Jeeeez -- it's hard to know which message to reply to, so I'll start with this one from Adam Fine. Up-and-down difficulty (to a degree) is not necessarily a bad thing -- even at an ICT, I don't think there's anything wrong with (say) a well-written tossup on Napoleon. If we as players don't buzz because of some expectation that it "has to be" a more difficult topic (just as I did on the Peloponnesian War, or however that's spelled), then that's our own fault. The caveat is that the question should be well-written and well-organized, which was not the case on a percentage of the ICT questions (though not as large a percentage as some people have been suggesting, I think). Also, Brian Epstein isn't an obscure answer, nor qas the question misleading -- there was plenty to distinguish him from George Martin (like his death in '67, if it got that far in Maryland's match). And was Martin ever the actual manager of the Beatles? I thought he was always strictly a producer. As for the sketchy pyramidality (now there's a word) on tossups, I really didn't think it was that bad. There were a fair number of shaky tossups, in retrospect. Just about every tossup Subash mentioned was powered quickly in my room (several by Subash himself), but I don't remember it being _that_ bad a problem overall. Perhaps I just don't remember it because we only had a couple of actual close matches -- the Foucault's Pendulum tossup probably stood out in my mind because it came when we trailed Michigan by 10 with 2:30 left and Kemezis beat me to it (not that it changed the ultimate outcome -- they swept the last 3 tossups after FP). And as Subash noted, there were a number of particularly creative and well-written tossups which are worthy of mention. A couple of folks mentioned the playoff structure. As I mentioned a couple days ago (a.k.a about 50 posts ago), I don't think the playoff structure led to a final finishing order which reflected the relative strength or overall performance of the teams. Based on stats and overall performance, I think it's safe to the say the strongest teams were Chicago, then the Berkeley/Michigan A pair, then the Yale/UF pair. But I don't look upon it as some crime against humanity so much as a new (I think) playoff format which was tried and didn't have as good an outcome as it's creator(s) might have desired. Besides, the best team still won, and I doubt Michigan is going to be psychologically crushed by not getting a 3rd-place trophy. (I must emphasize again that Maryland, while not the 3rd-best team, was certainly worthy of a top-10 finish. They finished a few slots ahead of where they deserved (in the grand microcosmic quizbowl scheme of things) to be, but it's not like they were the #20 team which somehow ended up 3rd.) As for the percentage of general knowledge and pop culture questions, I think it's too high, but the proportion should not be a surprise to anyone who has played in an NAQT tournament before. (That's why I referred to these questions way back in the days of post 12080 in terms of being a good or bad NAQT set, rather than judging it by (say) ACF proportions.) To Patrick King: the only thing you did wrong was be ahead only 20-14 with two questions left. You did nothing wrong, except maybe use the term "sportsmanship" as connotatively equal to "bordering on cheating but not quite." To Matt Bruce: thanks for posting that SQBS stats page for div I, and for writing the well-written von Guericke tossup. To NAQT, which I believe is responsive to outside comments -- please avoid lead-ins which are too easy for the topic (i.e. which include the main character in the opening words, which include a too-easy definition in the opening words, etc). And reconsider that playoff setup. That's all. See some of you in Atlanta next weekend for ACF Nationals (which I believe was at 19 teams at last check). Adios. --Raj Dhuwalia, proud to have grossed over 2/3 of Subash's "non-fraudelent power" total. ************************************* --- In quizbowl_at_yahoogroups.com, "Viking Squirrel" <geertgen22_at_a...> wrote: > Lenny wrote: > > "What was up with the difficulty level this year? I saw very little > step up in difficulty from this year's sectionals. The disparity in > difficulty was in fact the really big problem. I kept asking myself, > what are tossups on Ozymandias, Hyksos, Tess, Appalachian Spring, > etc. doing in the same tournament as tossups on Durrenmatt, Angelika > Kaufmann, and some Yoruba? text (don't remember the name). With such > disparity, one never knows if it's a hose (like the one where > everyone buzzed on Olduvai) or if it's just THAT OBVIOUS like > Appalachian Spring starting with Pennsylvania." > > That was my pet peeve at times. I picked up nearly half my negs for > the entire tournament in Round 2, where I went 0-2-3. In that round, > first I sat on a Peloponnesian War toss-up, thinking, "They can't be > asking that?" Then I figured, "Maybe that's the way the ICT's gonna > go," so on the Beatles manager, I promptly buzzed with Sir George > Martin. NOPE; question was asking for the Beatles manager _before_ > George Martin (Epstein?). > > I don't mind having less difficult answers at all, even at the ICT > (provided the toss-ups are pyramidally structured). I just wish that > at times they could be more consistent within packets. > > Adam Fine > Proud Member of NAQTrauma's "Crap Team"
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0: Sat 12 Feb 2022 12:30:47 AM EST EST