Well, if you're at Mercersburg, I'd strongly suggest you check out any tournaments going on in Pennsylvania and surrounding states. Matt Weiner is at University of Pittsburgh, and Eric Steinhauser at Carnegie Mellon both are running high school tournaments in the Pittsburgh area and I think should be within traveling distance for you (provided travel issues are not a problem). If you're going to those tournaments, you should be aware of the style of questions being run at Pitt and CMU vs. at other competitions that may go on in your area (such as the state tournament, whose question style is drastically different [I'm trying to be nice in this description]). To that extent, use the question archives as much as you can (I have a subscription-only Yahoo group hsqbnet for coaches to access so that they can get questions without their more internet-savvy students stumbling on them), but above all, practice even mixing with some shorter one- or two-sentence questions (such as those we use for Buzzerpalooza at Case Western Reserve University). The ultimate success of any team lies in the ability to listen for the clue and buzzing in, so your kids need to (a) learn the clues and (b) practice buzzer speed (reduce hesitations from buzzing in).
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