Mixed impure academic
"Mixed impure academic" is a name for a type of quizbowl question that contains both academic and pop culture clues.
For example, a "mixed impure academic" question about Pittsburgh might include literature clues from August Wilson's plays, historical clues about the French and Indian War, and sports clues about the Pittsburgh Penguins or the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Some "mixed impure academic" tossups may be common link tossups.
Etymology
The name comes from NAQT's official question distributions, which includes categories for both "mixed impure academic" and "mixed pure academic" questions under a "Miscellaneous" category (which accounts for roughly 6% of all NAQT questions).[1][2]
The name can be understood as being formed by the terms "mixed" (meaning a question whose clues come from several categories) and "impure academic" (meaning "not purely academic" in NAQT's specific usage[3]).
Incidence
"Mixed impure academic" questions are rare outside of NAQT events. Almost no mACF tournaments include "mixed impure academic" questions, either as a separate category or otherwise (such as within an "Other academic" category).
Assessment
Proponents of "mixed impure academic" questions may see them as helping improve conversion rates, especially for some questions for which teams might not know the answer from more difficult academic or pop culture clues alone. Opponents tend to find such questions confusing and prefer questions whose clues are entirely academic or entirely pop culture.[4][5]
Notes
- ↑ https://www.naqt.com/college/distribution.jsp
- ↑ https://www.naqt.com/hs/distribution.jsp
- ↑ This concept is unlikely to be referred to by most everyone else using any term that adds a modifier to "academic," since the premise of good quizbowl presupposes that questions are purely academic (except for those few that are explicitly on pop culture).
- ↑ https://hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=252568#p252568
- ↑ https://hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=214101#p214101