We've been doin' the worksheet thing for years at the NKC (North Kansas City) high school tournament. Mike is currently editing this year's questions (The tournament is scheduled for December 1st in sunny North Kansas City, MO). Coach Larry Allen has something like 25 varsity and 25 JV teams this year all using the same questions (they pyramid down to being fairly easy). We have a first round of 15 ten point tossups, then as many tossups to get to 4 bonuses, then a 20 question 2 minute worsksheet worth a total of 200 points, and finally the rest of the 40 remaining tossups at 20 points each. It generally makes for some high scoring rounds. In the 6 or so years that we've been doing the 20 question worksheet, I don't think anyone has complained that they were unfair or boring. Sure some of JV kids from crudville might score 30 on it, but they generally go over well. I'm not sure about this year but in the past we have had separate worksheets for the V and JV. We do it basically because lots of teams like the team questions, and lightning rounds often prove to be forged by Lucifer himself. Sudheer sez: So, while some may call it boring, I'd call it a big confidence booster to many players. However, I'm not sure if it belongs in a varsity HS tournament, with players who are pretty well developed by that point and understand the game and their competition well. Even the spectators who come our tournaments, don't say the worksheets are boring. Generally coaches and others can see how the team works together, and it's only two minutes. I think worksheets can definitely belong in a well run high school tournament, like Duke's probably will be. Let's not forget that Panasonic's big on worksheets, and some of those are pretty darn hard, from what I remember. So, if a highly regarded national tournament uses 'em, certainly they shouldn't be ruled out by regular tournaments. I think we're being a bit selfish saying that we write questions to prepare kids for college quiz bowl. Most of these kids just want to do well at conference/regional/disctricts, state, ornationals. The majority won't touch a buzzer during college. Until all of the wacky formats out there change, then wacky tournaments will still be run. Andy Wehrman
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