The Quizbowl Resource Center

STPickrell

I will second reading packets. This will help a lot with getting easy parts(which don't tend to vary unless you have a really weird set), and you will see that certain groups of things tend to come up. Andrew mentioned one; another example would be Japanese authors, of which there are five that I w...

STPickrell

You may also want to talk to your teammates and/or the entity at UCSD that was on the other end of these negotiations.

STPickrell

Anti-Climacus wrote: Raphael/The School of Athens/Madonna and Child Which Madonna and child? Evidently the one by Raphael. I'm pretty sure Raphael painted a large number of Madonnas,so "Raphael Madonna" could refer to quite a few paintings. I wrote a tossup once to which the answer was 'M...

STPickrell

closesesame wrote:...and the award for first registration goes to Robert E. Lee High School!

This is Lee-Springfield, right?

STPickrell

District, region, and state tournament sets will be at the same standards (length, answer selection, etc.) I wrote in previous years.

STPickrell

Perhaps when staffing and other issues permit, the elite teams could split their top 6 players into 3 teams instead of 2 W-HAT, dude! One and two-man teams were not that unusual at the college level when I played-- from brief perusal of the college stats, it seems undermanned teams are still not un...

STPickrell

In general (i.e. I'm not just talking about HFT), though, it seems like a bad idea for writers to listen to elite high school teams. It's pretty selfish to demand "difficult" bonus parts when you are obviously one of the upper outliers at any tournament. This may sound arrogant, stupid, a...

STPickrell

Hey is that Patrick Henry-Roanoke or Patrick Henry-Glade Spring? I'm guessing the former, but wanted to make sure.

STPickrell

Mr. Pickrell, the particular coach I overheard speaking with Dr. B. really likes the 20/20 TU/B format rather than the current one. I believe he also mentioned question quality in general. If massive discontent has spread to teams that practice seriously, sometimes make regionals, go to tournaments...

STPickrell

Don't forget your card probabilities and your trig identities.

STPickrell

VHSL Regular season questions: 1/2 written by Avery (odd matches) 1/2 written from my MSHSAA state sets (even matches) I turned to Avery when (1) NAQT never got back to me and (2) other good vendors announced plans to leave the business or scale back (I apologize for not contacting HSAPQ earlier, bu...

STPickrell

Matt, all regionals will be done by February 7.

STPickrell

Be sure to see if you can get AP Study Hall included. :)

http://uvaapplication.blogspot.com/2006 ... nk-of.html

STPickrell

For my questions, no discussion of:
VHSL questions until the VHSL season has ended
2007-08 MSHSAA state questions until the VHSL season has ended (I am using those questions for this year's regular season)

Thank you.

STPickrell

I am producing questions for regular season play. Some of the matches are from my MSHSAA states from last year (not the pop culture stuff that was discussed on here) and some are from Avery Enterprises. Regular season questions can also be used for out of district scrimmages. NAQT never did get back...

STPickrell

Coming into confirm that I was told to keep it under 3 lines 12 point TNR. My own opinion is that it is better to have everyone playing on bad or merely passable as opposed to utter dreck. From there, further change can be effected but it must be Missouri coaches taking the lead. It's the old is hal...

STPickrell

This need not be entirely a charitable effort. I made close to $200 a match from my 36 conference/tournament matches while charging $80 for my 19 state series matches. This came out to over $155 a match. I suspect my customer base would have only grown, and could have been bigger if I had marketed a...

STPickrell

RIP clock-killing neg

STPickrell

FWIW, the other rules seem pretty reasonable. Rules 10 through 13 all seem unreasonable to me as being arbitrarily restrictive. They put limits on teams that wish to achieve excellence on a national level. John Barnes Maggie Walker Governor's School All but 13 are improvements for the MSHSAA. Or di...

STPickrell

as in the sports insurance waivers that football and basketball players had to sign before they could practice. This might not have been the handiwork of VHSL, and just a scheme of our crazy Athletic Director/basketball coach. Players in VHSL Scholastic Bowl have to meet the take five, pass five re...

STPickrell

FWIW, the other rules seem pretty reasonable. When you post stuff like this, it's why I don't trust your assurances that Virginia is a unique and beautiful snowflake where casting in quizbowl with football is somehow, magically, not going to result in what it's resulted in everywhere else. Matt, Th...

STPickrell

A more reasonable compromise would be to allow teams to play in intercollegiate tournaments while having said tournaments count against the limit. Why would it matter to Random HS if Supergood HS plays in Other HS's tournament or in Truman State's mirror of (college tournament)? Of course, all would...

STPickrell

Another thing that a mid-level team might consider is getting an alumnus and/or other QB 'expert' to edit the house-written set. The edits have to be substantial -- indicating why you're moving clues around, if there's too many questions in subject area 'X', etc. To make this work, the matches must ...

STPickrell

Luckily, no one in Virginia uses the VHSL format in their own tournament, or has a quizbowl team subject to VHSL strictures for other events (though if other states are any guide, these horrors are coming). In Illinois, you do use the format for most tournaments, which is a problem. Matt, you've be...

STPickrell

I think the title of this thread should be changed so unsuspecting folks know there is discussion of this year's IS sets. My own opinion is that demand for NAQT is growing to the point where quality begins to suffer somewhat. Let's also put this into perspective -- are we talking really bad, or just...

STPickrell

DISCLAIMER: ANYTHING I SAY SHOULDN'T BE CONSTRUED AS SUPPORT OF ONE TEAM OR ANOTHER Lee HS (3rd in Group A after going 0-for-19 years) loses 3 of 4 starters. (They are not to be confused with any of the Robert E. Lee High Schools we have running around out there.) Spotswood was 3rd in Region III wit...

STPickrell

I seem to be what passes for a contact in Virginia. I'm not sure if the letter sent to VA Department of Education goes straight to File 13 or not. I am not so enamored of PAC that I will lobby to obtain $5k funding from the state, VHSL, whatever, to allow Virginia to send a team. That, and I have a ...

STPickrell

lasercats wrote:Agreed, but what do I know? I wouldn't know good quizbowl if it roundhouse kicked me to the face!

Would said roundhouse kick be as painful as one delivered by Chuck Norris in his prime?

I figure I'd be stuck in Limbo, being a virtuous pagan with regard to good quizbowl.

STPickrell

I was wondering. The closest to one is near the 50,000 range, but obviously 1 is TJ, and I thought either STPickrell or Byko gave data comparing Dorman's median income to TJ's and TJ's was a bit higher than 50,000. I was the one who provided data comparing Dorman's median income to the TJ attendanc...

STPickrell

swvabuc wrote:
Byko wrote: 2. A couple teams are ones that I'm not sure where they're from. For example, where is the Lee at Chicago from?
Jonesville, VA

R.E. Lee-Stauton (at the first phase) finished tied for 5th in VHSL Group AA.

Lee High finished 3rd in VHSL Group A.

STPickrell

$10,000 just to coach? Wow.

I agree with Andy; if we start wanting certification and the such then yes, we could start offering stipends of $25-$30 or so per certified moderator.

If we just offer $30 to anyone who wants to read, we won't necessarily get any improvement in moderator quality.

STPickrell

My best guess is that ACUI was fairly neutral as to how the questions and the competitions worked. ACUI will probably want each of its 15 regions to hold a tournament if there is sufficient interest. I'm fairly sure they would want at least the winners of each region to go to nationals. Someone may...

STPickrell

NAQT represents a medium that is acceptable to nearly all high-level teams but still acceptable to once a year warriors. Thanks for the ACF IS IMPOSSIBLE dig in an irrelevant thread, person who hasn't been involved in real quizbowl for nine years! That really wasn't my intention. My apologies. I wa...

STPickrell

The implosion of CBI will hopefully improve the standard of collegiate quizbowl. NAQT represents a medium that is acceptable to nearly all high-level teams but still acceptable to once a year warriors. R. and Emily are out of the country. (I am negotiating to try and have VHSL regular season matches...

STPickrell

Has the blatant plagiarism from Chip ended since 2003? (i.e. copying verbatim from various online and offline sources that are not Chip.) I honestly don't know; it may have been mentioned amid the various anti-Chip points. We had that one case about a month ago where I took screenshots of CBI's pag...

STPickrell

3. Matt W. is one of the biggest shills for the NAC. ... You cannot answer a curse with a curse ..... if you are trying to change someone's mind. I agree with these statement. So I will not write 3-4 paragraphs saying this. Not all who read this forum are convinced of the intrinsic betterness of py...

STPickrell

Definite interest in this. Fredericksburg is close enough that it's an easy trip for us. On the other hand, if there is a DC or Baltimore tournament on this date, we'd probably do that tourney instead, as it would be close. I'd like to think that this can count as 'the' tournament in the greater DC...

STPickrell

I've got a while before I head off to college, but I was wondering if anyone knew how difficult it would be for me to get certified to teach both history and math. I don't particularly want to choose between the two, and I think being able to teach either/both would increase my odds of getting a jo...

STPickrell

greatschools.net is pretty fun. Basically it ranks schools by performance on the NCLB test (In Virginia it is the Standards of Learning) and gives between a 1 and a 10. And ... the only HS I can see that gets a '1' in Virgina is: Charlottesville High School, three-time Group AA Scholastic Bowl champ...

STPickrell

I can agree with Thomas Jefferson, 2005, as the best I ever saw, but I still argue that Dorman in the early 1990s was amazing especially considering that Dorman High School was (and is) simply a public, nonselective, Southern state, small city high school with what one might call normal demographic...

STPickrell

There's 'caring enough to attend tournaments when you say you'll attend them' and 'caring enough to improve as a player.' If a good player has a group of 6-10 people who he can count on to show up on any given Saturday, it's possible. Bonus points if they can help with some of the buzzer races and/o...

STPickrell

Oh, and also, the "top 12" shouldn't be read as "these are the 12 writers we say are the best" - those 12 are simply the full group of people we felt we could consider in the ranking...either because others hadn't produced enough work/worked on a major project or because they di...

STPickrell

If there is a Team Virginia, it will be sent without my knowledge. Unless TJ's doing it, there probably won't be... I know our A Team last year couldn't go because of funding issues...I'm pretty sure it was the same for TJ and this may have continued to be a problem... It was more than that. If I r...

STPickrell

Matt Weiner wrote:Just to be clear, there will be no discounts offered at this tournament for bringing overpriced pseudocomputers with the world's worst warranty plans.

Matt, you and I may disagree on many things quizbowl, VHSL, and politically-related, but on the issue of Macs, we are in complete concordance.

STPickrell

I was recently moderating a tournament and a student asked me to repeat the question. I said no; was I right in doing so? What if a team had asked me to repeat a bonus-- is that allowable? Local rules supercede all else. If and only if *both* teams ask you to do this, you might consider either thro...

STPickrell

Similarly, I don't know how you write a good tossup on commercial driver's licenses. "They contrast with the non-commercial variety because..." "Most student drivers wish to test for a Class C one of these..." I just don't see where it goes from here. Actually I never claimed my...

STPickrell

If there is a Team Virginia, it will be sent without my knowledge.

STPickrell

Thanks Dave and Bryce for the support, and to Fred and the others for the feedback. As for my British girl singers: Leona Lewis has the #1 Billboard hit, the Spice Girls are only 8-10 years old and reunited early this year. Sugababes and Arctic Monkeys both suffer from the 'two hard parts in a bonus...

STPickrell

Driver's ed was part of the contract. Or, I'm expected to write about miscellany, and driver's ed is one of the subjects included therein. Miscellaneous also included current events and pop culture, and subjects like industrial arts, home economics, etc. These are in the guidelines MSHSAA provided, ...

STPickrell

Matt, my offer for you to edit VHSL questions remains on the table provided we can agree on a price. Ditto for the other well-qualified folks commenting in this thread. *TV shows from the actors (Leave it to Beaver, the Honeymooners, the Jeffersons, Bonanza) I'm going to have to disagree here. All o...

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