Buzzer Fright

jeffburns1 · Post by **jeffburns1** » Sat Dec 04, 2004 6:04 pm

I have some new JV kids who have some potential. One of my biggest problems so far is getting them to buzz in. Would anybody be willing to share some startegies to use in practice to conquer buzzer fright?

steven-lamp · Post by **steven-lamp** » Sun Dec 05, 2004 1:35 am

Yea, we had a problem with that earlier in the year. Just tell them it's ok to get some wrong. Really the best way is to get them at some easier tournaments, let them buzz in, get some stuff right, beat some teams, and develop confidence. That's how it's worked with us all year. The team's becomed WAY more balanced throughout the year as our other 2 players have become more active in games, and it's definitely paid off.

Skepticism and Animal Feed · Sun Dec 05, 2004 2:04 am

From a theoretical standpoint, increasing rewards for early correct answers while decreasing punishments for incorrect answers should do the trick.

Of course, if you whatever format you play in tournaments has negative pointage for incorrect answers, that approach could backfire as, faced with the hitherto unfamiliar possibility of a neg, your team freaks out and refuses to buzz at all. That's still happening to me as I transition from a neg-free high school situation to the -5 world of college.

Tegan · Post by **Tegan** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 8:59 am

I'm with Bruce. Whenever one of my kids gives a pretty thoughtful answer that is wrong, I make sure to not only say "That's OK", but I praise them for ringing in and trying something. Whenever I hear a kid say "Oh, I knew that" and I ask why they didn't ring in and they reply "I wasn't sure", I tend to get that "disappointed look" and get a little gruff (never yelling, never demeaning". When I first started coaching, this was our biggest problem (along with lack of experience and lacking a bit of talent). These days it is less an issue.

First Chairman · Post by **First Chairman** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 10:22 am

Practice without negs. I guess you can try to practice with powers to make it more fun.

To me, buzzer fright (of which I know I have much of, which is why I'm not going to be a good player) is a confidence issue. You don't want the student to become a "neg beast", but you don't want to lose any "aggressiveness" either. The first level of confidence is confidence in knowing an answer on early clues. That's different from confidence in being able to buzz in and answer correctly. Both must be worked on.

To that end, sometimes having people buzz in on bonus parts or one-liners helps overcome the fear of buzzing in. Writing questions and doing research will help conquer the fear of knowing whether the answer is right or not.

Tegan · Post by **Tegan** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 11:05 am

E.T's post reminded me of something else. The problem (as has been mentioned) with pushing too hard is that pretty soon the kids are buzzing too soon and frustrating the team.

I try to tell the kids to start buzzing early in practice.....only in trying to answer questions will you learn when you have an appropriate amount of confidence in your answer to buzz, without negging. I think this is an experience thing. I think I would try toss-up only questions.....over and over and over (as E.T. suggested....even using bonus parts as toss-ups).

If they were really young, I might even think about using rounds in successive weeks....see if they remember and will buzz in quicker. since they "know" the answers. Once they get the confidence to commit, it might translate to competition.

Stained Diviner · Post by **Stained Diviner** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 12:40 pm

I generally agree with what's been said. Keep track of who answers how many tossups, and play the kids who answer the most. You may decide not to count rebounds. Don't keep track of negs. It is rare when a kid consistently negs so much that it becomes a problem, and the rare kid that does usually has bigger fish to fry. (I don't cut kids from the team, but about every three years or so I tell a kid that the team would be better off without him. I'm happy to have kids on the team who aren't very good as long as they can appreciate the fact that they don't know everything.)

ezubaric · Post by **ezubaric** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 1:11 pm

I'll describe one thing that we did at Caltech (credit where credit is due ... this was Oz's idea). We would read intramurals, NAQT IS, and SCT D2 (in that order over a series of weeks) to our new frosh and give each of our practice teams a neg-free buzz (and only one) if they buzzed in the "power" zone. If nobody got it right before the end of power (remember, these are pretty easy questions), the reader says "RESET!" and finishes the rest of the question as usual (now negs count, but if you rang in before incorrectly, you can ring in again). So you might have four buzzes from two teams on one question, but we found that it A) ecourages people to form early guesses B) teaches people where power marks usually are C) encourages some funny wrong answers and D) encourages people to ring in.

-Jordan

zwtipp · Post by **zwtipp** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 4:01 pm

We started running our practices differently this year.
We simply read all questions as striaght toss-up. You get two points for buzzing in before the question is finished and answering correctly. -1 if you interrupt, but no penalty after the question is over and it's only worth 1 point then.

solonqb · Post by **solonqb** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 6:24 pm

We generally count powers, not negs, in practice, and buzz in on bonus parts as well, something that I find increases knowledge depth and speed at the same time. The only trick is remembering to wait until the bonus is done in actual competition.

harshrealm · Post by **harshrealm** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 7:34 pm

Give them a few minutes to do nothing but buzz in as fast as they can- no questions, just a pure buzzfest to compete for speed. If nothing else, it should get them to relax a bit. Then, practice with questions but tell them to buzz in as soon as they have any idea about what the answer might possibly be.

dtaylor4 · Post by **dtaylor4** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 11:34 am

as a player, i find that when i miss something in my category, i frequently look back and remember the questions i miss and try to get them if they ever come up again at a later tournament

Skepticism and Animal Feed · Fri Dec 17, 2004 11:30 am

DaGeneral wrote:as a player, i find that when i miss something in my category, i frequently look back and remember the questions i miss and try to get them if they ever come up again at a later tournament

I half-jokingly renamed my Hard Drive "Von Moltke" after I came up blank on tossups about him twice in practice. I changed its icon to a picture of him and all.