What constutes good quiz bowl?

jrbarry · Post by **jrbarry** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 10:54 pm

Lotsa talk about this on other threads and I thought I would start a thread on this topic to see if there is any consensus here on any major point.

1. I like pyramid toss ups because they reward deeper knowledge and can be used in practice to teach deeper knowledge. But I prefer tossups that are NOT longer than 4-5 sentences.

2. I want a balance of tossups by broad category. I want question writers to realize that, in toss-up/bonus formats, a balance of tossups by category is crucial since bonus points are linked to getting the tossups. Don't tell me your rounds are balanced when most of your lit appears in bonuses with little in tossups. I want every round's tossups to be balanced
and every round's bonuses to be balanced.

3. I prefer question formulas that do NOT overuse social studies categories. That is somewhat ironic as I have taught high school SS for 31 years now. I like 25% social studies (that includes all the social sciences and call current events), 25% literature with mythology included in this section; 25% sciences; 12.5 fine arts, and 12.5 mathematics.

4. I prefer questions that do not end up with videogame (or other crap) endings so that a player can answer a Shakespeare question because he/she knows some video game character. Let's answer a Shakespeare question because we know some Shakespeare and not because we know the name of a movie dog who shares that name with a comic figure.

This post is about questions and question formulas. I will comment on RULES and PROCEDURES after y'all crucify what I have posted here! :-)

dtaylor4 · Post by **dtaylor4** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 11:01 pm

jrbarry wrote:I prefer questions that do not end up with videogame (or other crap) endings so that a player can answer a Shakespeare question because he/she knows some video game character. Let's answer a Shakespeare question because we know some Shakespeare and not because we know the name of a movie dog who shares that name with a comic figure.

If we knew Shakespeare, then we would get the question before the trash giveaway. What I have issues with is the academic tossups with trashy lead-ins and "list" tossups. If not written correctly, they can be hoses.

NoahMinkCHS · Post by **NoahMinkCHS** » Wed Mar 08, 2006 11:50 pm

Perhaps due to jrbarry's tremendous influence on the circuit I played in, I concur with all his points, except possibly point 4. A well-written "trashy" giveaway can have some value, if used rarely and effectively. (And not involving video games.)

For once (ever?), I agree with DaGeneral on that.

Lapego1 · Post by **Lapego1** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 3:11 am

Another problem I've encountered is that tossups at the end of a game end up messing up a normally close game if ungettable. Thus, I feel a well-written packet should at least consider the situation where the game is neck and neck until that last tossup and so the last tossup may decide the game.

Stained Diviner · Post by **Stained Diviner** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 6:37 am

5. Questions should cover material from strong high school curricula. There also needs to be an attempt to cover the most important ideas, works, events, people, and places in the history of our universe, planet, and species.

Matthew D · Post by **Matthew D** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 7:55 am

I will agree with you on your statement Reinstein.

Tegan · Post by **Tegan** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 9:06 am

jrbarry,

I don't think that anybody's going to nail you to nothing for those opinions...at least not in this neighborhood. I wouldn't object to a question set following what you laid out. One of my biggest problems with NAQT (and its not a big one) whch are, for the most part, wonderful questions, is that the rounds are, IMO, not as balanced as they could be.

I will also say that I think there is room for the occasional question that causes a player to think. I'm not trying to rehash an old argument that many here disagreed with me on, but I think in a 20 question round, there is room for one or two questions that require thought, with the caveat that the rules permit a player to blitz and give both options on such a question.

Tegan · Post by **Tegan** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 9:07 am

jrbarry,

I don't think that anybody's going to nail you to nothing for those opinions...at least not in this neighborhood. I wouldn't object to a question set following what you laid out. One of my biggest problems with NAQT (and its not a big one) whch are, for the most part, wonderful questions, is that the rounds are, IMO, not as balanced as they could be.

I will also say that I think there is room for the occasional question that causes a player to think. I'm not trying to rehash an old argument that many here disagreed with me on, but I think in a 20 question round, there is room for one or two questions that require thought, with the caveat that the rules permit a player to blitz and give both options on such a question.

David Riley · Post by **David Riley** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 9:17 am

Lapego1: couldn't agree with you more. I especially hate it when a game is neck and neck and the penultimate or final bonus is a Harry Potter or other pop culture question.

Matt Weiner · Post by **Matt Weiner** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 11:15 am

All the other points should be pretty agreeable. I guess some people might take issue with your distribution; "social studies" isn't really a category of knowledge, more of a public-school construct. History, religion, geography, and in tournaments where the players are up to it, social science and philosophy are distinct categories and I wouldn't expect someone who knows one to necessarily know another. I consider math part of science because I do expect math players and science players to be the same people, so counting it twice gives them a huge advantage. But I would have no trouble calling a tournament that you described "good."

FWIW here is the per-round breakdown from the PACE NSC as an example of a long-considered question distribution:

Science 6/6 (including 1 conceptual math tossup and 1 math calculation bonus)
History 6/5
Literature 5/5
Arts 3/3
Religion, Mythology, Philosophy 3/3
Social Science 1/2
Geography 1/2
Current Events 1/2
General Knowledge 1/1
Trash 1/1

quizbowllee · Post by **quizbowllee** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 11:35 am

Sometimes those "trash giveways" at the end are just a bone thrown to weaker teams. I find myself doing this when I write sometimes. When they come up, I'm not mad at the question writer (who only wanted to insure that the greatest number of tossups are answered), but rather I'm dissapointed in my team for having to wait that long to answer the question.

STPickrell · Post by **STPickrell** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 1:06 pm

DaGeneral wrote:If we knew Shakespeare, then we would get the question before the trash giveaway. What I have issues with is the academic tossups with trashy lead-ins and "list" tossups. If not written correctly, they can be hoses.

I agree, hence my support of the occasional "NAcutie" for giveaways. If a question can have a trashy giveaway so 95% of teams can answer it, as opposed to only 40-50% of teams answering it without said giveaway, then it is, in my opinion, a better question. I have, in fact, done it many times for VHSL series questions.

"NAcuties" for leadins, no. (even though I did get the original NAcutie, the one about taking on 20,000 opponents at once to which the answer was Muhammad Ali.)

I know Coach Barry is against pop culture's presence in academic tournaments, which is fine. It is an issue on which I am agnostic, so long as pop culture is below 10% of the total number of questions. Virginia coaches have for the most part supported its presence, and many even support a slight increase (from 3/55 to 4/55.) If I were writing for a tournament in which pop culture was verbotten, trashy giveaways would not be used.

List tossups, too, I have somewhat of a problem with and have avoided for the most part. Either that, or I will phrase it somewhat differently, so what is being looked for is mentioned at the beginning of the question.

Stained Diviner · Post by **Stained Diviner** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 2:00 pm

Matt Weiner:

History, religion, geography, and in tournaments where the players are up to it, social science and philosophy are distinct categories and I wouldn't expect someone who knows one to necessarily know another. I consider math part of science because I do expect math players and science players to be the same people, so counting it twice gives them a huge advantage.

I don't want to turn this into another computational debate, and I will avoid that aspect here. I also think that there is room for variation on this subject and that the PACE distribution is certainly acceptable. As a matter of fact, the PACE packets are some of the best around.

However, if Quiz Bowl is to reflect the curriculum, then it makes sense to keep a limit on all of the things that come under the umbrella of social studies because, getting rid of foreign languages, most students spend about 25% of their academic time in social studies classes. There does not need to be a perfect correlation between the distribution and time spent in class, and non-pop culture learning done by students outside of class can skew towards social studies (especially current events and geography), so I don't have a serious problem going a little over 25%.

While it is true that there is a high correlation between strong math students and strong physics students, the correlation weakens when you bring other sciences into the mix. If anything, science is one area where it is perfectly normal for a team or individual to be very strong in one or two subcategories and very weak in others.

Matt Weiner · Post by **Matt Weiner** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 2:19 pm

I don't think there needs to be any correlation at all between quizbowl distribution/material and what goes on in class. We already know who the best students are; if that's what quizbowl was about, we could just mail in report cards and compare them instead of spending all this time putting together tournaments. An opportunity to learn and demonstrate knowledge in areas that a lot of people might never take a class on in high school--like religion, philosophy, or non-American history, for example--is something I consider one of the best arguments for the game.

First Chairman · Post by **First Chairman** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 3:00 pm

The other difficulty of hard-wiring the qb distribution to a school curriculum is that there are state-to-state (even to the extent of system-to-system or school-to-school) variations in curricula. We also get into a discussion of whether upper-level high school material should be fair game. Personally I don't mind a few calculus questions here and there, but there are many who believe that these questions are too difficult for the "average" high school cohort. There is also a difficulty that some students don't get exposure to many of the concepts until much later in their academic course of study. I appreciate and empathize with a JV team that has to endure Brit Lit bonuses. Then again, maybe there are places where Brit Lit is taught in 10th grade as opposed to 12th.

While I absolutely support increased math and science education, having 20% of the questions involving algebra, geometry, or statistics calculations with another 20-25% involving science topics is way too heavy on this side of the curriculum. In addition, there is clearly a de-emphasis on arts education, and reducing its contribution to less than 10% of the curriculum also rubs me the wrong way.

On the presence of the cutie endings, I will assure you that unanswered questions is not a desired goal for the game. Sure, you may not know it, but if you know the answer based on a cute clue, good for you. Jeopardy does it all the time when they want to keep the game "entertaining" for the audience.

David Riley · Post by **David Riley** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 3:04 pm

E.T. Chuck wrote: Then again, maybe there are places where Brit Lit is taught in 10th grade as opposed to 12th.

And there are places in Illinois where Brit Lit is a one-semester senior ELECTIVE. Up with Hirsch!

First Chairman · Post by **First Chairman** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 3:10 pm

David Riley wrote:And there are places in Illinois where Brit Lit is a one-semester senior ELECTIVE. Up with Hirsch!

Yipes.... inconceivable!

I was also going to put in one more comment as I am thinking about it. I think part of the reason why many coaches don't feel they can be competitive is because of the introduction of a lot of topics off the usual school curriculum. I don't know too many classes that do a good survey of French literature unless you are taking AP French lit (AP class quality being a subject of some debate, but I digress). The frustration seems to come about when the losing coach states, "But my top student wasn't taught the bones of the skull in his/her biology class."

I think we can differ on the specific mechanics and processes (read: rules and regulations alluded to by JRB), but "good quiz bowl" should inspire independent research and learning, create a passion for knowledge, and build individual confidence and leadership skills. Most of us won't ever get rich doing this activity, but I think we all can agree about the benefits of having participated in this activity as opposed to Odyseey of the Mind or Science Bowl or Geography Bee or Spelling Bee, etc. Regardless of whether these more holistic goals are reached with pyramidal questions or one-line zingers, that's what "good quiz bowl" should be about (to me).

PS to mods: Shouldn't this go into "Theory" rather than "Misc"?

Tegan · Post by **Tegan** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 4:19 pm

E.T. Chuck wrote:I was also going to put in one more comment as I am thinking about it. I think part of the reason why many coaches don't feel they can be competitive is because of the introduction of a lot of topics off the usual school curriculum.

Thus: a coach who encounters these weird questions that no one learns in THEIR school are unwanted, because the only way to properly get ready is to study outside of the school day, which means actually doing work! This may be a part of the reason why there is such resistance to NAQT style pyramid questions, because the teams that work harder will virtually always win over a team that only learns what their teachers squeeze into them.

First Chairman · Post by **First Chairman** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 6:06 pm

Adding to Tom... and it probably explains much of the anti-trash reaction too. The kids don't have to "study" in order to know that information.

BuzzerZen · Post by **BuzzerZen** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 8:55 pm

I agree with Mr. Barry's point about trashy giveaways. A trash clue has no place at all in an academic question, gettability notwithstanding. And, fwiw, the distribution we used for JIAT '06 is as follows:

History: 1 american, 1 european, 1 world, 1 any
Lit: 1 american, 1 british, 1 world, 1 any
Science: 1 bio, 1 chem, 1 physics, 1 "other science" (astro, geo) 1 math computation, 1 math theory or computer science
Other stuff: 1 geography, 1 RMP, 1 Social science (econ, psych, etc), 1 visual art, 1 music
...and...
1 trash

20 tossups/round with related bonuses. This may look excessively science-y, but non-science still far outweighs science.

Also: if you are going to have "related" bonuses, actually relate them--a tossup on Tolstoy should have a Russian literature bonus, not "Russian novels are long. So is the Amazon River. The Amazon River is in south america. Identify these south american capitals ftpe."

Post by **DumbJaques** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 9:05 pm

Also: if you are going to have "related" bonuses, actually relate them--a tossup on Tolstoy should have a Russian literature bonus, not "Russian novels are long. So is the Amazon River. The Amazon River is in south america. Identify these south american capitals ftpe."

No, but what's even more annoying is when the "related bonus" is 3 clues that could have gone in the tossup morphed into bonus form. This was my number one problem with the most recent JIAT. You frequently had bonuses that were *way* too narrowly focused. You want to do Tolstoy-Russian lit, that's fine (although I would encourage mixing it up a bit), but, to use an already mentioned example, an Alexius I tu followed by "name these other byzantine emperors related to Alexius" is pushing it. A lot. You've essentially just made 5% of the packet about byzantine emperors. This can be fine, of course, if the topic works out well. What bothers me most about related tu-bon is when you ask a question about, say, Gettysburg, then ask three bonus questions about things that happened at, before, or as a result of Gettysburg. I'm not a huge fan of related bonuses, as a rule, because this frequently ends up happening, no matter how good the question writers are.

Lapego1 · Post by **Lapego1** » Thu Mar 09, 2006 10:51 pm

A consideration for next year to appease any echoers of DumbJaques would simply be to relate bonuses to tu's subject-wise. Thus, someone who gets a bio tossup would obviously be literate in the subject and could perhaps do more with a general bio bonus than with a directly related bio bonus on a narrow subject which they may not know much more about. The tossup question itself may now go into more depth, as directly related bonuses often involve excluding certain key information from the tossup.

Stained Diviner · Post by **Stained Diviner** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 11:09 pm

It might (or might not) be worth trying to agree on a range of suitable distributions. For example:
Social Studies: 20-40%
Math/Science: 20-40%
Literature: 15-30%
Fine Arts: 5-20%
Trash/Miscellaneous: 0-10%

I think that our disagreements are somewhat narrow.

I suppose the potential benefit of having ranges like this is that it would allow some individuality for regions and tournaments within boundaries. I expect distributions to be within the ranges above, and if I was going to a tournament that was not within these ranges I would want to know ahead of time so I could adjust my starting line-up.

Having a range also allows for questions that combine subjects. If there is a trash giveaway at the end, then that question counts to some extent towards the trash distribution.

On another note, Matt makes a good point above that rewarding knowledge beyond the normal school curriculum is a good thing.

ProsperoSMS · Post by **ProsperoSMS** » Sat Mar 11, 2006 7:30 pm

I personally have no problem with pop culture being included in tournaments, both in a small ratio of separate questions and as part of academic questions. When I competed for UNC, there was considerable discussion about whether we should have pop culture, but I think it's fine to include it. High school tournaments can become monotonous if they lack variety, and I think variety can include the use of pop culture.

As to the issue of curricular based questions, I agree there should be some acknowledgement of the things "high school students should know." I've been to tournaments where the questions were clearly written by grad students showing off (or maybe just writing from the courses they were taking), and I think there should be some attention paid to having things which can be gotten (and I don't mean easy questions for buzzer races). ETC is right about the issue with different states having different curricular standards. This is also an issue (although a minor one) which I've found in switching from a public to an independent school in the same state. Certainly, the material might be offered in different orders.

--Hugh

thepowerofche · Post by **thepowerofche** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 6:39 pm

jrbarry wrote:4. I prefer questions that do not end up with videogame (or other crap) endings so that a player can answer a Shakespeare question because he/she knows some video game character. Let's answer a Shakespeare question because we know some Shakespeare and not because we know the name of a movie dog who shares that name with a comic figure.

and

ReinsteinD wrote:5. Questions should cover material from strong high school curricula. There also needs to be an attempt to cover the most important ideas, works, events, people, and places in the history of our universe, planet, and species.

I respectfully submit the argument that video games are legitimate quiz bowl information not only because they are some of the most important works in the history of the universe (anyone who has played Half-Life 2, Civ 4, or Galaga will certainly agree with me) and some of them deal with the most important ideas, events, people and places in the history of our planet and species (see Age of Mythology, Halo, WCW vs. NWO: Revenge, and Cruisin' World) but also because they should be a part of every high school curriculum that would be considered "strong." Much like sex education, if there were "vid ed" that could teach children the difference between good and bad videogames and the dangers of sitting too close to the television or not saving progress often enough, it would make school not only more fun, but make the world a better place. I can tell you now that I've played Super Mario Bros. 3 in 1st period every day for the past month, I've felt considerably less stressed out at school and feel like I can apply the lessons learned from hopping on Koopa's head three times and using Kuribo's Shoe to avoid being hurt by spikes to any field of study in my next five classes, especially to next period's European History.

In short, video games really are the happy medium between "trash" givaways like Kelly Clarkson lyrics and Alexius I's relatives. That is all.

Siverus Snape · Post by **Siverus Snape** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 9:59 am

The world needs more people like thepowerofche.

jrbarry · Post by **jrbarry** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 10:33 pm

I have it on good information that "thepowerofche" is actually a debater and NOT a quiz bowler! :-)

harpersferry · Post by **harpersferry** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 11:09 pm

"the people" = siva?? Bit of a stretch

We had an entire bonus on Halo at IHSA regionals. Though I don't play the game, I had read the book. I wasn't in at the time, alas, there goes our one chance to get a video game question.

Anyway, the hardest thing for me to understand is why some tournaments (for example Illinois Masonic) can't stick to a distribution for the life of them. I don't mind most distributions, as long as it's balanced. But erratic is just awful.

mentalchocolate · Post by **mentalchocolate** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 7:10 pm

I believe legitament facts can be found in video games especially mythology related. The only starter on my team who has not taken a course myths and legends never seizes to surprise us by getting nearly half of the mythology questions, because he can recognize an obscure reference that he had heard in a video game. I understand the viewpoint that perhaps question writers should not add clues that make direct references to video games or "trash", but I do believe "trash" does help in other fields of study if you pay attention to some obscure details.

First Chairman · Post by **First Chairman** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 7:31 pm

jrbarry wrote:I have it on good information that "thepowerofche" is actually a debater and NOT a quiz bowler! :-)

Hmm... does he (she) cite video games as part of his/her arguments in debate?

ahrobins · Post by **ahrobins** » Thu Mar 30, 2006 2:06 pm

I agree with Mr. Barry, except for #4. I do not approve of trash as a lead-in, as others have said, but if trash will give away a question that might otherwise not be answered--I'll take a buzz-in over silence any time.

BTW We have always enjoyed the Brookwood Tourney, though we have not been lately.

AHR

rcline · Post by **rcline** » Wed Apr 26, 2006 10:33 am

I respectfully submit the argument that video games are legitimate quiz bowl information not only because they are some of the most important works in the history of the universe (anyone who has played Half-Life 2, Civ 4, or Galaga will certainly agree with me) and some of them deal with the most important ideas, events, people and places in the history of our planet and species (see Age of Mythology, Halo, WCW vs. NWO: Revenge, and Cruisin' World) but also because they should be a part of every high school curriculum that would be considered "strong."

Everything I learned about Caribbean geography, I learned from Sid Meier's Pirates!

JohnAndSlation · Post by **JohnAndSlation** » Wed Apr 26, 2006 5:55 pm

NO direct references to video games, please! Granted, some clues are noticed because of their correlation to a video game, but it's the same with a book or a TV show or just about anything else. The only reason I ever thought to read "Song of Myself" was because of an 8th-grade English assignment that my teacher introduced with the first few lines of the poem.

I'd rather not have a trashy ending....especially not a REALLY trashy, mindless ending, because it makes you feel stupid (either for taking it or for missing it). I can deal with a LITTLE bit of pop culture, but please make it fairly thought-provoking (for instance, NOT "This red-nosed reindeer...").

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