In response to Tom's comments (sorry, quoting
doesn't work on the browser on my office computer) ... at
Michigan's recent MLK, it was a big problem about tossups
being too long for a timed tournament, and I, a
relatively fast moderator, averaged 16 or so in rounds where
most of them were answered correctly.
One
example I remember of where editing could have been done
to save time: there was a question to which the
answer was gravitational lensing. I, a Ph.D.
astrophysicist, had never heard of the clue in the first
(relatively long) sentence. So if I've never heard of it,
there may be maybe five quiz bowl players in the whole
country who WOULD get it off that clue. As such, it could
have been eliminated while not affecting play.
That's in the subject I know about: presumably there are
many similar examples in subjects I'm weaker in.
Doug