On a positive note, did anyone else notice the increase in women? At the 1994 ACF Nationals, I think there were only 5 or 6 total. Now, it appears to be about 20%. It's almost to where a guy can go to a tournament looking for a date, unless he's already married. Of course the gals are stuck with a choice of Geek A, Geek B, both, or neither for five points each. :=} Now the bad: I still don't know who won. It's Monday afternoon. The tournament ended 42 hours ago. As stated by one moderator, "Don't complain to me about the questions. I didn't write them. I didn't edit them. I don't like them. I don't care what you think about them." Customer service at its worst. And no, he wasn't being sarcastic. Forty minutes to decide point differential between three teams? That what most of the audience was wondering between Rounds 12 and 13. If you won't tell us what's going on, we are forced to draw our own conclusions, and this is what we drew as ours. Which is the simplest nitrile compound? According to one question, it is acetonitrile. According to another, it is hydrogen cyanide. According to the IUPAC (Internation Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, the governing body is such matters), it is cyanomethane, which was apparently not acceptable either time the question arose. Yes, the same question appearing twice is not good, but is at least tolerable and understandable. But when one appearance has a blantantly wrong answer and the other time a colloquial name is acceptable but not the IUPAC name?!?! This ranks right up there with College Bowl's Rule #28, last sentence: "Numbers in astronomical catalogs are not acceptable for the name of a astronomical object, unless specifically requested in the question." Round 13: Who Wants To Be A Geologist? Puh-leeze. While the question itself was a legitimate question, the scoring scheme on that question has absolutely no place in any true ACF tournament, Nationals or otherwise. (For those not there, it was five points per answer if correct, zero points awarded on the bonus if you miss any part, you can stop at any point along the way.) The National Championship might have rode on that question. Makes you shudder, doesn't it? Ten plus ten plus fifteen equals thirty: the Jainism bonus. Some rooms did it 5-10-15, some rooms did it 10-10-10, some rooms threw it out. In our room, the moderator initially read it "for ten points each", then at the end of the bonus decided to make it 5-10-15. The end result was we lost five points, causing the match to end in a tie, and lost the tie-breaker question. CONSISTENCY! If all the rooms had done it the same way, there would be no room to gripe. From what I could tell, though, the rooms were nearly evenly split between 10-10-10, 5-10-15, thrown out, and not reached. We lost that match due to room assignment, once again something that would be expected out of College Bowl, not ACF. How many tournament operations people bailed to go see Illinois v Chicago A instead of remaining at their post? For the organization that is supposed to represent to pinnacle of academic competition, this tournament left a bit to be desired. The last ACF Nationals in Maryland was in 1998, and that was a very well run tournament. Has ACF really declined THAT much in two years, from tournament operations on par with NAQT Nationals to being on par with College Bowl Regionals? How big was the decline in teams from 1999 ACF Nationals to 2000 ACF Nationals? 20%? How long can this continue before ACF disappears? Not long at all. Daniel W Beshear
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