National Tournament of Academic Excellence - Revision history

Matt Weiner: /* Results */

2025-05-30T04:13:28Z

Results

Matt Weiner: /* Results */

2025-05-28T02:34:28Z

Results

Matt Weiner: /* Results */

2025-05-28T02:16:52Z

Results

Matt Weiner: /* Criticisms */

2025-05-27T07:05:21Z

Criticisms

Chris Holder: /* NASAT */

2024-11-19T15:05:50Z

NASAT

Kevin Wang: /* Criticisms */

2022-01-06T15:13:56Z

Criticisms

Matt Weiner: /* Topic and Question Formats */

2021-05-03T18:42:45Z

Topic and Question Formats

Matt Weiner: /* Criticisms */

2021-05-02T22:00:31Z

Criticisms

Matt Weiner: /* Criticisms */

2021-05-02T21:59:32Z

Criticisms

Matt Weiner: /* Criticisms */

2021-05-02T21:57:08Z

Criticisms

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 |[[2015 NTAE|2015]] || [[2015 Grand Junction|Grand Junction]] || [[Fisher Catholic|Fisher Catholic]] || [[2015 Oklahoma Panasonic Team|Oklahoma All-Stars]] || [[2015 St. Martin's Episcopal|St. Martin's Episcopal]] || [[2015 Florida Panasonic Team|Florida All-Stars]] || [[2015 Downingtown East|Downingtown East]]
 |}
 == External links ==

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 |[[1997 PAC|1997]] || [[1997 Klein|Klein]] || [[1997 Maryland Panasonic Team|Maryland All-Stars]] || [[1997 Rufus King|Rufus King]] ||[[1997 Dunbar|Dunbar]] || [[1997 Minnesota Panasonic Team|Minnesota All-Stars]] || [[1997 State College|State College]]
 |- style="text-align:center;"
-|[[1998 PAC|1998]] || [[1998 Maryland Panasonic Team|Maryland All-Stars]] || [[1998 Florida Panasonic Team|Florida All-Stars]] || [[1998 Washington, D.C. Panasonic Team|Washington, D.C. All-Stars]] || [[1998 South Carolina Panasonic Team|South Carolina All-Stars]] || [[1998 Illinois Panasonic Team|Illinois All-Stars]] ||
+|[[1998 PAC|1998]] || [[1998 Maryland Panasonic Team|Maryland All-Stars]] || [[1998 Florida Panasonic Team|Florida All-Stars]] || [[1998 Washington, D.C. Panasonic Team|Washington, D.C. All-Stars]] || [[1998 South Carolina Panasonic Team|South Carolina All-Stars]] || [[1998 Illinois Panasonic Team|Illinois All-Stars]] || Kentucky
 |- style="text-align:center;"
 |[[1999 PAC|1999]] || [[1999 Florida Panasonic Team|Florida All-Stars]] || [[1999 South Carolina Panasonic Team|South Carolina All-Stars]] || [[1999 Maryland Panasonic Team|Maryland All-Stars]] || [[1999 North Kansas City|North Kansas City]] || [[1999 Ezell-Harding|Ezell-Harding]] || [[1999 Alief Hastings|Alief Hastings]]

@@ Line 114: / Line 114: @@
 |[[1993 PAC|1993]] || [[1993 Torrey Pines|Torrey Pines]] || [[1993 Maryland Panasonic Team|Maryland All-Stars]] || [[1993 South Carolina Panasonic Team|South Carolina All-Stars]]|| [[1993 Dupont Manual|Dupont Manual]] || [[1993 Iowa Panasonic Team|Iowa All-Stars]] || Oregon
 |- style="text-align:center;"
-|[[1994 PAC|1994]] || [[1994 Thomas Jefferson (VA)|Thomas Jefferson]] || [[1994 Rufus King|Rufus King]] || [[1994 Dupont Manual|Dupont Manual]] || || [[1994 Maryland Panasonic Team|Maryland All-Stars]] ||
+|[[1994 PAC|1994]] || [[1994 Thomas Jefferson (VA)|Thomas Jefferson]] || [[1994 Rufus King|Rufus King]] || [[1994 Dupont Manual|Dupont Manual]] || [[1994 Georgia Panasonic Team|Georgia All-Stars]]|| [[1994 Maryland Panasonic Team|Maryland All-Stars]] || [[1994 Quincy|Quincy]]
 |- style="text-align:center;"
 |[[1995 PAC|1995]] || [[1995 Florida Panasonic Team|Florida All-Stars]] || [[1995 South Carolina Panasonic Team|South Carolina All-Stars]] || [[1995 Maryland Panasonic Team|Maryland All-Stars]] || Pennsylvania || ||

← Older revision		Revision as of 07:05, 27 May 2025
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	The 2014 final was broadcast live on the Internet, allowing America to recoil in horror at endless questions involving weird academic conceits as applied to various comic strips. About every other tossup went dead; those that were answered involved leadins such as "What kind of event did Pope Urban II organize?" At one point, viewers of the livestream clocked a 25-minute span in which 6 questions were asked, only 1 of which was correctly answered, culminating in a team holding the leading score in the game because it had not buzzed at all and its opponents had all lost points for incorrect guesses. Note that an entire 24 tossup, 24 bonus NAQT packet can be read by an experienced [[HSNCT]] moderator in 18 minutes even if all questions are converted.		The 2014 final was broadcast live on the Internet, allowing America to recoil in horror at endless questions involving weird academic conceits as applied to various comic strips. About every other tossup went dead; those that were answered involved leadins such as "What kind of event did Pope Urban II organize?" At one point, viewers of the livestream clocked a 25-minute span in which 6 questions were asked, only 1 of which was correctly answered, culminating in a team holding the leading score in the game because it had not buzzed at all and its opponents had all lost points for incorrect guesses. Note that an entire 24 tossup, 24 bonus NAQT packet can be read by an experienced [[HSNCT]] moderator in 18 minutes even if all questions are converted.
		+
		+	When a state had multiple contingents of players seeking to participate, a "selection committee" chose the state representative based on an application reflecting vaguely defined "academic performance." This led to several controveries, including instances of defending tournament champions and accomplished quizbowl players being denied their state slot in favor of groups that had never participated in an academic competition before.

	==Strengths==		==Strengths==

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 ==NASAT==
-The tradition of a single team representing each state was later carried on by [[NASAT]], which is run by [[HSAPQ]] and has no affiliation at all with PAC. Unlike PAC, NASAT follows the standard conventions of pyramidal quizbowl.
+The tradition of a single team representing each state was later carried on by [[NASAT]], which is run by [[IQBT]] and has no affiliation at all with PAC. Unlike PAC, NASAT follows the standard conventions of pyramidal quizbowl.
 ==Results==

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 There have been a number of criticisms of this tournament, which continually have not been addressed and have eventually caused the number of states attending to decline. One of the biggest problems has been the PAC/NTAE's failure to keep up to the standards of the other national tournaments.
-The questions tend to be non-[[Pyramidal|pyramidal]], and as a result led to buzzer races which did not differentiate the team with the stronger knowledge base. Additionally, many questions do not start with uniquely identifying clues, leading to luck being a major factor as many teams just buzz quickly and guess. The question quality and style at NTAE was perhaps the most divorced in style from any standard of [[good quizbowl]] of any tournament that lasted for multiple years. The vast majority of the questions were wholly unanswerable, and the rest could not be prepared for even in the rudimentary way that one can get better at [[NAC]] or [[It's Academic]]-style questions. Essentially every PAC game came down to a combination of who had the best math/science problem solvers and random luck.
+The questions tend to be non-[[Pyramidal|pyramidal]], and as a result led to buzzer races which did not differentiate the team with the stronger knowledge base. Additionally, many questions do not start with uniquely identifying clues, leading to luck being a major factor as many teams just buzz quickly and guess. The question quality and style at NTAE was perhaps the most divorced in style from any standard of "[[good quizbowl]]" of any tournament that lasted for multiple years. The vast majority of the questions were wholly unanswerable, and the rest could not be prepared for even in the rudimentary way that one can get better at [[NAC]] or [[It's Academic]]-style questions. Essentially every PAC game came down to a combination of who had the best math/science problem solvers and random luck.
 The tournament does not attempt to seed teams. Placement in each round is completely random. Further, the blind draw for match pairings is not done publicly which, given the presence of a home team, has led some to question the honesty of this process. Even the most ardent supporters of the tournament will rarely acknowledge that the final six teams are truly the six best teams in the tournament.

← Older revision		Revision as of 18:42, 3 May 2021
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	This tournament has a significant number of [[computational math\|computational questions]] and a bit of [[foreign language]]. The foreign language questions tend to be on handouts with the question being printed in four languages. Students have the option of Spanish, French, and whatever two other languages are used that year. The languages are announced in advance, and usually are German and Latin. This tournament hasn't had much pop culture form the beginning, which is very unusual for high school quizbowl.		This tournament has a significant number of [[computational math\|computational questions]] and a bit of [[foreign language]]. The foreign language questions tend to be on handouts with the question being printed in four languages. Students have the option of Spanish, French, and whatever two other languages are used that year. The languages are announced in advance, and usually are German and Latin. This tournament hasn't had much pop culture form the beginning, which is very unusual for high school quizbowl.
		+
		+	=== Question sourcing ===
		+
		+	During the 2014-2015 revival of the tournament, materials issued to coaches stated that the questions were "written by educators from high schools throughout the state" consisting of "ten to twelve teachers from the subject areas of English/language arts, foreign language (French and/or Spanish), mathematics, science, social studies, the fine arts (music, art and/or humanities), and technology (business, agriculture, computers, etc.)" Questions seemed to be written during a narrow window (as short as one day, per one source). The output was about what one would expect from asking, e.g., a randomly selected social studies teacher to "write quizbowl questions about history" without providing any further context or explanation about what that means.
		+
		+	During the original run of the tournament, at least one report was received of undergraduate college students with no connection to quizbowl being solicited to write questions based on their GPA performance in high school or college.

	== Tournament Format ==		== Tournament Format ==

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 Some people criticized the restriction of "one team-per-state" rule, which automatically restricted some very talented teams and players from attending. Further, the requirement to go through a respective state's Board of Education often unintentionally introduced red tape that coaches chose not to become involved in.  Some State Boards simply dismissed the invitation, and never permitted any team to go.
-The 2014 final was broadcast live on the Internet, allowing America to recoil in horror at endless questions involving weird academic conceits as applied to various comic strips. About every other tossup went dead; those that were answered involved leadins such as "What kind of event did Pope Urban II organize?" At one point, viewers of the livestream clocked a 25-minute span in which 6 questions were asked, only 1 of which was correctly answered, culminating in a team holding the leading score in the game because it had not buzzed at all and its opponents had all lost points for incorrect guesses.
+The 2014 final was broadcast live on the Internet, allowing America to recoil in horror at endless questions involving weird academic conceits as applied to various comic strips. About every other tossup went dead; those that were answered involved leadins such as "What kind of event did Pope Urban II organize?" At one point, viewers of the livestream clocked a 25-minute span in which 6 questions were asked, only 1 of which was correctly answered, culminating in a team holding the leading score in the game because it had not buzzed at all and its opponents had all lost points for incorrect guesses. Note that an entire 24 tossup, 24 bonus NAQT packet can be read by an experienced [[HSNCT]] moderator in 18 minutes even if all questions are converted.
 ==Strengths==