PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

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PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by millionwaves »

The Partnership for Academic Competition Excellence announces several changes to its National Scholastics Championship game and tournament format, which will take effect starting with the 2010 tournament. PACE is also announcing the date of that tournament.

The 2010 PACE NSC will take place on Saturday and Sunday, June 5-6, 2010. Arrangements for a location will be finalized shortly, and the location will be announced as soon as possible. The 2010 tournament will be the thirteenth PACE NSC, awarding the title of national champion to a victorious high school quizbowl team. The 2009 NSC, a 64-team tournament, took place in May 2009 and awarded the Charter School of Wilmington its first national title.

The former PACE NSC game format is being retired effective immediately. Two elements of the format will continue: There will be no neg-5s on tossups, and bouncebacks will be used on all bonuses. However, the game structure is being entirely overhauled. The format used in each game of the 2010 tournament will be twenty tossups with thirty-point bonuses. Each tossup will have a hidden power mark early in the question. Correct buzzes before the power mark will be worth 20 points; correct buzzes after will be worth 10 points. All tossups will be played according to these rules, and all bonuses will be worth thirty points; there will no longer be different phases of the match with different question structures. The full PACE NSC rules will soon be revised to address more specific situations in this format, such as tiebreakers and substitutions.

The top-level subject distribution for the new 20-tossup, 20-bonus PACE NSC round is as follows:

4 tossups and 4 bonuses: science (20%) Note: The NSC will no longer include math calculation questions and will incorporate conceptual math questions instead.
4 tossups and 4 bonuses: history (20%)
4 tossups and 4 bonuses: literature (20%)
3 tossups and 3 bonuses: arts (15%)
3 tossups and 3 bonuses: religion, mythology, and philosophy (15%)
1 tossup and 1 bonus: social science (5%)
1 tossup and 1 bonus split among: geography, current events, popular culture (1.6% for each; each subject will appear with the same frequency within this group of three, or in other words, two out of each of these three subjects will appear in each round)

The tournament format for the PACE NSC in 2010 will be a 64-team tournament divided into eight brackets of eight teams each, seeded based on the team's performance-to-date with the goal of making each bracket both competitively equal to the other brackets and geographically diverse within the bracket. The top two teams from each preliminary bracket, by win-loss record, will advance to the championship playoffs. Teams 3 and 4 will go to the second playoff flight, teams 5 and 6 to the third flight, and teams 7 and 8 to the fourth flight. All ties for entrance into a higher playoff flight will be played off on half-games. Each flight will be divided into two brackets of eight such that the brackets are competitively equal based on prelim PPG but no rematches occur in the playoff brackets. Teams will play another round-robin against the other seven teams in their playoff bracket, be ranked by win-loss record, then (except for the top 4 in the championship brackets), play half-games to break ties and then play a final crossover game with their counterpart in the other bracket of their playoff flight for final ranking.

Those teams who are in the top 4 of each of the two playoff brackets (with ties for fourth place being broken by half-games) will instead play a 4-game crossover against the top 4 of the other bracket. The top 8 overall teams in the tournament will be ranked on their total record against each other over the 7 games they have played within that group--that is, the 4 crossover games and the 3 games that each team played in the first portion of the playoffs against other Top 8 teams. At this point, if a teams is 2 games ahead of the rest of the Top 8, it wins the tournament outright; if there is a tie for first, it is played off on a full game (or a series of PPG-seeded full games if the tie involves more than 2 teams); or, if a team is 1 game ahead of the second place team (or 2 or more teams tied for second place, who will play off on full games first in this scenario), then it will receive the advantage in a weighted best-of-three final of up to two games. The tournament will conclude with an all-star game played on an additional academic packet.

Under this tournament format, no team can win the tournament without playing all seven of the other Top 8 teams, and no playoff team can be eliminated from championship contention without losing at least twice in the upper playoffs. All teams are guaranteed at least 15 rounds of officially counted gameplay regardless of their prelim finish.

PACE thanks the high school quizbowl community for its input on these changes thusfar and welcomes further discussion. Any questions about the new PACE NSC game and tournament format may be directed to PACE Communications Director Trygve Meade at [email protected]. PACE was happy to assemble a very strong field to play on rigorous academic questions in 2009 and hopes to see an even better tournament in 2010 under these new structures. Once again, we will be announcing the host site of the 2010 NSC, which will take place on June 5-6, very soon.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by Stained Diviner »

This is very good news. It will make a very good tournament even better.

Is there a reason for sticking with brackets the first day rather than switching to power matching?
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) »

I don't understand the obsession with power matching, honestly. Brackets ensures that all teams get to play teams at all levels of skill, and then rebracketing ensures you get to play lots of teams closer to your skill. I don't see any more need to do something else.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by Angry Babies in Love »

Besides the distribution regarding geography, this is perhaps the best news I've heard in a long time.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

This is good news, i believe.

Several questions.

1) Why, still, 20-point "powers"?

2) Why move the NSC date to June?

3) Is it likely that the NSC site will change?
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by New York Undercover »

Ugh, this later date makes it conflict with my high school graduation. And I was really hoping our school may be able to make its first trip to this competition.
The changes sound great though, more in line with "good quizbowl" format to go with the high quality of questions that we know PACE produces.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by Frater Taciturnus »

Caesar Rodney HS wrote:
1) Why, still, 20-point "powers"?

2) Why move the NSC date to June?
as I am not privy to internal PACE discussion, I can't speak to your third question but here is my understanding on the other two:

1) 20 point powers, the traditional pace power value, allows the new pace format to still have a maximum 1000 possible points, therefore not every record necessary has to be thrown out.

2) The NSC, if I recall correctly, has traditionally been in June, and was moved up a week this year because of HSNCT, part of the reason NAQT now has the scheduling committee.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by jonpin »

I like everything about this.* I realized (as I imagine PACE did) that the glaring flaw was that it was hard to tell if a second-place finish was deserved. If Maggie Walker beat Georgetown in the third-place game, they would have finished third behind State College despite having the same record, no game against them and similar performances in the only common opponents they had. The tournament-format change fixes this and moreover gives all of the lower-ranked teams 3-4 more rounds to watch the best teams in the nation go head-to-head. Quizbowl isn't played for the audience, of course, but letting very good teams be the audience to several rounds played between great teams is a Good Thing.
The game-format change is just a good idea. I understand the desire to preserve the 1000-point maximum but consistency within the game meant the old game format was imperfect. Just for the record, how long had the format been in use? I seem to recall when I was in high school that we looked through a NSC packet, and it had letter or lightning rounds or something like that.

*-OK, if I had to find one thing to suggest, it'd be that two-way ties to get into the top sixteen (or perhaps any bracket) be broken with full games. You already have those questions written, and you will already be using that length of time anyway if there are any three-way ties (and I'm sure there will be).
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by Adventure Temple Trail »

klebian wrote:Ugh, this later date makes it conflict with my high school graduation.
Also true over here. If enough critical mass develops of people who couldn't make a June date for this or other legitimate reason, would PACE consider moving back to Memorial Day Weekend or before-Memorial-Day weekend, whichever one NAQT isn't using?
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by Sir Thopas »

I like the idea of 20-point powers that require really deep knowledge to get. And the rest of these changes.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by AlphaQuizBowler »

RyuAqua wrote:
klebian wrote:Ugh, this later date makes it conflict with my high school graduation.
Also true over here. If enough critical mass develops of people who couldn't make a June date for this or other legitimate reason, would PACE consider moving back to Memorial Day Weekend or before-Memorial-Day weekend, whichever one NAQT isn't using?
Just saying, down here in the South at least one of the national tournaments conflicts with graduation each year, so the date change is good for some people.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by jonpin »

Oh yeah, I remember what else I was going to say. The internal consistency will also allow bonus conversion to be used to seed the group champions into the semifinal groups instead of points-per-game which is significantly schedule-dependent, if desired.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by sabine01 »

jonpin wrote:. Just for the record, how long had the format been in use? I seem to recall when I was in high school that we looked through a NSC packet, and it had letter or lightning rounds or something like that.
Jon -

PACE has never had a letter round or a lightning round format (and I've been here since almost the beginning).

The rounds have always been as such since 1998:

A related question-bonus round: Tossups were 10 points and earned your team a chance at a related bonus worth 20 points. (10 tossups, 10 related bonuses)
A category quiz round: Tossup, again 10 points. You would then be able to pick a bonus from a number of categories offered. This bonus would be worth 15 points. (8 tossups/bonuses)
The Stretch round - Standard tossup-bonus. Known power (20 points) at any point before the moderator finishes the phrase "for 10 points". Afterward, question value drops to 10. (10/10)

Bonus parts bounce back.

A look at the 1998 NSC questions would confirm this. http://quizbowlpackets.com/archive/pace_nsc/1998/

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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by jonpin »

sabine01 wrote:PACE has never had a letter round or a lightning round format (and I've been here since almost the beginning).

The rounds have always been as such since 1998:

A look at the 1998 NSC questions would confirm this. http://quizbowlpackets.com/archive/pace_nsc/1998/

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OK, thanks. Must be mis-remembering.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by jbarnes112358 »

What was the reasoning behind moving to blind power marks? Just wondering.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by aestheteboy »

I'm quite pleased that my unamusing parody of Cato the Elder can stop after only two posts. I like the new format very much, except that I think the distribution is somewhat odd. In particular, 15% each of RMP and FA seems like too much.

Perhaps this belongs in a separate thread, but one of the few complaints I had about the distribution in NSC 2009 was the abundance of music; operas made up a very large proportion of the other arts, so that by the end of the tournament it seemed as if every major composer was covered at one point or another. I felt the same way, to a lesser extent, about religion. Either writers can start tossing up Stockhausen and Amesha Spentas or continue to use those very predictable answer lines of Sibelius and Rastafarianism, but I don't think either option is very desirable. As much as I love fine arts and RMP, I think it makes more sense to decrease their distribution by a few percents and use them on the Big Three, where the answer space is big enough to write comfortably without making significant canon expansions.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by marnold »

I'm not sure why people like hidden powers so much. I think non-blind powers are awesome and I wish college tournaments had them, and now pretty much nothing will have them.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by Frater Taciturnus »

jbarnes112358 wrote:What was the reasoning behind moving to blind power marks? Just wondering.
Because there is no way short of inserting the words END OF POWER randomly into the TU, which actually is really awkward and, as an aside distracts players, from the question, because we cant just stick the For 10 Points as a powermark without making either powers incredibly generous or end up with tossups that have "for ten points" in the third line followed by 4 more lines of other clues separated by commas and semi-colons, assuming we continue For ten points traditional role in good questions as the start of the last sentence.

As to non-interrupting clues that power was ending like a light being on and flashing at the end of power before going off, or the moderator waving a flag, these are just ridiculous and would often be forgotten or mismanaged.

Basically, good question form and writing had made the previous pace style of power nearly impossible to write and was unable to fairly give powers.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by jbarnes112358 »

You make some good points regarding blind power marks, George. But for the sake of argument, what is inherently wrong with having multiple clues after "for ten points" is said? And for that matter, if powers are blind, is the "for ten points" phrase to be dropped altogether, or do you feel it necessary to signal the impending giveaway or end of question?
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by at your pleasure »

Apparently, non-blind powers are quite a mess to write. If someone came up with an easier way to write nonblind powers.
Perhaps this belongs in a separate thread, but one of the few complaints I had about the distribution in NSC 2009 was the abundance of music; operas made up a very large proportion of the other arts, so that by the end of the tournament it seemed as if every major composer was covered at one point or another.
I personally am fine with 3/3 fine arts in theory. Would this be more acceptable if the category was less biased towards operas?
Looking back at previous threads, there have been a lot of complaints recently about the overrepresentation of opera. I'm not sure why this is; the only explanation that comes to mind is the fact that opera questions are pretty easy for someone without knowledge of the arts to write, which seems implausible since there are presumably a decent number of collegiate writers knowledgable enough to write about things like architecture, scupture, dance, and other odds and ends. If the overrepresentation of opera is one of the reasons to reduce the share of fine arts, PACE should try to balance the category(say, have a hard cap on the number of opera questions in the tournament) and see if that helps before reducing fine arts. If the issue is wholly or primarily that the high school nationals canon is simply too small for 3/3, which I am not entirely certain is the case, then I suppose a reduction is unfortunately necessary.
But for the sake of argument, what is inherently wrong with having multiple clues after "for ten points" is said?
It's really more an issue of trying to shove half the tossup into one long and akward sentence,since FTP is usually the last sentence and sort of tells players "here comes the end of the question".
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by Matt Weiner »

I would say that having 28 tossups and 30 bonuses (plus 6/3 tiebreakers) in each packet under the old format led to canon exhaustion in every category, not just music. The new 20/20 format will alleviate that problem somewhat. I will ask the rest of PACE about posting our current subdistributions (opera, like other components of "misc arts", does have a specific quota that is open to change) for comment by players and others.

And George is right--while open powers are fun and lead to an element of strategy that is less annoying than other forms of the s-word in quizbowl, they really are difficult to write well, especially considering certain advances in tossup structure made in recent years. I'd be moderately amused by someone writing a CO-level tournament in the old NSC format (or just in ACF format but using the pre-FTP power style), just to see what happens, but I'm pretty sure the end result will be frustration for the writer and a lot of "that was worth 20??!?" complaints from those playing it.

Producing questions that make sense is something that no tournament fully succeeds at, and at some point it's just shooting oneself in the foot with regards to that goal to adopt a format that requires you to write a four-line, semicolon-riddled sentence after "for 10 points" to make your tossups fair.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by jbarnes112358 »

Anti-Climacus wrote:
But for the sake of argument, what is inherently wrong with having multiple clues after "for ten points" is said?
It's really more an issue of trying to shove half the tossup into one long and akward sentence,since FTP is usually the last sentence and sort of tells players "here comes the end of the question".
But, why is important to tell the players the question is about to end, but not important to tell them power is about to end? Knowing when power ends can certainly assist a player in knowing when to buzz if they have a strong hunch about the answer, especially after the other team has "negged." As a player, do you like knowing when power ends? I am not a player, but I do wonder how players feel about having non-blind power marks.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by dtaylor4 »

jbarnes112358 wrote:
Anti-Climacus wrote:
But for the sake of argument, what is inherently wrong with having multiple clues after "for ten points" is said?
It's really more an issue of trying to shove half the tossup into one long and akward sentence,since FTP is usually the last sentence and sort of tells players "here comes the end of the question".
But, why is important to tell the players the question is about to end, but not important to tell them power is about to end? Knowing when power ends can certainly assist a player in knowing when to buzz if they have a strong hunch about the answer, especially after the other team has "negged." As a player, do you like knowing when power ends? I am not a player, but I do wonder how players feel about having non-blind power marks.
I have never played non-blind powers, but when playing blind powers, I only play to get the 15 when the game situation dictates (i.e. down 45 going into tossup 20.) Also, I hold that anyone who tries to power-vulch before it is a must should be chastised.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by Frater Taciturnus »

jbarnes112358 wrote:You make some good points regarding blind power marks, George. But for the sake of argument, what is inherently wrong with having multiple clues after "for ten points" is said? And for that matter, if powers are blind, is the "for ten points" phrase to be dropped altogether, or do you feel it necessary to signal the impending giveaway or end of question?
Yes, I believe that the FTP is important to note the impending end of the question to the players. I don't mind it "spoiling" the power with a for ten points because at the point where the for ten points is in modern standards, is right before the giveaway, where there is no reason for there to still be power.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by jbarnes112358 »

dtaylor4 wrote:
I have never played non-blind powers, but when playing blind powers, I only play to get the 15 when the game situation dictates (i.e. down 45 going into tossup 20.) Also, I hold that anyone who tries to power-vulch before it is a must should be chastised.
Well, it really is a risk vs. reward calculation that a player must make. The 20 point bonus (as opposed to 15 points) certainly sweetens the reward factor.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

Matt Weiner wrote:but I'm pretty sure the end result will be frustration for the writer and a lot of "that was worth 20??!?" complaints from those playing it.
This is basically the response i was anticipating from my original question of "why 20-point powers?"

I've always thought 20 points was much too much for an early buzz, especially if it's just one or two words before a "middle" clue or something like that.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by JackGlerum »

aestheteboy wrote:I'm quite pleased that my unamusing parody of Cato the Elder can stop after only two posts. I like the new format very much, except that I think the distribution is somewhat odd. In particular, 15% each of RMP and FA seems like too much.

Perhaps this belongs in a separate thread, but one of the few complaints I had about the distribution in NSC 2009 was the abundance of music; operas made up a very large proportion of the other arts, so that by the end of the tournament it seemed as if every major composer was covered at one point or another. I felt the same way, to a lesser extent, about religion. Either writers can start tossing up Stockhausen and Amesha Spentas or continue to use those very predictable answer lines of Sibelius and Rastafarianism, but I don't think either option is very desirable. As much as I love fine arts and RMP, I think it makes more sense to decrease their distribution by a few percents and use them on the Big Three, where the answer space is big enough to write comfortably without making significant canon expansions.
This was my first reaction as well.

3/3 FA and 3/3 RMP works for ACF because there's 5/5 of each of the big three. If you're gonna have 20ish questions total, I'd go 5/5 for each of the big three, with 2/2 FA, 2/2 RMP, and 1/1 SSci. If there must absolutely be a trash distro, then make rounds 21 questions.

Basically, I don't think paintings and operas should be 5% less than Science or History.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by at your pleasure »

I do, in fact, prefer non-blind powers. However, I don't really like making things harder for writers. That said, if there was some other way than "FTP" to indicate the end of power(and that's less disruptive to question flow), I would definitely shift decisively into the nonblind power camp.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by rchschem »

I do not have a dog in the question format hunt, so I applaud whatever changes the PACE staff feel are necessary to keep producing the high quality packets they do. I am glad to see the bracketing system from this year brought forward.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by jbarnes112358 »

Caesar Rodney HS wrote:
Matt Weiner wrote:but I'm pretty sure the end result will be frustration for the writer and a lot of "that was worth 20??!?" complaints from those playing it.
This is basically the response i was anticipating from my original question of "why 20-point powers?"

I've always thought 20 points was much too much for an early buzz, especially if it's just one or two words before a "middle" clue or something like that.
A 15 point "power" and 20 point "super-power" might be fun, and would address some of your concerns. Or does this just put too much stress on the question writers/editors for proper placement of the two-tiered power marks?
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by Sir Thopas »

jbarnes112358 wrote:
Caesar Rodney HS wrote:
Matt Weiner wrote:but I'm pretty sure the end result will be frustration for the writer and a lot of "that was worth 20??!?" complaints from those playing it.
This is basically the response i was anticipating from my original question of "why 20-point powers?"

I've always thought 20 points was much too much for an early buzz, especially if it's just one or two words before a "middle" clue or something like that.
A 15 point "power" and 20 point "super-power" might be fun, and would address some of your concerns. Or does this just put too much stress on the question writers/editors for proper placement of the two-tiered power marks?
The way I conceptualized it, the power mark will basically be equivalent to a superpower mark in similar formats, not a power mark in the same. In short, you really gotta earn your 20.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by AlphaQuizBowler »

JackGlerum wrote:
aestheteboy wrote:I'm quite pleased that my unamusing parody of Cato the Elder can stop after only two posts. I like the new format very much, except that I think the distribution is somewhat odd. In particular, 15% each of RMP and FA seems like too much.

Perhaps this belongs in a separate thread, but one of the few complaints I had about the distribution in NSC 2009 was the abundance of music; operas made up a very large proportion of the other arts, so that by the end of the tournament it seemed as if every major composer was covered at one point or another. I felt the same way, to a lesser extent, about religion. Either writers can start tossing up Stockhausen and Amesha Spentas or continue to use those very predictable answer lines of Sibelius and Rastafarianism, but I don't think either option is very desirable. As much as I love fine arts and RMP, I think it makes more sense to decrease their distribution by a few percents and use them on the Big Three, where the answer space is big enough to write comfortably without making significant canon expansions.
This was my first reaction as well.

3/3 FA and 3/3 RMP works for ACF because there's 5/5 of each of the big three. If you're gonna have 20ish questions total, I'd go 5/5 for each of the big three, with 2/2 FA, 2/2 RMP, and 1/1 SSci. If there must absolutely be a trash distro, then make rounds 21 questions.

Basically, I don't think paintings and operas should be 5% less than Science or History.
Why less art? I think that 5/5 Big 3 to 2/2 art is just too high a ratio. Also, I'm pretty sure that edited ACF packets have 4/4 Big 3. The submission guidelines call for 24/24 submitted, but only 20/20 is played in ACF, so I think the extra 1/1 of each category is edited out/used as tiebreakers. Someone in college, please confirm/deny.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

Sir Thopas wrote:
jbarnes112358 wrote:
Caesar Rodney HS wrote:
Matt Weiner wrote:but I'm pretty sure the end result will be frustration for the writer and a lot of "that was worth 20??!?" complaints from those playing it.
This is basically the response i was anticipating from my original question of "why 20-point powers?"

I've always thought 20 points was much too much for an early buzz, especially if it's just one or two words before a "middle" clue or something like that.
A 15 point "power" and 20 point "super-power" might be fun, and would address some of your concerns. Or does this just put too much stress on the question writers/editors for proper placement of the two-tiered power marks?
The way I conceptualized it, the power mark will basically be equivalent to a superpower mark in similar formats, not a power mark in the same. In short, you really gotta earn your 20.
Okay, this, Guy, would be way better... it just better not be during the "for 10 points" phrase again because i always thought that was a really cheap extra ten points to get the answer by that point.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by BroNi »

This is a huge disappointment - Graduation conflicts with this date, so Kellenberg will not be able to attend. We had a great time this year, and thoroughly enjoyed the rigorous competiton. It's a shame.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by Nuclear Densometer Test »

I don't know if I should be excited or disappointed about the new format. I really liked the 3-phase format since it added a bit of "variety" to the standard quiz bowl format, however this new choice will make it simpler to write questions and prevent repetitions. So that allows for cleaner play

As for the date change, I am personally all for it. A lot of our juniors and seniors had IB exams the Friday before the tournament and our coaches were not able to stay past that Monday due to testing and such thus limiting our time to prepare and time in DC. Making it in the summer solves these problems. However, the graduation issue still persists. Our graduation is on the 4th this year, so as long as it's the same day next year, we should be alright. But as time progresses, we may find that more and more teams are unable to attend because of that date conflict. This may become an even bigger problem once exact dates for next year's graduation are revealed.
Caesar Rodney HS wrote:
Matt Weiner wrote:but I'm pretty sure the end result will be frustration for the writer and a lot of "that was worth 20??!?" complaints from those playing it.
This is basically the response i was anticipating from my original question of "why 20-point powers?"

I've always thought 20 points was much too much for an early buzz, especially if it's just one or two words before a "middle" clue or something like that.
I am fairly certain that PACE will require some deep knowledge to get the power. This will eliminate the problem with the old format in which the writers had to justify a 20 point power for everything before FTP, which is essentially all clues in the tossup except for one or two.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

Dasein wrote: However, the graduation issue still persists. Our graduation is on the 4th this year, so as long as it's the same day next year, we should be alright. But as time progresses, we may find that more and more teams are unable to attend because of that date conflict. This may become an even bigger problem once exact dates for next year's graduation are revealed.
I mean, the graduation thing... EVERY weekend from the second to last in May to the first or second in June is going to be a problem. Our only senior couldn't go to HSNCT because he was valedictorian this year and graduation was last Saturday. And if HSNCT is held on the same date next year, every senior (probably three-quarters of the team) can't go. It's going to happen. Unless we change tournaments to be held way way earlier or way way later, there are going to be conflicts.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by at your pleasure »

If there was more post-nationals competiton, it would almost make sense to have NSC in early-or-mid may, since that's before most end-of-the-year disruptions. The other option, like Andrew said, would be a late(say, tail end of June) tournament, but that's going to cause problems for people going away for part of the summmer.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by Duncan Idaho »

If there was more post-nationals competiton, it would almost make sense to have NSC in early-or-mid may, since that's before most end-of-the-year disruptions. The other option, like Andrew said, would be a late(say, tail end of June) tournament, but that's going to cause problems for people going away for part of the summmer.
It would never make sense to put any national quizbowl tournament in early to mid-May. Aren't quizbowl people among the most likely to be taking AP Exams, which just happen to run the first two weeks of May?
Also, the third week of May is still during IB testing, which, although not as common as AP testing, is still pretty prevalent in high school quizbowl. And since the first week of June generally involves graduation, perhaps the 2nd week of June would be the best option if a change were to be made the time national tournaments are held.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by First Chairman »

Also, practically speaking, college undergraduate exams for many parts of the country start in early May, and reserving rooms on college campuses would thus be extremely impractical.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

Ben Cole wrote:
If there was more post-nationals competiton, it would almost make sense to have NSC in early-or-mid may, since that's before most end-of-the-year disruptions. The other option, like Andrew said, would be a late(say, tail end of June) tournament, but that's going to cause problems for people going away for part of the summmer.
It would never make sense to put any national quizbowl tournament in early to mid-May. Aren't quizbowl people among the most likely to be taking AP Exams, which just happen to run the first two weeks of May?
Also, the third week of May is still during IB testing, which, although not as common as AP testing, is still pretty prevalent in high school quizbowl. And since the first week of June generally involves graduation, perhaps the 2nd week of June would be the best option if a change were to be made the time national tournaments are held.
But isn't the HSAPQ All-Star Tournament going to be held the second weekend of June? viewtopic.php?f=2&t=7719
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by kayli »

Just a thought: We could have it in the first week of July. This avoids most if not all scheduling conflicts (aside from vacations but those can usually be planned around provided the tournament is announced far back enough) and allows teams a couple weeks in the summer to practice, much like a training camp. I know that the National Mu Alpha Theta Convention is held in this way with some schools having little mini-math camps over the summer. Just a thought.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by Tower Monarch »

kldaace wrote:Just a thought: We could have it in the first week of July. This avoids most if not all scheduling conflicts (aside from vacations but those can usually be planned around provided the tournament is announced far back enough) and allows teams a couple weeks in the summer to practice, much like a training camp. I know that the National Mu Alpha Theta Convention is held in this way with some schools having little mini-math camps over the summer. Just a thought.
So, ignoring the huge number of people that vacation with their families in the first week of July (Independence Day??), it is very difficult in general for a high school to have official trips outside the school year.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by Ben Dillon »

Tower Monarch wrote:So, ignoring the huge number of people that vacation with their families in the first week of July (Independence Day??), it is very difficult in general for a high school to have official trips outside the school year.
Also, almost every school I can think of ends its budgets at June 30th, so there's a possibility they would consider it an expense for the following year, thereby not paying for any recent grads.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by First Chairman »

I am not a fan to experiment with the the nuances of a budget year or the people who are in charge of enforcement. For example, while my budget year ends June 30, my last day to spend money in the previous year occurs before then. Entry fees and travel costs are going to be messy.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by AKKOLADE »

I cannot see any circumstances where the NSC would be moved to early May, late June or July. None of these situations would be likely to work out with regards to being able to match this year's field size.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by Important Bird Area »

First Chairman wrote:Also, practically speaking, college undergraduate exams for many parts of the country start in early May, and reserving rooms on college campuses would thus be extremely impractical.
The same holds for extracting college players from their own academic commitments to staff an early-May nationals.

In short: there are a bunch of good reasons why national tournaments are in late May and early June.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by New York Undercover »

why not a week or two earlier (late may)? i would think that most graduations are the first week or june or later, so such a date may lessen the number of graduation conflicts, while still avoiding AP exams and probably IB tests.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by Kouign Amann »

klebian wrote:why not a week or two earlier (late may)? i would think that most graduations are the first week or june or later, so such a date may lessen the number of graduation conflicts, while still avoiding AP exams and probably IB tests.
You're aiming for an impossibly small and shifting window that will not be open to all necessary people at the same time.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by New York Undercover »

If I understand what you're saying, my point was that there would probably be fewer graduations in the third or fourth week of may as compared to the first or second week of June.
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Re: PACE NSC: format changes, 2010 information

Post by dtaylor4 »

klebian wrote:If I understand what you're saying, my point was that there would probably be fewer graduations in the third or fourth week of may as compared to the first or second week of June.
The problem is, one of the potential dates will be taken by NAQT HSNCT.
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