The Quizbowl Resource Center

In light of the recent developments with Questions Galore and Masonics, I thought it would be a good idea to ask this forum for advice. From a thread in the Middle School quizbowl section:

I live in Wheaton, and it would take me about 15 minutes to drive to Questions Galore's headquarters. Do you think it would be a good idea for me to present a case in person to Questions Galore?

Is this a good idea? If so, please make suggestions for things you would like me to bring up at a meeting with Questions Galore.

What are you even thinking of discussing? They have a business model and it works; why would they want to completely break with tradition in order to please a few people? I'm not being critical; this is an honest question.

Mainly, I plan to discuss things like getting rid of rambling tangents that don't lead to the answer, hoses and left turns (especially in math), STUPID answer selection, "neither cute nor clever" question writing ("Let's see how much you know about..."), fourth-grade-level math computation, wikiplagiarism, and question recycling. At least that's what I've got so far.

leapfrog314 wrote:What are you even thinking of discussing? They have a business model and it works; why would they want to completely break with tradition in order to please a few people? I'm not being critical; this is an honest question.

A quick perusal of their website outlines their willingness to customize their questions and take any special requests. I wonder what their reaction would be to requests to stop writing questions altogether?

dtaylor4 wrote:

leapfrog314 wrote:What are you even thinking of discussing? They have a business model and it works; why would they want to completely break with tradition in order to please a few people? I'm not being critical; this is an honest question.

A quick perusal of their website outlines their willingness to customize their questions and take any special requests. I wonder what their reaction would be to requests to stop writing questions altogether?

I don't think that will be a problem for them. From my experience, if anything, they'll just reuse old question sets.

I would ask anybody who has recent experience editing QG questions, or who has access to recent unedited QG packets, to send me a list of 10-20 really bad questions. (Buzzer beaters and poor answer spaces would not be as helpful as wrong answers, ambiguous questions, and obvious hoses, but I'll take what I can get.) I have only seen a complete set of QG questions twice in the past 4-5 years, and it was after Greg's editing both times. I will contact the Masons and QG once I have those questions to back me up.

I am not sure what Greg hopes to accomplish by driving there, especially if he shows up unannounced. If you show up unannounced to a place which is not set up for customer visits, then you get told that the person you wish to speak to is currently unavailable.

I do not have independent confirmation of Egan's post, though the post is believable and he is usually right.

Could it hurt? No. Could it be a waste of time? Could be. Having read IESA, I have come into more contact with their product. Despite some discussion years ago that there would be an attempt to improve, I think it has actually gotten worse. Maybe that is pure perception, but it seems the number of hoses has dramatically increased (at least in IESA .... the major problem used to be buzzer beaters and poor answer space; at least a little of which can be attributed to the required distribution. However this year a lot of the questions I marked for suggested replacement were hoses.)

I already know three teams and at least six game officials who will not play/work another Questions Galore tournament. On one level, this may be what the rest of the state wants: fewer good teams playing/good officials who prevent abuse by coaches. But that doesn't mean that QG shouldn't be at least talked to again. I know they have had people discuss problems with them in the past.

Shcool wrote:I would ask anybody who has recent experience editing QG questions, or who has access to recent unedited QG packets, to send me a list of 10-20 really bad questions. (Buzzer beaters and poor answer spaces would not be as helpful as wrong answers, ambiguous questions, and obvious hoses, but I'll take what I can get.) I have only seen a complete set of QG questions twice in the past 4-5 years, and it was after Greg's editing both times. I will contact the Masons and QG once I have those questions to back me up.

I am not sure what Greg hopes to accomplish by driving there, especially if he shows up unannounced. If you show up unannounced to a place which is not set up for customer visits, then you get told that the person you wish to speak to is currently unavailable.

I do not have independent confirmation of Egan's post, though the post is believable and he is usually right.

If I get enough support, I will send them an e-mail at the end of this week.

You could also try calling them, since that way they can't just ignore you.