Hi everyone, I attended Penn Bowl this weekend as a moderator and must say that I enjoyed myself immensely, even though this was the first Penn Bowl where I had moderated as opposed to playing. As a moderator, I did notice a number of questions that were repeated (though the 2nd St. Kitts questions was cut before we even started, so most of those playing on the East coast didn't know about this one) and heard people griping about repeats on a fairly regular basis. My question therefore is, what's the matter with repeats? This is particularly aimed at repeats that don't share any new information between the two. The way I see it, there are several places where repeats should not be a problem. The examples below may be very primitive, but it applies to just about any subject. 1. A creator is used with his/her creation and then the creation comes up separately. Let's take Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn as an example here. Let's say there's a tossup on Mark Twain that ends with, "FTP, name this author of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn." Then, a few packets later there's a tossup or bonus part where the answer is Huckleberry Finn. I see no problem with that as hearing the first question and knowing that Mark Twain wrote it does not constitute knowledge of the book and vice versa. Even if a supposed tossup on Huckleberry Finn ended "FTP, name this novel by Mark Twain" that doesn't mean that it should be considered a repeat. As most people know, Mark Twain wrote a number of novels and this is not a specific giveaway. I suppose that this would not be true for some select authors (say, Harper Lee), but I don't think that teams should be griping about this as a repeat. 2. The same answer is used for more than one tossup or bonus part. For this example, let's use George W. Bush. There are a lot of tossups, bonuses, bonus parts, etc. that could be written about George W. Bush. One could use characterizations made about him by others in the press, his history as an oil man in Texas, his time as the owner of the Texas Rangers, what happened in Texas when he was governer, etc. I see no problem with multiple packets containing multiple tossups on George W. Bush as long as NO SPECIFIC CLUE IS REPEATED. Thus, if a tournament director wants to include two different tossups on President Bush than I don't see a problem with that as long as the information is different in each tossup. Even more than tossups, this applies to bonus parts where Bush might be an answer, and then a separate tossup. For most subjects there is enough information to write at least a tossup and a bonus part (and if not, perhaps we shouldn't be asking about them) with different information and which can both be used in the same tournament. To be sure, I am not advocating a tournament where Mark Twain and George W. Bush questions come up every round (aside from being tedious, it would also tend to minimize the benefit of learning new things on many subjects). I am also not saying that all of Penn Bowl's repeats fit in these categories (as there were a few legitimately repeated clues), but a number of the ones I heard complained about did fit my above categories. When I noticed a repeat using alike clues came up, I removed the question from competition, as I think should be done and should try to be avoided in the editing process. And I am aware, having edited tournaments previously, that removing repeats can be difficult, no matter how hard you try. But I am saying that if a subject comes up more than once in a tournament and no competitive advantage is gained from having heard the previous question in the same tournament, then I don't see where the problem is. Michael Philpy Internal Director, Michigan Academic Competitions (though not speaking for Michigan, MAC, or anyone else but myself)
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