Criticisms of Reach for the Top - Revision history

Kevin Wang at 17:16, 6 January 2022

2022-01-06T17:16:24Z

Chris Sims at 22:17, 18 July 2021

2021-07-18T22:17:06Z

Chris Sims at 22:16, 18 July 2021

2021-07-18T22:16:45Z

Chris Sims at 22:14, 18 July 2021

2021-07-18T22:14:57Z

Chris Sims at 22:13, 18 July 2021

2021-07-18T22:13:06Z

Chris Sims at 22:10, 18 July 2021

2021-07-18T22:10:44Z

Nicholas Sunderland: /* Incidents */

2016-05-21T01:43:52Z

Incidents

Jacky Li at 02:11, 20 May 2016

2016-05-20T02:11:47Z

Joe Su at 18:33, 24 July 2014

2014-07-24T18:33:07Z

Joe Su at 02:28, 21 May 2014

2014-05-21T02:28:52Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 17:16, 6 January 2022
Line 1:		Line 1:
−	[[Reach for the Top]] (or simply Reach for short) is a popular Canadian high school quiz format that has been criticized to varying degrees by people who have been exposed to [[good quizbowl]] at the university level, for similar reasons that people criticize [[NAC]]. Unlike NAC, Reach for the Top has a monopoly in the country, and remains the predominant format despite inroads by quizbowl (facilitated by [[ONQBA]]) and History Bowl. All cited questions are verbatim from the 2012-2013 regional level competition unless stated. It should be noted that question quality at provincial and national tournaments (although not necessarily regional ones) has improved significantly since that time, so many of these concerns are less relevant to contemporary gameplay. There has been less success reforming tournament organization, however.	+	[[Reach for the Top]] (or simply Reach for short) is a popular Canadian high school quiz format that has been criticized to varying degrees by people who have been exposed to "[[good quizbowl]]" at the university level, for similar reasons that people criticize [[NAC]]. Unlike NAC, Reach for the Top has a monopoly in the country, and remains the predominant format despite inroads by quizbowl (facilitated by [[ONQBA]]) and History Bowl. All cited questions are verbatim from the 2012-2013 regional level competition unless stated. It should be noted that question quality at provincial and national tournaments (although not necessarily regional ones) has improved significantly since that time, so many of these concerns are less relevant to contemporary gameplay. There has been less success reforming tournament organization, however.

	The biggest concerns include:		The biggest concerns include:

← Older revision		Revision as of 22:17, 18 July 2021
Line 1:		Line 1:
−	[[Reach for the Top]] (or simply Reach for short) is a popular Canadian high school quiz format that has been criticized to varying degrees by people who have been exposed to [[good quizbowl]] at the university level, for similar reasons that people criticize [[NAC]]. Unlike NAC, Reach for the Top has a monopoly in the country, and remains the predominant format despite inroads by quizbowl (facilitated by [[ONQBA]]) and History Bowl. All cited questions are verbatim from the 2012-2013 regional level competition unless stated. It should be noted that question quality at provincial and national tournaments (although not ~~necessary~~ regional ones) has improved significantly since that time, so many of these concerns are less relevant to contemporary gameplay. There has been less success reforming tournament organization, however.	+	[[Reach for the Top]] (or simply Reach for short) is a popular Canadian high school quiz format that has been criticized to varying degrees by people who have been exposed to [[good quizbowl]] at the university level, for similar reasons that people criticize [[NAC]]. Unlike NAC, Reach for the Top has a monopoly in the country, and remains the predominant format despite inroads by quizbowl (facilitated by [[ONQBA]]) and History Bowl. All cited questions are verbatim from the 2012-2013 regional level competition unless stated. It should be noted that question quality at provincial and national tournaments (although not necessarily regional ones) has improved significantly since that time, so many of these concerns are less relevant to contemporary gameplay. There has been less success reforming tournament organization, however.

	The biggest concerns include:		The biggest concerns include:

← Older revision		Revision as of 22:16, 18 July 2021
Line 1:		Line 1:
−	[[Reach for the Top]] (or simply Reach for short) is a popular Canadian high school quiz format that has been criticized to varying degrees by people who have been exposed to [[good quizbowl]] at the university level, for similar reasons that people criticize [[NAC]]. Unlike NAC, Reach for the Top has a monopoly in the country, and remains the predominant format despite inroads by quizbowl (facilitated by [[ONQBA]]) and History Bowl. All cited questions are verbatim from the 2012-2013 regional level competition unless stated. It should be noted that question quality has improved significantly since that time, so many of these concerns are less relevant to contemporary gameplay. There has been less success reforming tournament organization, however.	+	[[Reach for the Top]] (or simply Reach for short) is a popular Canadian high school quiz format that has been criticized to varying degrees by people who have been exposed to [[good quizbowl]] at the university level, for similar reasons that people criticize [[NAC]]. Unlike NAC, Reach for the Top has a monopoly in the country, and remains the predominant format despite inroads by quizbowl (facilitated by [[ONQBA]]) and History Bowl. All cited questions are verbatim from the 2012-2013 regional level competition unless stated. It should be noted that question quality at provincial and national tournaments (although not necessary regional ones) has improved significantly since that time, so many of these concerns are less relevant to contemporary gameplay. There has been less success reforming tournament organization, however.

	The biggest concerns include:		The biggest concerns include:

← Older revision		Revision as of 22:14, 18 July 2021
Line 1:		Line 1:
−	[[Reach for the Top]] (or simply Reach for short) is a popular Canadian high school quiz format that has been criticized to varying degrees by people who have been exposed to [[good quizbowl]] at the university level, for similar reasons that people criticize [[NAC]]. Unlike NAC, Reach for the Top has a monopoly in the country, and remains the predominant format despite inroads by quizbowl (facilitated by [[ONQBA]]) and History Bowl. All cited questions are verbatim from the 2012-2013 regional level competition unless stated. It should be noted that question quality has improved significantly since that time, so many of these concerns are less relevant to contemporary gameplay~~, in large part because of the efforts of alumni to introduce better practices to question writing and~~ tournament organization.	+	[[Reach for the Top]] (or simply Reach for short) is a popular Canadian high school quiz format that has been criticized to varying degrees by people who have been exposed to [[good quizbowl]] at the university level, for similar reasons that people criticize [[NAC]]. Unlike NAC, Reach for the Top has a monopoly in the country, and remains the predominant format despite inroads by quizbowl (facilitated by [[ONQBA]]) and History Bowl. All cited questions are verbatim from the 2012-2013 regional level competition unless stated. It should be noted that question quality has improved significantly since that time, so many of these concerns are less relevant to contemporary gameplay. There has been less success reforming tournament organization, however.

	The biggest concerns include:		The biggest concerns include:

← Older revision		Revision as of 22:13, 18 July 2021
Line 1:		Line 1:
−	[[Reach for the Top]] (or simply Reach for short) is a popular Canadian format that ~~is heavily~~ criticized ~~once~~ people ~~are~~ exposed to [[good quizbowl]], for similar reasons people criticize [[NAC]]. Unlike NAC, Reach for the Top has a monopoly in the country, and remains the predominant format despite inroads by quizbowl (facilitated by [[ONQBA]]) and History Bowl. All cited questions are verbatim from the 2012-2013 regional level competition unless stated. It should be noted that question quality has improved significantly since that time, so many of these concerns are less relevant to contemporary gameplay.	+	[[Reach for the Top]] (or simply Reach for short) is a popular Canadian high school quiz format that has been criticized to varying degrees by people who have been exposed to [[good quizbowl]] at the university level, for similar reasons that people criticize [[NAC]]. Unlike NAC, Reach for the Top has a monopoly in the country, and remains the predominant format despite inroads by quizbowl (facilitated by [[ONQBA]]) and History Bowl. All cited questions are verbatim from the 2012-2013 regional level competition unless stated. It should be noted that question quality has improved significantly since that time, so many of these concerns are less relevant to contemporary gameplay, in large part because of the efforts of alumni to introduce better practices to question writing and tournament organization.

	The biggest concerns include:		The biggest concerns include:

← Older revision		Revision as of 22:10, 18 July 2021
Line 1:		Line 1:
−	[[Reach for the Top]] (or simply Reach for short) is a popular Canadian format that is heavily criticized once people are exposed to [[good quizbowl]], for similar reasons people criticize [[NAC]]. Unlike NAC, Reach for the Top has a monopoly in the country, and ~~was~~ the predominant format ~~in Canada until the early 2000s when~~ [[~~Ben Smith~~]]~~, [[Tamara Vardomskaya]],~~ and ~~[[Lisgar]] began to play good quizbowl~~. All cited questions are verbatim from the 2012-2013 regional level competition unless stated.	+	[[Reach for the Top]] (or simply Reach for short) is a popular Canadian format that is heavily criticized once people are exposed to [[good quizbowl]], for similar reasons people criticize [[NAC]]. Unlike NAC, Reach for the Top has a monopoly in the country, and remains the predominant format despite inroads by quizbowl (facilitated by [[ONQBA]]) and History Bowl. All cited questions are verbatim from the 2012-2013 regional level competition unless stated. It should be noted that question quality has improved significantly since that time, so many of these concerns are less relevant to contemporary gameplay.

	The biggest concerns include:		The biggest concerns include:

@@ Line 74: / Line 74: @@
 ==Incidents==
 *At the 2011 Ontario Provincials, several people approached the editors demanding answers after hearing a question: "Why are hippo bites usually fatal?" during the playoff bracket of the Ottawa regionals. This inquiry was received with a shrug and ignored.
-*2016 Ontario. Where do we start?
+* At Ontario Provincials in 2016, Reach appeared to have arranged the preliminary groups randomly instead of seeding the teams. This resulted in many teams that had made playoffs the previous year being put in one group. Another one featured two semifinalists from 2015, and some groups didn't include any teams that had had success in recent years. Reach made no changes to the schedule despite several protests, leading to multiple top teams losing their playoff spots to far weaker ones.
 [[Category:Bad quizbowl]]
 [[Category:Reach for the Top]]

← Older revision		Revision as of 18:33, 24 July 2014
Line 29:		Line 29:

	These questions are of such concern because of the huge point swing in such easy clues. When the clues are not too easy, they are very vague and/or trivial, such as date or location of birth.		These questions are of such concern because of the huge point swing in such easy clues. When the clues are not too easy, they are very vague and/or trivial, such as date or location of birth.
		+
		+	===Focus on Trivia===
		+	Many of the 40 point questions rely on biographical information. Because Reach for the Top games are usually close, this makes these 40 point questions very swingy in a high level game. Sinan Ulusoy, an alumnus of [[Woburn]] and player for [[Alberta]], said that he got good at Reach by memorizing years of important events and famous people's birthdates.

	==Lack of Editing==		==Lack of Editing==

@@ Line 15: / Line 15: @@
 ===Non-Pyramidal Clues===
-Reach for the Top has a question type called the 40-point (who/what/where/etc.) am I? which consists of four clues with decreasing point value, beginning with a opening question. If answered correctly on this question, that team gains 40 points. If neither team guesses correctly, the answer is not read, and a clue worth 30 points is read. This continues for two more questions (worth 20 and 10 points respectively), until, if no team is able to give the correct answer, the answer is read. This is similar to reading each clue of a four clue tossup in order, however these questions are usually problematic. These may be vague, e.g. "I am an institution located on Prince of Wales Drive in Ottawa" which leads to knowledgeable teams resorting to guess between a few answer choices. Often, the first clue would be the date of birth of a person or date of creation of an item, e.g. "I was born in 1982 in England, and grew up in Chapel Row at Bucklebury, a village near Newbury, Berkshire". Anti-pyramid questions of this type, even in the same clue, have been seen.
+Reach for the Top has a question type called the 40-point (who/what/where/etc.) am I? which consists of four clues with decreasing point value, beginning with a opening question. If answered correctly on this question, that team gains 40 points. If neither team guesses correctly, the answer is not read, and a clue worth 30 points is read. This continues for two more questions (worth 20 and 10 points respectively), until, if no team is able to give the correct answer, the answer is read. This is similar to reading each clue of a four clue tossup in order, however these questions are usually problematic. These may be vague, e.g. "I am an institution located on Prince of Wales Drive in Ottawa" which leads to knowledgeable teams resorting to guess between a few answer choices. This specific question was repeated at the 2014 Ontario Provincials.
 *CLUE 1: I am a chemical element with the symbol Hg and the atomic number 80.