Re: expanding the canon: art history

• From: lone1c <no_reply_at_yahoogroups.com>
• Date: Sun, 23 Feb 2003 14:29:37 -0000
• Message-ID: <b3alsh+3611_at_...>

--- In quizbowl_at_yahoogroups.com, "Samer Ismail <stipenn_at_y...>"
<stipenn_at_y...> wrote:
> --- In quizbowl_at_yahoogroups.com, gamaliel8 <no_reply_at_y...> wrote:
> <<I don't think that's any cause for apology.  The 5-10-15 bonus is 
> ill-designed, and I was under the impression that it was rapidly 
> going the way of the list bonus, one-part bonus, etc. (I'm fairly 
> sure Penn Bowl didn't use them this year.)>>
> 
> That's not quite true: I didn't completely eradicate them, but I re-
> cast the vast majority of them as 10-10-10s, especially when the 15s 
> were of the hard to nearly impossible variety; on average there were 
> one or two per packet. I would have no qualms with using more of them 
> if they were of the appropriate difficulty.
> 
> I agree with Nate and Matt that the best use of a 5-10-15 is for a 
> bonus where there would be too many 20s if it were written as a 10-10-
> 10.

I guess part of the problem here is breaking the mindset of both
writers and editors that "more points" and "harder" are synonymous. 

Personally, for a while I liked to write 5-10-10-5's or 10-15-5's of
the "(easy-)not so easy-hard-'Good luck'" variety. Unfortunately, much
of the time, the final 5 points either got chopped off, or the bonus
was switched to 5-5-10-10 or 10-10-10, or the whole thing would be
thrown out. As a result, I just switched to what editors would tamper
with less.

So I don't think we should b parodying "Animal Farm"--"10 points hard,
15 points harder!" :-P

--AEI