2018 HSNCT discussion

Dormant threads from the high school sections are preserved here.
jonah
Auron
Posts: 2383
Joined: Thu Jul 20, 2006 5:51 pm
Location: Chicago

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by jonah »

Conversion stats are now available (including by individual parts of bonuses), so please let me know if you'd like to see anything. I think the only requests that have been mentioned in this thread so far are the following:
Karansebes Schnapps Vendor wrote:Also, if/when conversion stats go up would I be able to see conversion stats on the wave theory tossup (round 10) and Portugal (lit tossup from Round 26?)
Wave theory: 3/68/36 in all 88 rooms (81% conversion is good, 3% power is not good, 41% negs is yikes).
Portugal: 6/3/1 in all nine rooms (probably too small a sample to be useful, but 100% conversion is great, 67% power is high but plausible for late-ish playoffs, 11% neg is kinda high but again sample the sample size)
Jonah Greenthal
National Academic Quiz Tournaments
User avatar
Tippy Martinez
Wakka
Posts: 221
Joined: Tue Mar 21, 2017 12:48 pm
Location: college park

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by Tippy Martinez »

Could you post the conversion stats for the Black Panther Party tossup (sometime in lateish playoffs) as well as the bonus that had the Socialist Workers Party as a third part (round 13 iirc). Could you also post the stats for the most powered and the least powered tossups as well as most 30d and most bageled bonuses?
connor mayers
maryland
User avatar
34 + P.J. Dozier
Wakka
Posts: 197
Joined: Sun Oct 15, 2017 10:01 pm
Location: Chicago, IL

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by 34 + P.J. Dozier »

Could you post a few of the least converted tossup answerlines? I have a feeling that the Emcee from Cabaret tossup might be one of them.
Wonyoung Jang
Belmont '18 // UChicago '22
ACF; NAQT; PACE
User avatar
Important Bird Area
Forums Staff: Administrator
Posts: 6113
Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2003 3:33 pm
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
Contact:

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by Important Bird Area »

Thiccasso's Guernthicca wrote:Could you post a few of the least converted tossup answerlines? I have a feeling that the Emcee from Cabaret tossup might be one of them.
1/0/4 in nine rooms, which is less than ideal.

Minimum of seventy rooms, below 40% conversion:

mass spectrometry
Samuel Alito
Sonia Gandhi
St. Anthony
Ryan Zinke
Ragged Dick
Chinese opera
Vincenzo Bellini
May 1968
Coriolis effect
G. K. Chesterton
Jeff Hoppes
President, Northern California Quiz Bowl Alliance
former HSQB Chief Admin (2012-13)
VP for Communication and history subject editor, NAQT
Editor emeritus, ACF

"I wish to make some kind of joke about Jeff's love of birds, but I always fear he'll turn them on me Hitchcock-style." -Fred
jonah
Auron
Posts: 2383
Joined: Thu Jul 20, 2006 5:51 pm
Location: Chicago

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by jonah »

connor.mayers wrote:Could you post the conversion stats for the Black Panther Party tossup (sometime in lateish playoffs)
Powered in all nine rooms; no negs. (9/0/0)
connor.mayers wrote:as well as the bonus that had the Socialist Workers Party as a third part (round 13 iirc).
Read in 87 rooms. Frederick Douglass (part A) got 51 correct answers (59%), Jesse Jackson (Sr.) got 37 (43%), and the Socialist Workers Party got 31 (36%). There were 10 thirties, 29 twenties, 31 tens, and 17 zeroes for 13.7 points per room.
connor.mayers wrote:Could you also post the stats for the most powered and the least powered tossups
Three tossups were read in at least five rooms and powered in all of them: The Glass Menagerie (seven rooms), the Black Panther Party (nine rooms), and Philadelphia from painting clues (five rooms). The most-powered tossup read in at least ten rooms was gerrymandering (in current events; 23/2/0 in 25 rooms for 92% power). The most powered tossup read in all 88 prelim rooms was Hephaestus (round 7, 77/9/5 for 88% power). The most powered tossup read in all 88 afternoon-session rooms was Ajit Pai (73/14/1 for 83%).

The following tossups were read in at least ten rooms and never powered: nylon (chemistry; 11 rooms), scarab (mixed; 15 rooms), Joe Arpaio (87 rooms), King Solomon (39 rooms), rights (in jurisprudence and political philosophy; all 88 rooms), the printing press (in history; 18 rooms), Robert Graves (11 rooms), sampling (math, 76 rooms), Scheherezade (54 rooms), tonsils (15 rooms), "In the Penal Colony" (85 rooms), Livy (87 rooms), the Akkadian empire (85 rooms), phosphorescence (87 rooms), the main sequence (57 rooms), and Sonia Gandhi (all 88 rooms).
connor.mayers wrote:as well as most 30d and most bageled bonuses?
Most 30ed: the bonus on most-downvoted posts in the history of Reddit (57 thirties; read in all 88 rooms; 26.25 points per room).

Most bageled: FTP/TCP/SSH (65 zeroes; read in all 88 rooms; 4.43 points per room).

Two bonuses were read in at least five rooms and got thirtied across the board: Kinshasa/Swahili/Brazzaville (9 rooms) and Julian Assange/Ecuador/internet access (9 rooms).

The bonus that achieved the lowest points per room was the one on Thomas Wolfe/Eugene Gant/Maxwell Perkins (38 rooms in round 23, 4.21 points per room).
Jonah Greenthal
National Academic Quiz Tournaments
Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Dreams
Wakka
Posts: 129
Joined: Sun Sep 10, 2017 3:05 pm

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Dreams »

Can I see the main sequence tossup?
Geoffrey Chen
Wayzata High School '19
UMN (dual enrollment) '19
Cornell ???
User avatar
Important Bird Area
Forums Staff: Administrator
Posts: 6113
Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2003 3:33 pm
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
Contact:

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by Important Bird Area »

2018 HSNCT round 9 wrote:A technique of "fitting" named for this feature matches its observed appearance for an open cluster with its theoretical structure, allowing the cluster's apparent magnitude to be converted to a distance. This feature consists of objects that are powered by the proton-proton chain or CNO cycle. Hot (*) O and B stars dominate the upper left of—for 10 points—what prominent diagonal feature on the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram?
Jeff Hoppes
President, Northern California Quiz Bowl Alliance
former HSQB Chief Admin (2012-13)
VP for Communication and history subject editor, NAQT
Editor emeritus, ACF

"I wish to make some kind of joke about Jeff's love of birds, but I always fear he'll turn them on me Hitchcock-style." -Fred
joshxu
Lulu
Posts: 97
Joined: Tue Jun 19, 2018 11:25 pm
Location: UCLA

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by joshxu »

Can I see the conversion stats for Lot and Gag Rules (both round 9), Pittsburgh Penguins, Morales, and Teapot Dome (all round 14), and Ted Cruz (round 23)?
Josh Xu

Santa Monica High School (Class of 2021, Captain, Team President)
UCLA (Class of 2025)
User avatar
Important Bird Area
Forums Staff: Administrator
Posts: 6113
Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2003 3:33 pm
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
Contact:

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by Important Bird Area »

joshxu wrote:Can I see the conversion stats for Lot and Gag Rules (both round 9), Pittsburgh Penguins, Morales, and Teapot Dome (all round 14), and Ted Cruz (round 23)?
Lot: 24/56/11 in 88 rooms

gag rule: 6/53/17 in 88 rooms

Penguins: 1/82/40 in 88 rooms

Morales: 12/41/6 in 88 rooms

Teapot Dome: 41/46/8 in 88 rooms

Ted Cruz: 4/31/14 in 38 rooms
Jeff Hoppes
President, Northern California Quiz Bowl Alliance
former HSQB Chief Admin (2012-13)
VP for Communication and history subject editor, NAQT
Editor emeritus, ACF

"I wish to make some kind of joke about Jeff's love of birds, but I always fear he'll turn them on me Hitchcock-style." -Fred
Banana Stand
Wakka
Posts: 158
Joined: Thu Apr 26, 2012 4:38 pm

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by Banana Stand »

Can I see the tossup on “In the Penal Colony“?
Jack Mehr
St. Joe's NJ '14
UVA '19
User avatar
Important Bird Area
Forums Staff: Administrator
Posts: 6113
Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2003 3:33 pm
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
Contact:

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by Important Bird Area »

2018 HSNCT round 20 wrote:A character in this story laments a "squeaky wheel," a "torn strap," and "disgusting felt" that makes another character vomit. A gravestone in this story instructs "have faith and wait" to followers of the Old (*) Commandant. In this story, a machine made up of a "bed," a "harrow," and an "inscriber" carves the text of broken laws into criminals' bodies. For 10 points—name this story about a gruesome execution device by Franz Kafka.
Jeff Hoppes
President, Northern California Quiz Bowl Alliance
former HSQB Chief Admin (2012-13)
VP for Communication and history subject editor, NAQT
Editor emeritus, ACF

"I wish to make some kind of joke about Jeff's love of birds, but I always fear he'll turn them on me Hitchcock-style." -Fred
joshxu
Lulu
Posts: 97
Joined: Tue Jun 19, 2018 11:25 pm
Location: UCLA

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by joshxu »

Can I see both the tossups and the conversion stats for Sonia Gandhi and cyanobacteria (both round 19)?
Josh Xu

Santa Monica High School (Class of 2021, Captain, Team President)
UCLA (Class of 2025)
User avatar
Important Bird Area
Forums Staff: Administrator
Posts: 6113
Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2003 3:33 pm
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
Contact:

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by Important Bird Area »

joshxu wrote:Can I see both the tossups and the conversion stats for Sonia Gandhi and cyanobacteria (both round 19)?
2018 HSNCT round 19 wrote:This politician's behind-the-scenes power is the subject of the book The Accidental Prime Minister. She and her son were accused of taking an illegal loan in the National Herald scandal. This woman declined the premiership in 2004 in favor of (*) Manmohan Singh. In 2017 she retired as leader of the Congress Party. For 10 points—name this Italian-Indian politician who is the mother of Rahul, and daughter-in-law of Indira.
0/31/32 in 88 rooms
2018 HSNCT round 19 wrote:Several members of this phylum synthesize the pigment scytonemin, which provides protection from UV. Members of this phylum's genus Arthrospira are used in the food supplement spirulina. These organisms and the more complex Rhodophyta use phycobilisomes in their (*) thylakoids to aid in photosynthesis. Endosymbiotic theory holds that chloroplasts came from—for 10 points—what prokaryotes sometimes named for two colors?

answer: cyanobacteria ["sigh"-ANN-oh-"bacteria"] (or cyanobacterium or blue-green algae or blue-green alga)
2/36/25 in 64 rooms
Jeff Hoppes
President, Northern California Quiz Bowl Alliance
former HSQB Chief Admin (2012-13)
VP for Communication and history subject editor, NAQT
Editor emeritus, ACF

"I wish to make some kind of joke about Jeff's love of birds, but I always fear he'll turn them on me Hitchcock-style." -Fred
Wartortullian
Rikku
Posts: 376
Joined: Mon Dec 19, 2016 10:02 pm
Location: New Haven, CT
Contact:

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by Wartortullian »

Can we see the text of the May 1968 tossup and the FTP/TCP/SSH bonus?
Matt
User avatar
Fado Alexandrino
Yuna
Posts: 834
Joined: Sat Jun 12, 2010 8:46 pm
Location: Farhaven, Ontario

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by Fado Alexandrino »

Can I see the conversion and text of the questions on Robert Schumann and coins (math/cs)

I know this would be unprotestable, but Sibelius is imo better known for his only VC being in D-minor

For the coins tossup, I am interested to see what acceptable other answers would be, since the problems in the early parts of the tossup deal with change making in general.

Thanks,
Joe Su, OCT
Lisgar 2012, McGill 2015, McGill 2019, Queen's 2020
User avatar
Important Bird Area
Forums Staff: Administrator
Posts: 6113
Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2003 3:33 pm
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
Contact:

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by Important Bird Area »

2018 HSNCT round 11 wrote:Raymond Aron's The Elusive Revolution calls this month a "psychodrama" in which nothing real happened. Slogans from Raoul Vaneigem and other members of the Situationist International were graffitied during this month, when Daniel Cohn-Bendit became prominent. The (*) Grenelle accords ended a wildcat strike during—for 10 points—what month, when Charles de Gaulle fled to Germany as a student protest seized Paris?
2018 HSNCT round 20 wrote:This protocol has two common modes—"ASCII" and "binary"—which determine how newline characters are handled. For 10 points each—

A. Port 21 is the default port for what insecure protocol designed for transmitting resources like a program, a spreadsheet, or an image?

answer: FTP (or File Transfer Protocol; do not accept or prompt on "FTPS" or "SFTP" or "Simple File Transfer (Protocol)" or "SSH File Transfer (Protocol)")

B. FTP is built atop this networking protocol that adds connections and delivery guarantees to the Internet Protocol, or IP.

answer: TCP (or Transmission Control Protocol; accept TCP/IP)

C. For secure transfers, FTP has been largely superseded by SCP, which transfers files over this protocol used to log in to remote computers.

answer: SSH (or Secure Shell)
Jeff Hoppes
President, Northern California Quiz Bowl Alliance
former HSQB Chief Admin (2012-13)
VP for Communication and history subject editor, NAQT
Editor emeritus, ACF

"I wish to make some kind of joke about Jeff's love of birds, but I always fear he'll turn them on me Hitchcock-style." -Fred
User avatar
Important Bird Area
Forums Staff: Administrator
Posts: 6113
Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2003 3:33 pm
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
Contact:

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by Important Bird Area »

2018 HSNCT round 23 wrote:This composer's only violin concerto, in D minor, was thought too "morbid" to be performed by Joseph Joachim. The four movements of his D-minor fourth symphony are played without pause. A trombone chorale opens the fourth movement of this composer's E-flat-major (*) third symphony, which has five movements and is named for a river. For 10 points—name this composer of the Spring and Rhenish symphonies.
1/28/23 in 38 rooms
2018 HSNCT round 21 wrote:Henri Picciotto phrased a problem about these things in terms of boxes of chicken nuggets. Frobenius numbers answer the question "What is the largest amount that can't be made by combining" these things. Balance puzzles ask you to find a cannonball or one of these objects with a (*) different weight than others. A Bernoulli trial with a 1/2 chance of success is equivalent to—for 10 points—flipping a "fair" object of what kind?

answer: coins (accept fair coins)
2/38/10 in 40 rooms
Jeff Hoppes
President, Northern California Quiz Bowl Alliance
former HSQB Chief Admin (2012-13)
VP for Communication and history subject editor, NAQT
Editor emeritus, ACF

"I wish to make some kind of joke about Jeff's love of birds, but I always fear he'll turn them on me Hitchcock-style." -Fred
Euouae
Lulu
Posts: 11
Joined: Sat Jan 13, 2018 7:14 pm

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by Euouae »

Can I see the text for the tossup on Livy, and the conversion stats for the tossup on "pigeonhole principle"?
Jacob Augelli
Robinson Secondary School '18
Vanderbilt '22
User avatar
Important Bird Area
Forums Staff: Administrator
Posts: 6113
Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2003 3:33 pm
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
Contact:

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by Important Bird Area »

2018 HSNCT round 6 wrote:This author inspired a work dedicated to Zanobi Buondelmonti and Cosimo Ruccelai, who were in the Circle of the Orti Orcellari [OR-tee or-kel-AR-ee]. This author's major work, which was written in sections called "pentads," ends by discussing the death of (*) Drusus. A commentary on ten of this man's 142 books focuses on republics, and repeats ideas from The Prince. For 10 points—what Roman historian inspired "discourses" by Niccol\'o Machiavelli?

answer: Livy [LIH-vee] (or Titus Livius; accept Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy)
pigeonhole principle: 12/13/1 in 25 rooms
Jeff Hoppes
President, Northern California Quiz Bowl Alliance
former HSQB Chief Admin (2012-13)
VP for Communication and history subject editor, NAQT
Editor emeritus, ACF

"I wish to make some kind of joke about Jeff's love of birds, but I always fear he'll turn them on me Hitchcock-style." -Fred
User avatar
Tippy Martinez
Wakka
Posts: 221
Joined: Tue Mar 21, 2017 12:48 pm
Location: college park

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by Tippy Martinez »

Could I also see the conversion stats for the Gatsby bonus?
connor mayers
maryland
User avatar
Important Bird Area
Forums Staff: Administrator
Posts: 6113
Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2003 3:33 pm
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
Contact:

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by Important Bird Area »

Nick Carraway: 3 rooms out of 5
Great Gatsby: all 5 rooms
orgastic future: 2 rooms out of 5
Jeff Hoppes
President, Northern California Quiz Bowl Alliance
former HSQB Chief Admin (2012-13)
VP for Communication and history subject editor, NAQT
Editor emeritus, ACF

"I wish to make some kind of joke about Jeff's love of birds, but I always fear he'll turn them on me Hitchcock-style." -Fred
joshxu
Lulu
Posts: 97
Joined: Tue Jun 19, 2018 11:25 pm
Location: UCLA

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by joshxu »

Can I see conversion stats for the witches tossup in round 19 and the knuckleball/Tim Wakefield/Phil Niekro bonus in round 26?
Josh Xu

Santa Monica High School (Class of 2021, Captain, Team President)
UCLA (Class of 2025)
User avatar
Mike Bentley
Sin
Posts: 6461
Joined: Fri Mar 31, 2006 11:03 pm
Location: Bellevue, WA
Contact:

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by Mike Bentley »

Might I offer a suggestion? This thread would be more informative for players and writers if rather than just asking for a question or conversion stats you asked for why you were interested in that data. For instance, "I thought that the question on X had an awfully hard leadin. Could I see the full text of it and conversion stats to confirm this?"
Mike Bentley
Treasurer, Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence
Adviser, Quizbowl Team at University of Washington
University of Maryland, Class of 2008
User avatar
Cheynem
Sin
Posts: 7220
Joined: Tue May 11, 2004 11:19 am
Location: Grand Rapids, Michigan

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by Cheynem »

Would things be simplified if the conversion data on every question was just publicly available? I apologize if they already are, but if they are, then I don't understand why people keep requesting to see them.
Mike Cheyne
Formerly U of Minnesota

"You killed HSAPQ"--Matt Bollinger
jonah
Auron
Posts: 2383
Joined: Thu Jul 20, 2006 5:51 pm
Location: Chicago

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by jonah »

Cheynem wrote:Would things be simplified if the conversion data on every question was just publicly available? I apologize if they already are, but if they are, then I don't understand why people keep requesting to see them.
NAQT does not, and does not plan to, make all conversion data available, but we're happy to take reasonable numbers of requests. I endorse Mike's suggestion that people articulate the reason for their request.
Jonah Greenthal
National Academic Quiz Tournaments
joshxu
Lulu
Posts: 97
Joined: Tue Jun 19, 2018 11:25 pm
Location: UCLA

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by joshxu »

Mike Bentley wrote:Might I offer a suggestion? This thread would be more informative for players and writers if rather than just asking for a question or conversion stats you asked for why you were interested in that data. For instance, "I thought that the question on X had an awfully hard leadin. Could I see the full text of it and conversion stats to confirm this?"
I guess I'll say why I want to see conversion stats for those two. For the witches tossup: my team lost in round 19 on the last question (#22 in the packet), and if we had tied the game, I'm curious as to how teams did on the last tossup in the packet which would've been read in a theoretical overtime. For the baseball bonus: I feel that the Tim Wakefield (who has been retired for seven years) and Phil Niekro (who, despite being a Hall of Famer, isn't a household name) bonus parts were both really obscure, and I want to see how the remaining playoff teams did.
Josh Xu

Santa Monica High School (Class of 2021, Captain, Team President)
UCLA (Class of 2025)
User avatar
Ciorwrong
Tidus
Posts: 696
Joined: Fri Dec 20, 2013 8:24 pm

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by Ciorwrong »

joshxu wrote:
Mike Bentley wrote:Might I offer a suggestion? This thread would be more informative for players and writers if rather than just asking for a question or conversion stats you asked for why you were interested in that data. For instance, "I thought that the question on X had an awfully hard leadin. Could I see the full text of it and conversion stats to confirm this?"
I guess I'll say why I want to see conversion stats for those two. For the witches tossup: my team lost in round 19 on the last question (#22 in the packet), and if we had tied the game, I'm curious as to how teams did on the last tossup in the packet which would've been read in a theoretical overtime. For the baseball bonus: I feel that the Tim Wakefield (who has been retired for seven years) and Phil Niekro (who, despite being a Hall of Famer, isn't a household name) bonus parts were both really obscure, and I want to see how the remaining playoff teams did.
Wakefield and Niekro are easily among the most notable knuckleball-pitchers of recent history. This is a very reasonable bonus for this difficulty IMO.
Harris Bunker
Grosse Pointe North High School '15
Michigan State University '19
UC San Diego Economics 2019 -

at least semi-retired
User avatar
Auks Ran Ova
Forums Staff: Chief Administrator
Posts: 4295
Joined: Sun Apr 30, 2006 10:28 pm
Location: Minneapolis
Contact:

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by Auks Ran Ova »

Progcon wrote:Wakefield and Niekro are easily among the most notable knuckleball-pitchers of recent history. This is a very reasonable bonus for this difficulty IMO.
The second sentence here does not follow from the first.
Rob Carson
University of Minnesota '11, MCTC '??, BHSU forever
Member, ACF
Member emeritus, PACE
Writer and Editor, NAQT
User avatar
Ciorwrong
Tidus
Posts: 696
Joined: Fri Dec 20, 2013 8:24 pm

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by Ciorwrong »

Auks Ran Ova wrote:
Progcon wrote:Wakefield and Niekro are easily among the most notable knuckleball-pitchers of recent history. This is a very reasonable bonus for this difficulty IMO.
The second sentence here does not follow from the first.
Maybe asking for like the team RA Dickey played for last year or whatever is preferable (Atlanta Braves if people care), but Wakefield and Niekro are sufficiently famous to be asked about.

However, it is possible that I think Tim Wakefield is not that hard because I was paying attention to MLB when he was still an active player with Boston. If this is the hardest sports bonus in HSNCT, it's not egregious even though it's certainly hard. I've always maintained that sports bonuses and questions in general are either feast or famine. If you watch sports and pay attention, they are gimmes, but if you don't actively care about sports (or that particular sport) then they seem impossible. Didn't Don Wakamatsu come up at HSNCT last year? Asking for him seems harder than either of these players.
Harris Bunker
Grosse Pointe North High School '15
Michigan State University '19
UC San Diego Economics 2019 -

at least semi-retired
User avatar
AGoodMan
Rikku
Posts: 372
Joined: Sat Dec 20, 2014 10:25 pm

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by AGoodMan »

Is there is a significant difficulty difference between Wakefield and Niekro? I think that's more the issue than anything else. Maybe knuckleball / Dickey / Niekro may have been better?
Jon Suh
Wheaton Warrenville South High School '16
Harvard '20
browen
Lulu
Posts: 39
Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2016 1:33 pm

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by browen »

About this baseball bonus. It was played in Round 26, which featured a total of nine games. Just PM someone from each match to get the conversion data if you really want to get to the bottom of it. Northview swept the bonus in the Northview-Stevenson game, although several of the Northview players are avid fans of the Braves so Phil Niekro was a gimme to them.
Brian Owen
Dorman High School Assistant Coach (2014-present)
Dorman '13
5/31/2009: Never Forget
User avatar
Important Bird Area
Forums Staff: Administrator
Posts: 6113
Joined: Thu Aug 28, 2003 3:33 pm
Location: San Francisco Bay Area
Contact:

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by Important Bird Area »

joshxu wrote:Can I see conversion stats for the witches tossup in round 19 and the knuckleball/Tim Wakefield/Phil Niekro bonus in round 26?
Knuckleball: six rooms out of nine
Wakefield: two rooms out of nine
Niekro: one rooms out of nine

witches: 1/17/1 in 19 rooms
Jeff Hoppes
President, Northern California Quiz Bowl Alliance
former HSQB Chief Admin (2012-13)
VP for Communication and history subject editor, NAQT
Editor emeritus, ACF

"I wish to make some kind of joke about Jeff's love of birds, but I always fear he'll turn them on me Hitchcock-style." -Fred
User avatar
Auger recombination
Rikku
Posts: 279
Joined: Mon Jun 23, 2014 7:00 pm

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by Auger recombination »

Important Bird Area wrote:
2018 HSNCT round 21 wrote:Henri Picciotto phrased a problem about these things in terms of boxes of chicken nuggets. Frobenius numbers answer the question "What is the largest amount that can't be made by combining" these things. Balance puzzles ask you to find a cannonball or one of these objects with a (*) different weight than others. A Bernoulli trial with a 1/2 chance of success is equivalent to—for 10 points—flipping a "fair" object of what kind?

answer: coins (accept fair coins)
While wikipedia tells me that balance puzzles are usually done with coins, I've also heard pills/pill bottles fairly often as well. Since to my knowledge there is no official definition of what is being balanced in the puzzles, what is NAQT's policy for other answers that are used in similar puzzles?
Finn Bender
Edmond Memorial '15
OU '19
Colorado '21
jonah
Auron
Posts: 2383
Joined: Thu Jul 20, 2006 5:51 pm
Location: Chicago

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by jonah »

Kasper Kaijanen wrote:
2018 HSNCT round 21 wrote:Henri Picciotto phrased a problem about these things in terms of boxes of chicken nuggets. Frobenius numbers answer the question "What is the largest amount that can't be made by combining" these things. Balance puzzles ask you to find a cannonball or one of these objects with a (*) different weight than others. A Bernoulli trial with a 1/2 chance of success is equivalent to—for 10 points—flipping a "fair" object of what kind?

answer: coins (accept fair coins)
While wikipedia tells me that balance puzzles are usually done with coins, I've also heard pills/pill bottles fairly often as well. Since to my knowledge there is no official definition of what is being balanced in the puzzles, what is NAQT's policy for other answers that are used in similar puzzles?
I don't think your question admits a single general answer (read the rules and correctness guidelines if you like), but in the context of this tossup, it is moot because the previous two sentences eliminate pills (among others) as a possible answer. The explicit mention of cannonballs to exclude that is meant as guidance to help players, but as Picciotto's problem and Frobenius numbers are never (as far as I can tell) generalizedly phrased in terms of anything other than chicken nuggets or coins, cannonballs would not have been acceptable even if they had not been mentioned.
Jonah Greenthal
National Academic Quiz Tournaments
User avatar
naan/steak-holding toll
Auron
Posts: 2514
Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2011 11:53 pm
Location: New York, NY

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by naan/steak-holding toll »

jonah wrote:
Kasper Kaijanen wrote:
2018 HSNCT round 21 wrote:Henri Picciotto phrased a problem about these things in terms of boxes of chicken nuggets. Frobenius numbers answer the question "What is the largest amount that can't be made by combining" these things. Balance puzzles ask you to find a cannonball or one of these objects with a (*) different weight than others. A Bernoulli trial with a 1/2 chance of success is equivalent to—for 10 points—flipping a "fair" object of what kind?

answer: coins (accept fair coins)
While wikipedia tells me that balance puzzles are usually done with coins, I've also heard pills/pill bottles fairly often as well. Since to my knowledge there is no official definition of what is being balanced in the puzzles, what is NAQT's policy for other answers that are used in similar puzzles?
I don't think your question admits a single general answer (read the rules and correctness guidelines if you like), but in the context of this tossup, it is moot because the previous two sentences eliminate pills (among others) as a possible answer. The explicit mention of cannonballs to exclude that is meant as guidance to help players, but as Picciotto's problem and Frobenius numbers are never (as far as I can tell) generalizedly phrased in terms of anything other than chicken nuggets or coins, cannonballs would not have been acceptable even if they had not been mentioned.
Regardless of what the rules / correctness guidelines say (and they seem clear to me) I think this particular instance is a good illustration of an interesting philosophical problem with quizbowl questions in general.

Let us postulate a player Bob, who has done balance puzzles with pills and only pills, and does not have any knowledge of what the previous two clues refer to. In Bob's world, "pills" the only possible correct answer, and "pills" is a plausibly correct answer to the clue he has buzzed on. Bob buzzes in with "pills" and earns a neg-five. It appears that Bob has played as optimally as possible with his knowledge base, possessed more factually accurate knowledge about the subject matter being tested than anyone on his or the other team, and has nevertheless been punished for this by the way the question was written.

I would posit that this is an edge case, but not an uncommon one - ambiguous cluing like this happens a lot in quizbowl, and does seem to often be resolved with "well, the earlier clues don't point to that." Sure, but from an abstract point of view, the question has punished the player with the most knowledge, rather than rewarding that player. Is there a way to prevent this beyond simply being careful with writing? How should we resolve such issues?
Will Alston
Dartmouth College '16
Columbia Business School '21
jonah
Auron
Posts: 2383
Joined: Thu Jul 20, 2006 5:51 pm
Location: Chicago

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by jonah »

Periplus of the Erythraean Sea wrote:Regardless of what the rules / correctness guidelines say (and they seem clear to me) I think this particular instance is a good illustration of an interesting philosophical problem with quizbowl questions in general.

Let us postulate a player Bob, who has done balance puzzles with pills and only pills, and does not have any knowledge of what the previous two clues refer to. In Bob's world, "pills" the only possible correct answer, and "pills" is a plausibly correct answer to the clue he has buzzed on. Bob buzzes in with "pills" and earns a neg-five. It appears that Bob has played as optimally as possible with his knowledge base, possessed more factually accurate knowledge about the subject matter being tested than anyone on his or the other team, and has nevertheless been punished for this by the way the question was written.

I would posit that this is an edge case, but not an uncommon one - ambiguous cluing like this happens a lot in quizbowl, and does seem to often be resolved with "well, the earlier clues don't point to that." Sure, but from an abstract point of view, the question has punished the player with the most knowledge, rather than rewarding that player. Is there a way to prevent this beyond simply being careful with writing? How should we resolve such issues?
In general, I'm sympathetic to this line of reasoning, and have raised it in several contexts (NAQT and otherwise) when discussing rules and particular questions. In general, most of the people I've discussed it with have not been sympathetic, at least not to the point that they would entertain different rules. I don't remember the details of their reasoning; I remember not being convinced, so for both of those reasons, I will not attempt to explain their argument for the general case.

In this particular case, I'm not very sympathetic, because I have never seen balance problems using objects other than coins or cannonballs (and much more frequently the former). I see some search results for pill-based balance problems, but far fewer than coin-, and some of the pill puzzles are different types of puzzles.
Jonah Greenthal
National Academic Quiz Tournaments
User avatar
vinteuil
Auron
Posts: 1454
Joined: Sun Oct 23, 2011 12:31 pm

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by vinteuil »

Periplus of the Erythraean Sea wrote: Regardless of what the rules / correctness guidelines say (and they seem clear to me) I think this particular instance is a good illustration of an interesting philosophical problem with quizbowl questions in general.

Let us postulate a player Bob, who has done balance puzzles with pills and only pills, and does not have any knowledge of what the previous two clues refer to. In Bob's world, "pills" the only possible correct answer, and "pills" is a plausibly correct answer to the clue he has buzzed on. Bob buzzes in with "pills" and earns a neg-five. It appears that Bob has played as optimally as possible with his knowledge base, possessed more factually accurate knowledge about the subject matter being tested than anyone on his or the other team, and has nevertheless been punished for this by the way the question was written.

I would posit that this is an edge case, but not an uncommon one - ambiguous cluing like this happens a lot in quizbowl, and does seem to often be resolved with "well, the earlier clues don't point to that." Sure, but from an abstract point of view, the question has punished the player with the most knowledge, rather than rewarding that player. Is there a way to prevent this beyond simply being careful with writing? How should we resolve such issues?
I don't think this is a philosophical problem at all. The question needs to say or imply "most commonly illustrated with" or "classic example of." These clues always run the risk of making such sheer fluke negs: indeed, the bet you make as a writer of this kind of clue is that the proportion of people learning the canonical example is sufficiently high as to outweigh this risk. But you can at least potentially mitigate the risk a tiny bit by making it clear that this is only one possible example, even if it's the canonical one.
Jacob R., ex-Chicago
jonah
Auron
Posts: 2383
Joined: Thu Jul 20, 2006 5:51 pm
Location: Chicago

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by jonah »

vinteuil wrote:The question needs to say or imply "most commonly illustrated with" or "classic example of." These clues always run the risk of making such sheer fluke negs: indeed, the bet you make as a writer of this kind of clue is that the proportion of people learning the canonical example is sufficiently high as to outweigh this risk. But you can at least potentially mitigate the risk a tiny bit by making it clear that this is only one possible example, even if it's the canonical one.
That wouldn't hurt anything, but I don't see that it would necessarily mitigate the issue: In Will's example, Bob has only heard of the pill version, and has no reason to expect there to be other ways to phrase the problem, so he is probably still going to buzz.
Jonah Greenthal
National Academic Quiz Tournaments
User avatar
vinteuil
Auron
Posts: 1454
Joined: Sun Oct 23, 2011 12:31 pm

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by vinteuil »

jonah wrote:
vinteuil wrote:The question needs to say or imply "most commonly illustrated with" or "classic example of." These clues always run the risk of making such sheer fluke negs: indeed, the bet you make as a writer of this kind of clue is that the proportion of people learning the canonical example is sufficiently high as to outweigh this risk. But you can at least potentially mitigate the risk a tiny bit by making it clear that this is only one possible example, even if it's the canonical one.
That wouldn't hurt anything, but I don't see that it would necessarily mitigate the issue: In Will's example, Bob has only heard of the pill version, and has no reason to expect there to be other ways to phrase the problem, so he is probably still going to buzz.
Sure, I assume that that was part of the calculus of writing the question; the thought process has to be "some people probably learned this the non-standard way; tough luck for them, I bet an overwhelming majority of people learned it this way." If not, then the clue should just be scrapped altogether....
Jacob R., ex-Chicago
jonah
Auron
Posts: 2383
Joined: Thu Jul 20, 2006 5:51 pm
Location: Chicago

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by jonah »

vinteuil wrote:
jonah wrote:
vinteuil wrote:The question needs to say or imply "most commonly illustrated with" or "classic example of." These clues always run the risk of making such sheer fluke negs: indeed, the bet you make as a writer of this kind of clue is that the proportion of people learning the canonical example is sufficiently high as to outweigh this risk. But you can at least potentially mitigate the risk a tiny bit by making it clear that this is only one possible example, even if it's the canonical one.
That wouldn't hurt anything, but I don't see that it would necessarily mitigate the issue: In Will's example, Bob has only heard of the pill version, and has no reason to expect there to be other ways to phrase the problem, so he is probably still going to buzz.
Sure, I assume that that was part of the calculus of writing the question; the thought process has to be "some people probably learned this the non-standard way; tough luck for them, I bet an overwhelming majority of people learned it this way." If not, then the clue should just be scrapped altogether....
Right, and it was part of the thought process. (Adding "cannonballs" was meant, in part, to help people who knew that clue in isolation but with cannonballs.) But I think adding the vaguer "most commonly illustrated" or "classic example" won't prevent people from buzzing with an answer that's valid (or semi-valid) for that clue but not the previous clue(s), which is (I believe) what Will was focusing on.
Jonah Greenthal
National Academic Quiz Tournaments
User avatar
Carlos Be
Wakka
Posts: 216
Joined: Sun Jun 25, 2017 11:34 pm

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by Carlos Be »

Even if all of these problems were always framed in terms of coins, coins still would be a pretty icky answerline for this tossup since there is nothing about these problems that is fundamental to coins. There's no interesting mathematical property of coins that makes them the object that must be used in these problems; they're just some random object that can be weighed and counted.

Additionally, the descriptor "about these things" in the first line doesn't rule out "integers," "sums of integers," "partitions," or even "gcds" depending on how one interprets the word "about."
Justine French
she/her
User avatar
Auger recombination
Rikku
Posts: 279
Joined: Mon Jun 23, 2014 7:00 pm

Re: 2018 HSNCT discussion

Post by Auger recombination »

jonah wrote:
Kasper Kaijanen wrote:
2018 HSNCT round 21 wrote:Henri Picciotto phrased a problem about these things in terms of boxes of chicken nuggets. Frobenius numbers answer the question "What is the largest amount that can't be made by combining" these things. Balance puzzles ask you to find a cannonball or one of these objects with a (*) different weight than others. A Bernoulli trial with a 1/2 chance of success is equivalent to—for 10 points—flipping a "fair" object of what kind?

answer: coins (accept fair coins)
While wikipedia tells me that balance puzzles are usually done with coins, I've also heard pills/pill bottles fairly often as well. Since to my knowledge there is no official definition of what is being balanced in the puzzles, what is NAQT's policy for other answers that are used in similar puzzles?
I don't think your question admits a single general answer (read the rules and correctness guidelines if you like), but in the context of this tossup, it is moot because the previous two sentences eliminate pills (among others) as a possible answer. The explicit mention of cannonballs to exclude that is meant as guidance to help players, but as Picciotto's problem and Frobenius numbers are never (as far as I can tell) generalizedly phrased in terms of anything other than chicken nuggets or coins, cannonballs would not have been acceptable even if they had not been mentioned.
I've never really loved this reasoning for using ambiguous clues after the first line because if people knew what the earlier clues referred to they would have buzzed on them.
Finn Bender
Edmond Memorial '15
OU '19
Colorado '21
Locked