HSNCT first-timer advice?

[that one patriot guy]

Hi! My team recently qualified for the HSNCT and we are working on getting ready. However, we don't have a lot of funding and are a bit low on resources, so we aren't necessarily able to buy a bunch of packets to prepare. Plus, our local circuit (South Dakota) has literally NO pyramidal events (other than the event we qualified at) and certain travel/financial limitations prevent us from going out of state for NAQT events.

So my question is: with these limitations, along with the limited time (we only are able to practice once a week and don't have a lot of out-of school time), what's the best way to get ourselves ready to at least be marginally respectable at HSNCT? Any advice is welcome.

Thanks!

[fett0001]

quizbowlpackets.com is probably your best bet for past packets for studying.

[JKHtay]

Study Canadian stuff. NAQT loves Canada.

On a more serious note, studying harder level tournaments, like PACE NSC, or early-level college tournaments like ACF fall is a good idea. Be warned though that NAQT is more heavily geography, current events, etc. based, so be sure to study more of that if you plan to specifically do well at HSNCT. You could also peruse old HSNCT discussion threads in the National Tournaments subforum or the archives to get an idea of some of the questions/answer lines that actually come up. Last year's is here. Oh Let's Move...

[Corry]

I'd agree: http://quizbowlpackets.com is probably your best shot for this kind of scenario. From there, you can download essentially every non-NAQT and non-HSAPQ quiz bowl packet written in the last 4+ years, for free (you can also download HSAPQ packets for free from here).

However, the packets available for download on that website vary greatly in difficulty and quality. When studying for HSNCT, I would recommend primarily looking at PACE. This would be the most obvious one; PACE is the alternative national tournament to HSNCT, and on a whole, it has comparable difficulty. When you get down into the nitty gritty, you'll realize that PACE has a very different writing style from HSNCT, as well as a slightly different question distribution (PACE has less geography and current events). But the fact of the matter is that if you're good at PACE, you'll be good at HSNCT. So check them out first.

Also, I would only recommend reading through the last 3-4 years of the packet archive. The canon in quiz bowl tends to change pretty rapidly, so by the time you reach the packets written in 2009-ish, the questions may not accurately reflect what you'll be seeing in May at Chicago.