Adam : <<My question then, is, "might there be a place in college-level quizbowl for occasional one-sentence toss-ups?">> and Matt : <<Don't treat high school tournaments like the dumping ground or laboratory for bad/untested question formats.>> The fact is that the high school game has been replete with the one-sentence-style tossup. Why it is so prevalent are many: speed of writing a lot of questions, the emphasis of list knowledge, and speed of the game are among the reasons I can think of off the top of my head. It's probably the last bastion of spelling and grammar tossups (cf. Academic Hallmarks). The question is whether these same skills should be rewarded with college level players. I agree anticipation is a key skill, though I think more emphasized in high school than college simply because the college circuit has been staunchly against screws & hoses. The fact is that the more information you have in the question, the harder it is to challenge it. Hence that's why I think the ACF movement started from the College Bowl debacles of the past. I do think some variety is needed, and that the high school circuit is a place where that variety can be used to make the game fun for everyone yet serve some educational purpose (however educational is defined to you). However, one must keep in mind the short-term and long-term interests of the kids: short tossups are fun and emphasize speed but hurt one's readiness to the college circuit (which I think many high school coaches and admins don't care about [but that's another issue]). Most kids consider many of our longer questions "too hard," even if the answer is something for which they are familiar; consequently, they don't have as much "fun" and are less likely to continue playing... which in the long run is NOT beneficial for the college circuit either. We have trash tournaments that at this time take their place to make sure that those of us who like the game (format-wise at least) know that it is a game... something that everyone enjoys playing. Of course, this discussion could better be placed in qbtheory, but I do think you can have "shorter" tossup questions be placed in with "longer" questions. If anything, we should all strive for questions no longer than four lines (12-point font) to six lines. Maybe the change of pace can be applied with varying the length of the pyramidal-style tossups rather than having a few one-line zingers out there, no matter how well those questions are written. Make the questions you submit sound much less like you cribbed it completely word-for-word from an encyclopedia (which I admit is easier said than done). As a reader, my perspective is that doing that may make reading 12-15 of these rounds every weekend a bit more fun for me too. Where the "one-sentence tossups" really should apply are in the bonus prompts. No one prompt should be more than two sentences. No lead-in to a bonus should really be more than two sentences in untimed and one VERY short sentence in timed. And never EVER write a question with "can you name...? " :)
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