Re: On Powers and Bonus Conversion

--- In quizbowl_at_yahoogroups.com, "bucktowntiger <jdh22_at_c...>" 
<jdh22_at_c...> wrote:
> My point was:  there are ways in which bonus conversion can be 
> inflated to misrepresent the skill of a team.  What if a team only 
> hears 5 bonuses but gets 30 on all of them?  And let's say that all 
> 5 of their tossups were powered?  Is *that* not realistic???

No, it's not.

Suppose our hypothetical team is hyper-proficient in 40% of the 
quizbowl canon. That is, given any bonus, there's a 40% chance 
they'll be able to 30 it. The odds that they will get 5 bonuses that 
they can 30 in 5 tossups are now 1%. 

Of course, bonuses aren't randomly distributed; the odds are that 
there'll be about 11 of that team's specialty in a 28-question 
packet. If we take this into account, the odds drop to 0.4%.

Of course, a team which can actually 30 40% of its bonuses is not 
actually that bad. If we're talking about some ultra-specialist team, 
the percentage should probably be closer to 20%. And even that's 
arguably high! Keep in mind that we're asking of this hypothetical 
team to be able to 30 any bonus on, say, history. But even with this 
generous number, the figure is now a whopping 0.006%.

You know what? I'm not going to lose any sleep over this possibility.

--Paul

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