The Quizbowl Resource Center

I really enjoyed playing this set. A few feng shui challenges aside, the editing was quite strong, especially when it came to keeping difficulty appropriate and consistent throughout. My only major concern lies with how world history was handled in the set. Way too many packets had a "world history"...

Hi Nate, thank you for the kind words about our set. We worked hard to create a fresh yet accessible housewrite for teams of all backgrounds, and I really appreciate the positive feedback we got from you and all the other teams who played it.

Congratulations to Centennial A, who defeated Lehigh Valley in a thrilling one-game final to win MBAT. Full stats for the tournament can be found here: http://www.hsquizbowl.org/db/tournaments/4673/ The following teams have qualified for PACE NSC in June. Congrats! 1. Centennial A 2. Lehigh Valley 3...

We have received Platinum certification from PACE, so the top 25% of our field will qualify for June's NSC!

Current Field Updated 1/16 Field: 20/20 teams Quince Orchard (1 team) Bullis (1 team, 1 buzzer) Centennial (6 teams, 5 buzzers) Georgetown Prep (2 teams, 1 buzzer) Langley (2 teams, 2 buzzers) Manheim Township (2 teams) Georgetown Day (2 teams) McLean (1 team, 1 buzzer) Richard Montgomery (2 teams,...

I am pleased to announce that Montgomery Blair High School will be hosting the main site of our MBAT housewrite on January 20, 2018. Information on the set can be found in this thread: http://www.hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=109&t=20081 Location The tournament will be held at Montgomery Bla...

The Steele Memorial Invitational at Honaker High School will be mirroring MBAT on December 9th, 2017.

If the Preseason Poll was claiming to represent the predictive views of our entire community, then criticisms of sampling and methodology would be in order. But the Preseason Poll doesn't make those claims because it is not an opinion poll . It aggregates the views of many informed people solely as ...

Ricky, someone can both appreciate Fred's energies and disagree with his results. It's not one or the other. It is not that I lack awareness of teams like Wayzata or duPont Manual that Fred ranked so highly, I just don't think they're 20+ places better than Hunter or DCC. Both Wayzata and duPont fin...

I do appreciate Fred's rankings, as I have now pointed out repeatedly in this thread. However, my gratitude does not bar me from presenting concerns about his decisions. I don't agree that Fred's comparison methods are necessarily the best possible, and regardless of what semantics games we play, th...

The notable Eshaan Vakil defeated Hunter (2 time HSNCT champs) at PACE this past year. Why isn't he ranked Mr. Morlan!!!!!!!!!!!! I am not talking about one game or one tournament. I am talking about two teams which a knowledgeable corps of voters deemed some of country's very best being excluded f...

The notable Eshaan Vakil defeated Hunter (2 time HSNCT champs) at PACE this past year. Why isn't he ranked Mr. Morlan!!!!!!!!!!!! I am not talking about one game or one tournament. I am talking about two teams which a knowledgeable corps of voters deemed some of country's very best being excluded f...

I think people should be able to criricize Fred's rankings without being dismissed out of hand as petty or obsessive. HSQBrank is a great resource for the community, but that doesn't mean it needs to be beyond reasonable critique. In this case, I think omitting two of the Preseason Poll's best five ...

As I opened my post with, I understand and appreciate the utility of Fred's rankings, but we all know they hold a far greater place in the QB community than offering a rough sketch. They are the most respected venue for team evaluation, and it shouldn't be heretical to point out when they're lacking...

Fred, I appreciate all the effort you put into these rankings, but some of your decisions border on indefensible. You can make arguments for and against most any team, but to say that neither DCC or Hunter is a Top 25 team is just unreasonable. Both have indisputable depth and experience, and just a...

Montgomery Blair would like to claim January 13 for the main site of our MBAT housewrite. Announcement and details to come!

The thing about TJ and other underranked teams is that their performance, especially at national tournaments, is highly variable. Teams like this tend to rely on tossup conversion instead of bonuses to win games, and while that certainly does produce results, it's also more susceptible to change (i...

Not sure how I missed Northview; they definetly seem cut out for a top 15 season. And to your point Nick, I definetly think Lehigh and Chattahoochee are top-10 teams, even if my tiering sort of obscured that.

With the 2017-2018 season just a few weeks away, now seems about right to begin the ever enjoyable/futile process of preseason prognostication. To toss my two cents in, I compiled personal predictions for how the top 15 teams will shake out next year, based primarily on the performance of returning ...

I think if your goal is to avoid fraudable or otherwise cheap TB questions, then making them all current events is probably not the way to go. With the exception of trash, current events is the least "academic" aspect of the distribution and one of the easiest categories to power without any great k...

What's your target difficulty on this set?

The "Chronicle" books from the late 80s are excellent resources. Each book is several hundred pages of history reformatted into faux-contemporary news briefs. I have one covering U.S. history (ISBN-13: 978-0131337459) and another covering the 20th century (ISBN-13: 978-0942191011), and there's one f...

Jeff, Thanks for being so responsive to these inquiries. Could you post this sort of information about all questions in the set in a spreadsheet or table? I'm interested in the conversion disparities between different topics and subject areas. If you have and are willing to share that data, I would ...

This looks great. Thanks for the info

I'm intrigued by the .5/.5 Misc/Mixed. What subject areas are those questions drawing from? Or are they just wide-ranging common links?

Brad, Noah, et al, We really appreciate your passion for good quizbowl and your commitment to this community. We do understand how much time and effort is needed to produce a quality housewrite, which is why we started working on this in November and have spent an inordinate amount of time planning ...

I am pleased to announce that the Montgomery Blair Quiz Bowl team will be housewriting a set for the 2017-2018 season! Our “Montgomery Blair Academic Tournament” will be a 14-packet set, complete with power marks and 6-7 line tossups. The distribution for MBAT follows this breakdown: 4/4 Science (Bi...

Is a field update available?