> > We have statistics from tournaments. Packet difficulty can be measured by > how well teams scored on the packets. It's a fact that ACF Regionals was > harder than NAQT Sectionals, and NAQT Sectionals was harder than ACF Fall. > Not an opinion. Absolute agreement. One thing that hasn't been brought up in most of this discussion is the fact that there's a difference between an "Acf" tourney and an Acf-Format tourney. Some people hear the letters (acronym) ACF and head for the hills. Most tourneys use the format, but not necesarily the difficulty level, which, as Matt and others have stated, differs depending on which level of competition you're at. Because ACF questions are written by players for other players, as opposed to NAQT and CBI and TRASH, which are by teams of writers, there is sometimes a hesitancy to repeat clues or answers players have heard before in practice, or at other tourneys. This means that some people go for more obscure subjects/topics/answers than are really necessary: "What? There's already a question on the works of Sartre? I'd better go for a more obscure author, such as Althusser..." Repetition is not necessarily a bad thing, if part of the reason quizbowl playing exists is because it's supposed to teach you things you didn't already know. Many teams practice on questions that have been used at other tourneys. Some of these questions have been used for years, so many people who write packets write questions based on the idea that they need to come up with different clues or topics to write on (three writes make a wrong?). Thus, a level of obscurity can creep in that isn't necessary. ACF's mythical difficulty can be traced to people who speak of ACF in hushed, almost sacred tones: "...and the last format of quizbowl we'll talk about is ACF, which is harder than..." ACF is not necessarily harder or more obscure than NAQT (TRASH and CBI don't enter into this argument, since one's based entirely on pop culture, and the other pursues accessibility via much less esoteric means). The big problem comes from trying to write a question over a subject that you're heard about in practice -- or in other tourneys -- a few times already. That means when it comes time to write the packet, some people go for more obscure clues or topics to make sure they don't repeat something someone has heard in practice already. Also, what may be a givaway clue for one person may be completely obscure to someone else. I ran OU's ACF Regionals tourney a few years ago, and the packets were a bit up and down, in regards to overall difficulty. One packet was much harder than the next, and so on. What I decided to do as tourney director was to go through and use the harder packets for play rather than the easier ones, since many people complain about such up-and-down difficulty levels (there were more "harder" ones than easy ones) at tourneys. This was anounced in advance at the tournament, so the teams understood what was coming. I found, however, that my own ideas about what was easy and hard were, of course, different from many people's. As an example: one question on Candide used Cunegonde in the first sentence -- a dead giveaway, in my opinion -- so I didn't use the question. After talking about it with some players afterwards, I found out that the so-called giveaway clue was nothing of the sort. I'd read Candide, and heard other questions that used the same clue, so I assumed everyone else had. Perhaps the difficulty with ACF is not the level of difficulty, but the perceived need to avoid duplication of subject matter or answers. This means some people write questions that are more difficult than necessary to avoid this repetition. CBI has used the same lead-ins for years, so why not avoid the chance of immediate recognition, not because a player might know the subject matter, but because that person's heard the question before? Also, if you only practice on ACF Nationals packets, it can be discouraging. ACF Nationals SHOULD be harder than any other tournament. Apart from NAQT Nationals, it's the tourney that sets apart those teams made up of people who've memorized lists versus those made up of people who've actually worked with the material. ACF and NAQT Nationals teams succeed not because they've read the encyclopedia, but because they know the material. The questions generally work with more detailed information, not generalities. Also, ACF Editors have to work with what they're given, so their own knowledge may not be enough to cover some areas. If the editors for Nationals only get stump-the-chump questions, what are they supposed to do? Spend enourmous amounts of time researching different subjects just so the topics are 50% "getable"? We can throw stats around all we want, but the big problem with ACF is the material submitted, not the format itself. A good editor has to keep difficulty level and obscutiy of subject material in mind the entire time she/he is editing, and sometimes clarity or accessibility is impossible, given the time restraints. I remember playing at one of Roger Bahn's St. Louis Opens and commenting to him that I'd gotten only four or five questions the entire tourney, but, damn, they were well written packets (Roger's writing and editing skills are way up there). Kentucky's team slaughtered us on a packet. Was it beause we were suddenly less educated than other teams? No, it was because they knew the subject material more than we did for the packet we played on. We turned around and did it to someone else the next match. They probably did the same to someone else. So, stop complaining about formats and difficulty levels and accept the fact that the editors have to work with what's given to them. If you want better ACF tourneys, stop dropping out of them and start writing better packets. I played on the ACF Fall tourney packets, and they were fantastic -- evenly written and at a difficulty level that most teams could compete on -- but they're supposed to be. What ACF needs more than anything else, is more people editing and writing questions. That way, more voices can work with the material to make sure that obscurity for obscurity's sake doesn't appear. David "I Heart CBI" Murphy (with due respects to Seth, who kicks more ass at this game than I ever have).
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