Re: [quizbowl] Re: ACF Regionals

William Paul Meyerson <*meyerson_at_mmailliw.yahoo.invalid*> · Sun, 16 Feb 2003 17:50:35 -0500 (EST)

Hungry Hungry Buzzers... first to ring in the most times wins!  :-)

On Sun, 16 Feb 2003, lone1c wrote:

> --- In quizbowl_at_yahoogroups.com, tgallows <no_reply_at_y...> wrote:
> > Wow -- now here's an unusual way to get to 55.8 ppg:
> > "Nathan Florida State 0 105 65" -- that's powers (zero, of course),
> > tossups, and negs, in 13 rounds.
> >
> > Great job of editing by Subash -- I thought the questions were
> > excellent.  A couple of repeats and a minor glitch here and there, but
> > overall the questions were well-structured and well-written/-edited.
> > Thanks also to Charlie and the moderating/stats crew at UTC for
> > another good tournament.
> >
> > --Raj Dhuwalia, UF
>
> I'm afraid the paeans for the packets are not entirely due to Subash.
> Some of the credit probably had to go to the moderating staff, who
> probably had to do a lot more "on the fly" adjustments than you think,
> Raj.
>
> I can recall two questions where I failed to note that the answer to a
> later part of the bonus was mentioned earlier in the same bouns. In
> addition, a few questions (such as the "greatest common divisor"
> bonus, to name the most egregious example) were completely
> inappropriate for a tournament at the level of ACF regionals. In
> addition, the structuring of questions was very scattershot--a number
> of questions turned into "Hungry, Hungry Buzzer" within the first two
> lines.
>
> Acceptable and alternate answers were also inconsistent. For example,
> a one Russian literature tossup listed four acceptable English answers
> plus the original Russian, while a question on a class of organic
> compounds which arguably allowed the functional group as an answer did
> not even include a prompt. Also, some Renaissance paintings with
> multiple titles were listed with only a single acceptable title; this
> actually led to an incorrect call at the NE Regionals--although by
> sheer luck it did not effect the final result.
>
> However, the biggest problem was the huge number of
> errors--grammatical, typographical, and, unfortunately, sometimes
> factual--that remained in the final packets. I can recall at least two
> or three blatant errors in the set (the "Concord Symphony" being among
> the more glaring ones). But most packets had at least one question
> where I was scratching my head trying to figure out just what the
> question was saying. Sometimes this was because pronouns or verbs were
> omitted, or because there were gems like "this rule this principle
> states. . . .", or the pronoun rule was not being followed (use of
> "they" when the answer is singular).
>
> While I certainly appreciate the large amount of effort required to
> put together a set of packets like these, I can't help but feel that,
> at the very least, a "fresh pair of eyes" would have been of enormous
> benefit to catch and fix the typographical problems, and catch some of
> the other errors. While this means that there is one less person who
> can play on the packets, I think the improvements to the packet set
> (and perhaps possible pecuniary compensation?) as a whole would
> justify the effort.
>
> --AEI
>
>
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