The Quizbowl Resource Center

This is your discussion thread for big-picture issues about the 2018 NAQT SCT (either division). If you'd like to discuss the specific text of a particular question, please use the two threads available for that purpose.

Like last year, this tournament was a blast to edit; NAQT keeps improving its system in significant ways, and Andrew and Auroni were great to work with.

I don't have much to say about the set itself, although I do want to apologize for the somewhat sub-par proofreading. Mostly, I wanted to post to thank Billy (and to a letter extent, Richard Yu and Seth) for being extremely patient, clear with his explanations, and even encouraging with my attempts at science writing; I ended up writing mostly science, and he (they) made it almost fun.

Hi all. Thanks to everyone who played SCT this year. I had a nice time working on the set as usual, and it was great to work with Jacob and Auroni again (Jacob for the second year on SCT, and Auroni for the first time on this tournament and the first time since Minnesota Open, I believe). Thanks to them, to Seth for his science insight, to Andrew and all the other subject editors for their excellent and timely work on edits and conversions, and to our writers. Every year, we're getting more and more questions for our big college sets written earlier and earlier, and a lot of this is thanks to the efforts of people like Matt Jackson, Will Alston, Corry Wang, Will Nediger, Rob Carson, Kurtis Droge, and Danny Vopava, who wrote significant numbers of questions, but it's also a reflection of the long tail of submissions writers who contributed a few questions when they could, so thanks to everyone who wrote for the set. As the current crop of players age out of their collegiate eligibility, I hope they'll continue to contribute to SCT and ICT, because we really benefit from the perspectives of seasoned players.

I think the set turned out well (although I didn't get a chance to read the DI version, unfortunately). I think we could use to be, as Jacob said, a bit more diligent on the proofreading in future. We also had some unforeseen issues flagging repeats this year, possibly due to a technical issue. We're looking into that and hopefully it won't be an issue for future tournaments. I don't think too many repeat issues showed up in the final packets, but if they did, I apologize for that.

As usual, the writers and editors were great about asking about interesting topics in cool ways while still producing questions that are consistent and playable. I hope everyone had a good experience with the set, and please let us know what you thought!

As always, we welcome corrections for future uses of the set. Known errors and typos in the set should be sent to [email protected].

(Thanks to everyone who pointed out the Torquemada/Inquisition issue in round 1 of the Division I set.)

I played D2 SCT at the Stanford site. Here are some observations I wrote down:

-There were a lot of questions on musicals. This probably balances out in the long run, since musicals have not been represented at all in other tournaments this year, but it did feel excessive when I played.
-There were also a lot of questions/clues on string quartets, more than I've seen come up in other tournaments.
-Two history tossups on South Carolina came up (one focusing on the Revolutionary War and one about slaves).
-A tossup and a bonus part (in successive rounds?) on length contraction and time dilation.
-A few very early drops, like Radio Panamericana in the first line for Vargas Llosa

Overall, I enjoyed the set and appreciated the inclusion of some traditionally underrepresented subjects in the canon.

We were aware of the two tossups on South Carolina; although it's a close call because both tossups are largely on 19th-century history, I thought it was acceptable to have both in the set. There was no clue overlap, and we made sure they were separated by several packets.

First off, I want to say thank you to everyone who contributed questions to the set, and to Jacob for editing it; I enjoyed reading this year's set. I do have one big question though: where was the African literature? Maybe I missed it, but at least in the DI set I couldn't find it at all in the non-finals packets.

kitakule wrote:First off, I want to say thank you to everyone who contributed questions to the set, and to Jacob for editing it; I enjoyed reading this year's set. I do have one big question though: where was the African literature? Maybe I missed it, but at least in the DI set I couldn't find it at all in the non-finals packets.

Ditto with Asian lit in tossups, where there was only a mostly biographical Mishima tossup (and the Kurushektra/Mahabharata one I guess). Maybe I’m misremembering, but I feel like there’s a very strong Angliphone skew this set.

geremy wrote:

kitakule wrote:First off, I want to say thank you to everyone who contributed questions to the set, and to Jacob for editing it; I enjoyed reading this year's set. I do have one big question though: where was the African literature? Maybe I missed it, but at least in the DI set I couldn't find it at all in the non-finals packets.

Ditto with Asian lit in tossups, where there was only a mostly biographical Mishima tossup (and the Kurushektra/Mahabharata one I guess). Maybe I’m misremembering, but I feel like there’s a very strong Angliphone skew this set.

NAQT's distribution for the SCT has 5/4 World Literature and 4/3 Any Literature, where these tossups could possibly end up (and the latter doesn't have to include world lit). Since the category is pretty small, it looks like it got pretty heavily skewed towards Latin America this year.

World literature in DI SCT:

tossups: Wide Sargasso Sea, Like Water for Chocolate, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, Saleem Sinai, The Garden Party, China [Lu Xun and Lao She clues]

bonuses: Atwood, Akutagawa, Rizal, Coetzee, Booker Prizes

geremy wrote:mostly biographical Mishima tossup

This was "mixed academic," not filling a literature category.

I will attempt to post a more thought-through analysis (mainly the history) when I have the packets on me, but for now some initial thoughts:

This is likely because I am bad at it, and also maybe because NAQT questions go quickly, but I enjoyed the historiography questions (I recall Civil War, Cold War, half of the 1972 TU (reporting/gonzo but I'm including it because I thought it was a cool concept), 17th century). They felt very accessible and interesting; in general I'm a fan of historiography questions that ask about events/conflicts/people/time periods through historiography more than I like questions on "historians from [insert country]" (I'm aware there is good reason for these questions and am speaking solely about how much I enjoy them).

I have never played DI SCT before, so take this with a grain of salt, but the medium parts of bonuses felt more accessible than I expected. For the most part I liked the bonuses and felt they had very accessible easy/medium parts without being too boring. The hard parts also did not feel too difficult — it often felt that when we had pretty deep knowledge on a subject it was rewarded. I'd be interested in knowing whether the DI average PPB is higher than it was last year. From a very unscientific look through of last year's stats it seemed as though PPBs are higher this year.

The sample size is definitely way too small for this comment to mean much, but I liked the DII SCT's Sports better last year. I still enjoyed this years' but I liked what felt last year like a bit more of an academic or in depth twist on sports (mainly the catchers question using sabermetrics, but the Maris question felt good as well). This basically comes down to comparing 2 or 3 TUs vs. 2 or 3 TUs, but that was my takeaway from a pure "feeling leaving the tournament" standpoint. The sports in NAQT continues to be good though, so whoever is responsible for that has my thanks.

Was anyone able to power the Mercator question? that question seemed like a particularly wild common link.

I loved the Nongqawuse mention in the Belgium/Herero/Xhosa. The Russian Empire TU using a legal code theme was cool. The Banana Boat bonus was quite hilarious thanks for that one :)

Neggman wrote:I have never played DI SCT before, so take this with a grain of salt, but the medium parts of bonuses felt more accessible than I expected. For the most part I liked the bonuses and felt they had very accessible easy/medium parts without being too boring. The hard parts also did not feel too difficult — it often felt that when we had pretty deep knowledge on a subject it was rewarded. I'd be interested in knowing whether the DI average PPB is higher than it was last year. From a very unscientific look through of last year's stats it seemed as though PPBs are higher this year.

Speaking as a writer, I think a lot of this has to do with NAQT's multiple levels of set editing - there are several different people who check over your question to make sure it's got a real easy part and fair middle or hard parts and I'd say they are all fairly generous and player-conscious editors. To the extent that bonus conversion tends to be lower on SCT, I think it's mostly due to the wider range of topics - NAQT cuts back a lot on subjects players have studied extensively (fine arts being most notable) and adds about 3/3 of content that doesn't show up as often in mACF tournaments.

Speaking as an observer, it looks like power rates were lower this year for many players for whom fine arts, lit, and RMPSS are their best areas (e.g. Derek So, Alston Boyd, Matt Lehmann, Jason Cheng, John on Berkeley B) but not for history / geo / CE players (e.g. Kenji, Jakob Myers, Michael Coates, Rohin on Berkeley B). This also may have bumped generalists' powers down. It doesn't seem to be universal, as there are some exceptions. Has anybody else noticed this trend?

What is NAQT's goal for D2 and how is it produced? This year moreso than last, it felt that it was a hodge podge of stuff a bit too hard for IS and toned down D1 answerlines. I felt some bonuses in D2 were lacking in true easy parts and not just easy parts if you've been playing quizbowl for three years easy, a similar concern I had for this year's NAQT collegiate novice. Though, the one game of D1 I did get to watch felt like standard "regular difficulty fare" or what have you.

Division II is indeed intended to be a set that is more difficult than our regular-season high school sets and (a lot) less difficult than Division I SCT. (Our editing process removes a lot of DI SCT content that, for various reasons, can't be "toned down" for Division II use.) Specific examples of bonuses lacking easy parts are welcome.

Neggman wrote:I will attempt to post a more thought-through analysis (mainly the history) when I have the packets on me, but for now some initial thoughts:

This is likely because I am bad at it, and also maybe because NAQT questions go quickly, but I enjoyed the historiography questions (I recall Civil War, Cold War, half of the 1972 TU (reporting/gonzo but I'm including it because I thought it was a cool concept), 17th century). They felt very accessible and interesting; in general I'm a fan of historiography questions that ask about events/conflicts/people/time periods through historiography more than I like questions on "historians from [insert country]" (I'm aware there is good reason for these questions and am speaking solely about how much I enjoy them).

So yeah, I wrote 3 of those 4 questions (Civil War, Cold War, 1972... and I sure wish I had written the 17th century tossup, which I liked!).

Admittedly, I didn't adhere to any specific philosophy or overarching vision when I wrote those questions, but I do think they reflect the personal skew of my own interests in history, as they did to yours. To me, historiography is most interesting when viewed through the lens of real life, i.e. how students and academics interact with and think about certain historical subjects in their everyday studies.

Theoretically, I suppose this would mean more historiographical tossups on actual events and "things," and fewer tossups namedropping 3 random historians from... let's say France. Hopefully, future writers will also take this to heart, especially as historiography appears to be expanding within the college-level canon these days.

I wouldn't say clues about journalism are really historiography, though they should certainly be included.

Corry wrote:

Neggman wrote:I will attempt to post a more thought-through analysis (mainly the history) when I have the packets on me, but for now some initial thoughts:

This is likely because I am bad at it, and also maybe because NAQT questions go quickly, but I enjoyed the historiography questions (I recall Civil War, Cold War, half of the 1972 TU (reporting/gonzo but I'm including it because I thought it was a cool concept), 17th century). They felt very accessible and interesting; in general I'm a fan of historiography questions that ask about events/conflicts/people/time periods through historiography more than I like questions on "historians from [insert country]" (I'm aware there is good reason for these questions and am speaking solely about how much I enjoy them).

So yeah, I wrote 3 of those 4 questions (Civil War, Cold War, 1972... and I sure wish I had written the 17th century tossup, which I liked!).

Admittedly, I didn't adhere to any specific philosophy or overarching vision when I wrote those questions, but I do think they reflect the personal skew of my own interests in history, as they did to yours. To me, historiography is most interesting when viewed through the lens of real life, i.e. how students and academics interact with and think about certain historical subjects in their everyday studies.

Theoretically, I suppose this would mean more historiographical tossups on actual events and "things," and fewer tossups namedropping 3 random historians from... let's say France. Hopefully, future writers will also take this to heart, especially as historiography appears to be expanding within the college-level canon these days.

I also enjoyed the historiography in this set, which was fun and well executed. It seemed like there was more than in previous SCTs, which is probably a good thing.

However, I don't see any reason why historiographical tossups on "actual events and things" are necessarily better than historiographical tossups on historians from a country. It's just as conceivable to clue "3 random historians" about the Civil War as it is to clue 3 random French historians. Nothing about the answerline changes that. For historiographical tossups, the clue selection matters most, because it requires knowledge of the state of the scholarship and debate surrounding a particular topic. I guess the main objection one might have to historiography tossups where the answerline is a country is that the clues are less cohesive; you could have tossups on (important) historians who are unrelated to each other. I definitely think it is more aesthetically pleasing to have a tossup on some theme (say French Annales writers, or British writers on the interwar period), but that is not necessary to have a good tossup. Sometimes, it's hard to common link interesting historians in an accessible way (eg. I don't know how else one would common link Leopold van Ranke other than in a tossup on Germany), so you have to settle for a country answerline.

Great End wrote:
However, I don't see any reason why historiographical tossups on "actual events and things" are necessarily better than historiographical tossups on historians from a country. It's just as conceivable to clue "3 random historians" about the Civil War as it is to clue 3 random French historians. Nothing about the answerline changes that. For historiographical tossups, the clue selection matters most, because it requires knowledge of the state of the scholarship and debate surrounding a particular topic. I guess the main objection one might have to historiography tossups where the answerline is a country is that the clues are less cohesive; you could have tossups on (important) historians who are unrelated to each other. I definitely think it is more aesthetically pleasing to have a tossup on some theme (say French Annales writers, or British writers on the interwar period), but that is not necessary to have a good tossup. Sometimes, it's hard to common link interesting historians in an accessible way (eg. I don't know how else one would common link Leopold van Ranke other than in a tossup on Germany), so you have to settle for a country answerline.

I agree. In case it was written unclearly, I don't think TUs on historians from a country are inherently bad, since a given country's historiographical timeline is often important. I was just highlighting a personal preference that had to do with what I prefer to play not what is actually "better." I enjoy historiography questions about events/people/countries because they come off as very interesting, since they often take the form of "some historian made some claim about some event/country/person" and upon hearing the answerline its fun to think back to the claim highlighted by the clue.

ErikC wrote:I wouldn't say clues about journalism are really historiography, though they should certainly be included.

Agreed. I just lumped it in there because I liked it and it seemed close enough.

Thanks for the fun questions though Corry!

Great End wrote:I also enjoyed the historiography in this set, which was fun and well executed. It seemed like there was more than in previous SCTs, which is probably a good thing.

However, I don't see any reason why historiographical tossups on "actual events and things" are necessarily better than historiographical tossups on historians from a country. It's just as conceivable to clue "3 random historians" about the Civil War as it is to clue 3 random French historians. Nothing about the answerline changes that. For historiographical tossups, the clue selection matters most, because it requires knowledge of the state of the scholarship and debate surrounding a particular topic. I guess the main objection one might have to historiography tossups where the answerline is a country is that the clues are less cohesive; you could have tossups on (important) historians who are unrelated to each other. I definitely think it is more aesthetically pleasing to have a tossup on some theme (say French Annales writers, or British writers on the interwar period), but that is not necessary to have a good tossup. Sometimes, it's hard to common link interesting historians in an accessible way (eg. I don't know how else one would common link Leopold van Ranke other than in a tossup on Germany), so you have to settle for a country answerline.

Whoops, I guess I should clarify too: I don't have any particular problems with historiography questions on countries (in fact, for this tournament, I actually did write a tossup on "Germany" - the theme was historiographical controversies over the Holocaust - that wasn't mentioned above).

Corry wrote:Theoretically, I suppose this would mean more historiographical tossups on actual events and "things," and fewer tossups namedropping 3 random historians from... let's say France.

Instead, what I mean to say here is that I don't really like historiography questions whose clues aren't cohesive, i.e. "random historians from France." In contrast, a tossup on Annales School historians from France would be great!

I don't know how widespread it was, but I was very surprised that titles in the original language were not accepted as answer lines.

I gave "Tikhiy Don" as the answer in the bonus on "And Quiet Flows The Don," because that is the original language title, I had read it in that language, and under game pressure I honestly couldn't remember the exact wording of the official English title (which is not a literal translation). Almost every packet I've read in recent years would give the option of the (transliterated) original language title in the answer lines for translated literary works. However, this time I was ruled wrong because that title was not provided in the answer line. (I of course protested, which turned out to be moot.)

This concerns me whether this was a general trend on the set, or a negligence just with that particular bonus, as not being able to give the original-language title for works that I or others may have read in other languages than English would change my studying strategy considerably.

Generally speaking, our policy is to list the original-language title for all answer lines, because the original-language answer is acceptable (unless, for instance, it was mentioned in the question text). In this particular case, we didn't list the original-language title, but we should've, and I apologize for the oversight.

I don't have the set in front of me right now, but IIRC confirmation bias was the answer to a bonus part in packet 2, and then packet 3 had a 3-part bonus on biases that contained stuff about confirmation bias.