General Question Writing Thoughts

mac4731 <*no_reply_at_yahoogroups.com*> · Mon, 16 Feb 2004 16:01:06 -0000

Since some discussion about question quality is already underway 
concerning this past weekend's Regionals, I thought this would be a 
good time to post about some question writing topics that have been 
on my mind for some time. These are simply my opinions, and I have 
neither the desire nor the time and energy to get into a big debate 
or flamewar about this, so I think I'll simply say what I have to say 
and leave the arguing over its accuracy or relevance to people who 
like such things. I'll also preface this by saying that I have ACF-
style questions and those who write them in mind, but that much of 
what comes up will have further applicability, and I'll trust you can 
decide when that is true.

In the interests of typing as little as possible, my current opinion 
of ACF-style questions is the following:

1) Many aspects of question construction, like pyramid structure, use 
of interesting, relevant, academic clues, etc., are at the highest 
level in the history of the game

2) The general difficulty of the answers in both tossups and bonuses 
almost always ends up being unnecessarily difficult.

3) Questions have become far too long.

The only one of these on which I think I'll elaborate is the second, 
and I'll cite this past weekend as an example, not because it is the 
lone case of this, but because it is fresh in my memory and because 
it is definitely not in the minority on this point. My point is not 
to say that every question from this weekend needs to be made easier. 
In fact, I think that considered individually, each question is a 
perfectly fine question for use in a tournament like Regionals. But 
taken cumulatively, they were too hard for teams that haven't been 
around the circuit for years to enjoy, and far too many enthusiastic, 
improving teams spent round after round frustrated hearing answers 
that they had not heard of. This may not have been as obvious at 
other sites from this past weekend, which were attended almost 
exclusively by elite teams and tournament veterans, but at the 
incarnation I attended this was a major problem. I realize that ACF 
as a format is intended on at least one level to satisfy the more 
hardcore players who desire a high level of difficulty in their 
questions. My point is that there still needs to be enough emphasis 
on combining these with a healthy dose of questions that are 
accessible, and by accessible I mean questions whose answers 
are "easy" because they are of fundamental importance to their fields 
and which have a good chance of being answered even in a room with 
two moderately talented freshmen teams, not those topics that 
are "easy" because they've come up so often that quizbowl veterans 
have all written a question about it and know the clues, even if 
practically no one outside of the game has heard of it. In my 
opinion, there is a place for both hardcore and accessible answers at 
most tournaments, but I think almost every ACF-style tournament is 
unnecessarily difficult, and that the same competitive results 
and "indulgence of the canon" (for lack of a better or less confusing 
phrase) could still be achieved with questions that contained a much 
higher percentage of basic material.

I want to close by saying that I think Raj and the gang did a very 
good job with editing this weekend, and I thank them for the 
incredible effort that they expended in producing the questions. What 
issues I have with the end product is almost entirely the result of 
trends that have been ongoing for years, trends that have been making 
it harder and harder for new players of talent and intelligence to 
become part of the game. Usually, posts of this sort are dismissed by 
most of the quizbowl community because they are made by people who 
are seen as whiners who want to win without bothering to make an 
effort to improve and/or because they hate the format itself. I hope 
you don't dismiss this post too quickly, especially since it is being 
made by someone who personally enjoys sets like last weekend's, and 
that even if your initial instinct is to disagree with me, that you 
will take some time to consider this, because I think it is a problem 
that needs to be addressed. Thanks for your time.

Kelly