I definately need to clarify what I was trying to say. I'm not proposing eliminating artists, philosphers, and opera from high school tournaments. What I was trying to get at is that the average high schooler doesn't have nearly the knowledge base of a college quiz bowler. Question writers should keep that in mind when writing their questions. For example, while high school students may have heard of Picasso and Dali, they are much less likely to know Spanish artists like Goya, El Greco, or Velazquez. In my opinion, a well-written Picasso question is equal in value to a well-written Goya question, except at the high school level most students would at least have a shot at the Picasso. The same sort of parallel can be made between Socrates and Husserl. Or the Thirty Years War and the War of Jenkin's Ear. These examples probably aren't the best but illustrate what I'd heard of in high school versus college. Of course there should be some breadth and depth to the distribution, and those teams that have above-average knowledge should be rewarded. I'm not asking for questions like "FAQTP, name this curved yellow fruit." I'm saying consider your audience when you write questions. This weekend at the ACF Fall Tournament (Midwest) I spent a lot of time saying, "It can't be that easy," to myself, but one has to step back and realize that in high school, it's not that easy. I think that teams enjoy a match that's won 230-200 much more than a match that's won 50-20, and if the questions are well-written then the team would have won on the hard questions should win on the easier ones. Speaking from 4 years of high school competition which we didn't treat as seriously as say, some parents consider little league baseball. Paul Tomlinson
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