Re: ACF Nationals Commentary

• From: ratatosk22 <no_reply_at_yahoogroups.com>
• Date: Mon, 22 Apr 2002 14:00:55 -0000
• Message-ID: <aa152n+1jhf_at_...>

I'd have to agree for the most part with what Kelly said, but I do 
have a couple of queries.

First, Edmund and Tim and Roger ran a logistically flawless ACF 
Nationals, for which they should be commended.  The trophies and 
medals were among the nicest I have ever seen -- one of the few times 
where I would have cared to win the hardware itself.

Michigan was awesome as usual, and Kentucky, Berkeley and Virginia 
were quite impressive as well, from what I saw of them...

Now for the questions:  for the most part, they felt fair enough.  
The science was inaccessible to me, but then again I suck at science, 
so I cannot be the judge.  But I felt the lit, for which I am quite 
average, was quite accessible to most teams.  The only thing I would 
like to have seen with the science was at least a smattering of 
questions on astronomy and earth science.  As far as I could 
remember, there was zero astronomy, and for earth science, the only 
question I heard was on mica (though Rick Grimes told me of a couple 
of bonuses later in packets).  I know these aren't major science 
subjects, but I feel they do deserve 1-2 combined questions per 
packet.

But here is where my real query begins:  my team averaged only 112 
PPG, 8.9 PPB, and yet finished 5-7 and ahead of eleven teams I 
believe.  We also lost a game on the last toss-up where two of our 
team members sat on the question, so we could have easily averaged 
114 PPG and gone 6-6, 14th or 15th place.

Maybe we were just a statistical anomaly.  Maybe the top 5 to 7 teams 
or so need questions that produce these results because they are so 
ahead of the rest of the field that these questions must be used in 
order to differentiate them.  I really don't know, but it seems to me 
that a team that averages 114 PPG should not be able to finish .500.  
I would think that 200 PPG may be a more realistic goal for middling 
teams at national tournaments.  

So, a general question to others who played, at all levels of finish: 
were the questions were too difficult for you?  IMHO, like I said 
above, in most categories difficulty didn't seem _that_ unreasonable, 
but my team's stats say otherwise. 

Thanks, and I have to say Nationals was a good experience overall.
-Adam Fine