Useful Podcasts for Quiz Bowl

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Useful Podcasts for Quiz Bowl

Post by Lives4quizbowl »

I primarily study by listening to Podcasts while I am at work or doing things around the house, and then later cementing that knowledge when I study. My favorite podcast for this is probably Overdue, which is a podcast about books. Dan Carlin's Hardcore history is also very entertaining and rewarding.
I'm currently looking for good science podcasts and was wondering if anyone else listened to educational podcasts. What podcasts do you find most useful and rewarding?
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Re: Useful Podcasts for Quiz Bowl

Post by Mike Bentley »

There's another thread on this here: http://hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewtopic. ... it=podcast

I'll note that in general podcasts are less information dense than things like audiobooks. The downside is that you often have to pay for these, but you should check if your library has access to something like OverDrive. They have a pretty good mobile app to access free audio books. The selection isn't quite as large as something like Audible but there are still more quizbowl relevant books on there than you'd ever be able to listen to in a lifetime.

Text-to-speech has also gotten a lot better over the years and is a reasonably decent listening experience. Apps like Pocket allow you to save articles (or really anything else published to the web) and then listen back to them. There are some tools I've written myself for turning other types of text into speech form. You can likely find other services out there that replicate that.
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Re: Useful Podcasts for Quiz Bowl

Post by vinteuil »

Mike Bentley wrote: Tue Nov 20, 2018 12:03 pm I'll note that in general podcasts are less information dense than things like audiobooks. The downside is that you often have to pay for these, but you should check if your library has access to something like OverDrive. They have a pretty good mobile app to access free audio books. The selection isn't quite as large as something like Audible but there are still more quizbowl relevant books on there than you'd ever be able to listen to in a lifetime.
I'll second this. People who know me will roll my eyes, but I never would have gotten through Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire if it hadn't been available as a free audiobook through my college library, and it's packed full of good prose and deep clues.

I also have a short Podcasts section in the big list of quizbowl resources; people should feel free to add their own recommendations!
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Re: Useful Podcasts for Quiz Bowl

Post by dwd500 »

I've gotten points before from having listened to Slate's Whistlestop podcast, hosted by John Dickerson. The early episodes are much more history-focused, but now it's more about "lessons from history and what they can imply moving forward."
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Re: Useful Podcasts for Quiz Bowl

Post by VSCOelasticity »

Lives4quizbowl wrote: Tue Nov 20, 2018 11:39 am I'm currently looking for good science podcasts and was wondering if anyone else listened to educational podcasts. What podcasts do you find most useful and rewarding?
The Nature podcast is the best science podcast I found. It is good for news and staying up to date with pop science stuff, but don't expect too many buzzes from it. I have listened to it off and on since summer 2016 and the first buzz I remember getting solely from listening to it came during this semester. It might help you remember Nobel prize winners and such though.

I haven't found a podcast that actually teaches science. My go-to resource for science topics that I haven't learned in the classroom is YouTube. There are a surprising amount of really informative videos of people explaining concepts ranging from high school physics to organic chemistry to graduate mathematics.
Lives4quizbowl wrote: Tue Nov 20, 2018 11:39 am I primarily study by listening to Podcasts while I am at work or doing things around the house, and then later cementing that knowledge when I study. My favorite podcast for this is probably Overdue, which is a podcast about books. Dan Carlin's Hardcore history is also very entertaining and rewarding.
If you like Hardcore History, check out History on Fire. Mike Duncan's podcasts (History of Rome and Revolutions) are also pretty good. A lot of the stories he tells will pop up in quiz bowl questions. History of India, The Civil War (1861-186): A History Podcast, and The History of China are also very detailed and informative. I do second the others in this thread who are saying that audio books are the best way to learn history (and other subjects), but podcasts are good, relatively casual introductory material.
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Re: Useful Podcasts for Quiz Bowl

Post by Mike Bentley »

settlej wrote: Tue Nov 20, 2018 3:12 pmIf you like Hardcore History, check out History on Fire. Mike Duncan's podcasts (History of Rome and Revolutions) are also pretty good. A lot of the stories he tells will pop up in quiz bowl questions. History of India, The Civil War (1861-186): A History Podcast, and The History of China are also very detailed and informative. I do second the others in this thread who are saying that audio books are the best way to learn history (and other subjects), but podcasts are good, relatively casual introductory material.
This brings up a point I've been meaning to raise. When writing questions, writers should consider where they draw clues from. For instance, it may not be the best idea to write a question on something you heard in the latest episode of In Our Time or Revolutions.* Given their popularity among quizbowlers, these clues / answer lines are likely to be more well known that might otherwise be the case. Furthermore, it's not great when people can predict questions and clues by listening to a handful of podcasts in the same way that it's not great to be able to study current events questions by studying a couple of issues of the Economist a few weeks before a tournament (i.e. because all of the CE was written from that one particular source).

*I also feel that apart from the high-level summary episodes, this particular podcast doesn't present a very interesting angle on the events it covers.
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Re: Useful Podcasts for Quiz Bowl

Post by Lives4quizbowl »

"There's another thread on this here: http://hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewtopic. ... it=podcast "

I'll look at that thank you.

"I'll note that in general podcasts are less information dense than things like audiobooks. The downside is that you often have to pay for these, but you should check if your library has access to something like OverDrive. They have a pretty good mobile app to access free audio books. The selection isn't quite as large as something like Audible but there are still more quizbowl relevant books on there than you'd ever be able to listen to in a lifetime."

I'm not playing at a super high level and am looking for more broad things that don't require my full focus. That much being said I just downloaded overdrive.

" Text-to-speech has also gotten a lot better over the years and is a reasonably decent listening experience. Apps like Pocket allow you to save articles (or really anything else published to the web) and then listen back to them. There are some tools I've written myself for turning other types of text into speech form. You can likely find other services out there that replicate that."

I was unaware that pocket could do that (I had it downloaded in the past). Do you know any way to have an app read packets?
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Re: Useful Podcasts for Quiz Bowl

Post by Lives4quizbowl »

"The Nature podcast is the best science podcast I found. It is good for news and staying up to date with pop science stuff, but don't expect too many buzzes from it. I have listened to it off and on since summer 2016 and the first buzz I remember getting solely from listening to it came during this semester. It might help you remember Nobel prize winners and such though.

I haven't found a podcast that actually teaches science. My go-to resource for science topics that I haven't learned in the classroom is YouTube. There are a surprising amount of really informative videos of people explaining concepts ranging from high school physics to organic chemistry to graduate mathematics."

I've been watching a lot of science youtube as well. Are there any channels you recommend?
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Re: Useful Podcasts for Quiz Bowl

Post by VSCOelasticity »

Lives4quizbowl wrote: Mon Nov 26, 2018 9:10 pm I've been watching a lot of science youtube as well. Are there any channels you recommend?
3Blue1Brown is really great. The animations are nice visuals to help you cement knowledge and give you a intuitive understanding even if you don't wanna read a formal math book/Wikipedia page.

minutephysics is along the same line, and goes into decent depth despite its name imo.

Other than that, I don't really do channels, just search and watch.

Not a video or a podcast (and someone has probably linked it on here before) but the articles on master organic chemistry have helped me, someone who's last chem class was AP Chem in 11th grade, with orgo fundamentals.
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Re: Useful Podcasts for Quiz Bowl

Post by ValenciaQBowl »

I see you working, Jacob!

I probably shouldn't be letting you in on Jesse Gingold's secret improvement strategies, but he's listened to a ton of the BBC "In Our Time" podcasts, which mostly cover literature and history, but also do small dives into science and other topics.
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Re: Useful Podcasts for Quiz Bowl

Post by Lives4quizbowl »

ValenciaQBowl wrote: Tue Nov 27, 2018 10:19 am I see you working, Jacob!

I probably shouldn't be letting you in on Jesse Gingold's secret improvement strategies, but he's listened to a ton of the BBC "In Our Time" podcasts, which mostly cover literature and history, but also do small dives into science and other topics.
I downloaded all of their podcasts yesterday. Lol
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Re: Useful Podcasts for Quiz Bowl

Post by Lives4quizbowl »

"3Blue1Brown is really great. The animations are nice visuals to help you cement knowledge and give you a intuitive understanding even if you don't wanna read a formal math book/Wikipedia page."

I've been watching 3blue1brown since 10th grade. It's one of the channels that helped me get into math in the first place.

minutephysics is along the same line, and goes into decent depth despite its name imo.

Other than that, I don't really do channels, just search and watch.

"Not a video or a podcast (and someone has probably linked it on here before) but the articles on master organic chemistry have helped me, someone who's last chem class was AP Chem in 11th grade, with orgo fundamentals."

I am in the same spot as my last class being AP Chem and wanting to learn orgo.
I have been looking into quantum physics and have found looking glass universe and pbs spacetime to be pretty good youtube channels for that.
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Re: Useful Podcasts for Quiz Bowl

Post by naan/steak-holding toll »

ValenciaQBowl wrote: Tue Nov 27, 2018 10:19 am I see you working, Jacob!

I probably shouldn't be letting you in on Jesse Gingold's secret improvement strategies, but he's listened to a ton of the BBC "In Our Time" podcasts, which mostly cover literature and history, but also do small dives into science and other topics.
Echoing Mike, this is definitely a podcast which I'd suggest people avoid writing questions based on. I think I started listening to In Our Time when I read some Mike Sorice recommendation for it, and listened to the episode on gin. Shortly after listening to that episode, I read for ACF Regionals 2017 and I think there was a bonus covered almost exactly the same material as the podcast; there was later a similar tossup on gin in FRENCH.

This doesn't mean a writer can't write questions that are inspired by a given podcast or book, but I'd definitely hesitate to source all of my material from that one place if it's something of a known quantity in quizbowl.
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Re: Useful Podcasts for Quiz Bowl

Post by mhayes »

Although it's probably more specialized than you'd like, I enjoy David Crowther's History of England podcast:
https://thehistoryofengland.co.uk/podca ... f-england/
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Re: Useful Podcasts for Quiz Bowl

Post by alexdz »

A friend of mine has been running a religion podcast for a while now, the Classical Ideas Podcast. He's a teacher with a background in religious studies, so the material is presented in a really accessible way. Not very episode would be super useful for quizbowl, but it might be a great way to explore some of the basic traditions of many world religions.
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