How to Maximize Studying Output?

[iarehavethestupid]

At my school, I'm lucky enough to have quiz bowl as a daily class as opposed to an after school club. That means I get and hour and 15 minutes everyday to practice.
However, I feel like this year, I should try practicing a bit differently.

Last year, I typically went in and just answered tossups. Some days it was individual, some days we played in teams. That was probably how about 95% of practices went.

I feel like this year, maybe I should mostly write questions during class and buzzer practice for maybe the last 30 minutes or so. This is incredibly helpful to me, as I rarely miss a question about a topic I've written about(Which isn't much tbh, I've only been writing questions seriously for about a month, for a grand total of about 50). However, doing more than 2-3 per day just feels like a chore, albeit a helpful one, and I don't want to waste practice time. On top of that, the middle school canon is pretty small and all the topics I write questions( Mostly history) on are either high school topics or topics that come up in middle school but the clues are too advanced. Writing middle school questions is boring to me. There;s not that much to write about and the history is just not that interesting, at least not compared to high school.


So what should I do? Is writing questions a substitute for actually playing? Should I got for efficiency or enjoyment?

[joshxu]

I'm of the belief that playing simulated games (whether intrasquad, on Protobowl, or by some other way) are primarily helpful as a way to study things you have already learned, and not to learn new information. That being said, it's important to learn new information first, which can be done through taking notes, making flashcards, or writing questions based on the stuff you read.

On top of that, the middle school canon is pretty small and all the topics I write questions( Mostly history) on are either high school topics or topics that come up in middle school but the clues are too advanced. Writing middle school questions is boring to me. There;s not that much to write about and the history is just not that interesting, at least not compared to high school.

You only have one more year of middle school, so it's not a bad idea to start writing high school level questions!