Northwestern Wildcat XII

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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by adeveau »

So. If the sixteenth spot is still open, I (and my brother) can take it.
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by Charley Pride »

adeveau wrote:So. If the sixteenth spot is still open, I (and my brother) can take it.
Make it happen.
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by Dan-Don »

Haha yes. I've started a trend. The 2010 WIldcat is just gonna be a tournament full of hobo teams.
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by jdeliverer »

How many rounds are guaranteed and what is the plan for lunch?
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by Boeing X-20, Please! »

jdeliverer wrote:How many rounds are guaranteed and what is the plan for lunch?
10 for bottom bracket, 13 for everyone else.

EDIT: I might as well just post the format here, Morning: 2 brackets of 8
Playoffs: 2 brackets of 6, bottom bracket of 4.
Re-EDIT: I'm now being told it might be 2x8, break ties, 2x8 new teams only, break ties, finals???
Last edited by Boeing X-20, Please! on Fri Feb 12, 2010 11:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by jonah »

adeveau wrote:So. If the sixteenth spot is still open, I (and my brother) can take it.
Stop not responding to emails you are sent about this, and it's yours.
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by Wackford Squeers »

So let me get this straight. This tournament is going to have no less than four solo players, and possibly even a fifth? I'm looking forward to this immensely.
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by indiaisasubcontinent7 »

Final Field Update:

Loyola 2
Fenton 1
North White 2
Dan Donahue 1
Rockford Auburn 2
Illini Bluffs 1
New Trier 1
Wolfpack of 1 (Kevin Malis) 1
Niles North High 1
Ben Chametzky 1
Lisle 1
Robert Volgman 1
St Ignatius 1

This is 16 teams.
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by indiaisasubcontinent7 »

Extinction threshold wrote:
jdeliverer wrote:How many rounds are guaranteed and what is the plan for lunch?
10 for bottom bracket, 13 for everyone else.

EDIT: I might as well just post the format here, Morning: 2 brackets of 8
Playoffs: 2 brackets of 6, bottom bracket of 4.
Re-EDIT: I'm now being told it might be 2x8, break ties, 2x8 new teams only, break ties, finals???
Tournament format is 2x8, then break into 2 pools of six, and a pool of four.
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by Charley Pride »

Dan-Don wrote:Haha yes. I've started a trend. The 2010 WIldcat is just gonna be a tournament full of hobo teams.
Kevin Malis is a wolf. Can't you read?

And I think Chametz is more of a vagabond, considering his recent biography...
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by jdeliverer »

Note also that he is not an owl, particularly not a constipated one.
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by jonah »

After 6 of 7 preliminary rounds, Auburn A, Wolfpack, and Deveau+Breau are all 6-0. Loyola A has taken a loss to Niles North.
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by JackGlerum »

jonah wrote:Loyola A has taken a loss to Niles North.
I'm never speaking to Nolan again.
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by Dan-Don »

Deveau + breau, loyola, and st Brutus (my team) are going to the championship bracket. Auburn, wolfpack, and maybe lisle (so says zahed) are also advancing.
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by jonah »

One-game final right now between Auburn A and the Deveaus..
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by Dan-Don »

jonah wrote:One-game final right now between Auburn A and the Deveaus..
Deveau is here after St. Brutus's 5 point win over Wolfpack. Just had to brag. :P
EDIT: Jonah sucks at typing on the iPhone btw.
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by jonah »

Auburn wins.
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by Boeing X-20, Please! »

JackGlerum wrote:
jonah wrote:Loyola A has taken a loss to Niles North.
I'm never speaking to Nolan again.
Rightly so.
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by Dan-Don »

I'm not gonna bitch about the question quality. It's been done. However, I would like to compliment the NU guys on a great tournament that was a major improvement with respect to some of the logistical errors with Penn Bowl. This was just a downright fun tournament.

More importantly, the field featured no less than 5 rogue teams! I'm stoked that players are sending the message to coaches: "We like good quizbowl. If you can't or won't take us, we'll go ourselves." (Of course a lot of bad coaches will never receive this message.)
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by Wackford Squeers »

This tournament was pretty awesome. I got me a copy of Aeschylus's Persians, and had a generally good time. Unfortunately, I barely got a chance to see Auburn or Malis play, things I was looking forward to. Additionally, there were some definite issues with the set, namely difficulty swings, repeats, and generally what seemed to indicate of a lack of proofreading.

EDIT: There's this thing called grammar
Last edited by Wackford Squeers on Sat Feb 13, 2010 11:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by The King's Flight to the Scots »

Dan-Don wrote:I'm not gonna bitch about the question quality. It's been done. However, I would like to compliment the NU guys on a great tournament that was a major improvement with respect to some of the logistical errors with Penn Bowl. This was just a downright fun tournament.

More importantly, the field featured no less than 5 rogue teams! I'm stoked that players are sending the message to coaches: "We like good quizbowl. If you can't or won't take us, we'll go ourselves." (Of course a lot of bad coaches will never receive this message.)
Well, I think you're right that the questions are easy. Isn't Set 11 cannibalized from the VHSL sets, which are intentionally easier?
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by jdeliverer »

Dan-Don wrote: More importantly, the field featured no less than 5 rogue teams! I'm stoked that players are sending the message to coaches: "We like good quizbowl. If you can't or won't take us, we'll go ourselves." (Of course a lot of bad coaches will never receive this message.)
To avoid any possible confusion or misinterpretation, I wasn't doing this because I was frustrated with my coaches or school. I just seen my opportunities and I took 'em. By the time I registered, it was too late to get my school involved (though I doubt somewhat whether we would have gone).

edit: i are talk well
Last edited by jdeliverer on Sat Feb 13, 2010 11:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by Dan-Don »

Cantaloupe (disambiguation) wrote:
Dan-Don wrote:I'm not gonna bitch about the question quality. It's been done. However, I would like to compliment the NU guys on a great tournament that was a major improvement with respect to some of the logistical errors with Penn Bowl. This was just a downright fun tournament.

More importantly, the field featured no less than 5 rogue teams! I'm stoked that players are sending the message to coaches: "We like good quizbowl. If you can't or won't take us, we'll go ourselves." (Of course a lot of bad coaches will never receive this message.)
Well, I think you're right that the questions are easy. Isn't Set 11 cannibalized from the VHSL sets, which are intentionally easier?
That could be. However, there were some difficult answer lines that I would presume to be too hard for VHSL; the tossups just featured very easy clues.

Question: Why is this called Wildcat XII? The 2008-2009 ihssbca.org tournament database indicates that last year's iteration was Wildcat X.
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by jdeliverer »

lol @ the individual PPG in last year vs. this year.
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by Wackford Squeers »

jdeliverer wrote:
Dan-Don wrote: More importantly, the field featured no less than 5 rogue teams! I'm stoked that players are sending the message to coaches: "We like good quizbowl. If you can't or won't take us, we'll go ourselves." (Of course a lot of bad coaches will never receive this message.)
To avoid any possible confusion or misinterpretation, I wasn't doing this because I was frustrated with my coaches or school. I just seen my opportunities and I took 'em. By the time I registered, it was too late to get my school involved (though I doubt somewhat whether we would have gone).

edit: i are talk well
Same deal here, I just happened to be in Chicago this weekend.
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by Dan-Don »

jdeliverer wrote:lol @ the individual PPG in last year vs. this year.
What do you mean? I believe Wildcat X was run in full-on NAQT format, complete with clock. That might affect ppg.
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by jdeliverer »

I mean the number of 1-man and 2-man teams this year made individual statistics crazy.

Last year: 3 individuals over 50 PPG
This year: All 10 top individuals over 60 PPG (prelims)
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by Dan-Don »

jdeliverer wrote:I mean the number of 1-man and 2-man teams this year made individual statistics crazy.

Last year: 3 individuals over 50 PPG
This year: All 10 top individuals over 60 PPG (prelims)
Oh gotcha. Yeah, a lot people wrote off Illinois quizbowl this year after the loss of so many Class of '09 superstars, but we're continuing to prove them wrong. Of course, last year's field was considerably weaker.
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by the return of AHAN »

Dan-Don wrote: Question: Why is this called Wildcat XII? The 2008-2009 ihssbca.org tournament database indicates that last year's iteration was Wildcat X.
Maybe they consider the Junior Wildcat of 2009 to be the 11th iteration?
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by jdeliverer »

I haven't seen many championship games, but is it normal for the finals to have 15 powers in 20 questions? :shock:
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by Dan-Don »

jdeliverer wrote:I haven't seen many championship games, but is it normal for the finals to have 15 powers in 20 questions? :shock:
Tough to say. Obviously we're talking about two really strong teams. But the set also had a lot of questionable power-mark placement/clues in power.
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by Charley Pride »

Dan-Don wrote:
Cantaloupe (disambiguation) wrote:
Dan-Don wrote:I'm not gonna bitch about the question quality. It's been done. However, I would like to compliment the NU guys on a great tournament that was a major improvement with respect to some of the logistical errors with Penn Bowl. This was just a downright fun tournament.

More importantly, the field featured no less than 5 rogue teams! I'm stoked that players are sending the message to coaches: "We like good quizbowl. If you can't or won't take us, we'll go ourselves." (Of course a lot of bad coaches will never receive this message.)
Well, I think you're right that the questions are easy. Isn't Set 11 cannibalized from the VHSL sets, which are intentionally easier?
That could be. However, there were some difficult answer lines that I would presume to be too hard for VHSL; the tossups just featured very easy clues.
Dan, your sarcastic citing of the QB Tribune "article" is misleading because, in my estimation, pyramidality issues (describing works in leadins is good; describing the most famous work never is), not difficulty itself, was the biggest problem in this set. There were several instances of some really serious clue mixups, but answer lines and bonuses were generally good.

That said, it bothers be that difficulty is always rashly criticized in these HSAPQ sets, especially when performance is affected by confounding variables, the most notable one being that people in fact do get better at quizbowl as the season progresses. Sure, powers did seem to come easily today (I commented on it during matches myself), but the fact remains that judging the difficulty of many early and middle clues becomes a somewhat subjective process. In quizbowl you often see paradigm shifts where an early or middle clue gets overused (or overlearned, as may be the case) into giveaway oblivion. Quizbowl knowledge is very much organic, and, unfortunately, its evolution is gradual. This means that some stuff will be written that seems really easy, though it may not have been considered as such in the past, even in the recent past. That stuff seems grossly misplaced, and it often is, but making blanket statements on a set is irresponsible.

When I see people complain about questions being too easy, I often see not just the "I-know-it-therefore-it-is-easy" fallacy, but its cousin, the "I-know-it-very-well-therefore-it-is-very-easy" fallacy. Obviously, sets can have difficulty issues (at varying levels of isolation), but complaining about good questions, whether directly or passive-aggressively, contributes first to the "Illinois kids think they're too cool for school" opinion and secondly to the (lesser discussed) "quiz bowl players dismiss questions and question sets as a means to make themselves look better" opinion. I know that you, Dan-Don, aren't trying to do what the latter suggests, but that's what it often looks like, especially when the former opinion is so prevalent.

Ultimately, my appraisal of the set is that, despite big issues with a lot of specific questions, HSAPQ ACF-11 was a pretty good set. Answer lines weren't, in my opinion, too easy or too hard, and bonuses, with a few notable exceptions, seemed rock-solid with good easy-medium-hard breakdowns.

Guys, every set has its issues. HSAPQ is consistently better than other providers, and I know they fix their sets once they get feedback. ACF-11 may not have been HSAPQ's best work; it very well may have been HSAPQ's worst work, but overall, I still don't think it was that bad. Good question sets suffer most from being juxtaposed with other good sets.

Honestly, I don't know if anyone will ever produce a perfect set, so people should either stop expecting one or start producing one.
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by Boeing X-20, Please! »

Dan-Don wrote:
jdeliverer wrote:I haven't seen many championship games, but is it normal for the finals to have 15 powers in 20 questions? :shock:
Tough to say. Obviously we're talking about two really strong teams. But the set also had a lot of questionable power-mark placement/clues in power.
Yeah you can tell power placement is not very well done when somebody gets 78 powers.
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by Dan-Don »

Charley Pride wrote:
Dan-Don wrote:
Cantaloupe (disambiguation) wrote:
Dan-Don wrote:I'm not gonna bitch about the question quality. It's been done. However, I would like to compliment the NU guys on a great tournament that was a major improvement with respect to some of the logistical errors with Penn Bowl. This was just a downright fun tournament.

More importantly, the field featured no less than 5 rogue teams! I'm stoked that players are sending the message to coaches: "We like good quizbowl. If you can't or won't take us, we'll go ourselves." (Of course a lot of bad coaches will never receive this message.)
Well, I think you're right that the questions are easy. Isn't Set 11 cannibalized from the VHSL sets, which are intentionally easier?
That could be. However, there were some difficult answer lines that I would presume to be too hard for VHSL; the tossups just featured very easy clues.
Dan, your sarcastic citing of the QB Tribune "article" is misleading because, in my estimation, pyramidality issues (describing works in leadins is good; describing the most famous work never is), not difficulty itself, was the biggest problem in this set. There were several instances of some really serious clue mixups, but answer lines and bonuses were generally good.

That said, it bothers be that difficulty is always rashly criticized in these HSAPQ sets, especially when performance is affected by confounding variables, the most notable one being that people in fact do get better at quizbowl as the season progresses. Sure, powers did seem to come easily today (I commented on it during matches myself), but the fact remains that judging the difficulty of many early and middle clues becomes a somewhat subjective process. In quizbowl you often see paradigm shifts where an early or middle clue gets overused (or overlearned, as may be the case) into giveaway oblivion. Quizbowl knowledge is very much organic, and, unfortunately, its evolution is gradual. This means that some stuff will be written that seems really easy, though it may not have been considered as such in the past, even in the recent past. That stuff seems grossly misplaced, and it often is, but making blanket statements on a set is irresponsible.

When I see people complain about questions being too easy, I often see not just the "I-know-it-therefore-it-is-easy" fallacy, but its cousin, the "I-know-it-very-well-therefore-it-is-very-easy" fallacy. Obviously, sets can have difficulty issues (at varying levels of isolation), but complaining about good questions, whether directly or passive-aggressively, contributes first to the "Illinois kids think they're too cool for school" opinion and secondly to the (lesser discussed) "quiz bowl players dismiss questions and question sets as a means to make themselves look better" opinion. I know that you, Dan-Don, aren't trying to do what the latter suggests, but that's what it often looks like, especially when the former opinion is so prevalent.

Ultimately, my appraisal of the set is that, despite big issues with a lot of specific questions, HSAPQ ACF-11 was a pretty good set. Answer lines weren't, in my opinion, too easy or too hard, and bonuses, with a few notable exceptions, seemed rock-solid with good easy-medium-hard breakdowns.

Guys, every set has its issues. HSAPQ is consistently better than other providers, and I know they fix their sets once they get feedback. ACF-11 may not have been HSAPQ's best work; it very well may have been HSAPQ's worst work, but overall, I still don't think it was that bad. Good question sets suffer most from being juxtaposed with other good sets.

Honestly, I don't know if anyone will ever produce a perfect set, so people should either stop expecting one or start producing one.
Well this is why I cited the article. I don't know if you read it, but it's a satirical way of saying of what you've just posted.
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) »

I must say your post was not clear at all what your real thoughts were (and I'm still unsure).
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by Charley Pride »

Dan-Don wrote:
Charley Pride wrote:
Dan-Don wrote:
Cantaloupe (disambiguation) wrote:
Dan-Don wrote:I'm not gonna bitch about the question quality. It's been done. However, I would like to compliment the NU guys on a great tournament that was a major improvement with respect to some of the logistical errors with Penn Bowl. This was just a downright fun tournament.

More importantly, the field featured no less than 5 rogue teams! I'm stoked that players are sending the message to coaches: "We like good quizbowl. If you can't or won't take us, we'll go ourselves." (Of course a lot of bad coaches will never receive this message.)
Well, I think you're right that the questions are easy. Isn't Set 11 cannibalized from the VHSL sets, which are intentionally easier?
That could be. However, there were some difficult answer lines that I would presume to be too hard for VHSL; the tossups just featured very easy clues.
Dan, your sarcastic citing of the QB Tribune "article" is misleading because, in my estimation, pyramidality issues (describing works in leadins is good; describing the most famous work never is), not difficulty itself, was the biggest problem in this set. There were several instances of some really serious clue mixups, but answer lines and bonuses were generally good.

That said, it bothers be that difficulty is always rashly criticized in these HSAPQ sets, especially when performance is affected by confounding variables, the most notable one being that people in fact do get better at quizbowl as the season progresses. Sure, powers did seem to come easily today (I commented on it during matches myself), but the fact remains that judging the difficulty of many early and middle clues becomes a somewhat subjective process. In quizbowl you often see paradigm shifts where an early or middle clue gets overused (or overlearned, as may be the case) into giveaway oblivion. Quizbowl knowledge is very much organic, and, unfortunately, its evolution is gradual. This means that some stuff will be written that seems really easy, though it may not have been considered as such in the past, even in the recent past. That stuff seems grossly misplaced, and it often is, but making blanket statements on a set is irresponsible.

When I see people complain about questions being too easy, I often see not just the "I-know-it-therefore-it-is-easy" fallacy, but its cousin, the "I-know-it-very-well-therefore-it-is-very-easy" fallacy. Obviously, sets can have difficulty issues (at varying levels of isolation), but complaining about good questions, whether directly or passive-aggressively, contributes first to the "Illinois kids think they're too cool for school" opinion and secondly to the (lesser discussed) "quiz bowl players dismiss questions and question sets as a means to make themselves look better" opinion. I know that you, Dan-Don, aren't trying to do what the latter suggests, but that's what it often looks like, especially when the former opinion is so prevalent.

Ultimately, my appraisal of the set is that, despite big issues with a lot of specific questions, HSAPQ ACF-11 was a pretty good set. Answer lines weren't, in my opinion, too easy or too hard, and bonuses, with a few notable exceptions, seemed rock-solid with good easy-medium-hard breakdowns.

Guys, every set has its issues. HSAPQ is consistently better than other providers, and I know they fix their sets once they get feedback. ACF-11 may not have been HSAPQ's best work; it very well may have been HSAPQ's worst work, but overall, I still don't think it was that bad. Good question sets suffer most from being juxtaposed with other good sets.

Honestly, I don't know if anyone will ever produce a perfect set, so people should either stop expecting one or start producing one.
Well this is why I cited the article. I don't know if you read it, but it's a satirical way of saying of what you've just posted.
I thought you were sarcastically referring to the sarcastic article, implying that the questions were bad, but you weren't allowed to complain about them because QB Tribune mocked Nolan for complaining. I don't get it.
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by Dan-Don »

Katamari Damacy wrote:I must say your post was not clear at all what your real thoughts were (and I'm still unsure).
Clarification: The set had some misplaced clues, which was probably its biggest issue. I expected players to also complain about question ease, but I just wanted to remind people that we Illinois folk who are posting in this thread are all pretty skilled and therefore might perceive the high number of powers and good bonus conversion as a bigger problem than it was (a la the satirical article).
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by abnormal abdomen »

Katamari Damacy wrote:I must say your post was not clear at all what your real thoughts were (and I'm still unsure).

Basically:

Set 11 wasn't a bad set, it just wasn't as good as the previous HSAPQ sets that we've played on this season. It notably has some serious errors in clue placement.

Edit: Clarification
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Charley Pride
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by Charley Pride »

Dan-Don wrote:
Katamari Damacy wrote:I must say your post was not clear at all what your real thoughts were (and I'm still unsure).
Clarification: The set had some misplaced clues, which was probably its biggest issue. I expected players to also complain about question ease, but I just wanted to remind people that we Illinois folk who are posting in this thread are all pretty skilled and therefore might perceive the high number of powers and good bonus conversion as a bigger problem than it was (a la the satirical article).
Wait. Why are high bonus conversion and lots of powers inherently problematic?

And you said you wouldn't "[complain]" about questions...I perceived that as "we've talked about how easy these questions are before, so I'm not even going to bother talking about them now".

No swears in the hs section
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by Dan-Don »

Charley Pride wrote:Wait. Why are high bonus conversion and lots of powers inherently problematic?
I don't know. Ask the subjects of that article. I share your opinion; powers and high ppb are are not bad, and are in fact good signs for this state that heads into NASAT tryouts in a week.
Charley Pride wrote: you said you wouldn't "[complain]" about questions...I perceived that as "we've talked about how easy these questions are before, so I'm not even going to bother talking about them now".
Ah. I meant it as I won't "[complain]" about the questions because they are not as poor as many (myself included) have made this year's HSAPQ questions out to be, and therefore not worthy of any great deal of complaining.

no swearing.
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by jonah »

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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by Edward Elric »

3 people over 130 ppg?!?!? :shock:
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by Charley Pride »

Springfield Grade Road wrote:3 people over 130 ppg?!?!? :shock:
Dude, they were solo, or at least effectively solo.
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Re: Northwestern Wildcat XII

Post by jonah »

I just realized that the round 12 game between Loyola B and New Trier (middle bracket) had not been entered. Fortunately, I noticed this because I found the scoresheet in my bag. It has now been entered (Loyola B 165, New Trier 245).
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