The Quizbowl Resource Center

A minimally intrusive* way to prevent cheating is simply to have everyone participating in a tournament have their camera on and pointed at their hands. You would need all participants to have a webcam of some kind, and be able to have it pointed at their hands. However, I would think nearly everyo...

I brought this up years ago on the irc, but there are several companies that rent out laptops for business conferences. We could even pre-load digital scoresheets and packets onto them before distributing to moderators. I don't know how much this would cost, or how much more we're willing to pay in ...

Something I've been wondering about the last few years is whether the lack of anonymity in ballot submission turns off many potential voters. I realize having the organizer looking at each person's ballot can basically eliminate troll/insincere submissions, but I feel like it can also make sincere p...

Are there any plans to run CANONEXPANSION at NSC? I won't be able to make it to HSNCT.

I've updated the NSC and some ICT stats (the graphs in earlier posts). Additionally, I'm going through and calculating retention rates for NSC. New graph in progress here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQsMjPIi8kN1Bs44e_zSPPVVYq9NbJ4TXTfCvYYQ2F9Wk2j6vLfd79XFVBLBqdCHourfpFpVl_7My9A/...

Why is it like pulling teeth for me to show up to ICT and convince people to leave the tournament at the end of the day and go eat a good dinner and then go out to enjoy a little nightlife in one of the largest cities in America? Isn't that what friends do? A contributing factor to this is almost c...

If people would like a more consistent summer practice location, I can offer my lab's meeting room in Nelson A237 on Busch. It's very close to both the ARC and library bus stops and has a parking lot immediately next to it. Practice would need to start before 9 since the doors lock then, but I or (p...

Something I'd like to point out is that people shouldn't conflate respect and conscientiousness around women with being patronizing or handling us with kid-gloves. And I also think it's unhelpful to assume everything critical (even many things *unfairly* critical) of a woman's comments or actions is...

I actually quite enjoy science history questions (and even helped write a small tournament on the history of science and technology); I just prefer that they appear as part of a distinct subdistribution rather than in the 4/4 science. I think this is partly influenced by my being a specialist player...

Basically my only complaint is the Haldane tossup," ... "I personally feel that books written for laypeople should NOT appear in science questions, and especially not *multiple* books Do you mind if I ask if 1) This is just for Nats difficulty, and not across the board? Or is this somethi...

I was similarly surprised to see Oparin-Haldane showing up in so many high school sets when I started editing VHSL, but then I TAed gen bio at Rutgers and they went over it so I guess it's a legitimate thing that is taught now. I don't like the clue either, though. I would also suggest people use as...

I really liked the bio answerlines in this set! Basically my only complaint is the Haldane tossup, which was solidly science history (and included several non-bio history clues at that). I personally feel that books written for laypeople should NOT appear in science questions, and especially not *mu...

I really liked the first three bio bonuses in this set, although the dynamin one didn't seem to have an actual pronoun? It was clear what it intended to ask about anyway though. Can I see the tossup on Ras? I can't remember if there was something in the first line that distinguished the Ras pathway ...

The "onus of responsibility" that has been touched on by others in this thread is something that really resonates with me. I'm not a very social person. Directly talking one-on-one to most people, especially people I don't know, is exhausting and makes me anxious, and I'm pretty sure I com...

I am curious to see the tossup on the mitochondrial inner membrane, since I don't think my submitted evo-bio tossup on mitochondria contained explicit membrane stuff. I really liked the DSCAM clue for Down syndrome and the Jablonski clue for PS2. Overall I thought the bio was quite good, although th...

Sam Braunfeld did initial editing/feedback on all of the math as well.

The Ununtiable Twine wrote:math player poll:

1. Harrison Brown

math team poll:

1. Alabama 2012-13

I'd also like to point to Sam Braunfeld and Samir Khan as great math players, as they scored 48 and 46 powers respectively at Math Monstrosity while playing on the same team.

I can read the unused portions of the Rutgers Nats packet (half of the finals tiebreaker packet) plus the used questions too if people are interested. I'd be doing this around 9PM Saturday. Whoops, I was a dufus and forgot that the next Saturday after my post was actually the very next day; I meant...

I can read the unused portions of the Rutgers Nats packet (half of the finals tiebreaker packet) plus the used questions too if people are interested. I'd be doing this around 9PM Saturday.

I understand that, but it seemed like this "caution" applied only to the physiology/cell bio. Biochem had stuff like an easy part on tryptophan where the easiest clue was that it has an indole group...and then you have a neuro bonus with the easy part on axons after axons had already been ...

I liked the bio tossups in this set quite a bit. The A. tumefaciens , CYP450, and poly-A tails ones were fresh and pretty interesting. I wasn't a fan of the ketogenesis tossup, though. I spent quite a bit of time wondering if it wanted a specific fatty acid metabolism process like β oxidation, but r...

The science, or at least biology, was...not good, although somewhat consistent with regards to its high school-level difficulty. Seriously guys. Check packet archives or aseemsdb for clue placement at least! Chromaffin cells do not belong anywhere close to power, even at NSC or Prison Bowl . The ans...

Some comments after seven rounds: I'd suggest if you want more successful mirrors of this tournament, you should include at least some pronunciation guides. Even experienced readers are going to be tripped up on Polish names! And I don't think I saw any PGs for science terms either. The leadins and ...

Oops, I have to go into lab today so I don't think I'll be able to read my dozens of awful questions. :(

GRRR they tossed up an 18th century scientist and you lost a game because of it. Get over yourself. Know more things. Just to quickly clarify what I think most science players' objections would be to a history of science question replacing a pure science question: most science classes, at least in ...

And speaking of Andrew Wang, Joelle claimed upthread that one of her posts was better in tone than Andrew Wang. That is categorically false, Andrew Wang is probably the most articulate, concise, and well-toned poster I know (how can you be all three at the same time?!?!). who's the :capybara: ing i...

I have to take Billy and Ike's side on the utility of this thread - if I were a new writer, I wouldn't worry too much about what's going on in this thread, focus more on writing questions from your textbooks and class notes, and let the editors, with their experience, fix up your questions. Further...

Ok, I'm getting pretty frustrated that people seem to be latching onto this idea that my entire post is about "clue fragment ambiguity" and that I'm forcing nitpickiness down the throats of "new writers". Maybe I should have changed the title to "On Exactitude in Science Edi...

This post was vague about its target audience mostly because I've seen issues with clues from all levels of writing experience. But I think primarily I aimed it at new editors and editors for categories that aren't their specialty , with the hope that seasoned writers/editors would chime in (as som...

Well, Max, I'm sorry I've evidently caused you so much anguish with my criticism of a question you apparently wrote that you, Adam, and I all agree was poorly executed. Anyway, as I said upthread, let's keep personal "roasts" to a minimum and return to the kind of helpful advice for writer...

I don't know about biology in specific, but if you're writing submissions for the categories of science that I do, I would much, much, much, much, prefer that you use class notes and lectures slides over something like wikipedia. One of the problems with this post is that it's not obvious who it's ...

This is exactly the type of advice I was hoping would show up in this thread, and is a lot more applicable for writers with not much science experience than my vague high-standards editing guidelines. If more seasoned science people could jump in with examples from other fields, that would be great....

I absolutely endorse purposefully cluing contemporary researchers to reward people with deep knowledge -- but it's not so great when a name is dropped early on as part of an intended hard clue that players with only cursory knowledge of a topic can buzz on. It's kind of like having a leadin that use...

Another thing I wanted to note, and which was mentioned (with different examples) by Adam in the Terrapin general discussion: Players can gather context from clues outside of the specific content you are cluing. For example, in a tossup on yeast, describing an obscure metabolic pathway characterized...

This is somewhat prompted by recent discussions, but I started writing this a couple months ago when I first came up with the title for this thread. So here are some observations and tips regarding science writing. New writers and people writing for a science subject with which they are unfamiliar, ...

Also, can I see the tossup on Antigone? I think I heard the pronoun for the leadin as "this play" and despite remembering that particular Eurydice anachronism I got really confused thinking "no way would they toss up Anouilh's Antigone , this must be from something else" and wait...

I have like 50+ shitty questions mostly in medicine and real science that I could probably read.

This genus’s amyloliquefaciens species produces the enzyme barnase, which is known for its extremely tight binding with its inhibitor barstar. For 10 points each: [10] Name this genus of Gram-positive, rod-shaped bacteria. Its subtilis species is found in soil and its cereus species causes food poi...

The bio in this set was good! I don't think I have any errata, although I'd like to see the insulin tossup since I think I remember a PTEN clue that confused me. The PTEN clue was in the thyroid tossup: Cancer in the prostate, breasts, uterus, and this structure can be caused by mutations in PTEN. ...

The bio in this set was good! I don't think I have any errata, although I'd like to see the insulin tossup since I think I remember a PTEN clue that confused me. The only complaint would be that fetal hemoglobin was too early (shouldn't be in power) and a couple bonuses seemed to have two easyish pa...

11. These organisms are infected by the tapeworm D. robusta, and their milk contains the cathelicidin saha-CATH5, which kills MRSA. The strong jaws of this organism are similar to those of the hyena, an example of convergent evolution. These organisms are most closely related to quolls within the f...

I've been read a few bio tossups and noticed some errors: Packet 1 (CalTech A/Lawrence A): 12. Damage to this organ can occur when a deficiency of alpha-1-antitrypsin causes elastase from breaking down its tissues. ??? Angiotensin I is converted to angiotensin II by ACE in this organ. AI is converte...

It's not obvious to me why this answerline is French peasants and not French peasants , especially since the question starts dropping the names of French things fairly early. After all, French peasants are not a distinct organization but rather merely peasants who happen to live in France. I'll not...

Also, I would like to ask again: what metrics were used to seed teams for this event? Once Paul (the TD) announced that we had hit the field cap for the number of readers that we could guarantee, several teams were persistent (with various degrees of politeness) in pushing for the field to be expan...

Furstenberg is an ergodic theorist and has therefore proved lots of things topologically (literally most of the things he's done)...for example, Szemeredi's theorem (Rutgers!), which would be a topological proof about integers.

Our team negged the "decryption" tossup with "factorisation" on the clue about Shor's algorithm - could the clue made more specific? Sam also negged "decryption" with "factorization". I'll echo the complaints about "smoldering" being in power as wel...

It's promptable, shouldn't be outright acceptable... Propositional logic formula or expression ought to be in the answer though. A minor nitpick: the "conjunctive normal" clue seems to be conflating boolean functions with boolean formulas, which further supports "formulas" as an ...

It was somewhat disappointing that the morning of the tournament, before the time delay had even manifested, the 13 rounds guaranteed in the logistics email were reduced to 9 (actually Rutgers only played 8.75 because Hunter had inexplicably booked their train tickets for 6 PM and had to dash out mi...

"All teams are guaranteed 13 rounds." :/

I mean, my main complaint with the leadin was the confusing wording in the original formulation; I think through my own reading and your response we've cleared up what each of our interpretations of the inhibin clue was. Also, I want to emphasize that my initial stance was based on thinking the toss...

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