See, another site is running this tournament next weekend, which means no discussion of the packets until then. I thought that was clear? Please don't jeopardize question security to provide papoolesque criticism. Eric Kwartler On 10/9/06, williechen7 <no_reply_at_yahoogroups.com> wrote: Hey, everyone: > UCLA did a good job hosting TWAIN once again. This year UCLA decided not to use NAQT packets for TWAIN and, instead, used packets written by three individuals. For the most part, the questions were well-written and edited to ensure proper structure, clarity, and accuracy. However, there were just a few issues that I would like to raise: 1. Rather than having each packet written by one person, perhaps it'd be better to pool all the questions together and then redistribute them evenly across all packets. Toward the end of the tournament, moderators were catching repeats as they were reading. There were also a few problems with uneven distribution of topics within individual packets (i.e., one packet having all ancient history questions, or all math/physics/astronomy questions for science). Despite the writers' best efforts at maintaining objectivity, there were moments when personally knowing the question writer actually helps answering the question. 2. I know that bonuses should reward 10 points to most teams, 20 points to good teams, and 30 points to teams with an expert on the subject--but PLEASE don't make it so blatant. It is especially inappropriate for writers to insert condescending comments in the spirit of "let's make the first bonus question gettable for first graders" and "let's make the last bonus so hard so that nobody will get it." 3. One person after the tournament voiced concerns over the fact that there were too many literature questions. Although I disagree with that concern, I do see how the lit questions could be improved. Every lit question asked for titles, authors, or characters. Perhaps we can expand the types of lit questions to include areas like criticism, theory, non-fiction, literary terms (drama and poetry have tons of these!), and relevant literary history [opera plot questions should be categorized here as well]. And questions that ask for the same word in different titles ["google" questions] should totally be abolished--it is almost as bad as asking for an element from a list of obscure compounds that contain the same element. 4. I know the tournament is advertised as modified-ACF, but there were hardly any current questions. In fact, there seemed to be an emphasis toward everything before the twentieth century. Even working within the narrow requirements of ACF, one can sneak current events into the distribution. That's about it for now... Willie [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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