Walton Worksheet - Rappers?!

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Walton Worksheet - Rappers?!

Post by tony5429 »

The worksheet for the first playoff round at Walton's quick recall tournament on Saturday consisted of ten rap lyrics - the teams were required to supply the rapper. Vandy's annual tournament stresses pop culture each year (in my opinion, reasonable as the questions are written by college students and competitors know what to expect) but this subject matter from Walton was shocking. Moreover, no alternative worksheet was available. Dunbar's three teams were eliminated in the round of 32 largely because of this particular sheet. Team one was unable to answer any of the questions and team two could only answer two. As a member of the team, I am thoroughly disappointed with the choice of subject matter. When I attend quiz bowl tournaments, especially those of public schools, I expect to be asked academic questions that require in-depth knowledge acquired through studying - not mindless pop culture trivia. Chuck Dean, coach of Dunbar's quick recall team, states he will not return to the tournament in future years. How do other students and coaches feel about the worksheet?
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Post by jrbarry »

Walton ALWAYS has a pop culture motif for theior worksheet in the first playoff match. They have been doing that for many year. Hardly shocking to any team who had been there before.
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Post by tony5429 »

I have attended the tournament for the last three years and do not remember that. If it is the case, though not justifiably shocked, I am still disappointed with the choice of subject matter. You may feel otherwise, but in my opinion, pop culture is anything but the archetype of quality knowledge and stressing it in tournaments to the effect that it disqualifies good teams is less than respectable.
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Post by MiltonPlayer47 »

Although not everybody likes it, Walton has always done a trash worksheet in the first round of the playoffs. Last year it was '80s music, two years ago it was video games, and three years ago it was on "The Simpsons." I think they probably do it for fun in that round because they are assuming that in the first round of the playoffs a powerhouse team will be playing a weak team, and it will not matter at all.

That, however, is not always the case. Usually, at most quizbowl tournaments, there is at least one prelim brackett that has two teams that are really good and pretty evenly matched playing each other. As a result, the playoff bracketts do not always work out with the best teams ranked the highest.

I was not at Walton this year since I just graduated, so I do not know what the prelim brackets were like. But it sounds to me like Dunbar A or the team that they played in the first round of the playoffs might have ended up in a situation like that in the prelims.

Last year at Walton, my team, Milton A, lost to Dunbar A in the round of 16 (we ended up having to play James Island in the prelims, who we were pretty evenly matched with, and lost to them, so we were ranked kind of low). Therefore, Dunbar's coach probably knew about the trash worksheets in the round of 32.

I really do not have a problem with a trash worksheet in the round of 32, as long as the trash is not very in-depth. The rap lyric to rapper scenario sounds pretty in-depth to me. I think it would have been more appropriate to name maybe two songs by a rap artist and then name the artist. In any event, life is not always fair.
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Post by eltennis9 »

Tony, calm down... I went to Walton two years ago and I clearly remember the videogame worksheet. I'm pretty sure Coach Dean knows that there is always trash in the first round of the playoffs. In addition, what's wrong with some pop culture/trivia sometimes... It adds another component to quizbowl. People should have some working knowledge of the culture around them like current events, sports, music, etc. But, I do agree that this trash is a little too in-depth for a practical person.
Last edited by eltennis9 on Sun Oct 03, 2004 9:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by rchschem »

Wait:

Chuck D is the coach and you have difficulty with the rap category?

:D
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Post by irmogopher »

I find it interesting that it is not implausible for teams to have an issue with a lyrics to rapper worksheet (Irmo only got 5 of the 10 correctly) but most teams would not complain about a worksheet like the one in the championship round, identifying poems by their 13th line (Irmo got one, a sad sad one, correct answer)

Besides, how could you miss Sir Mixalot? I even knew that one...

Also, to everyone who is appalled by anything known as modern pop culture, I can't wait until rap music is viewed with the same respect as Jazz, Swing, and Classic Rock (and this is coming from someone who is not an avid listener of rap music)
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Post by Chanman »

Can we hear a YYYYEEEAAAAHHH BOOYYYY?
I wasn't scared because he was holding a gun, I was scared because this man was CHIINEESE!
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Post by jewtemplar »

Are you confused as to the existence of a major disagreement over the merit of pop culture questions? As trivial as the poem identification worksheet must have been, few would argue that poetry has no place in high school quiz bowl. Many would take such a position regarding rap.
Also, what exactly are you waiting for if/when rap becomes more respectable?
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Post by PatWalton »

Do you have a problem with asking questions about Irving Berlin? He was pop culture. I co-wrote the worksheet. I apologize that your team did not do very well, but maybe you should start observing the world around you. I am not an avid rap listener, and neither is the other person I wrote it with. We tried to choose widely known songs and memorable lyrics. I barely even listen to rap because I think that most of it is just bad. Mrs. Martin, our coach, was able to get at least one of the answers from our lyrics. I think teenagers have a much better chance at answering these questions than veteran coaches. Anyway, maybe it was the fault of your team not performing well enough in the tossup-bonus and tossup rounds that you lost. You could have scored up to 300 points in the tossup-bonus round, 100 points on the worksheet, and 150 in the tossup round. The worksheet makes up less than 20% of the total possible points.

I empathize with you about losing early in the playoffs. Last year at the national tournament in New Orleans my team was 2nd seed and we lost to the 15th seed in the first round. They interrupted there and got it right. It sucks, but c'est la vie.
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Post by steven-lamp »

I played at Walton on the 80s music worksheet and the video gaming worksheet. LAMP actually got 60 points on the rap worksheet, and I almost exclusively listen to grunge music and classic rock, with some techno in between. These songs were simply common radio rap songs. They HAVE established the precedent of having said "trash" worksheets in the first round, and even so, scholars' bowl tournaments are expected to have a very light amount of "trash" in them. The tossups at Walton were all academic, I don't recall a single "trash" or pop culture tossup the entire tournament. The questions were of increasing difficulty compared to the last 2 years, but that's ok. LAMP was seeded 10th and lost to 23 GACS by 20 points over a squirrely non-responsive call on the last question. (Yes, my teammates' answer was correct, so the other team picked it up to get the extra 10). Anyway, what happens happens, so just get over it. I think it would be a loss for Dunbar to "boycott" Walton tournaments, as it draws one of the largest and most competitive fields in the southeast, second only to probably Brookwood or maybe Dorman.
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Post by irmogopher »

In regard to the quiz bowl canon, I'm not arguing that random poetry is considered more relevant that modern music lyrics to artist, I'm just trying to point out how when looked at with any type of practicality, the subject matter is arbitrarily chosen. People get mad when something is asked about regarding modern music. On the ride home from Walton my teammates and I were forced to defend the validity of rap to our coach, even though none of us listen to more rap more than Simon and Garfunkel or the Beatles.

The point I was trying to make, obviously unsucessfully, is that many musical periods faced the criticism the rap of today faces. At some point jazz was considered classless and tacky, now it is considered classy and sophisticated.
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Post by NoahMinkCHS »

Walton's pop-culture playoff worksheets were a consistent annoyance to my teams the past few years. I know we lost at least once, maybe twice, after a poor showing on the worksheet (I distinctly remember blowing the video game one and losing by 10).

Despite that, I agree that Walton is definitely a top tournament. But they do the pop culture thing every year, so after an early exit thanks to rap or Tekken or whatever, don't say you weren't warned. Just try to build up a 110 point cushion or something...

(And FWIW, I would've much preferred a rap worksheet to video games...)

(And further, re: irmogopher's points -- I completely see what you're saying, but I think the logical extension of that might be that rap may one day be legitimate subject matter, but isn't now: It needs the passage of time to cement its place -- or lack thereof -- as something worth studying, discussing, etc.)
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Post by Howard »

I think you guys are all taking this a little too seriously. If you are experienced enough to know that you don't think trash should be a part of quiz bowl then you are also experienced enough to know that every tournament has it's own flavor and style. The purpose of going to these tournaments is for the actual playing of the game and for practice for bigger and better events. Winning or losing the game isn't really what's important. Players need to concentrate on bettering themselves. If you lost a game because it had a rap category and you don't think rap is important, then why are you even concerned? You lost a game based on your knowledge (or lack thereof) of an unimportant topic? So what? Figure out what's important to you (and your team) and make that your area of concentration.

And lastly, it's inconsistent with polite etiquette to whine in public about how some tournament did something that you think was inappropriate. Every tournament director I know works very hard to put on a quality event. If you have a problem, you should speak to them privately. I've never known one to be uninterested in feedback. Posting negatively here serves to do little more than to undermine the playing of quiz bowl, which is something we're all trying to support.
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Post by AKKOLADE »

Howard wrote:I think you guys are all taking this a little too seriously. If you are experienced enough to know that you don't think trash should be a part of quiz bowl then you are also experienced enough to know that every tournament has it's own flavor and style. The purpose of going to these tournaments is for the actual playing of the game and for practice for bigger and better events. Winning or losing the game isn't really what's important. Players need to concentrate on bettering themselves. If you lost a game because it had a rap category and you don't think rap is important, then why are you even concerned? You lost a game based on your knowledge (or lack thereof) of an unimportant topic? So what? Figure out what's important to you (and your team) and make that your area of concentration.

And lastly, it's inconsistent with polite etiquette to whine in public about how some tournament did something that you think was inappropriate. Every tournament director I know works very hard to put on a quality event. If you have a problem, you should speak to them privately. I've never known one to be uninterested in feedback. Posting negatively here serves to do little more than to undermine the playing of quiz bowl, which is something we're all trying to support.
I was going to post, but really all I have to say now is that John Gilbert is a quiz bowl god.
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Post by Matt Weiner »

I think the problem is not so much the presence of trash as the presence of TEN questions that were not only trash but on the same trash topic. It's a pitfall of the worksheet format, but it's one that can be avoided by keeping worksheets to schemes such as "answers beginning with C" and spreading them out over a wide variety of topics, hopefully academic ones. As a secondary factor, the fact that a lot of southern teams dislike trash in general has been well-noted on this board, and it's puzzling to see a leading team from that region make a round with ten trash questions a tradition.

Teams that use the worksheet, category round, or 60 second round should really think about what it means for subject balance when each worksheet question is worth the same as a tossup. Would you have ten rap tossups (or ten geography tossups, or ten tossups on twentieth-century British literature)? Essentially that's what you're doing when you have a single-subject worksheet.
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Post by Howard »

I don't think I'd do it at one of my tournaments (at least not to the extent that substantial trash knowledge is required) to do well on a worksheet or category round. But that's my tournament, not someone else's. If I were to include such a category in one of my tournaments, the questions would at least end with easy clues so that most teams have a chance to answer most questions if they haven't already been answered. This still leaves the undesireability of ten questions or whatever on one topic where a team with a particular knowledge area can clean up. But, if you've already made the decision that your format needs to include categories, this begins to be a necessary evil.

The tournament I ran last year was not based primarily on knowledge, but rewarded knowledge and speed to a similar degree. While there were a few people/teams who felt the tournament should have been more academic and less speed based, I made it clear in the advertising that I was attempting to mimic the question style and content of the It's Academic television show in an effort to provide specific practice for that show. While I'm disappointed that some at the tournament didn't get what they expected, (and I'm also disappointed that we failed to catch several repeated clues throughout the tournament, a lack of quality issue I do not wish to allow again), I also think those students that complained about question topics didn't understand what the tournament was intended to be. On the other hand, those that complained about repetition were completely justified in every way and are correct to expect better. Repetition shouldn't happen at any tournament.
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Post by vandyhawk »

I was just curious about the trash content of the other "major" tournaments in the Southeast (at the risk of offending anyone I leave out, I just won't list any). Taking a little from what Matt W said, at our tourneys (Vanderbilt), it seems like the better teams don't care for the trash as much as the weaker teams. There are obviously exceptions, but has anyone else noticed that? As for us, our trash content has been fixed at 10% per round for as long as I've been involved (couple years of helping out, 2 years of editing), though in some prelim editing for this fall, I think I'm aiming for around 6-7% overall based on feedback we've received. I suppose this could be a new thread, but I'll leave that to others to decide...
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Post by David Riley »

In Illinois, our regular format allows for 10% trash (3 questions out of 30). Over the years, I can usually spot a weak team by how excited they get about whatever trash content there is; the strong teams just take it in stride.

I do hate it when you get a trash question as the final question in a final round between two competitive teams, but that happens occasionally as well. We don't have 60-second rounds, etc. in our format, but I can understand how these can sway the score.

I think Howard makes an excellent point. As long as the intent and specs of a tournament are spelled out ahead of time, no one should compllain after the fact.
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Post by mujason »

Officially, Missouri should theoretically have 4 out of 50 tossups and 2 out of 20 bonuses be trash. I agree with Weiner that the single-subject worksheet is fallible when not utilized correctly. Anyway, trash has its place; I'm just not sure it warrants an entire worksheet in a playoff round. I'd say 10% trash is a good percentage.
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Post by No Sollositing On Premise »

TJ had I think a 4-5% trash distribution last year if I remember, but this year I think Sam is going to cut it entirely. I'm okay with some trash now and then but not when it becomes a huge part of the game (like GDS's 15% trash distribution last year)
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Post by jrbarry »

Georgia has NO TRASH in its State Tournament, thank God. Brookwood has NO TRASH in its two tournaments, thank God.

My point was not to argue with anyone about a trash worksheet at Walton. Walton can do whatever they like in their tournament. My point is that there is always a trash worksheet at Walton and it comes at the same point in the tournament every year.

Walton runs an excellent tournament every year. Regardless of how my teams do there this year or in the past, Brookwood will support that tournament.
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Post by First Chairman »

I think we've been dabbling at around 10% pop culture/sports (2 questions out of 20) for our regular high school competition, with the exception of NCOAST, which we usually put 1-2 token questions in out of the 50 questions asked. High School Celebrity Shoot is much higher at 15-20% because of the nature of the competition (i.e., no math calculations, but it's still mostly academic anyway).

That being said, in a relatively weaker market, the pop culture/sports stuff is what keeps the kids interested in general so I cannot completely eliminate it from our curriculum. Sure, the stronger teams won't care much about it, but the weaker teams won't come back if you don't make it fun for them too.
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Post by MiltonPlayer47 »

Actually Mr. Barry, y'all did have trash in your varsity tournament last year.

In the round of 16, my team, Milton A, played Walton A. We were up on them by 40 points going into the give and take quarter of the round. Walton got to pick our first category for us, and they stuck us with "College Football." We scored 0 points out of the possible 50. Walton ended up beating us by 40 points, largely because of that give and take.

Also in that round, I remember Apollo upset Ezell-Harding by 10 points, and that give and take probably affected that score also.

Anyway, there are no hard feelings about that by Milton, and there never were. That is just an unlucky break that teams get sometimes. Brookwood is always a fun tournament, and that is the only time I ever remember them having trash. I have since graduated, but I am pretty sure that Milton will be at Brookwood this year.
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Post by jrbarry »

You are right! And I wrote that College fball one myself.

And, actually, it was a GEOGRAPHY topic! :-)

OK. Once. :-)
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Post by Howard »

vandyhawk wrote:Taking a little from what Matt W said, at our tourneys (Vanderbilt), it seems like the better teams don't care for the trash as much as the weaker teams. There are obviously exceptions, but has anyone else noticed that?
I think you're right on the money. There needs to be some sort of happy medium. Most organizations run these tournaments as fundraisers. Imagine trying to operate a fundraiser where only the strongest teams in the region were interested. It would be a disaster.

Most of the posters here who currently play high school quiz bowl are excellent players. It skews the opinions a little bit. Imagine if you weren't so good. Imagine if your team usually finished near the middle of the pack or lower at tournaments. You know you'll have to play the good teams. You know they know much more stuff than you. Would your opinion be any different then? Consider the trash just a little bone thrown in to help the lesser teams have a shot at getting a few questions.
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Post by TeeK »

One can imagine "trash" questions as one may call it a "necessary evil" of academic bowl. Each team either embraces or despises this type of question and one in support of the type of question, I believe it is good for one to stay up to date in the knowledge of their current world. A scholar can be defined as "someone (especially a child) who learns (as from a teacher) or takes up knowledge or beliefs" and well, you must admit, as useless as it may seem, Notorious BIG lyrics are knowledge, despite its enriching experience or lack of literary merit.

As one may say that the "luck of the questions" is always there, apparently Dunbar did not have that luck this weekend, and the only way to mitigate this problem is to brush up on your MC Hammer.
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Post by mrblinux »

jrbarry wrote:You are right! And I wrote that College fball one myself.

And, actually, it was a GEOGRAPHY topic! :-)

OK. Once. :-)
Was this category identical to the College Football give and take at ACE?
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Post by PatWalton »

Why does everyone think trash is so evil?
Not to be arrogant, but I think Walton is a strong team. I think everybody on our team,with the exception of the science nerds, likes trash. Just watch tv or read magazines and you'll be fine =)
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Post by jewtemplar »

Masterful implicit syllogism, there.
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Post by First Chairman »

Watch your mouth: science nerds like trash too. Maybe select brands of trash, but it's trash nevertheless. :)

I guess to throw my hat into the foray of discussion here... I think the problem here is that you can have your fun, but your fun should not punish your "good teams". Maybe it's common knowledge that a trash theme round always hits at playoff round 1, but as much as there are many of us who wouldn't like to finish a game with an entire theme round of trash buzzer questions, why have a significant portion of an elimination game be based on trash at an academic competition round?

I would not have a problem if there were a trash theme round in a preliminary round when people are supposed to "have fun" and you have the greatest coverage of your fun on your cohort of competitors. I would be more wary of doing that in an elimination round, especially first round of playoffs. Besides, why restrict it to first-round and not have it in your championship final? Aren't all playoff games supposed to count the same anyway (one and done)? If you think that having a trash theme round is somehow "wrong" philosophically after elimination round 1, then why have it in any elimination match at all?

Up for discussion: I think the reason why teachers don't like trash questions is that they can't relate to what is popular nowadays. Agree or disagree. (Of course, what we elder folk thought was pop culture in our day is now "history" to the current crop of students. ;) )
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Post by David Riley »

No. . .it's "ancient" history.
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Post by shylar »

we discovered a few years back that any round that is too heavy in any topic, trash or otherwise is unfair. so we have subject specific rounds as individual rounds, and split them evenly between the two teams. so you may get five questions about the simpsons, and five about rap lyrics, and then the other team gets two sets of five of the same two categories. the competitive category rounds are letter rounds or have certain types of words, etc., in the answer, but otherwise have variety. since we changed to that format, we have not received a single complaint about our question format.

the major impetus for our change was a few years back when we asked a round of questions based on the metro map of d.c., where gonzaga had quite a bit of fun against a team from baltimore.

on another note, i disagree that the first round of the playoffs should have any type of imbalanced round, especially with the justification that the big teams are just going to win anyway. nothing sours a long day at a tournament more than making the playoffs only to lose in the first round because of a perceived stacked deck in the questions.
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Post by bigtrain »

we discovered a few years back that any round that is too heavy in any topic, trash or otherwise is unfair. so we have subject specific rounds as individual rounds, and split them evenly between the two teams. so you may get five questions about the simpsons, and five about rap lyrics, and then the other team gets two sets of five of the same two categories.
Your tournament, like Walton's, has individual rounds that are concentrated in one subject. Last year, I remember your individual round in the first round of the playoffs was on Yahoo games. The subject of Yahoo games is as trash related as you can get (even moreso than rap) and highly favors teams with a single player who plays these games.
the competitive category rounds are letter rounds or have certain types of words, etc., in the answer, but otherwise have variety. since we changed to that format
I believe that is not completely accurate. In the first round of your tournament last year, the opening competitive round was on the subject of presidential candidates. This means the questions were concentrated in the genre of politics and current events.
on another note, i disagree that the first round of the playoffs should have any type of imbalanced round, especially with the justification that the big teams are just going to win anyway. nothing sours a long day at a tournament more than making the playoffs only to lose in the first round because of a perceived stacked deck in the questions.
Last year, my team was ranked 4th going into the playoffs and played 13th ranked Dulaney. We were upset with a score of 210-200 after getting 0 points in the team round and getting beaten in the first competitive round. This ended the tournament for us in the first round of the playoffs. To add insult to injury, we found out that Richard Montgomery ended up winning the tournament, a team that we beat in the preliminaries.

With all that said, I actually enjoyed your tournament and my team plans on returning. I guess we just got unlucky in the pick of questions in that one round.
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Post by NoahMinkCHS »

If you ask me (you didn't, but I'm gonna answer anyway...) one of the biggest problems in many tournaments was single subject worksheets; the trash ones are the worst, but even a sheet about ten Romantic poets or something can be just as bad if you don't know it. Category rounds like these severely skew the distribution and lead to results other than the best team winning -- which seems to be what most of us shoot for.

Teams that like to use worksheets and the like should find better ways to do it. If you're tired of "things that start with Q", do something different. Last year we (Central-Macon not UGA) held a tournament and used worksheets with different themes -- I made one where every clue or answer involved the word "Central" and another for "Chargers". (But with questions/answers on a variety of subjects.) For sports people, we did two with NFL and college sports team names, but the questions had nothing to do with football (For example, I think we had a scientific description of a raven and then mentioned it was in a famous poem from whatever year; questions like that). We also did a chemistry sheet with clues like "Element Hg, or the Roman messenger god" (not word for word, but you get my drift).

I guess what I'm saying is: Be Creative! Think about what you'd want to play on, then think about what others might want to play on. Don't handicap it unfairly to anybody (e.g., a map of DC when non-DC teams are present). Nobody likes a tournament if they feel shafted by a stacked deck of questions.

Also, if you were at Brookwood last year for "Give and Takes", I think that was another great way to deal with the issue. You may get a category you don't like, but you can at least throw the other team the same thing. It was a nice change from the normal and a lot of fun.

Sorry for the long post, but it's definitely a pet peeve of mine to see worksheets on one subject, especially trashy ones or obscure academics.
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Post by First Chairman »

NoahMinkCHS wrote:Also, if you were at Brookwood last year for "Give and Takes", I think that was another great way to deal with the issue. You may get a category you don't like, but you can at least throw the other team the same thing. It was a nice change from the normal and a lot of fun.

Sorry for the long post, but it's definitely a pet peeve of mine to see worksheets on one subject, especially trashy ones or obscure academics.
Give and Takes? I haven't heard that since John Gose told me about them when he ran his national.

Back to work on my category questions. Heeheehee... :)
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Post by jrbarry »

I first heard about give-and-takes from John Gose. He sent me a set fo questions that included give-and-takes. We never used them until 2003.

I like them and we got unanimous positive feedback last year when we used them in both of our tournaments. We are using them again this year.

We have used worksheets often, but we prefer multi-category worksheets to category worksheets.
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Post by steven-lamp »

Give and takes are a great way to balance rounds out better. Also, they provide some of the most memorable quiz bowl moments. Last year, the 20 point question asked to identify the family that did banking for the Holy Roman Empire in its early days. Now, it being a 20 point (maximum) give and take, assumed it to be the Fuger family, and I recalled that name after a few seconds. The room went totally silent and I yelled "Hey! Hey! It's the fuggers!" (fugg pronounced like the "ug" in bug) Needless to say, everyone in the room, with the exception of one of my teammates, thought I yelled "It's those fu*kers." The answer was the Medici family, so we got it wrong, but it was one of the funniest/most awkward moments in a round.
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Post by Byko »

Agreed. I think the "Give and Take" adds a strategic element to the game, which is especially good for teams who may know their opponents (e.g., leaving math and science-related questions for the weak math and science teams). I'm looking to use it (or a similar form of it) for a televised competition I'm working on putting together here in South Carolina.

As for worksheets, I have serious problems with narrowly categorized worksheets for the reasons that we're seeing here. But how about themes that are multi-disciplinary such as "The 80s" (with answers like Grenada, Lech Walesa, Barbara McClintock, Maya Lin, etc.)? I don't see enough of those, and while they take a little more effort, they're very good for competition, I think.
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Post by stasa »

How do you get a math problem with a theme like the 80's? I doubt you could even get a fair amount of Science questions that aren't stretches with that theme.
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Post by Matt Weiner »

stasa wrote:How do you get a math problem with a theme like the 80's? I doubt you could even get a fair amount of Science questions that aren't stretches with that theme.
You could use an integral to find the area under the curve defined by the winner of the 1988 Olympic ski jump, or something like that. Or you could just put the required amount of math in other parts of the round.
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Post by First Chairman »

The Duke Academic Festival handouts that I've written have a separate section in the handout for two math questions, which does not comply with the category theme. Personally I prefer math questions to be given as handouts since that's the style most of us mathies are used to in math comps.
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Post by Willy Dee Jones McGee III »

Uberaschung: If you ever post on this board again, I will write a letter to your coach and your school's principal with all of your posts attached. -Admin
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response to october, categories at green eggs and hammond

Post by shylar »

(back to an october post)
bigtrain wrote: Last year, I remember your individual round in the first round of the playoffs was on Yahoo games. The subject of Yahoo games is as trash related as you can get (even moreso than rap) and highly favors teams with a single player who plays these games.
this is partially true. each team received five questions about yahoo games, but also five questions about the low countries of northern europe. we do this so there aren't a run of 9 or 10 questions by the team that knew all the yahoo games. and of course, yahoo is trash, but the geography wouldn't be considered such.
In the first round of your tournament last year, the opening competitive round was on the subject of presidential candidates. This means the questions were concentrated in the genre of politics and current events.
this is true, and i stand corrected. however, given the importance and prominence of the political race in january of 2004, it was a fair category. in addition, each of the major and minor candidates was featured.
Last year, my team was ranked 4th going into the playoffs and played 13th ranked Dulaney. We were upset with a score of 210-200 after getting 0 points in the team round and getting beaten in the first competitive round. This ended the tournament for us in the first round of the playoffs. To add insult to injury, we found out that Richard Montgomery ended up winning the tournament, a team that we beat in the preliminaries.
you have a point there, too, but 0 points in that round meant you didn't get any of the geography questions either, not just the yahoo games. and it's often the case that a team wins our tournament having lost at least one game during the day. but as a previous winner of our tournament, i'm sure you all will continue to finish strongly, and honestly, it's nice to see other teams get into the top 8 and finals than the usual suspects at most tournaments in the area.
With all that said, I actually enjoyed your tournament and my team plans on returning. I guess we just got unlucky in the pick of questions in that one round.
we look forward to seeing you, and appreciate your comments. i always do my best to ensure people leave our tournament happy and perhaps also with some new knowledge. we have a pretty extensive balancing process for our tournament's questions, so i'll pay some more attention to the category balance. by the way, the other playoff rounds were: letter k, techno/capitals; letter e, modern and old classical music/band lead singers; letter r, war/peace.

by the way, our thread for this year's tournament is updated
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