To reply to Matt's point, yeah... most college-run tournaments and many of the better HS-run tournaments write better questions, presumably because we actually play this game, and that makes us understand what we want in a "quality question set." As for why many companies insist on writing short-sentence questions, unfortunately, enough of them have been around long enough for me to consider that perhaps their clientele actually prefer that style. It's more conducive to shorter matches (which many teachers and players prefer), and they tend to be "answerable" if one's understanding of American history is limited to Revolutionary War to Civil War time periods. I think the basic reason is that for this example, this is what most people and schools teach when it comes to American history. Is it a question simply of finding the best lowest common denominator to maximize marketability of questions? Do q-writers have that much time to do that much research? Is it just a different philosophy that most people have when it comes to "quiz bowl"? In figuring out the answers, maybe we do have to wonder if we're not really the "majority" when it comes to quiz bowl philosophy, and that more people would rather prefer memorizing area codes, airport abbreviations, and flags than something more "substantive." I suggest it's not that the writing companies don't know what they're doing; on the contrary, they do know what they're doing because it's what most teams (and organizations?) want them to do... or at least are willing to pay them to do.
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