The Quizbowl Resource Center

dschafer

Over the past few months, I have been working on a program to create more interactive statistics reports for quiz bowl tournaments. QBStatGen is a package consisting of a Python script and multiple PHP pages which creates more dynamic web reports from SQBS tournament files. The 2006 NAQT JIAT this p...

dschafer

I predict TJ won't work out the way people predict it will. Last year there were plenty of surprises, there will be plenty of surprises this year. That's just how the first tournament always goes. I agree that the predictions for this tournament will probably be pretty inaccurate; they usually are....

dschafer

Your guess is as good as ours.

dschafer

Answering the questions in the channel:

Should there be computational math questions? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and most importantly, yes.

Should there be bonus rounds? This could go either way; I'd lean towards yes.

dschafer

As ReinsteinD said, at the middle school level, MATHCOUNTS and the AMC 8 are by far the biggest competitions. TJ also runs the Intermediate Math Open each year for middle schoolers; we have a 30-minute, 30-question individual round, a 1-hour, varying-number-of-questions proof round, a 30 minute, 10-...

dschafer

We need a question on "VergangenheitsbewÃ¤ltigung." Nobody would get it because of pronunciation alone. One packet I read in practice had a question on the Houyhnhnms, where the answer key stated "accept reasonable attempts." This seems like a good policy for this particular answ...

dschafer

By my count, TJ went to 12 "local/regional" tournaments, 2 nationals (NAQT/PACE), our TV tournament (3 tapings), and we were planning to go to Duke.

dschafer

If I have any doubt whatsoever about pronunciation, I always defer to a teammate; I'll gladly take 99 unneccessary defers to save the 1 answer I would have mispronounced. Often, the "last-second" defers you describe are benign; for example, if two teammates have different answers that they...

dschafer

Well done, Tegan; that was one of the funniest posts I've read in months! May I suggest that after each round of the playoffs, the teams must line up at center ice and shake hands? Also, teams should rap their buzzers against the wall to show appreciation after a particularly good buzz.

dschafer

From what I saw at National Science Bowl, there is a very active Science Bowl circuit in Idaho; you might be able to find out about quiz bowl through the Science Bowl teams.

dschafer

As the AP CS exam is in Java now, I suspect most Intro to CS courses are in Java, at least for schools that offer both Intro and AP. I know this is why the Intro class at TJ switched to Java.

dschafer

In that tournament, Evan also got "Utopia" off of only "it is crescent shaped..." Yea there were a lot of easy or trashy powers in that set, which is basically why I made this thread. And just think... this could have been in the "Bad Negs" thread: Wrong: Utopia Right:...

dschafer

Depending on how big the "Metro-area" is, I personally think Gov will be scary next year. Returning all but one member from the 3rd place team at NAQT makes them one of the teams to beat next year. Next year's senior class at TJ is small in number, but we'll have at least 10 juniors, and s...

dschafer

As an unofficially-official representative for the Virginia team. I would like to state that I challenge everyone at Panasonic to a game of Mafia.

dschafer

I have no problem with computer science questions, though I've admittadly taken 8 semesters of CS in High School and am majoring in it in college. The math theory category in this year's TJIAT was actually "Math Theory/Computer Science," though the affinity of Evan and myself for CS probab...

dschafer

Congratulations to RM on their victory. Ever since our first tournament this year, it was clear that they would be one of the teams to beat this year at NAQT, and they haven't let up since. Good luck in Japan! For power matching, I've never seen it done where the order of losses/wins matters... I ce...

dschafer

I talked to Neel; these results are completely from my memory of a three minute conversation, and thus are both selective and possibly inaccurate.

RM won, with State College, Gov A and DCC all in the top 4. TJ A got 7th. Grosse Point (the 1-seed going in to the playoffs) went 1-2 in the playoffs.

dschafer

The one junior sitting next to me says that TJ would be interested in attending such a tournament. Would the questions be house-written or NAQT?

dschafer

Well, it seems Esperanto is the obvious neutral choice.

EDIT: And last year's TJ team was definitely not fluent in Japanese, though Dan Wright could probably do an amusing imitation.

dschafer

From practice today (an old HSNCT packet):

"Shroud of Turin" for "Halley's Comet"

"Jury duty" for "Smallpox vaccine"

dschafer

That protest was interesting, as I can see both sides of the argument. Expanding on what Matt said for those who haven't heard the question: I won't attempt to quote it here, as I could not do it justice, but the general idea was that a player starts out making 100% of his free throws, but every tim...

dschafer

Thanks to RM for running a great tournament; the question quality was very high, and the tournament was run quite smoothly (more tournaments need to end before 5 PM, as this one did.) The final team in your 5-8 listing is TJ B, who lost to Gov A in the quarterfinals. On the PACE format: The stretch ...

dschafer

TJ this year went to 3 UVa tournaments (including NAQT States, run by UVa), 2 UMD tournaments, and were planning to go to Duke (until its cancellation). We floated for a very brief time the idea of attending Carnegie Mellon's tournament, and were seriously considering attending MIT, but both of thos...

dschafer

The major issue with the "eliminate those already qualified" approach is that it could lead to odd qualification requirements. Tournaments late in the year might feature many already-qualified teams, and the top 15% without repeated qualifiers might have a 2-3 or a 1-4 team qualify for nat...

dschafer

The obligatory disclaimer: I'm not going to NAQT HSNCT this year, but if I were, I would probably end up on our B team, so I too have a rather biased opinion. I can certainly understand and empathize with those who feel that each school should be restricted to one team, especially given that there i...

dschafer

By Neel at Science bowl this weekend:

Q: "Math, Short Answer. Name all polygons that can..."

A: "Triangles, Squares, Hexagons"

dschafer

Results as I remember them (someone with official results: feel free to correct me if I remembered wrong): 1. Gov A 2. TJ A 3. Gov B 4. Langley 5. TJ B 6. Robinson Congratulations to Gov A; their performance today was very impressive. Also, thanks to UVa for another well-run tournament; this was pro...

dschafer

TJ's fall tournament uses NAQT questions. TJ's January tournament uses entirely student-written questions.

dschafer

At Gonzaga this weekend, both by myself and by Evan/Neel on TJ A:

Q: Garfield often sends his arch-nemesis, Nermal...
A: Abu Dhabi

dschafer

Thanks to Gonzaga for the tournament. I especially liked the distribution (a math question and a good sports question in each round of 15 tossups - I heartily approve).

Also, TJ B defeated RM B by 10 in the 5th place game, rather than vice versa (as the standings above indicate).

dschafer

Speaking for a team that played in the "Lower 8" bracket (TJ B), we did indeed enjoy the oppurtunity to play the extra rounds, and the thundersticks were a nice incentive as well.

dschafer

"Domino's Effect" - very nice. Pizza aside (which I know from experience is completely out of the tournament's control), the tournament was very well run. I particularly liked the single-to-double-elimination idea, as it allowed a lot more teams to play playoff matches. Also, having the co...

dschafer

At Science Bowl Regionals this weekend, they settled every protest as it happened (even if it was clear the protest didn't matter). I don't have a problem with this system, and it certainly avoided the problems mentioned with unresolved protests, but there was a major downside; the flow of the game ...

dschafer

Swiss pairs don't get all that messed up by ties. If you have a nice power of 2 for teams (16/32/64) and no ties, then you will never have a problem with an odd number of teams having the same record. If you don't have a pretty number of teams, or you have ties, then there is the potential that ther...

dschafer

Just for reference, the playoff results are now available on the tournament page.

dschafer

Final results: 1. State College A 2. RM A 3. Gov B 4. Centennial A 5. Raleigh Charter A 6. Raleigh Charter B 7. National Cathedral A 8. Gov C Prelim results are available on the tournament page ; playoff results will be posted shortly. Thank you to all 44 teams who came, from as far as Raleigh, NC a...

dschafer

Prelim results are available on the TJ It's Academic Tournament page.

dschafer

I know we're somewhere around 43 teams; we'll try and have a field update this afternoon.

dschafer

Looking just at the numbers: 2004 Fall: Mean 1271, Max 1849 2005 Spring Mean 1172, Max 1824 2005 Fall Mean 1253, Max 1845 It appears that this one was less difficult than last year's spring contest. Personally, I didn't see much of a difference either way in difficulty between this year and last yea...

dschafer

I've seen Apocalypse Now referenced quite a bit in quiz bowl, and a reasonable knowledge of recent movies might pick up a trash question or two each tournament.

dschafer

I'd like to thank Gov for running a great tournament. Although it did go slightly longer than expected, the questions were very good - the later rounds did increase in difficulty, but no more than would be expected of playoff rounds. The Swiss pairings also made the prelims quite interesting: TJ A p...

dschafer

TJ got 1845. There seemed to be fewer horrible jokes this year, but maybe that's because the person we have using the computer immediately skipped any joke screen (to avoid having to see the puns). Would scrolling through the joke screen let you answer faster and thus increase your score? (I know y...

dschafer

TJ got 1845.

There seemed to be fewer horrible jokes this year, but maybe that's because the person we have using the computer immediately skipped any joke screen (to avoid having to see the puns).

dschafer

Quick disclaimer: I do both math team and quiz bowl, so my feelings on this issue are rather biased. For the Countdown round at Mathcounts (which of all math competitions best resembles quiz bowl), students have 45 seconds from the start of the question, which is projected for them to read onto a sc...

dschafer

At Blake this year (so not technically power, just early buzzes), though these 2 were due to my own foolish premature buzzing: Moderator: With two dice, this is the probability or rolling a <buzz>. Me: one sixth. Moderator: Choice: sin of negative x is equal to <buzz> Me: negative sin x. And from RM...

dschafer

My own neg at UMD: "Maggots" for "lemmings."

They said something about how the theory that they spontaniously appeared was proved incorrect...

dschafer

In at least 2 diffferent rooms at UMD this weekend, "sforzando" for "Mannheim Steamroller".

dschafer

I'd like to mention that after Gov A had played 3 rounds, they had an incredible 18:1 Power to neg ratio. Even after negging twice in each of the final 2 games, the P/N ratio was still an amazing 26:5. Quite impressive.

dschafer

Geosystems
Numerical Analysis/Elementary Differential Equations
Computer Systems Research/Economics
AP English Literature
AP U.S. Government
Computer Aided Design/Computer Archetecture
Comparative Languages/Supercomputer Applications

I will probably end up majoring in computer science, wherever I go.

dschafer

Tournament updates will be available at http://activities.tjhsst.edu/itsacademic/tjiat.php throughout the day. Updated SQBS reports will be posted after each round, and the playoff spreadsheet will also be available once the playoffs start.

Full bracket posted

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