A Set Tournaments

[Standard-winged Nightjar]

Updated as of 12/20/12

Northeast/Midatlantic
Washington D.C. Metro Championships at St. Anselm's Abbey School, Washington, DC, February 16
New Jersey State Championships at Princeton University, February 23
New England Championships at Lexington HS, Lexington, MA, March 9 (note: this tournament will have a separate middle school division on the middle school set)
Virginia State Championships at Monticello HS (Charlottesville), March 9

South
Georgia State Championships at Ola Middle School (Mcdonough), Jan. 26 (note: this tournament will have a separate middle school division on the middle school set)
Texas State Championships at LASA (Austin), February 9
Florida State Championships at Chaminade-Madonna College Preparatory (Hollywood), March 6 (note: this tournament will likely have a separate middle school division but NOT on the middle school set)
Kentucky State Championships at Oldham County HS (Buckner), March 23 (note: this tournament will have a separate middle school division on the middle school set)

Midwest
Ohio State Championships at Ohio State University (Columbus), March 2
Illinois State Championships at Fenton HS (Bensenville), March 23 (note: this tournament will likely have a separate middle school division on the middle school set)

West
Bay Area Championships at San Leandro HS, March 2 (note: this tournament will likely have a separate middle school division on the middle school set)

[Mr. Scogan]

After playing this set on 2/4, I have to say that coming in, I had high expectations for an "all-history" set that was of high quality and worth paying into, however, by the end of the day, I found that I was severely disappointed by HSAPQ's writing and seemingly lazy editing. The Ohio State Championship was the first site to use this set, and I think, while some excellent questions were in the set, that the set overall was of low-quality because of the prevalence of repeats in clues, answerlines, answerlines becoming clues, clues becoming answerlines, etc. There was also the Bee question with a dead wrong "give-away" that a third-grader could point out.

I'm not blasting NHBB because NHBB didn't write the set. I am wondering why HSAPQ put their name on a product that they did a downright horrible and lazy job of executing, in terms of writing and editing. I was told later that the set would be revised before its next use, I am wondering if that actually happened.

I don't think there's any excuse for such a bad product being put out. I don't care that "it was the first usage, yeah there's bound to be a mistake or two in there", because that wasn't the case at all. I felt that by around lunchtime, this set was too problematic and annoying to even be enjoyable. It's worth clarifying that History Bowl as a tournament was enjoyable. The problem was the product that HSAPQ put out.

I hope that HSAPQ can respond to this and ensure quiz bowl players and coaches that they have resolved this mess and that the National set will be of excellent quality and worth paying to, as is the A set and other NHBB sets. NHBB Ohio was a cool event, we hope to attend nationals in D.C. in late April, as we enjoyed History Bowl & Bee and the philosophy behind it. Now here's to hoping that HSAPQ can deliver an excellent product that is worth playing and paying into.

[Standard-winged Nightjar]

I agree with the thrust of Tom's points here, and apologize for this set, which should never have been submitted as such. It has been considerably reworked for future uses of it, including this Saturday's NJ State Championships. Going forward, starting with Nationals, NHBB will be taking a much more hands on approach to participating in the editing, and for future years, we will be reviewing our agreements with HSAPQ accordingly so that incidents of this sort do not happen ever again.

[Papa's in the House]

Is the college NHBB Nationals set also being written and edited by HSAPQ?

[Matt Weiner]

Is the college NHBB Nationals set also being written and edited by HSAPQ?

As previously posted (viewtopic.php?p=221400#p221400) the college set is being written by Mike Bentley and Jerry VInokurov, who are not members of HSAPQ, and myself, who is working on this independently of any organizations I may be a part of. HSAPQ only produces high school sets.

[Papa's in the House]

Is the college NHBB Nationals set also being written and edited by HSAPQ?

As previously posted (http://www.hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewto ... 00#p221400) the college set is being written by Mike Bentley and Jerry VInokurov, who are not members of HSAPQ, and myself, who is working on this independently of any organizations I may be a part of. HSAPQ only produces high school sets.

I had not actually read this through, so thank you for the link.

[Scaled Flowerpiercer]

I agree with the thrust of Tom's points here, and apologize for this set, which should never have been submitted as such. It has been considerably reworked for future uses of it, including this Saturday's NJ State Championships. Going forward, starting with Nationals, NHBB will be taking a much more hands on approach to participating in the editing, and for future years, we will be reviewing our agreements with HSAPQ accordingly so that incidents of this sort do not happen ever again.

Regarding the A set as it was at this Saturday's NJ State Championships: It was definitely not even close to the state of disrepair that Tom thought it was in, and overall was very good, though I did notice a few issues:

There were a couple of repeat answerlines, which in a couple of cases were fine because there truly were no overlaps in the clues, though there was one case where between the Bee and the bowl I noticed an almost identical clue in a 60 second round and a Bee question.

There were a couple of issues where the questions had incorrect grammar and sentences that just didn't work, but it happened only a handful of times and the issues where minor enough that the sentences could be understood.

There seemed to be a few cases of 60-second rounds not being very balanced in difficulty...but this is more of a general issue with 60-second rounds than the set itself, as it is impossible to make sure 3 rounds are exactly the same in difficulty.

There was one fact that a teammate says he research to be incorrect...if Matt Weiner or anyone else with the power to change it wants to know what it is, send me a private message on this or something, as I obviously don't want to give away an answerline publicly.

There seemed to be more fine arts in the Bee than the Bowl...this could just be my perception though, I don't know.

Also, I don't know if my team has just gotten that much better since October, but the Superpowers seemed to be gotten far more frequently, and seemed to be available later in the questions, than they were on the B set we played in October.

My only other comment would be that, as people always complain about trash, there was very very little trash, I would say I counted only about 4 true trash questions throughout the Bee and Bowl, and only a couple more if you include what at least I find to be culturally significant but still significant stuff like jazz musicians and sports.

But in summary, the set must have been vastly improved from its first incarnation, all the things above are just minor critiques.

[Matt Weiner]

I'd certainly like to hear any specific critiques at mattweiner@hsapq.com, or you can send them to NHBB and they will certainly be forwarded to us.

[Standard-winged Nightjar]

Updated on Dec. 20, 2012