Actually, I will go ahead and post on a quizbowl topic I alluded to in my last post. For years, I had been in agreement with most of the QB world in thinking that FAQTP (that's "for a quick ten points" for the very young :)) toss-ups were just plain evil. In the last month or so, though, I have written over 600 one or two-sentence high school questions. Most all of them have been quite fine, in the pyramidal structure. My question then, is, "might there be a place in college-level quizbowl for occasional one-sentence toss-ups?" One obvious exception off the bat: it would not work for formats that use power toss-ups, such as NAQT (since the toss-up would have only 2-3, and maybe only one vital, piece of information). And I also would not want to see it more than once or twice per packet, as having more clues as a general rule IMHO is better. But why is it so bad to test speed and reaction time, at least once in a while? TRASH/trash contains some "true trash" questions, for example, "for ten points, buzz in." I'm not asking for "true trash" academic toss-ups, but what about this: FAQTP, which niece of Creon was punished for her decision to bury her brother Polynices? Answer: _Antigone_ Is that such a poor question? It's still pyramidal in structure, it breaks up the increasingly formulaic monotony of packets, and it makes the game just a little bit shorter. I would especially advocate "just the goose" FAQTP when one plans to write a "duck-duck-GOOSE"* (in other words, obscure-obscure-GIVEAWAY) question --that just lulls a lot of players to sleep before the speed check. Thoughts? -Adam *copyright GWU lexicon P.S. Look for a post about my Survivor 3 contest tomorrow, where the Grand Prize is my copy of 4th Edition Benet's. (Hey, at least I won't be talking about the terrorist attacks. :P)
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