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In I think IS-76, there was a tossup on Kenya which started with "Raila Odinga"

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The complaints about this set were endemic to all of this year's NAQT IS-Sets-- poor clue placement, silly answer selection, and the distribution issues that people have had with NAQT for a long time (ie: the fact that they include tons of Trash, lots of geography, lots of CE, and that they include ...

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The one tossup that seemed most egregious to me in terms of transparency issues was the "Baden Baden" one. It mentioned some baths relatively early in the question. The town's name means "baths" in German, and they're the only reason why the place is significant at all. So when I...

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I agree with what Daichi and Guy said earlier. Most supporters of Chip/CBI/(insert terrible offense to quizbowl here) do so because they don't understand the point of pyramidal questions, not because they're irreparably depraved. Thus, perhaps in one of the general forum announcements (or on a qbwik...

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Wasn't the final of PACE videotaped?

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I am not speaking for all mods, but I am just wanting to know if 2008-09 threads will be started after all the nationals have been complete. For the purposes of locking and moving threads for the mods, can you all start after June 15 so we can lock and move the old discussions by around July 1? Wha...

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Another issue: some of the common links tossups were a little transparent. The worst offender was the one on suicide. Although pretty much from the start, I was thinking "this is suicide. No, there's no way it would be that obvious..." until I heard "Smerdyakov," which confirmed ...

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Clearly, I am too stupid and unworthy of being at this bored because I happen to enjoy a certain competition. Every post made about me has been ridden with assumptions that are false. Just because I worked there and liked what I did and will do next weekend in Chicago does not mean that I think it ...

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Charlie, I wasn't objecting to Andric as a bonus answer-- I was objecting to the difference in difficulty between the bonus part on him and say, the bonus about expanding a factored polynomial expression. I actually agree with your main critique about bonus conversion.

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Actually, we're losing Raja. Fortunately, we'll be keeping Neeraj Vijay, who was our 2nd-highest scorer during prelims at NAQT and PACE, and we'll be moving up science super-specialist David Huang (who was the leading scorer on the B-team at NAQT)

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My main criticism-- hugely variable bonus difficulty. On one end of the spectrum was that Pop Art bonus-- a very easy 30 for any top team. On the other end of the spectrum-- bonus categories about extremely obscure Bosnian poets. Also, in the category quiz rounds, certain categories (computational m...

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Yeah WJ I think got screwed. However, this set is fantastic, its the most enjoyable high school set I've ever played on. I have to say that I also have enjoyed it-- the only problem that our team has encountered is that certain subcategories (literature) seem considerably more difficult than other ...

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, it was a well-run tournament with good questions No it wasn't. Well, in the end, this is a matter of opinion, but my teammates and coach were all in agreement that, aside from the technical difficulties which caused a few matches to run late, the tournament was more organized and efficiently run ...

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One more thing: it's inexcusable to mention Erwin Rommel in the first clue of a Capporetto tossup, especially in the finals. Oh, I don't know; sure, there are harder clues, but those involve an awful lot of operational detail (one of the many major problems with the house-written TJ tournament this...

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closesesame wrote:Just a quick question to the esteemed members of the Wilmington Charter team:

Guys, why do you go to NAC? Why?

We get a free trip to some city from Comcast. (as a result of a Chiptastic local tournament)

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The tossups that incited the most irritation for me were: 1: A tossup on Bill Richardson with his tenure as secretary of energy as 2nd clue. This is probably the 2nd-most important thing that Bill Richardson has actually done. Anybody with any familiarity should have gotten that right there. 2: A to...

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metsfan001 wrote:
NMBlumberjax wrote:i bet there were some obscure social history questions just like the AP US History exam this year with labor unions
then again mabe not

I thought that there was a bonus about the Knights of Labor, but then again, they're not that obscure...

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The stats are somewhat inaccurate. Apparently, their statkeeping program can't add.

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I would be interesting in coming to a mirror out east, provided that the date didn't conflict with something else (as last year's Prison Bowl did with WorldQuest Nationals).

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I think I'll probably enjoy calc as well. You are one sick, twisted individual. Ignore Charlie Dees. Calculus is awesome . Your teacher probably won't make it seem awesome. But calculus is one of the coolest things you can learn in high school. Just thinking about it, calculus is amazing. You get t...

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How can you afford to go to so many? And how, if every single "expert" on here says they they must, can your team have 156 wins if they don't write questions because you told me that they hate doing so? You beat teams who don't write questions and lose to teams who do. We've actually foun...

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I have serious doubts about the effectiveness of AI ranking and (in particular) the HSNCT results as predictors for the performance in this particular tournament. NAQT and PACE are different monsters. I think that the AI rankings tend to overrate teams in isolated regions that never play those from...

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ILoveReeses wrote:
quizbowllee wrote:I would hate to be in a situation where there are 3+ elite teams in one pool.
Fortunately, every pool that we seem to have drawn up has 3 elite teams per pool. Or maybe I should say "unfortunately."

How do you define "elite?"

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I'd just like to point out that Stuyvesant's Team for NAQT has 3 B team players and the 4th highest scoring A team member. Our team might make still make the playoffs, but it's a severly depleted team. Hopefully, a relatively full A-team will make PACE. You guys really should be playing at at least...

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After moderating for the Midwest Championship this weekend, here are my thoughts: 1. It is unlikely that any Indiana team will make the playoffs. 2. DCC looks very, very beatable. Unless they were missing a significant portion of their team, I would definitely put them on a level below EL. 3. Kurti...

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I would like to play.

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SouthsideB.C. wrote: Southside is not going to NAQT Nats... We were invited, but had already elected to go to NAA Nats in Chicago.

Why?

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I don't actually play in many college tournaments, mostly due to how hard it can be to get to them from Kansas City/wherever I happen to be. To date, I've only played at Chicago Open 2007 and it's side tournaments, MLK 2008, and Fake ICT where I got to ride some serious coattails. That's still more...

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Honestly the best player out there is Guy Tabachinik, Dallas is a great player but does not have much more potential left and is somewhat inconsistent I don't think that Guy is better than Charlie Dees is-- he doesn't play in as many collegiate tournaments, and the last time they played against one...

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Also, of the three top teams mentioned repeatedly here, we're the most likely to lose to, say, Charter. Seriously? I think that the only time that we beat the full Whitman this year was when you hadn't slept for five days and were about to get really sick. You're probably more likely to lose to Dor...

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on IS sets, we've taken losses to Stuyvesant, RM, and Hunter as well Good point, but I was thinking more of the beating Stuy took, and the stats I saw, from WOQ day two. Despite our reputation as something of a "Trash team," we know things other than trash, geography, and current events.[...

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I was exaggerating a touch for effect, but really , Charter is ridiculously good at NAQT. Trust me. We're not actually that much better at NAQT than at other formats... In non-NAQT pyramidal tournaments this year, we've actually not lost a match to a team that isn't one of the big three (Whitman, D...

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metsfan001 wrote:Can you mirror this in Plovdiv please?

Going to the International Linguistics Olympiad?

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Matt Weiner wrote:My only confident prediction is that 2005 TJ's status as the only team to go undefeated at both HSNCT and NSC will remain unchallenged.

Audacious prediction, Matt

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Edit: Guy, the NAQT style is possibly the best national tournament for sorting who is the best, at least until more people start going to PACE, and PACE moves to a Swiss System. Granted, I still don't quite understand the playoff structure, but I understand that playoffs make things more fun, and a...

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Hopper wrote:My only prediction: this thread will end in hurt feelings and tempbans.

Screw it, then. We'll just wait a few weeks and find out.

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With the first major national tournament less than a month away, I was wondering what everybody thinks will happen at the upcoming HSNCT and PACE NSC. Of course, it seems to be agreed that Dorman, Whitman, and TJ will dominate the field, but I'm curious to see what people believe will happen below t...

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Yes, "Shonts had a migraine" and "We were asleep for the first 3/4 of our match with Minnetonka" are good excuses. Some would even call them great excuses. I would just call them good excuses, though. Is there some other more nefarious reason as to why you did so badly against M...

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All rankings are whack... Byko's ratings are probably the least whack of the bunch... We're way overrated on NAQT's... I'm sure some of it comes from your record-breaking performance at the Delaware NAQT Tourney in January. When you're in a state with one school who can just smoke everybody else, y...

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MahoningQuizBowler wrote:All rankings are whack...

Byko's ratings are probably the least whack of the bunch... We're way overrated on NAQT's...

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I think Whitman's place on there proves how flawed that is. I agree-- a team's past performance on questions doesn't necessarily indicate how it will do in the future-- Whitman didn't place well at an HSNCT until last year, and now they're either the best or second-best team in the country. Also, t...

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If there's an East Coast mirror, and it doesn't overlap with Sun'N'Fun, I would be willing to play/write a packet.

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Also, your coach shouldn't be upset about your team's performance against Dorman. Almost everyone does badly against them--teams like Eden Prairie, Stuyvesant or our team lose by pretty large margins. Only TJ and Whitman have beaten them at all this year.

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Dolemite wrote:
SwissBoy wrote:Dickinson? Do you guys mean Dickens?
No?

Er, sorry... was thinking of local Declaration of Independence signer John Dickinson... Emily Dickinson makes much more sense with regards to confusion with Jane Austen.

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Dickinson? Do you guys mean Dickens?

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James Island is preparing to go to NAC Nationals at Marymount University, instead of NAQT, because our coach thinks we will do better there. Don't do that! The truth is, there is just as good a chance that you would do worse. You guys did reasonably well at the HSNCT last year, and :chip: 's nation...

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Haven't there been conversations before on this forum in which it was determined that basing distribution on normative gender stereotypes wasn't really a good idea?

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myamphigory wrote:No, the incorrect information is right in the article.

Sorry-- misunderstood an earlier post commenting on this. That's a pretty egregious error. Maybe one of us who actually knows about the study in question should fix it.

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Matt Weiner wrote:False information? On Wikipedia?!?!

The false information apparently wasn't on Wikipedia proper-- it was an error in cornfused's citation of the article.

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I indicated a moderate-high perspective on Obama, right in the middle for McCain, and moderate-low for Hillary.

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