NAQT Packet Compositions?

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_Bohannon_
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NAQT Packet Compositions?

Post by _Bohannon_ »

Greetings all, I'm new to the forum but had a few questions.

I was wondering if anyone knew of an official NAQT packet composition guideline. Something that determines how many of each type of question are present in each NAQT packet. This is my first year playing on a high school quiz bowl team but I've noticed that there is usually 1 maybe 2 "pencil and paper ready" math question in each packet, at least 1 chemistry question, oftentimes a biology, usually a classic literature question, etc. I was wondering then if there is a specific quantity of each genre of question that should be present in each packet. Even if it is not as something as specific as classic american literature or British history there must be some parameters to ensure that 15 out of the 20 tossups are not on one subject. My team plays 20 question NAQT packets with bonuses but no bounce backs if that helps, I'm assuming that is standard but I wouldn't really know. Personally it feels like our packets are always very literature heavy but that may just be my imagination.

I also had some questions about studying and improving a relatively new team. Next year I will be playing captain but the other three players at the table with me will have very limited experience playing (I myself am a first year player) For practice we study the "You gotta know" booklet from the NAQT website and run old packets. I was wondering if the You Gotta Know booklet is a good source to study or if there is something better out there. I have heard talk of frequency charts and received a few from my coach upon asking but they were quite old and missing pages. One of my biggest problems with you gotta know is its almost complete failure to cover literature (it only has speculative fiction) which hurts our team a lot because as I stated earlier those questions seem to come up a lot. I know this was a long and bulky post but I really want to improve our team and win some tournaments! Thank you

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Re: NAQT Packet Compositions?

Post by Important Bird Area »

Welcome to the forums!

Distributions for our sets are posted on naqt.com: Invitational Series, HSNCT
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Re: NAQT Packet Compositions?

Post by Zealots of Stockholm »

_Bohannon_ wrote: I also had some questions about studying and improving a relatively new team. Next year I will be playing captain but the other three players at the table with me will have very limited experience playing (I myself am a first year player) For practice we study the "You gotta know" booklet from the NAQT website and run old packets. I was wondering if the You Gotta Know booklet is a good source to study or if there is something better out there. I have heard talk of frequency charts and received a few from my coach upon asking but they were quite old and missing pages. One of my biggest problems with you gotta know is its almost complete failure to cover literature (it only has speculative fiction) which hurts our team a lot because as I stated earlier those questions seem to come up a lot. I know this was a long and bulky post but I really want to improve our team and win some tournaments! Thank you

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For improvement in literature, packet study is useful, in addition to http://quinterest.org/, which is an online packet database you can use to see only literature questions if you wish. Sparknotes plot summaries are also useful for major novels that come up in quizbowl, as it would take a very long time to read all of them. For poetry, reading the major poems that often come up as answerlines, such as John Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn" is useful, as well as reading several by major poets such as Walt Whitman and Robert Frost, as questions on them will use quotes from several of their poems. Plays are shorter and can be read much more quickly, but Sparknotes and Wikipedia summaries can also be useful for plays. I would recommend NAQT's Literature Frequency List if at all possible, but you can definitely improve without it.

Of course, don't let this post discourage you from actually reading. Someone who has actually read a book will always get a question about that book faster than someone who has only read a summary about that book.
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Re: NAQT Packet Compositions?

Post by jonah »

_Bohannon_ wrote:For practice we study the "You gotta know" booklet from the NAQT website and run old packets. I was wondering if the You Gotta Know booklet is a good source to study or if there is something better out there. I have heard talk of frequency charts and received a few from my coach upon asking but they were quite old and missing pages. One of my biggest problems with you gotta know is its almost complete failure to cover literature (it only has speculative fiction)
There are more You Gotta Know articles on literature than just the speculative fiction one. Updated (and complete!) frequency lists are available here.
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Re: NAQT Packet Compositions?

Post by Monstruos de Bolsillo »

I've never seen a distribution for A-sets, what (if any) is different from the IS sets?
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Re: NAQT Packet Compositions?

Post by Important Bird Area »

Monstruos de Bolsillo wrote:I've never seen a distribution for A-sets, what (if any) is different from the IS sets?
The introductory set distribution is here. In general, it is very similar to the distribution used for our regular-difficulty sets. There are a few minor changes for subcategories that have historically experienced difficulty finding enough good answers to fill a year's worth of sets at the lower difficulty level.
Jeff Hoppes
President, Northern California Quiz Bowl Alliance
former HSQB Chief Admin (2012-13)
VP for Communication and history subject editor, NAQT
Editor emeritus, ACF

"I wish to make some kind of joke about Jeff's love of birds, but I always fear he'll turn them on me Hitchcock-style." -Fred
_Bohannon_
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Re: NAQT Packet Compositions?

Post by _Bohannon_ »

Thanks all
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