ETC exposes one of my pet peeve quiz-bowl
fallacies, in the post immediately after Anthony de Jesus
had gotten it right! :-)
"While its impact to
matches may be minimal, the fact is that you are also
punishing the rare individual who may actually know the
answer by making it worth only one point. I would ask
why not make it worth 15 points to reward more
knowledge-in-depth."
Depending on how hard the part is, making it worth 15
points will almost always give the bonus as a whole a
much lower expected conversion rate than you want it
to have.
The "punishment" would happen only
to someone who knew the very hard 1-point part but
didn't know the easier parts. This doesn't come up very
often, nor does it seem like all that big a
problem.
At least it's a reasonable point, though. I suppose
the thing I REALLY dislike is when an editor sees a
bonus with three 10 point parts, and decides that
BECAUSE one of the parts is "too hard," the bonus should
be a 5-10-15. There are people who honestly think
this makes the bonus fairer, when in fact the opposite
is true.
Sorry to rant,
Matt
P.S.
Berkeley's HS tourney is now long gone but I do like the
idea.