Re: TAILS (MS/HS easy, 2020-2021)

This is the only forum where you should post and discuss offers to have your tournament set hosted at other locations.
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kpamurthy
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TAILS (MS/HS easy, 2020-2021)

Post by kpamurthy »

I am pleased to announce a new and exciting middle school/easy high school set called TAILS (TAG’s Academic Introductory Level Set) to be mirrored during the 2020-21 season!

Alistair Gray is TAILS’s head editor, and the rest of the set writers and editors are members of the TAG Magnet quiz bowl team: Jonathan Farner, Jaik Havlick, Georgia Leakey, Ketan Pamurthy, Akhil Peddikuppa, Jonathan Singer, Andrew Volney, Cooper Wilk, and Jisoo Yoo.

TAILS will consist of 12 packets of 20/20 (20 pyramidal, power-marked tossups and 20 three-part bonuses), along with a packet of extra tossups and bonuses to be used as tiebreakers. The extra tossups and bonuses will come from one of the big 3 categories: history, science or literature. Each tossup will be approximately 4 lines long in Times New Roman 10 point font, and each bonus part (including the lead-in) will be no longer than 2 lines of the same text for a maximum of 8 lines total.

This set will be a middle school difficulty set, but the content is made to be accessible to both middle school and high school players.


The TAILS distribution is as follows:

4.5/4.5 Science
> 1/1 Biology
> 1/1 Physics
> 1/1 Chemistry
> 1.5/1.5 Other Science (Earth Science, Computer Science, Astronomy, Math, but no Computational Math)

4/4 History
> 1/1 US History
> 1/1 European History
> 1/1 Ancient History
> 1/1 World History

3/3 Literature
> 1/1 Long Fiction
> 0.5/0.5 Short Fiction
> 0.33/0.33 Drama/Plays
> 0.33/0.33 Poetry
> 0.33/0.33 Mixed Lit
> 0.5/0.5 Children’s Literature (Kid Lit, Young Adult)

2/2 Fine Arts
> 0.5/0.5 Visual Fine Arts
> 0.75/0.75 Auditory Fine Arts
> 0.75/0.75 Other Fine Arts (Musicals, Film, Jazz, Architecture, etc.)

2/2 Geography
> 1/1 US Geography
> 1/1 World Geography

1.5/1.5 Other Academic/General Knowledge (includes Current Events and Philosophy/Social Science)
1/1 Religion
1/1 Mythology
1/1 Pop Culture and Sports

The mirror fee is $10 per attending team.
One of our teammates made a website with the basic information about this set, along with background on our team: https://jssinger.github.io/housewrite.html.

Our team will be hosting a Pacific/Rocky/Central Time Zones mirror on 03/27/2021 and an Eastern Time Zone mirror on 04/03/2021. Teams are recommended to play in the mirror according to their time zone, but may sign up for whichever is more convenient. If you would like to run a TAILS mirror for your region or have any other questions, please contact Ketan Pamurthy at [email protected] or through discord (username: ketone#3450). Hope you enjoy our set!!
Last edited by kpamurthy on Tue Feb 09, 2021 10:28 am, edited 6 times in total.
Ketan Pamurthy
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Re: TAILS (MS/HS easy, 2020-2021)

Post by kpamurthy »

Mirrors
10/10/20: California - California Fall Novice Tournament (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=24467)
11/14/20: Connecticut - Darien Fall Invitational
12/05/20: Alabama - Alabama Scholars Bowl Open Tournament (viewtopic.php?f=46&t=24364)
03/13/21: Pennsylvania - Pennsylvania Middle School Tournament (viewtopic.php?f=46&t=24796)
03/27/21: National - TAILS Pacific/Rocky/Central Time Zones Tournament (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=24866)
04/03/21: National - TAILS Eastern Time Zone Tournament (viewtopic.php?f=1&t=24867)

Regional Leagues
Ohio - Northeast In The Know League
Missouri - Southwest Missouri Challenge Games
Alabama - Cullman County League
Missouri - Tuscumbia Middle School League
Missouri - Calvary Lutheran Middle School Tournament
Missouri - Sullivan HS Tournament
Last edited by kpamurthy on Wed Mar 24, 2021 7:38 pm, edited 17 times in total.
Ketan Pamurthy
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Re: TAILS (MS/HS easy, 2020-2021)

Post by db0wman »

I don't think it's a good idea to name a set that is clearly academic in nature "TRIVIA".
Dylan Bowman
Uni '20; Illinois '23
kpamurthy
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Re: TAILS (MS/HS easy, 2020-2021)

Post by kpamurthy »

Based on feedback from the community, we've decided to change the set's name and made slight modifications to the distribution:
>The new set name is TAILS (TAG's Academic Introductory Level Set)
>The new distribution took away 1/1 from Literature, 0.5/0.5 of which was put in Other Science and the other 0.5/0.5 of which was put in Other Academic/General Knowledge, which includes Current Events and Philosophy/Social Science.

Also, can forum mods please change the overall thread to say TAILS instead of TRIVIA? Thank you

Done --Mgmt.
Ketan Pamurthy
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Re: TAILS (MS/HS easy, 2020-2021)

Post by romeokar »

We just concluded a small invitational tournament using the TAILS set. The field had 10 of the top MS teams in the country (Churchill B & C, Herberger, Hunter, Longfellow, Middlesex A, B, & C, Springfield-Franklin, and Winburn). We played 7 rounds in total (packets 1-7)

First, let me say, I really liked the set. I thought the questions were very well written, and they were all incredibly appropriate for middle school-age kids. I include that last part, because we have recently played some high school sets where questions broached topics that I believe are too mature for 11, 12, and 13 year olds.

I haven't gotten feedback from players yet, but I wonder if the questions were a little too easy for them. Two key stats that demonstrate this:

Almost 80% of all tossups were powered (547 out of 685).

I looked through all (ok, not "all") of the matches played at MSNCT to see if any one game beat that percentage. I found that it was only ever topped once. You have to go all the way back to 2012 in round 15 when Kealing and Longfellow combined for 21 powers out of 24 tossups.


The 10 teams' combined PPB at our tournament was 25.64.

Some perspective- in the 9 years of MSNCT, only two teams have scored better on bonuses during the preliminary rounds: the 2012 Kealing A team (26.41) and the 2018 BASIS Silicon Valley A team (26.20).
Moreover, only a grand total of 13 teams have even averaged over 25 PPB for preliminary rounds at MSNCT.

But let me be clear about this- I was incredibly happy with the packets. I would recommend this packet for any regular season MS tournament. And if they put out another set in the future I would certainly consider using it for one of the tournaments I host.
Ken Romeo
Middlesex Middle School
Darien, CT
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Re: TAILS (MS/HS easy, 2020-2021)

Post by Arras Agility »

Good to hear you enjoyed running the set! I do have a couple thoughts of my own on the difficulty of the set I'd like to comment on.

Firstly, at the middle school level there's a vast gulf between experienced and less-experienced teams, and TAILS was written thinking of newer players in particular. Experienced teams tend to do very very well on questions written for middle schoolers, much better than new teams. That effect was probably magnified by the fact that, as you point out, these are among the best middle school teams. I'm sorry if you were expecting something closer to MSNCT difficulty, but we were aiming below that - as those statistics do definitely show.

That said, we very well may have undershot! However, to my mind undershooting on difficulty is much better than overshooting when aiming to be accessible to all players, and so we generally tried to err on the side of caution in producing the set. In particular, I often chose to have late powermarks - getting fifteen points feels good, and our philosophy in writing the set was that it was intended to engage players with quizbowl and generously reward knowledge, which getting lots of powers does.

Thanks again for the feedback! And a reminder to anyone reading that TAILS is still open for mirrors at high school novice, middle school regular, or below difficulties.
Alistair Gray
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Re: TAILS (MS/HS easy, 2020-2021)

Post by Arras Agility »

This is an open call for bids to host two final nationwide mirrors of TAILS - one for Pacific and Mountain time, and one for Eastern time. These mirrors may be at already-planned tournaments - in that case, this means that regional restrictions on teams for such tournaments would be relaxed to their timezones.

We intend these tournaments to be held in late February or in March (possibly with more flexibility for already-planned tournaments) and to be the last mirrors of TAILS (along with a Central time mirror already planned). As such, they should include any teams which didn't have a mirror in their region or which missed their mirror, but would still like to play. We expect that tournament directors offer teams a reasonable number of games. Tournament directors may limit their fields to only middle school or only (non-experienced) high school teams, but we will prefer bids open to both, using divisions if appropriate.

We will pay individual tournament directors at a rate to be negotiated after bids are accepted. Individuals or schools may bid for both sites, although mirrors should be run starting and ending at times appropriate to their audience's time zones. Please include any prior tournament-directing experience and information about expected staffing numbers in your bids and submit them to Ketan or myself. We will accept bids as they come.
Alistair Gray
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UCSD '22
kpamurthy
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Re: TAILS (MS/HS easy, 2020-2021)

Post by kpamurthy »

Update:
The TAILS Team will be hosting the two nationwide mirrors of TAILS, one for the Pacific/Rocky/Central Time Zones (03/27/2021) and one for the Eastern Time Zone (04/03/2021). Both tournaments will have a middle school and a novice high school division. Teams are recommended to play in the mirror corresponding to their time zone but may sign up for whichever date is more convenient.

If you would like to sign up to play or staff, please use the links provided above to find registration forms along with more information about each tournament.
Ketan Pamurthy
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Re: TAILS (MS/HS easy, 2020-2021)

Post by BulldogBuzzers »

Wanted to give a positive review of this set. My teams finished the Pennsylvania mirror of this set, and our middle school kids and others at the tournament at a variety of experience levels really enjoyed this set. Lots of opportunities for novices to buzz, but still some content that felt more high school novice than straight middle school level. The longer bonus questions hopefully made an impression in providing learning material for students. Thanks for providing this housewrite to the community at a difficulty point that fills a real need!
Todd Gunther
Berwick Area
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Re: TAILS (MS/HS easy, 2020-2021)

Post by Arras Agility »

The set is posted; thanks to everyone who played for making this set a success! Thanks also to the TAG folks who wrote, with a special shout-out to Ketan for handling set logistics and keeping a watchful eye over everything about TAILS.
Alistair Gray
Homestead '18
UCSD '22
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