Georgia 2007-2008

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Auks Ran Ova
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Re: Georgia 2007-2008

Post by Auks Ran Ova »

Ben_Dodson wrote:Your definition of "non-unique" seems to imply that a question must begin with a clue that sets specific parameters that only one answer can fulfill.
Uh...yes. This is the point.
If this is the case, then you are asking way too much. No tournament set has questions only like that.
Just the good ones!
[stuff about how rad "guessing" is]

In my humble opinion, "One of the first American writers to make a living from writing" is not "non-unique" at all.
What?! What are you talking about? The words "one of the" make it the exact opposite of unique!
The words "first", "American", and "to make a living from writing" already key you into a very specific time frame and culture to choose from. Furthermore, you now know that the question is Lit, so at that point you are scrolling through your list of 1800's-ish American male writers. Meanwhile, the less skilled player on the other team might be going through their list of the hundreds of American writers and be at a disadvantage.
Or you could have a specific, actually-uniquely-identifying fact about the person that someone might actually know.
The Shakespeare question is also unique since you know they are asking for an Elizabethan Shakespearean comedic play.
Dude, that's not unique! It narrows it down a little, yes, but not in the way that "in this work, [minor character] took part in [action]" or whatever might.
That's about 7-8 plays,
Not unique!
[...]

I don't think calling them "non-unique" would be very fair
They are the exact opposite of unique!
considering you are not suppose to power every question right away. That'd just be boring. Using induction, buzzing when you are 60%, infering the answer based on that one thing you learned from your 2nd grade teacher's wall poster behind the finger paints, well that on the other hand is some damn fun quizbowl.
Ugh. Loading questions with actual facts, even jv questions, is always preferrable to this. Even with real clues there's still plenty of induction. No one, even some hypothetical sixth-grader with perfect knowledge of Nathaniel Hawthorne, will be buzzing off the leadin "He was an early American writer."
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Re: Georgia 2007-2008

Post by AlphaQuizBowler »

Your guessing at answers demonstrates the annoyance of non-unique lead-ins.
Ben_Dodson wrote:For JV, I'd bet the answer was Dickinson.
It was Jane Austen.
The Galileo one, well if it's a telescope then it's really easy for a lead-in, but that's not what you're discussing. If it's not the telescope, then there's only so many things that Galileo invented and it also sets you on that track.
The other team missed with telescope off the first sentence, so we got to sit through the question until the give-away. It was thermometer.
I have no idea how the biology question is non-unique. How processes end with the production of that?
I missed with the Calvin Cycle, which is at the end of photosynthesis and thus has the same end product.
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Re: Georgia 2007-2008

Post by NoahMinkCHS »

Alpha points out exactly what the problem is with your logic.

On the anonymous works question, it's entirely reasonable to think that a less-knowledgeable team might only know Dickinson did that, while the more knowledgeable team would know about Dickinson, Austen, and others. If the answer had been Dickinson, then the less-knowledgeable team wins; because the answer wasn't her, it's become something of a hose -- a good player might say, oh this is JV, it must be Dickinson... and lose points that way. Either way, the guy that buzzed incorrectly has a legitimate beef, since what he said was correct at the point when he buzzed.

With a truly unique lead-in (that points to exactly one thing rather than 7-8), that's not possible. The first clue, if done right, is hard -- so you don't get a buzzer race -- but it also could tip a really good player off if he knows that particular title, as well as limiting the set of answers that are actually correct to one.* Now, there is a chance that a less-knowledgeable player could say, "That sounds French, and the only French author I know is..." and get it right... but that's dumb luck, rather than the question intentionally rewarding guessing. (Perhaps you're in favor of that, which I guess is fine, but it's not "good quizbowl" and kind of contrary to the point of the game being based on knowledge...) At any rate, the more-knowledgeable player would have the advantage.

I think you make a good point about induction, and I do agree it can be very fun to figure things out without being a direct fact-I-know/buzz/answer sequence all the time. But there are ways to do that without being vague or using hoses.

---
*I should note that I had a teammate who objected to the "unique lead-in" on the grounds that saying "This man" was non-unique and thus I was wrong that the answer space had to be limited immediately. But that's obviously not a substantive clue. I guess the first substantive clue should be unique... and I think even something as vague as "one of Shakespeare's first comedies" has at least two pieces of substantive info, so it's a problem.
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Re: Georgia 2007-2008

Post by The Atom Strikes! »

Dickinson? Do you guys mean Dickens?
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Re: Georgia 2007-2008

Post by The Time Keeper »

SwissBoy wrote:Dickinson? Do you guys mean Dickens?
No?
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Re: Georgia 2007-2008

Post by DumbJaques »

Dickinson? Do you guys mean Dickens?
HENRY4LYFE

EDIT:
Oh, yeah, to clarify what I was saying earlier: Noah is right in that we're discussing a line that we think should be drawn in regards to substantive clues. If the lead-in phrase "this american author" is used, well, that's not really problematic. But when clues get more specific than that while still staying way too general for anyone to reasonably buzz (or, conversely, become immediately transparent), it's clearly a situation where the purpose of a pyramidal tossup is circumvented. I do think the inductive stuff you're calling for has a place, and I think that's usually found inherently on most questions. You can use context clues to figure out certain things, rather than being given overt, non-specific clues. For example, a clue describing an amusing interaction in a drama between two people with Greek-sounding names might point you toward an Aristophanes work, but it won't help you get the tossup before someone who knows that Pisthetairos and Euelpides are characters in The Birds. The point is that at no point is the question being compromised by preventing someone with knowledge from buzzing, which is why we're identifying these problems with those kind of clues.
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Re: Georgia 2007-2008

Post by The Atom Strikes! »

Dolemite wrote:
SwissBoy wrote:Dickinson? Do you guys mean Dickens?
No?
Er, sorry... was thinking of local Declaration of Independence signer John Dickinson... Emily Dickinson makes much more sense with regards to confusion with Jane Austen.
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Re: Georgia 2007-2008

Post by ragnarok2012 »

Hey Chattahoochee is going to NAQT? I thought you guys couldn't make it. Thats pretty cool. Hope GA can make some sort of showing this year.
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Re: Georgia 2007-2008

Post by AdamL »

The seniors are definitely unable to attend. There is still a possibility of sending a team of juniors/underclassmen, but we're not sure.
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Re: Georgia 2007-2008

Post by jrbarry »

GATA Board of Directors met yesterday and this morning. Our 5-player experiment is, apparantly, a success as no one brought up going back to 4-player teams in our various state tournaments. One change: we are going to ask NAQT for an A set to make our JV State Tournament questions sets. We'll see how that works.

Officers for the next two years:

President: Jeff Burns, Ola High School
Vice President: Gabe Council, Baconton Charter School
Secretary: Nancy Close, Starr's Mill High School
Treasurer, Elliott Rountree, Chattahoochee High School

Middle School State is February 28, 2009 at Trickum MS in Lilburn

Junior Varsity State (Classes AA-AAA-AAAA-AAAAA) is April 18, 2009 at Ola High School in McDonough.

Varsity State is March 6-7

Class A at Hebron Christian School in Dacula (JV in Class A at that site on that same date!)

Classes AA and AAA at Bleckley County High School in Cochran

Classes AAAA and AAAAA at site TBA.
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Re: Georgia 2007-2008

Post by AlphaQuizBowler »

Just out of curiosity, when GATA adapts the NAQT 3-part bonuses to 2-part bonuses, does it keep the easy and middle parts, or the easy and hard parts, or a different configuration?
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Re: Georgia 2007-2008

Post by Matt Weiner »

AlphaQuizBowler wrote:Just out of curiosity, when GATA adapts the NAQT 3-part bonuses to 2-part bonuses, does it keep the easy and middle parts, or the easy and hard parts, or a different configuration?
I'm also curious about the procedure, since a significant portion of NAQT's bonuses are not in "3 parts for 10 each" structure.
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Re: Georgia 2007-2008

Post by jrbarry »

GATA has a State Quizmaster, a neutral guy and former high school and college quiz bowl player, who culls through the NAQT sets and adapts them to our question formula. In doing that, he modifies several bonuses to be 2-parters which is what we specify. We also have a math teacher (and 25-year quiz bowl coach) who writes our math tossups and bonuses to conform to Georgia curriculum.

We are pleased to be using NAQT questions as we have done every year (except one) since NAQT has been selling high school questions. But we believe that our question subject formula is superior to what we see in the usual NAQT set and thus an NAQT set needs some modifying to meet our needs. Certainly the quiz bowl "world" is big enough for Georgia to use its own criteria, criteria that date back to 1989?
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Re: Georgia 2007-2008

Post by AKKOLADE »

jrbarry wrote:Certainly the quiz bowl "world" is big enough for Georgia to use its own criteria, criteria that date back to 1989?
That's pretty defensive for a simple question about how you work on the bonuses!
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Re: Georgia 2007-2008

Post by AlphaQuizBowler »

Mr. Barry,
Thanks for the information. I agree that the exclusion of pop culture and current events from GATA gives it a better subject formula than NAQT. However, you didn't answer my question, so I'll try to make myself clearer with an example:
I practiced on an NAQT A-set this week that had a bonus on Thornton Wilder works. The anwers were Our Town, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, and The Skin of Our Teeth. Our Town is the easy part; almost all quizbowl players should get that. The Bridge of San Luis Rey is the middle part, as those who studied literature a little should get it. The Skin of our Teeth is difficult, you would have to study Wilder works to get that.

My question is: Which of those parts would GATA leave out if it made that bonus a 2-part bonus? The reason I ask is because it would have a significant effect on the bonus difficulty. A bonus of The Bridge of San Luis Rey and The Skin of Our Teeth would be fairly difficult, while Our Town and The Bridge of San Luis Rey would be rather easy.
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Re: Georgia 2007-2008

Post by jrbarry »

alpha: I see what I missed in my post (in terms of what you wanted to know).

We have given the quizmaster no specific directions as to which part to omit. He did tell me once that he alternated omiting part two and part three but generally never omitted part one. You have some ideas on that?


To all: pardon if I seem too defensive when there is no "offense." BUt what we do in Georgia (some things, it would seem) has been attacked here in the past which makes me want to defend what we do even now.
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Re: Georgia 2007-2008

Post by AlphaQuizBowler »

I said this in the earlier discussion on the GATA JV tournament, but I think the bonuses were too easy at that tournament. Because of this, I would prefer, if GATA is adapting an A-set for JV states next year, that the 1st and 3rd parts be used. This seems to be the best way to differentiate knowledge with 2-part bonuses, as most teams should get 10, and only the top teams will get 20.
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Re: Georgia 2007-2008

Post by NoahMinkCHS »

AlphaQB: I'd be surprised if the easy-medium-hard parts were invariably in that order. A good bit of the time, it makes sense to do it in a different order -- like work from plot (middle difficulty)/author of that work (easy)/other work by author (hard).
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Re: Georgia 2007-2008

Post by ragnarok2012 »

Just want to congratulate Chattahoochee and Brookwood for making the playoffs at PACE. With that field, that is something to be proud off.
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