I see both Edmund's and Emily's points, and I agree that most of the time knowledge should be tested in addition to speed. But this question still does that -- you need to know something about Antigone to answer the question, and you still have two clues in the question to separate level of knowledge (if very quickly). But Emily brings up a separate point here: "Your example question isn't particularly good as a question that begins "Which niece of Creon" could finish, "chose not to help her sister Antigone bury their brother Polyncies." I know that people _probably_ aren't going to buzz in after the first clue and say "Ismene," but a question should lead up to a unique answer as soon as possible, and this should be doubly true for questions that only contain a couple of clues." Less than a minute after I posted, I realized that Ismene may also be acceptable after the first several words. Yet why is that necessarily a problem? Does this mean "Born in 1785"; "This Nigerian"; "He won the Prix de Rome"; and "Manufactured by Willy Wonka" are all unacceptable lead-ins? No doubt some may think so, and that's fair enough. But I don't -- I sometimes like to see the strategy where a reasonably limited number of answers pop up in the player's mind, and a player on a trailing or lesser team on paper who takes a chance may get it right. It brings in another (debatable) quizbowl skill: anticipation. Again, FAQTP could easily be abused, and should not occur more than once or twice per packet. But I tend to like more quizbowl variety, both between questions and in testing of skills. Finally, to Emily: wouldn't a player on the team that has the most knowledge (Michigan almost every time, for example) want questions that test as much knowledge as possible? I know that's pretty much the way I felt when I went to ACF bastion Maryland. -Adam
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