Bad quizbowl

Bad quizbowl is a term used to refer to that which is not good quizbowl, including non-pyramidal tossups, questions which are designed to be transparent or reward lateral thinking, formats that use gimmicks, content that emphasizes trivia, math calculation, or trash to an inappropriate degree, and tournament formats that do not rank teams in a rational way. Canonical examples of bad quizbowl include College Bowl, the National Academic Championship, and MSHSAA. Bad quizbowl has also shown up in some of the lesser tournaments on the independent collegiate circuit, such as Ghetto Warz and Bulldogs Over Broadway. Everything which is labeled as not real or as not quizbowl is also a subset of bad quizbowl. Tournaments may contain occasional examples of bad quizbowl but still be considered good overall; for example, the NAQT ICT. Other tournaments are composed mostly or entirely of bad quizbowl, such as the NAC, and thus are themselves bad.