AGQBA Quizbowl

[Greenwood_Satvik26]

I want to discuss AGQBA (Arkansas Governer's Quizbowl Association) with the community. AGQBA is the format that we use in Arkansas and it differs from NAQT play.

Format

A typical AGQBA consists of 4 rounds in a game. Keep in mind that in AGQBA there is no "power" for buzzing in early or "negs" for getting a question wrong. The first round is 20 toss-up questions with no bonus for getting a question correct. The second round has 20 toss-up questions with 10 bonus questions available. If a team correctly answers a toss-up, then they will receive a bonus question. A bonus is worth 5 points and there are 4 questions in a bonus. If both teams do not answer the tossup correctly, the play moves to the next question. The round ends when 10 bonus questions have been used or if the 20 toss-up questions end (whichever comes first.) Round 3 is what we call a lightning round or 60-second round. Teams will have 60 seconds to answer 10 questions in a category. The moderator will give 3 categories with a brief description of the category. Teams have one minute to confer to choose a category and the team with the lowest number of points chooses first. After teams have chosen and made substitutions, the first team will begin to answer questions. If a team manages to answer all ten correctly they receive 20 extra points (each question answered is worth 10 points.) Any questions missed by team A are "bounced back" to team B, which means that team B now has a chance to answer those missed questions. Round 4 is another 20 normal toss-up questions with no bonus.

Thoughts

Since there is no power teams can choose to wait until they get a better clue. On the other hand, Team 2 can wait until the end of the question if Team 1 gets it wrong. Questions are still pyramidal and studying is rewarded. Substitutions are now strategic because teams can sub players after hearing the categories for the lightning round. Ex: One of the categories is state capitals so Bob is subbed in for Mike because Bob has the capitals memorized and Mike thinks that New York City is the capital of New York. I'd like to hear some thoughts from the community on the style of gameplay.

Edit: Students are allowed to confer with coaches while picking lightning round categories. I've heard of coaches using this time to give probable answers to questions which is disgraceful in my opinion.

[cchiego]

Questions are still pyramidal and studying is rewarded.

The key issue with AGQBA is that the questions (which do sound like they're still from Questions Unlimited) are not very pyramidal. Here are some of the first few TUs from one state championship match last year:

Following his imprisonment, Oscar Wilde wrote this poem in which he states that "each man kills the thing he loves." Name this poem.

This question isn't pyramidal as the circumstances of Wilde writing the poem (given that it's about being in Gaol/jail) are likely more well-known than the specific quote. It's also just two (maybe 3) clues long, which is far too short to differentiate between different levels of knowledge, e.g. someone who's actually read the poem vs. someone who just knows that Wilde wrote a poem about being imprisoned.

In 1989, two scientists announced that they had produced this type of fusion in their laboratory...

There are no lead-in clues here besides the 1989 date, just an immediate jump to asking about a "type of fusion" which dramatically narrows down the answer range. A better way to ask this question would be to discuss the specific circumstances of the alleged 1989 "discovery", which would reward deeper study and understanding of the actual phenomenon being discussed.

Born in Poland as David Grün, this Zionist statesman and political leader delivered Israel's...

This also isn't very pyramidal as it immediately drops the clues of the first name "David" and "Zionist" and "statesman" in the first 8 words. Again, there are better ways to write this question that don't leave players playing chicken over an early buzzer race.

What differentiation rule must be used to find the derivative of two functions that are being divided...

This isn't pyramidal, it's just a direct "speedcheck" question.

What two South American countries belong to OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum....

Again, a direct speedcheck that relies more on having memorized a list of names of OPEC members than knowing about the oil industry in these countries.

In July of 1976, 29 people in attendance at a Philadelphia convention were killed by what previously unknown illness. Identify this pneumonia-like ailment named for the members of the group that hosted the convention.

This is somewhat pyramidali-ish, but it doesn't make clear from the very start what is being asked for; it could be "pneumonia", it could be "The American Legion," or it could be Legionnaire's disease. One thing that pyramidal questions do a nice job of from a player's perspective is make clear from the very start what kind of answer is being asked for, which this question does not do.

This man selected Levi P. Morton as his vice-president...

This is a binary-matching VP/President question at this point that encourages list memorization of Presidents/VPs rather than learning more specific details about Benjamin Harrison and his administration.

Ignatius J. Reilly fails to become a professor, berates a police officer, and works on a study of the rise of bad taste in what comedic novel by John Kennedy Toole does this...

This question both starts with the most-famous character in the novel and then goes to talk vaguely about other less-well-known aspects of the novel. This is actually the opposite of pyramidal--it's an inverted pyramid. Interestingly, a quick google search shows there was a 2012 bonus question from the Buckeye Spring Tournament (posted online) that begins... "10) This character fails to become a professor, berates the police officer Angelo Mancuso, and works on a study of the rise of 'Bad Taste'"

He was an early explorer of the theory and practice of launching rockets. His work provided...

This is an exceptionally vague lead-in that could refer to many different people in the development of rocketry. This is why pyramidal questions start with uniquely identifying clues. Also, interestingly, the freely available NAQT "You Gotta Know" for Rocket Scientists literally begins "Robert Goddard was an early explorer of the theory and practice of launching rockets. His work provided..."

In short, these are not very pyramidal at all and wouldn't meet "good quizbowl" standards for encouraging students to learn more details and concepts instead of binary list-matching. Note that just because a question is a few sentences in length doesn't make it "pyramidal" and many of the examples here from a state championship match last year actually put the more well-known clues first or start with something too vague to identify.

Since there is no power teams can choose to wait until they get a better clue. On the other hand, Team 2 can wait until the end of the question if Team 1 gets it wrong.

I'm not sure what this means, but the "power" aspect in quizbowl doesn't mean that you *have* to buzz during the power portion. Indeed, if Team 1 buzzes in incorrectly during a question, the vast majority of time in pyramidal quizbowl Team 2 will wait until the end because the potential reward for getting the TU and a bonus is so high. And in pyramidal quizbowl, the clues generally get easier as the question goes on, which is not always true in non-pyramidal.

Substitutions are now strategic because teams can sub players after hearing the categories for the lightning round.

As far as the category rounds go, the main objection that people have to category rounds is that they can be wildly uneven in difficulty, with some exceptionally easy and others hard. It's simply very challenging to write equally difficult category rounds even if you're trying to do so. This gives a team that, by luck, gets a set of questions directed to them a big advantage over a team that gets a much harder set of questions. This introduces a larger element of randomness to the game. It does probably appeal to coaches who enjoy the "strategic" aspect of subbing-in certain players.

There are a number of other issues with the AGQBA format, including the outdated use of the "recognition rule," but probably the biggest problem is the bizarre insistence on using non-internet sources for any protests/challenges in Rule 13, parts B and C:

If a challenge is made, a timer should immediately begin to give the coach a maximum of
five minutes to prove his challenge. Any reference materials used must be in the room
and in the possession of the team issuing the challenge.
(C) Any reference material must be in the room in the possession of the team issuing the
challenge. Only recognized, up-to-date reference materials such as almanacs,
encyclopedias, fact finders, textbooks, dictionaries, or anthologies may be used for
proving challenge. Lists and other quiz bowl preparatory materials published by question
source companies or individuals are not considered acceptable reference materials.
Coaches or their designees will be permitted the use of electronic resources (laptops or
tablets only) with the following restrictions:
● No web resources will be permitted.

[Source]

This seems to provide an enormous advantage for teams that are able to purchase and lug around a large number of these non-Internet sources, especially given that the vagueness of the way that the questions are written would likely invite challenges. It's also pointless; outside of Arkansas, pyramidal quizbowl generally has a solid system of adjudicating protests that encourages the consultation of subject-matter experts, talking with the question writers themselves, and using reliable online sources to determine if an answer/question was correct. There's no need to make this kind of limitation and AGQBA really ought to remove it.

In terms of positive things to say about AGQBA, I will say that it has impressive reach across the state, that it does a pretty good job of getting smaller/rural schools to compete (though with some gaps, especially in the Delta), that it has an admirable amount of support from some local coaches, and that the statewide day-long broadcast of the state championships is very cool (though I believe that is supported by funding directly from the Arkansas State Legislature as well). If they would update the rules and questions, I believe that Arkansas students would have a far better quizbowl experience and would be fully capable of competing against the best teams from around the country on fair questions.

[Stained Diviner]

Ecuador left OPEC over a year before that question was used. I wonder if that means that they recycle questions, they only use written sources when they write their questions, or they just get some things wrong. The question also states that the South American countries are the only OPEC members outside of the Middle East, which has no resemblance to the truth. Another question asks for an African nation, and the answer is West Darfur.

The format Satvik describes is OK, though it is not what I would choose to do, and like Chris I do not like lightning rounds. The questions Chris quotes are not good questions, and Arkansas students deserve better. Unfortunately, those questions are not bad because Chris just cherry picked the bad ones--that's how the questions are.

The problem in Arkansas is not unique, and it would be great if some of the great work they have done organizationally could be combined with better questions. Because of the strong organization, Arkansas has the potential to become one of the top quizbowl states.

[cchiego]

The format Satvik describes is OK, though it is not what I would choose to do, and like Chris I do not like lightning rounds. The questions Chris quotes are not good questions, and Arkansas students deserve better. Unfortunately, those questions are not bad because Chris just cherry picked the bad ones--that's how the questions are.

Yeah just to stress this: the 4 quarter format, lightning rounds, etc. are not the issues here (the minuses of lightning rounds outweigh the pluses for me, but it's not too big a deal). The big issues are the questions and the rules, which do a grave disservice to the students and schools participating.

I know in the past that some Arkansas coaches had poor experiences at tournaments run on pyramidal questions, but those seemed more like logistical issues rather than problems with the questions themselves (and I have also heard of various players and coaches pointing out the issues with the current Arkansas question sources, seemingly without any changes being made).

Satvik and others in Arkansas may be able to confirm, but I believe that most Arkansas invitationals only run 3-4 rounds of prelims and then single-elim playoffs, so there's an expectation for most teams of finishing tournaments early. Again, it would be ideal to guarantee more rounds, but that's also relatively minor in comparison to running on fair (and factually correct, as Reinstein's post points out) questions and having rules that don't require bringing a cart full of textbooks and references to every tournament.

[Greenwood_Satvik26]

Satvik and others in Arkansas may be able to confirm, but I believe that most Arkansas invitationals only run 3-4 rounds of prelims and then single-elim playoffs, so there's an expectation for most teams of finishing tournaments early.

I can confirm that this is how most tournaments work. Sedding matches before lunch and elims after lunch. Our B team usually has to wait for us because they get eliminated early.

[joshxu]

The format described in the original post sounds very similar to that used in History Bowl tournaments, namely a four-quarter system where Q1 is tossups only, Q2 is tossups + bonuses, Q3 is a lightning round, and Q4 is tossups only. The three main differences are that History Bowl only has 8–10 questions every quarter as opposed to 20, that fourth quarter tossups in History Bowl have powers, and that History Bowl requires teams to make substitutions before hearing the three categories of the lightning round. In my opinion, allowing teams to make substitutions after hearing the categories isn't ideal since it creates the "strategic substitution" scenario like the state capital one described in OP. This basically incentivizes teams to send giant rosters with many subs to maximize their chances in the lightning round since you can pick a bunch of players who specialize in the subject and simply sub out those who you know aren't going to help; however, I'm not sure if this format has a tight roster cap, if it does then this problem becomes mitigated. Disclaimer though—I'm definitely biased against any format that blatantly encourages substitutions because I'm from a region where carrying any substitute players is rare and generally discouraged.

Other than that, I think this is a decent gameplay format. In my personal experience playing History Bowl I did find it weird to have the question styles change multiple times within a game, but there wasn't anything competitively unfair about it. I definitely liked the NAQT/mACF format better, but I found it fun every once in a while to play on the History Bowl format. That being said, I agree with the previous posts that question quality and accuracy is a bigger concern here.

[alexdz]

I grew up playing (and outright defending) the format that used to dominate in Missouri. Like Arkansas, it was a four-quarter format, and also like Arkansas, the questions were almost always badly written. Trickery, failing to state what they are looking for, and even straight-up falsehoods were quite common. But for many of us, we enjoyed it because it was all we really had.

As others have echoed here, AGBQA has an impressive reach to many parts of the state. This, too, reminds me of how things stood in Missouri when I played -- lots of teams, but all playing on the kinds of questions that have been illustrated above. I'd love to see the quality improve; in fact, I actually bid on writing the Jr. High questions this past year, but that seemed to go nowhere.

Satvik, I invite you and your team to check out any number of the tournaments available to you in Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas! We're all ready to support the growth of a great, quality, truly pyramidal and accurate game in Arkansas!

[Greenwood_Satvik26]

This basically incentivizes teams to send giant rosters with many subs to maximize their chances in the lightning round since you can pick a bunch of players who specialize in the subject and simply sub out those who you know aren't going to help; however, I'm not sure if this format has a tight roster cap, if it does then this problem becomes mitigated.

There is no roster cap. I play on the freshman team as an eighth grader and regionals will be my last tournament of the season if we don't qualify for state or if I don't qualify for all-star (avg 5 tossups per game.) My coach is planning on moving the 9th graders up to the Sr. High team as "subs." they will only get playing time if they know a lightning round category since our sr high is strong. The freshman are fine with this because their season would have ended anyway and they are getting some playing time. I've seen teams come with 7 subs to games and it's fairly common. Personally, our team plays with 1 sub or no subs. Our 1 sub does not know much but he has amendments memorized which none of us do.

[Greenwood_Satvik26]

Satvik, I invite you and your team to check out any number of the tournaments available to you in Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas! We're all ready to support the growth of a great, quality, truly pyramidal and accurate game in Arkansas!

Will definitely look into this. I will be moving to New Jersey at the end of the school year though. I am an international student who was born in India and moved to the US of A when I was 3. We do not have a greencard yet so I am not an instate student for Arkansas. New Jersey has a special policy where if you complete 3 years of highschool there, you qualify as an instate student. I assume New Jersey uses NAQT so its gonna be a learning experience for me.

[Greenwood_Satvik26]

We also have a lot of comp math which SUCKS. Usually, 3-4 comp math questions in round 1 and 4. Going completely off topic, we had a bonus that said name four [entities]. We got all four correct hehehehehe.

Possibly unclear set content redacted --Mgmt.

[meebles127]

We also have a lot of comp math which SUCKS. Usually, 3-4 comp math questions in round 1 and 4. Going completely off topic, we had a bonus that said name four [entities]. We got all four correct hehehehehe.

I strongly suggest editing out that answerline as it's probably not clear.

[nicole.]

Satvik, I invite you and your team to check out any number of the tournaments available to you in Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas! We're all ready to support the growth of a great, quality, truly pyramidal and accurate game in Arkansas!

Will definitely look into this. I will be moving to New Jersey at the end of the school year though. I am an international student who was born in India and moved to the US of A when I was 3. We do not have a greencard yet so I am not an instate student for Arkansas. New Jersey has a special policy where if you complete 3 years of highschool there, you qualify as an instate student. I assume New Jersey uses NAQT so its gonna be a learning experience for me.

Where in New Jersey? Depending on which High School in New Jersey you are moving to it will most likely be either NAQT Format or Modified Jeopardy (which is also not any good, but is pretty popular in a lot of the state).

[Greenwood_Satvik26]

Where in New Jersey? Depending on which High School in New Jersey you are moving to it will most likely be either NAQT Format or Modified Jeopardy (which is also not any good, but is pretty popular in a lot of the state).

We haven't decided, but we are looking at Montvale or Mahwah. Somewhere close to the New York border.

[nicole.]

Where in New Jersey? Depending on which High School in New Jersey you are moving to it will most likely be either NAQT Format or Modified Jeopardy (which is also not any good, but is pretty popular in a lot of the state).

We haven't decided, but we are looking at Montvale or Mahwah. Somewhere close to the New York border.

Got it, I live about 15 minutes from there so I'm pretty familiar with the high schools over there. Neither of those schools have quiz bowl teams (though Pascack Hills in Montvale has history bowl). In Bergen County, Ridgewood (my alma mater), BCA, Tenafly, Northern Highlands, Northern Valley Demarest, and Leonia have quiz bowl teams and Ramsey and Paramus have history bowl teams.

[Greenwood_Satvik26]

Got it, I live about 15 minutes from there so I'm pretty familiar with the high schools over there. Neither of those schools have quiz bowl teams (though Pascack Hills in Montvale has history bowl). In Bergen County, Ridgewood (my alma mater), BCA, Tenafly, Northern Highlands, Northern Valley Demarest, and Leonia have quiz bowl teams and Ramsey and Paramus have history bowl teams.

Yeah, we looked at all of those towns. I really want to go to Northern Highlands because the schools there are amazing. The house prices are insane though.

[Stained Diviner]

With apologies for going back to a much earlier point, one thing I will add about unusual formats and distributions is that it makes it more difficult to find a question supplier. There are a lot of good questions produced each year, but being picky about the format and distribution means that you can't use them. Unfortunately, a lot of teams follow the lead of their state organization and avoid the use of sets that use a format and distribution that goes against their own state format and distribution for meets and invitationals, even though there are good sets that are easily available.

[bdavery]

Several years ago, I spoke with another vendor by phone, and somehow the AGQBA quizbowl contract came under discussion.

He said that when he won the contract, he had expected extra income (besides the AGQBA payment) from schools wanting his questions in their tournaments/leagues so they could learn his writing style, etc.

But in his excitement at getting the job, he had not fully appreciated that the contract included not only the regional/state questions, but a massive number of questions/rounds of practice material. There was nothing underhanded; he had simply not grasped how things would work, because this was so different than all other states he'd worked with.

After the AGQBA people paid him, they sent his practice material to every school. The schools said "Great!", used it for practice, and...that was it. No extra tournament/league income, nothing. He then said he'd learned his lesson and would never write for them again. I stopped applying for their contract after hearing that, and I don't write in the AR format even though I write in quite a few other formats.

Unless something major has changed, this is still how AGQBA works with vendors, which further reduces the number of vendors willing to work with them.

[Greenwood_Satvik26]

I went to qb practice yesterday and talked with my coach. The questions are not pyramidal (I don't know why I thought they were.) The first 2 sentences did not help at all in most cases and it was a buzzer race during the last sentence. I was also able to learn that our purchased practice materials were house written by someone in our state. Any tips on how I can improve with these AGQBA questions? I could not find any AGQBA questions online for studying use either.

[Greenwood_Satvik26]

Unless something major has changed, this is still how AGQBA works with vendors, which further reduces the number of vendors willing to work with them.

I believe this is still the case as the majority of the questions seem house-written in AGQBA format.

[cchiego]

Several years ago, I spoke with another vendor by phone, and somehow the AGQBA quizbowl contract came under discussion.

He said that when he won the contract, he had expected extra income (besides the AGQBA payment) from schools wanting his questions in their tournaments/leagues so they could learn his writing style, etc.

But in his excitement at getting the job, he had not fully appreciated that the contract included not only the regional/state questions, but a massive number of questions/rounds of practice material. There was nothing underhanded; he had simply not grasped how things would work, because this was so different than all other states he'd worked with.

After the AGQBA people paid him, they sent his practice material to every school. The schools said "Great!", used it for practice, and...that was it. No extra tournament/league income, nothing. He then said he'd learned his lesson and would never write for them again. I stopped applying for their contract after hearing that, and I don't write in the AR format even though I write in quite a few other formats.

Unless something major has changed, this is still how AGQBA works with vendors, which further reduces the number of vendors willing to work with them.

Interesting that a state organization that apparently gets a $100,000 subsidy direct from the state legislature (note that $40k goes to broadcast the state champs) is so stingy with paying for questions. [EDIT: see below post on expenses]

FWIW, with about 450 schools participating between Jr High and High, I estimate that the costs of using pyramidal questions for the Arkansas state series would likely be about $8,000 if there's no negotiated discount. It's great that the state legislature supports quizbowl in Arkansas so much, but it seems like at the very least they could purchase better questions with that support.

They also seem to charge schools at least $85 a year to participate in the state tournament series and sell practice questions (what Satvik probably wants for study material), so it's not like they're giving away all the questions for free either and should have some additional revenue in the ~$40,000 range as well. Do they pay moderators at these state events? It doesn't seem like that from that I can find on their website [EDIT: and it's unclear as well from the itemized expenses, though it might be possible.]

Of course, Arkansas teams could simply use the tens of thousands of free questions posted on quizbowlpackets.com and other websites to study and not have to worry about practice material costs, but that might not help them if the state championship matches contain outdated non-pyramidal questions.

[cchiego]

Based on what looks like the filed 2017 IRS tax documents, here are the AGQBA yearly expenses. The big thing that stands out to me there in the ~$140,000 a year budget is:

$7,710 for "quiz materials" [I am assuming that's questions? if so, they could literally switch to using pyramidal questions now without paying anything extra]

So... it doesn't seem like it's a lack of $$ for questions. It's just a lack of will to use pyramidal questions, which in my opinion make for a much better and fairer experience for the players and teams.

[eygotem]

Notably, there are some older packets on https://quizbowlpackets.com/ that would be closer to the AGQBA format—my HS team practiced on the 1998 GDS tournament for last year's MSHSAA state tournament (which used not-very-good Academic Hallmarks questions).

As for a pyramidal replacement for Chip bowl, NAQT has a history of providing custom sets for various state formats, including the old MSHSAA four-quarter format and the current IHSA and VHSL formats (which all differ from "regular" quiz bowl in substantial ways).

[cchiego]

ONLY Coaches and Judges may research and utilize online resources (accessed by phones, tablets, computers, etc.) either in the competition room, or in a designated research area, in order to research content challenges.

I am pleased to see that AGQBA seems to have noticed some of the issues pointed out in this thread and changed its procedures over the summer to allow the use of online resources by coaches and judges.

That said, it's generally easier to resolve the issue of protests/challenges when you use well-written pyramidal questions since most of the time that makes such content-based protests unnecessary. Hopefully that can be the next change to come to Quiz Bowl in the Natural State.