Hayden wrote: >2) On the other hand (no offense), do you remember how smart you were when you >were that age? I have a royally difficult time writing high school questions because I >don't know what's common knowledge and what isn't for that age level. This is a very good point. A good example was a $1,000 question from last night. None of the kids could even guess the star of "Suddenly Susan" who used to be married to Andre Agassi. The problem is that Brooke Shields is someone from *my* generation who stars in a show that is aimed at people in *my* generation and who has been separated from her sports-star husband long enough that these tykes have never seen her at courtside on TV (if they even watch tennis at all). The writers messed up on this one--not because Brooke Shields isn't sufficiently in the media that the kids *couldn't* have ever come across her, but because she is featured in media segments and slots that kids *wouldn't* pay attention to. Why would they? It's not a bad idea to extrapolate this to collegiate quizbowl (at least for non-NCT-level tournaments). A writer should ask herself, is there a reasonable expectation that the material about which she is about to ask is something that collegiate quizbowlers would have heard about? Upperclass and graduate studies, probably not--underclass and survey coursework, hopefully so.
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