Re: ACF Nationals Commentary

camillus24 <*no_reply_at_yahoogroups.com*> · Mon, 22 Apr 2002 16:57:23 -0000

ACF nats was a very good tournament this year and those of you who 
did not attend I strongly urge to consider doing so next year. The 
organization by Edmund and the rest of the stuff was way better than 
anyone could reasonably expect considering the size of the tournament 
and the level of work involved. The questions were excellently edited 
by Roger and as a result, fair and challenging enough to separate, in 
most cases, the better team. The boni were hard but only on very rare 
occasions did i feel the "I don't care to know this" feeling that is  
common in many tournaments that attempt any substantial level of 
difficulty. In sum, though Harvard didn't do that well, it was our 
own fault rather than the questions, which is the way it should 
always be.   

--- In quizbowl_at_y..., ratatosk22 <no_reply_at_y...> wrote:
> 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