How far back are NAQT Questions truly useful?

[quizbowllee]

Here's a question that I've been pondering lately. The game has changed so much in the last several years. An NAQT packet from even 5 years ago is very different from one written this year. When I was cleaning out my archives, I came across an NAQT packet from 2000. I believe it was IS-26. WOW. If you have access to a packet that old, you should take a look. It's amazing.

As a team that focuses on NAQT events (our state series uses NAQT and we also go to HSNCT and SSNCT), how far back can we reasonably go and still get questions that are "informationally" and structurally relevant to preparing for NAQT events today? I notice that on the practice question ordering site, they only go back to IS-117A. But, you can order older sets by e-mailing them.

I'm just curious. I definitely wouldn't use IS-26 for anything other than a novelty in practice. But, at what point are they relevant?

[Cheynem]

In the sense of being good practice material or true prep, probably not, but I think you can always pick up stuff from packets if you're in a good attitude. Sometimes yesterday's middle clue becomes today's lead-in due to time passing a certain topic by. I wouldn't obviously use it a lot for practice, but I am a big fan of reading and learning.

[jonpin]

A year or two ago, a colleague passed me a box of old NAQT sets, some still in their wrappers, that dated back to my era as a student (one of them was notably from the first tournament BCA Quiz Bowl ever attended in 2000), and on a lark I've read a few packets. They are, as Lee mentions, outright terrible, and no good for anything other than silly entertainment. In terms of more recent questions, though, one of the issues is the higher emphasis on current events and pop culture in NAQT than in most housewritten sets. I think NAQT sets tend to be good for one or two "rotations", that is a year or two passes and people graduate or forget the questions, then you can use them again; repeat the process. Beyond that, once they're 5 years old or so, they're no longer a reasonable vintage.

HSNCT and college nationals questions may not degrade in quite the same manner.

[Good Goblin Housekeeping]

HSNCT questions may not degrade in quite the same manner.

Code: Select all

It has two Xbox game systems and several plasma TV screens.  After appearing on campus in West Virginia, at a NASCAR race in Atlanta, and at a (*) campaign rally in Orlando, it hit Times Square in March 2004 for an appearance on Total Request Live to help rally youth support for George W. Bush.  For 10 points—identify this voter “registration rig” whose name was shared by a Yankee slugger from the 1970s.

answer:	Reggie the Registration Rig

[That DCC guy]

I think it depends more on what subject category the question is apart of. If the question is Current Events and trash then yeah its useless the after maybe a year or so. If it's any of the other categories; I would say 2008-2009 is when the questions actually became acceptable for today's standards. Everything past that mark is worth studying.

[Corry]

Personally, my arbitrary cutoff is around IS-80 (which was written at the beginning of the 2008-2009 season). Anything before that is generally pretty sketch, based on my own experience.

[Monstruos de Bolsillo]

This is fascinating stuff, and something I was just thinking about. We just finished using something old in practice, maybe IS-86 or so, and found the questions to be quite interesting, and in many cases, more difficult. Obviously, most of the content isn't changing (except for current events and trash), but some things were asked about that seem to come up rarely at today's regular-difficulty level. Also, the questions seem to have changed a bit in terms of style, wording, and some of the commonplace phrasing has changed a bit as well.

One thing though, the current events can still be somewhat useful, I think, particularly when they involve politics. Many notable people circa 2008 are still notable people, and the lead-ins and early clues might really help out. Also, if there is geography mixed in with the current event, that can lead to geo points later on.

[acrosby1861]

One thing though, the current events can still be somewhat useful, I think, particularly when they involve politics. Many notable people circa 2008 are still notable people, and the lead-ins and early clues might really help out. Also, if there is geography mixed in with the current event, that can lead to geo points later on.

My team has a lot of packets from 2000 to 2005 (we went through a 2004 packet at the last practice), and I never quite knew why we never bothered to get new packets. Even though I emailed the guy running the team links to the question archives for more recent stuff, I like the current event stuff from old packets (or at least what was "current events" back then) because it forces you to think about "okay, who was president of [insert country here] during [this year] or [this event]?"

[dhumphreys17]

Last year, we practiced on IS-84A then IS-85 then on PACE questions before Nationals. At Nationals, we purchased IS-146 for practice use, and we're now using that for our practices this year. The difference in question quality/style is insane! We even came across a "5 for one, 10 for two, 20 for 3, 30 for 4" bonus structure in the IS-85 packet set that we've since learned is a ghost of quiz bowl past. It was pretty interesting, though, to read an IS-85 packet after seeing IS-146 and noticing huge differences in question quality and structure. And this is in five years' time. It would be even more interesting to see an IS-20 or something like that.