Search found 91 matches

by johntait1
Thu Dec 10, 2015 3:04 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: I have a PS4
Replies: 18
Views: 1591

Re: I have a PS4

The two games I currently enjoy the most on my PS4 are Call of Duty Black Ops III and MLB 15 the Show.
by johntait1
Sun Oct 04, 2015 1:51 pm
Forum: New High School Teams
Topic: Forming a History Bowl Team?
Replies: 2
Views: 4340

Re: Forming a History Bowl Team?

Hi. I'm trying to form a History Bowl team at my school. It's currently listed as a club, but I managed to find fourteen people who were interested in doing History Bowl. The first official meeting is Tuesday and I want to start doing packets right away. I'm leaning toward using NHBB regional sets ...
by johntait1
Sat Sep 26, 2015 5:20 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: How to recruit younger players?
Replies: 2
Views: 3010

Re: How to recruit younger players?

My biggest advice is be honest. Just talk about what your team is really like and why you are passionate about it. Don't try to hide anything or pretend that it is something that it is not. That way, you'll end up with people who are actually interested and will spend a lot of time studying and atte...
by johntait1
Thu Sep 17, 2015 9:21 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Tennessee 2015-2016
Replies: 27
Views: 15037

Re: Tennessee 2015-2016

Looks like there's finally a tournament on good questions scheduled in East Tennessee http://www.historybowl.com/eastern-tennessee/
It's on 12/12/15 at Jefferson County High School.
by johntait1
Sun Aug 16, 2015 9:19 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Tennessee 2015-2016
Replies: 27
Views: 15037

Re: Tennessee 2015-2016

I'll end by talking a bit about what I know about things around Tennessee. In East Tennessee, quizbowl has taken a pretty big hit recently because of a decreasing number of tournaments. The biggest problem has been that there aren't really tournaments for JV kids, so many of them lose interest, mea...
by johntait1
Sun Aug 16, 2015 2:39 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: How do the top teams study and specialize?
Replies: 13
Views: 9111

Re: How do the top teams study and specialize?

Quizbowl it's pretty hard to do really well with one person: Farragut had a really good generalist but he finished tied-53rd two years in a row at HSNCT since he got like 90% of our questions. At PACE in 2014 we finished 8th because he had two specialists helping and he was only getting like 60% of ...
by johntait1
Wed Aug 05, 2015 7:41 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Tennessee 2015-2016
Replies: 27
Views: 15037

Tennessee 2015-2016

I thought I'd start this topic to post general things about the Tennessee circuit since the school year is about to start up again. For Farragut High School, we're going to be doing some major rebuilding within our quizbowl club. The core of the teams that finished 53rd at HSNCT the past two years a...
by johntait1
Tue Jul 28, 2015 11:22 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2015 Intl. History Olympiad July 9-15
Replies: 24
Views: 16552

Re: 2015 Intl. History Olympiad July 9-15

I'll chime in and say that while I personally didn't go, I did talk to another student that went and he said it was a wonderful experience. He especially emphasized the camaraderie and friendship aspect part, which I think alone makes this event quite worthwhile. I think at Nationals it sort of ends...
by johntait1
Tue Jul 07, 2015 8:31 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Resetting [pt. 5 of 6]: How We Treat Each Other
Replies: 40
Views: 21832

Re: Resetting [pt. 5 of 6]: How We Treat Each Other

I'll post some of my thoughts as part of the high school community since I thought it might be nice to show a high schooler perspective. I'll divide this post into two main parts: 1.My place within the high school community and 2. Experiences I've had at tournaments interacting with other members of...
by johntait1
Mon Jul 06, 2015 11:31 am
Forum: New High School Teams
Topic: Advice on Studying Fine Arts
Replies: 13
Views: 16133

Re: Advice on Studying Fine Arts

I'd recommend taking AP Art History if its offered at your school. It not only exposed me to pretty much all the art tossed up at the high school level, but actually made me genuinely interested in art. I used to not care about art at all, but now I love looking at or reading about art just for fun....
by johntait1
Fri Jun 19, 2015 12:07 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Resetting [pt. 6 of 6]: Lessons Worth Recording
Replies: 12
Views: 8708

Re: Resetting [pt. 6 of 6]: Lessons Worth Recording

Thanks for the suggestion. I have browsed the quizbowl history subforums. The travel disasters thread has made me a bit worried about playing quizbowl in colllege; maybe I should have read the favorite quizbowl experiences thread first...
by johntait1
Fri Jun 19, 2015 11:36 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Resetting [pt. 6 of 6]: Lessons Worth Recording
Replies: 12
Views: 8708

Re: Resetting [pt. 6 of 6]: Lessons Worth Recording

[*] There's a lot of "quizbowl history" which it's worthwhile for younger players to hear about and learn from elders in the game before those elders move on. From funny and frivolous anecdotes about past players to more serious lessons about what bad quizbowl was like and how it was over...
by johntait1
Fri Jun 19, 2015 11:13 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Call for Writers -- International History Olympiad
Replies: 36
Views: 19969

Re: Call for Writers -- International History Olympiad

To make the field you'd have to qualify in the top 50% at NHBB or an IHBB or win a regional/state bee. Also, with the American competitors, you have JV stars like Alex Schmidt and Luke Tierney, senior studs like Ben Koppel, and of course the bee champion himself Bruce Lou. These are four players, b...
by johntait1
Mon Jun 15, 2015 2:37 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Resetting [pt. 4 of 6]: The Quizbowl-NHBB Relationship
Replies: 46
Views: 26069

Re: Resetting [pt. 4 of 6]: The Quizbowl-NHBB Relationship

I'll post a bit about the NHBB-Quizbowl relationship at our school to give everyone an idea of what goes on at the high school level, since some of the posters on the forums may not be too familiar with this aspect. Disclaimer: I'll try to keep it as objective as possible, but I'll come out and say ...
by johntait1
Fri Jun 12, 2015 4:51 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2015 PACE NSC: Question set discussion
Replies: 65
Views: 38237

Re: 2015 PACE NSC: Question set discussion

I'd be interested to see the subdistribution within Religion, if such a thing exists. Splitting hairs here, but looking back at the first line of the "Jummah/Friday" tossup -- "Anyone who recites a chapter telling the story of the seven sleepers of Ephesus on this day will be blessed...
by johntait1
Tue Jun 09, 2015 7:25 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: History Bowl/Quizbowl on College Applications
Replies: 17
Views: 15333

Re: History Bowl/Quizbowl on College Applications

On a somewhat unrelated note, did any of you use allusions to quizbowl in your essays? When I write for school, I often use allusions to help get my point across--describing a situation as a "New Frontier" or a "Tryst with Destiny"; using quotes such as "There is no substit...
by johntait1
Tue Jun 09, 2015 11:51 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: History Bowl/Quizbowl on College Applications
Replies: 17
Views: 15333

Re: History Bowl/Quizbowl on College Applications

Thanks for the response. I'm glad to know that others have written about it in both the common app essay and the supplements, since it would give an opportunity to emphasize some different aspects of the game. The additional information part really helped as well; I was thinking about including a py...
by johntait1
Thu Jun 04, 2015 1:07 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: History Bowl/Quizbowl on College Applications
Replies: 17
Views: 15333

Re: History Bowl/Quizbowl on College Applications

The only exception might be Liberty University, I bet they would give you a quizbowl scholarship. Actually, Michigan State invites a whole bunch of applicants who meet some GPA/test score threshold up every year in February to take a test. Rather than an SAT-style test, this test is almost entirely...
by johntait1
Thu Jun 04, 2015 9:46 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: History Bowl/Quizbowl on College Applications
Replies: 17
Views: 15333

Re: History Bowl/Quizbowl on College Applications

Thanks for all of the replies everyone; I really do appreciate all of the help. I wrote my commonapp essay about I've really loved the incredible community and experiences I've had at Nationals and not just the competition victories, but I realized that I never explained what quizbowl really is, so ...
by johntait1
Tue Jun 02, 2015 4:35 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: History Bowl/Quizbowl on College Applications
Replies: 17
Views: 15333

History Bowl/Quizbowl on College Applications

HI everyone, I was wondering how people put History Bowl or quizbowl on their college applications. I'll be applying to college this autumn and I really want to emphasize this aspect since I've invested an enormous amount of time into these two activities. I'll probably write essays about them, but ...
by johntait1
Thu May 14, 2015 4:49 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2015 NHBB/USGO Discussion Thread
Replies: 122
Views: 58879

Re: 2015 NHBB/USGO Discussion Thread

Hi Mr. Madden, Thank you for taking the time to post your thoughts on the subject. For the 3rd year in a row, Friday was the most stressful day of the weekend for me, though much of this had to do with the hotel issues (no further need to go into that here). I thought the US History Bee prelims ran ...
by johntait1
Thu May 07, 2015 3:49 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2015 NHBB Nats: Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 28
Views: 4197

Re: Specific Question Discussion

Could I see the question on Profiles in Courage? I felt it was one of the best tossups in the tournament because it successfully a historically significant book with a historically significant figure as the author with many historically significant events.
by johntait1
Sun May 03, 2015 8:42 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2015 NHBB/USGO Discussion Thread
Replies: 122
Views: 58879

Re: 2015 NHBB/USGO Discussion Thread

First off, a big thank you to everyone who competed at, assisted with, and otherwise made our 2015 Varsity and Junior Varsity National Championships possible. This was one of the largest tournaments of any kind ever (the 123 simultaneous rooms playing on Saturday is certainly a record by a wide mar...
by johntait1
Sat May 02, 2015 1:47 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2015 NHBB/USGO Discussion Thread
Replies: 122
Views: 58879

Re: 2015 NHBB/USGO Discussion Thread

This year the second place JV team was unranked coming into Nationals I believe. Just want to mention that Saratoga definitely flipped their JV A and JV B teams (I believe Saratoga JV A went 1-4 in the morning or something ridiculous like that). Saratoga JV A had a Madden Rank of 9-I remember this ...
by johntait1
Sat May 02, 2015 1:34 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2015 NHBB Nats: General Discussion
Replies: 14
Views: 3000

Re: General Discussion

Questions for the four 2015 high school championships of the NHBB organization -- the 2015 US History Bee, the 2015 Geography Olympiad, the 2015 National History Bee, and the 2015 National History Bowl -- were written more or less in their entirety between March 10 and April 8. When we began the wr...
by johntait1
Sat May 02, 2015 1:13 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2015 NHBB Nats: Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 28
Views: 4197

Re: Specific Question Discussion

Could I see the tossups on Mongol Invasions of Japan and Smallpox Inoculation? I answered too generally on those tossups and I was wondering if there was anything in the questions indicating a specific answer was required.
by johntait1
Wed Apr 29, 2015 8:22 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2015 NHBB/USGO Discussion Thread
Replies: 122
Views: 58879

Re: 2015 NHBB/USGO Discussion Thread

Mr. Madden, would you mind posting the other scores from the round robin playoff rounds? The webpage still isn't filled out yet, and I'm curious what the scores were in the games. Thank you.
by johntait1
Tue Apr 28, 2015 9:42 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2015 NHBB Nats: General Discussion
Replies: 14
Views: 3000

Re: General Discussion

Our team really enjoyed the increased difficulty, although the Bowl finals may have been a bit too high considering neither LASA nor Saratoga broke 300 pts. I had never heard of many of the answerlines in the bowl finals myself.. I believe the final score was 300-290, as a matter of fact. Regardles...
by johntait1
Tue Apr 28, 2015 9:37 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2015 NHBB/USGO Discussion Thread
Replies: 122
Views: 58879

Re: 2015 NHBB/USGO Discussion Thread

'd rather have had a 2 person final, mostly because it takes away the advantage of "going fishing" which seemed to be really pervasive in the later rounds of the JV Bee. Basically, two pretty wild guesses would be made really early on in the question since there was nothing to lose by gue...
by johntait1
Tue Apr 28, 2015 9:05 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2015 NHBB Nats: Specific Question Discussion
Replies: 28
Views: 4197

Re: Specific Question Discussion

Could someone post the questions that were labeled "mainstream" Christianity beliefs? Someone said that there were many of those, but I seem to remember mostly heresies(Arianism, lightning on sects, etc) or Christian history(Half Way Covenant) while other religion tossups seemed to be more...
by johntait1
Tue Apr 28, 2015 9:03 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2015 NHBB Nats: General Discussion
Replies: 14
Views: 3000

Re: General Discussion

I already posted most of my general comments on the general Nationals discussion thread, so I won't repost them here, although I will email my thoughts to the writers once I read through other posts to see if my team's ideas about the set are generally correct or way off. One thing I will say in res...
by johntait1
Tue Apr 28, 2015 4:51 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2015 NHBB/USGO Discussion Thread
Replies: 122
Views: 58879

Re: 2015 NHBB/USGO Discussion Thread

Though I don't know if there's time for this in the Friday schedule, I would like the JV US History Bee to have a two-person final, as opposed to a nine-person, 35 question semifinal where the top two get trophies at the end for being finalists. John Connor and I, the two "finalists", fin...
by johntait1
Mon Apr 27, 2015 5:21 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2015 NHBB/USGO Discussion Thread
Replies: 122
Views: 58879

Re: 2015 NHBB/USGO Discussion Thread

First of all, a huge thank you to Mr. Madden, all the NHBB staff, and every writer who worked on this set. This was truly an extremely enjoyable weekend of history/quizbowl competition. One of my favorite things about this weekend was that I got to to other students a bit more than in previous years...
by johntait1
Sun Apr 26, 2015 11:23 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2015 NHBB/USGO Discussion Thread
Replies: 122
Views: 58879

Re: 2015 NHBB/USGO Discussion Thread

Would someone be willing to post the scores from the varsity round robin playoffs last night? JV playoff scores are posted on the live page but varsity scores are absent from the varsity page. thanks.
by johntait1
Thu Apr 23, 2015 12:13 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Predictions/Analysis for Nationals
Replies: 3
Views: 3274

Predictions/Analysis for Nationals

Now that draws are posted, does anyone have any predictions or analysis for Nationals? I'll post a bit about our two teams: Varsity:We're seeded 14th going in, which I think is about right for us, since we beat the 15th seed AMSA 360-200 last year but we lost to Charter A(11th) and Ransom A(12th) by...
by johntait1
Thu Apr 16, 2015 12:00 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: What is your definition of a good Quiz Bowl player?
Replies: 5
Views: 4684

Re: What is your definition of a good Quiz Bowl player?

I think that a lot depends on individual situations and that its really hard to make generalizations. Sometimes one player has to answer everything because other people just don't have enough time to study. On our team we try to specialize to get some quicker buzzes on various buzzes. Personally I t...
by johntait1
Tue Mar 24, 2015 8:20 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Mid-Atlantic Championships 2015
Replies: 11
Views: 5217

Re: Mid-Atlantic Championships 2015

Could someone elaborate on what this new format for the Bee was? We played with the regular format at Tennessee State. Also, is the format going to be different that last year's for Nationals? Thanks.
by johntait1
Tue Mar 17, 2015 2:44 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2014 Nationals Results
Replies: 8
Views: 4199

Re: 2014 JV Bowl and Bee Nationals Results?

Thanks for all the help.
by johntait1
Mon Mar 16, 2015 9:12 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2014 Nationals Results
Replies: 8
Views: 4199

Re: 2014 JV Bowl and Bee Nationals Results?

Thanks for the help. I managed to find the bowl results for last year. However, when I changed the word bowl to bee, it said that the page was not found. Is there anything else I have to change to find the Bee results as well?
by johntait1
Mon Mar 16, 2015 12:01 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 2014 Nationals Results
Replies: 8
Views: 4199

2014 Nationals Results

Hi Everyone,
I was wondering where I could find the JV Bowl Nationals results for last year's prelims and afternoon rounds, and the JV Bee prelim results? The 2013 results I can find but when changing the number to 2014 it says page not found. Thanks.
by johntait1
Mon Mar 16, 2015 11:55 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Emergency Situation - All Writers Needed (RESOLVED)
Replies: 28
Views: 16547

Re: Emergency Situation - All Writers Needed (RESOLVED)

Hmmm, looking over the stats again, on last years A set we posted fourteen 20s and 2 30s in the five prelim rounds. At last years Nationals prelims, we had five 30s and ten 20s in the 5 rounds. In last year's National's 5 afternoon round, we posted two 30s and nine 20s. In the playoffs at Nationals ...
by johntait1
Sun Mar 15, 2015 2:21 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Emergency Situation - All Writers Needed (RESOLVED)
Replies: 28
Views: 16547

Re: Emergency Situation - All Writers Needed (RESOLVED)

Thanks to everyone for writing this set. Our team enjoyed playing it at Tennessee State yesterday. The set was definitely a bit different from past History Bowl regional sets, but not in a bad way; if anything, I enjoyed it more than the A set we played on last year-even though our team didn't do as...
by johntait1
Thu Mar 12, 2015 9:18 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: NHBB/USGO 2015 High School Nationals Prizes
Replies: 25
Views: 10727

Re: NHBB/USGO 2015 High School Nationals Prizes

My bad I didn't realize it was a magnet school since I didn't see it in the post. Probably should have checked that.
by johntait1
Thu Mar 12, 2015 5:57 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: NHBB/USGO 2015 High School Nationals Prizes
Replies: 25
Views: 10727

Re: NHBB/USGO 2015 High School Nationals Prizes

Hey Everyone! I was wondering how a school qualifies as "small" school. I am part of a JV team from Middlesex County Academy (NJ) (school has about 160 students total, about 40 students per grade). We will most likely be participating at Nationals (this is our first year). Will our teams ...
by johntait1
Sat Mar 07, 2015 9:05 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: NHBB/USGO 2015 High School Nationals Prizes
Replies: 25
Views: 10727

Re: NHBB/USGO 2015 High School Nationals Prizes

I agree with what Michael and Bruce posted. While it certainly helps people who plan on attending History Olympiad, the problem is that the incentive may not be large enough to convince people who were not attending the Olympiad to attend. Also, like Bruce said, attending Nationals is incredibly exp...
by johntait1
Sat Nov 22, 2014 11:20 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 11/22 History Bowl and Bee at Farragut High School
Replies: 2
Views: 2787

Re: 11/22 History Bowl and Bee at Farragut High School

Thanks to all the teams who showed up today at the East Tennessee History Bee and Bowl at Farragut High School. We genuinely felt that all the teams and players played very well. We were especially glad to see so many new players and hope that they will continue to play History Bowl in the future. T...
by johntait1
Sat Nov 22, 2014 11:17 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Tennessee '14-'15
Replies: 28
Views: 16071

Re: Tennessee '14-'15

Thanks to all the teams who showed up today at the East Tennessee History Bee and Bowl at Farragut High School. We genuinely felt that all the teams and players played very well. We were especially glad to see so many new players and hope that they will continue to play History Bowl in the future. T...
by johntait1
Tue Nov 18, 2014 9:50 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: 11/22 History Bowl and Bee at Farragut High School
Replies: 2
Views: 2787

Re: 11/22 History Bowl and Bee at Farragut High School

Reminder that the registration deadline is Thursday 11/20 at 7:00 PM. So far the field is 11 teams: Teams Farragut A Farragut B Farragut C Farragut D * Farragut E * Morristown West A Morristown West B * Blount A Blount B Blount C * Jefferson County CAK (expressed interest) Seymour (expressed interes...
by johntait1
Fri Nov 14, 2014 9:44 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Tennessee '14-'15
Replies: 28
Views: 16071

Re: Tennessee '14-'15

Registration deadline for the East Tennessee History Bowl is in less than one week http://www.historybowl.com/regionalsite ... tennessee/
Sign up at http://www.historybowl.com/registration/
by johntait1
Mon Oct 27, 2014 10:05 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Suzhou, China
Replies: 10
Views: 1140

Re: Suzhou, China

Wow that's really cool, part of my family is from Suzhou and I've been there a few times. Unfortunately I haven't been there in the last few years so I don't have the most up to date stuff. My favorite place to visit were the gardens like mentioned earlier, they have a really nice environment. My fa...