is of utmost importance that it teaches someone something rather than pyramidality
Wait...you make it sound like that's mutually exclusive!

I initially viewed that pyramidality was more important than teaching something which is wrong. I do not see that as mutually exclusive.

master15625

Here's another thing. Let's say that Neil succeeds in producing an appropriate computational math tossup; let's even suppose that he proves that an entire set of computational math tossups is 100% awesome for quizbowl and tests knowledge, etc. etc. Whatever. I don't think he will meet this burden, ...

master15625

But I don't believe I was agreeing with everyone. I was making a reply to Cheynem's post. Obviously mathcomp tossups in QuizBowl require computational speed. Quizbowl inherently requires speed when answering a question, and math computation tests computation. But I am saying that it is possible to ...

master15625

But I still believe that math computational tossups must stay. With regards to Cheynem's post, math computational tossups can be written with some difficulty in the questions asked and yet people can solve them pretty quickly without any tricks. Adopting your opponents' arguments as support for you...

master15625

OK, fine I agree that the math theory tossups can be fixed now and all that. I was trying to say that there are still some math theory tossups that although can be fixed, when the questions are asked at a tournament, it seems that the math theory tossups do not convey pyramidality. I am all in for h...

master15625

This one does not achieve pyramidality. For instance, Erdos-Mordell is a famous inequality that people who participate in math contests see come up often. The Nagel Point and the Gergonne Point do as well. Kimberling and de Longchamps do not come up that often, and are more obscure than the aforeme...

master15625

For instance, I have seen so many questions that often have the same answer with clues that are "supposed to be obscure", yet are still common in all the questions. With these types of questions, teams can just memorize these clues, and essentially when the clue is heard it will be a buzz...

master15625

But I just want to know, what is wrong with having a couple of math tossups, sometimes zero, that appear in a round of quizbowl. I mean, there are going to be like 18 others that people can still answer and can learn information from. Well, since you've already admitted that math questions are ofte...

master15625

Well, I do agree that those tossups in Round 12 were a little on the easy side. But I just want to know, what is wrong with having a couple of math tossups, sometimes zero, that appear in a round of quizbowl. I mean, there are going to be like 18 others that people can still answer and can learn inf...

master15625

Its not that your math questions are bad, its just that it seems to apply always just one concept, and you are done. I hope next time it is possible to incorporate multiple concepts to solve problems. Well how many concepts are you really going to have time to work through in 15 seconds? Yeah that ...

master15625

Yeah, you're right. I'm guessing they didn't put too much effort into the mathcomp questions. Wow, yeah, I'm really sorry about the L'Hopital's rule brainfart (and apologize to anyone that messed that up) and the aforementioned linear independence one (though the second clue hopefully ruled anythin...

master15625

squareroot165 wrote:He did play on Jr., but they don't run that as a tournament. Each school just plays one game.

What I meant was that they don't have it online, he did play it yeah.

master15625

From Packet 5 For 15 points, determine the limit as x goes to 0 of cos(pi*x)/x^2 (cosine of quantity pi-x divided by x-squared). ANSWER: pi^2 divided by 2 [or pi-squared over 2] How is that correct...? I mean, the limit is positive infinity (it goes to 1/0). You can't use L'Hospital's Rule when the ...

master15625

7. Christ in the House of Mary and Martha is thought to be the first work of this artist, who painted a servant maid handing over the title note to a lute-playing woman in The Love Letter. A 1994 cleaning revealed gold trim on the title object of this artist’s Woman Holding a Balance, while a repre...

master15625

Well, one can hope that there are some generalists to hopefully alleviate some of these problems based on filling the gaps, because if it is necessary to maintain diversity of schools, then the generalists can help. But I still think that the best people in each state could also have different areas...

master15625

I honestly think mixing and matching state teams won't help all that much, except in cases almost extreme imbalance, like maybe a very good science player from TJ joining Gov. The natural advantage I think will go to teams that have a pretty good chance of remaining intact, like Hunter or State Col...

master15625

I still don't get this tournament. How do we know that there won't be favoritism when determining an all star team? Like for example, how do we know that the team represented won't be all from the same school itself, and how do we know that we are choosing the best players to represent each state? I...

master15625

I don't know enough about other states to go into depth about how they might do, but I would suspect states with active quizbowl programs would do well, such as Georgia, South Carolina, Illinois, and perhaps even CA. edit: added a team Michigan also has an active quizbowl program too. Not to be som...

master15625

VA is going to be a powerful force, that is already given with Maggie Walker's team returning next year. And because my geography skills suck, I will also include DC in Virginia, and say that VA is definitely a force. State College is still there too, so HSAPQ will be interesting. Does anyone know i...

master15625

It probably will be, but we do not know when they will post it. But the last time it was used is I believe May 16th, 2009

master15625

I know that GDS is good, but will the studying binge over the summer really make them a top 2 team, especially after the loss of Ian Eppler? We will find out. This. I sort of had a "lol wut" reaction to Graham's post, as much as I'd like for that to happen... I hope I didn't upset you wit...

master15625

Yeah, the year you would want to see Kurtis score some would be any episode that East Lansing is in for 2007; 2008, which I thought was somewhat a bad year for QuizBusters, doesn't really convey that much. I thought that you meant he had been on QuizBusters Jr. Oh well. No, that would've been at le...

master15625

My prediction for next year's HSNCT: Maggie Walker thrashes Matt Jackson and GDS in three games across the weekend, but, during the fourth game, on an improbable last minute buzz, Matt carries GDS to victory, and they win the tournament Or maybe it is just a last minute buzz, not necessarily improb...

master15625

Cody Simons is a junior, so he most likely is coming back.

master15625

Slight correction, {x1,x2,...,xN} is linearly independent if {0,0,0,...0} is the only set of coefficients {a1,...,aN} that make the equation a1x1+a2x2+...+aNxN=0 true. This correction was pointless, as Mike clearly meant nontrivial (in this case non-0) coefficients, so his definition is completely ...

master15625

I also forgot to say, I believe that Stephen Liu from Torrey Pines in California is also returning next year as he is a junior. He put up a great performance at this year's HSNCT and did extremely well at SCIENCE!. Torrey Pines could be a team to watch out for next year, especially if they come to a...

master15625

This coming year is going to be a huge blow to Detroit Country Day School. We graduate 5 of the top 6 players in our school. Thankfully, we have people on our B team who are interested and hopefully they can help DCDS not be that bad of a team. So I am still looking forward to playing next year. Det...

master15625

Out of curiousity, what does "linear independence" mean? A set of objects {x1,x2,...,xN} is linearly independent if there do not exist coefficients {a1,...,aN} such that a1x1 + a2x2 + ... + aNxN = 0 and linearly dependent otherwise. One can re-write this to find that one can write any one...

master15625

Yeah, the year you would want to see Kurtis score some would be any episode that East Lansing is in for 2007; 2008, which I thought was somewhat a bad year for QuizBusters, doesn't really convey that much.

master15625

For what it's worth, we protested the Gauss question in our match for the same reason. I was told by R that "Guass" is wrong, "Gaussian numbers" is a prompt. This makes NO sense to me when "what numbers" is in the question! Given that the question said "what numbe...

master15625

Charbroil wrote:I can play them as a streaming file on Firefox, but yeah, it takes a ridiculously long time on IE.

Really, you could. for me, it keeps stopping, and eventually it just stops...

master15625

Yeah, it is taking me a long time as well.

I have only gotten one downloaded so far, and I've downloaded for two hours.

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