Search found 148 matches
- Wed Jul 31, 2019 8:05 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2019 Chicago Open (8/3/2019) at Northwestern University
- Replies: 79
- Views: 35615
Re: 2019 Chicago Open (8/3/2019) at Northwestern University
A question for local Evanston/Chicago folks: Friday night I'll be interested in hitting a local brewpub or two. It looks like Sketchbook is definitely interesting, and maybe Smylie Brothers and Temperance (the last of which looks to be further away?). Are those good calls, and if not, other suggest...
- Mon May 27, 2019 10:28 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2019 Chicago Open (8/3/2019) at Northwestern University
- Replies: 79
- Views: 35615
Re: 2019 Chicago Open (8/3/2019) at Northwestern University
I finally managed to submit room requests in for 15 rooms in Kresge for both Saturday and Sunday this year. Assuming they go through (and they should), this year's CO should actually be air conditioned! :grin: If you anticipate needing more than that many rooms for your event, please let me know ASA...
- Wed Mar 20, 2019 8:32 pm
- Forum: Quizbowl History Forum
- Topic: Happy 6th Watkinsgate Anniversary!
- Replies: 18
- Views: 10679
Re: Happy 6th Watkinsgate Anniversary!
In 2013, we discovered that Andy Watkins is human scum who cheated 3 ICTs worth of people out of a fair contest , including his own teammates. Worse than any other cheater before or after him (Baselius, Cam, Amit Bilgi, Steven Hines, Lane Silberstein, Josh Alman, Scott Putzig, and Joe Brosch), Andy...
- Thu Jan 31, 2019 12:12 am
- Forum: Collegiate Discussion
- Topic: 2019 ACF Regionals Thanks and General Discussion
- Replies: 43
- Views: 15755
Re: 2019 ACF Regionals Thanks and General Discussion
I enjoyed this tournament and think that it did a particularly good job, especially relative to last year, of sticking with answerlines that were accessible to new-ish teams. Our B team was answering most of the tossups by the end. The science had a lot of good clean tossups on solid answerlines (ex...
- Sun Nov 25, 2018 12:08 pm
- Forum: Collegiate Discussion
- Topic: Top 25 History Players in the City of Chicago
- Replies: 16
- Views: 11762
Re: Top 25 History Players in the City of Chicago
can confirm that both of these things are true (even though I suck at history)cornfused wrote: ↑Sat Nov 24, 2018 10:05 pmvalid
- Mon Nov 05, 2018 9:52 am
- Forum: Collegiate Discussion
- Topic: ACF Fall 2018 - Specific Questions and Errata
- Replies: 53
- Views: 20850
Re: ACF Fall 2018 - Specific Questions and Errata
This was a mostly quite good set of novice science questions, I can think of very little to nitpick! -It is generally not a very good idea to write a tossup on "photosynthesis" that mixes clues from the light-dependent reactions and the Calvin cycle--in practice that causes a lot of peopl...
- Wed Jul 25, 2018 8:11 pm
- Forum: Collegiate Discussion
- Topic: Chicago Open 2018 Thanks and Discussion
- Replies: 37
- Views: 14293
Re: Chicago Open 2018 Thanks and Discussion
Yeah, I was trying to evaluate why this tournament was much longer than the last few years. I think the game rooms were spread out more (up stairs and in an adjoining building), which didn't help. I liked Evanston as a location--if they could get rooms that were sufficiently cooler that would be ni...
- Sat Jul 21, 2018 8:56 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Chicago Open 2019 - Weekend of August 3rd
- Replies: 98
- Views: 57423
Re: Chicago Open 2018 - July 21st weekend
Do we know yet if we are meeting in Fisk, Locy, or somewhere else? My room request for a large meeting room was unfortunately never confirmed, but I'm hoping it'll still be open to us early in the morning, so we're going to plan on meeting in Kresge 2380 tomorrow morning regardless, and if that's n...
- Fri Jul 20, 2018 11:45 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Chicago Open 2019 - Weekend of August 3rd
- Replies: 98
- Views: 57423
Re: Chicago Open 2018 - July 21st weekend
Do we know yet if we are meeting in Fisk, Locy, or somewhere else? My room request for a large meeting room was unfortunately never confirmed, but I'm hoping it'll still be open to us early in the morning, so we're going to plan on meeting in Kresge 2380 tomorrow morning regardless, and if that's n...
- Thu Jul 19, 2018 8:16 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Chicago Open 2019 - Weekend of August 3rd
- Replies: 98
- Views: 57423
Re: Chicago Open 2018 - July 21st weekend
Paul Ryan Center for the Musical Arts : Anyway, so has a building location been announced? Will it be in one of those (Kresge or Locy?) that Mike mentioned? The tournament itself will be in Locy (and one room in Fisk, which is adjacent to Locy). I'm still hoping to get confirmation from the adminis...
- Thu Mar 08, 2018 1:21 am
- Forum: Collegiate Discussion
- Topic: Your Favorite Question
- Replies: 45
- Views: 24927
Re: Your Favorite Question
I think it would be interesting for writers to get a sense of the questions that quizbowl players enjoyed the most and why. So, what is your favorite question that you didn't write? I'm hoping that people don't just respond with questions that they got good buzzes on, but ones that were executed so...
- Tue Nov 21, 2017 9:24 pm
- Forum: Collegiate Discussion
- Topic: WAO II Difficulty and General Discussion
- Replies: 40
- Views: 7361
Re: WAO II Difficulty and General Discussion
Was furious with myself for negging the S. cerevisiae question with E coli on the first clue despite having actually done amber codon suppression. Moderator kind of mangled the names in the first sentence, recognised the sequences, then just assumed that at least one of the names was Peter Schultz'...
- Mon Nov 13, 2017 12:29 am
- Forum: Collegiate Discussion
- Topic: WAO II Difficulty and General Discussion
- Replies: 40
- Views: 7361
Re: WAO II Difficulty and General Discussion
Thanks for the response. Overall, I thought you did a good job. We can agree to disagree about the chromatography thing (if you check archives though, you'll notice that it is pretty standard to accept chromatography for column chromatography, so this may not be a hill worth dying on). One thing I'l...
- Sun Nov 12, 2017 2:58 pm
- Forum: Collegiate Discussion
- Topic: WAO II Difficulty and General Discussion
- Replies: 40
- Views: 7361
Re: WAO II Difficulty and General Discussion
For the most part, I enjoyed this set, and it was a good effort by relatively inexperienced editors. I have just two general comments I'll make here: Answerlines, particularly in science, particularly in chemistry, were not extensive enough. Things like hydroxyl/alcohols have been extensively confla...
- Wed Jun 28, 2017 11:50 pm
- Forum: High school area archives
- Topic: 2017 NSC set discussion
- Replies: 85
- Views: 40764
Re: 2017 NSC set discussion
In quantum mechanics, operators corresponding to observables must have eigenvalues with this property, meaning the operators must be self-adjoint and Hermitian. Aren't self-adjoint and Hermitian the same thing? I didn't write this one, but yes. (I guess one technically refers to the operator and on...
- Wed Jun 14, 2017 11:33 pm
- Forum: High school area archives
- Topic: 2017 NSC set discussion
- Replies: 85
- Views: 40764
Re: 2017 NSC set discussion
People gotta learn about gene drives at some point!Pascal Plays Poker wrote: I appreciated the mosquitoes tossup; They are underrepresented in quizbowl.

- Wed Jun 14, 2017 10:26 pm
- Forum: High school area archives
- Topic: 2017 NSC set discussion
- Replies: 85
- Views: 40764
Re: 2017 NSC set discussion
Hey all, I wrote a large number of exclusively science questions for this set, essentially the bulk of the bio, chem, and physics. Many thanks to a few people, especially Eliza Grames and Shan Kothari, for their excellent contributions in areas of bio at which I'm not so competent, and Auroni, Eric,...
- Sat May 20, 2017 3:00 pm
- Forum: Best of the Best
- Topic: The 70 Greatest Players of the Last Eight Years: A Ranking
- Replies: 56
- Views: 46668
Re: The 70 Greatest Players of the Last Eight Years: A Ranki
I'm not sure you could pick either me or Dylan as Northwestern's MVP this year--we traded being the top scorer in games all year long, and I think he generally fared better than I did in games against good teams. He also improved a lot between last year and this year, whereas I got worse in every su...
- Thu May 04, 2017 8:27 am
- Forum: Collegiate Discussion
- Topic: Subject-specific player polls
- Replies: 29
- Views: 14010
Re: Subject-specific player polls
To be less hyperbolic--Max and I split science this year pretty much 50-50, and he took a mostly-chemistry-tiebreaker tossup against us in the ICT playoffs, so Dylan's high praise isn't totally true, and my best game at Nats was the one against Yale, so that might color Jacob's opinion too. I also d...
- Mon Apr 10, 2017 11:38 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2017 Division I ICT: specific question discussion
- Replies: 19
- Views: 5694
Re: 2017 Division I ICT: specific question discussion
Could I see the Rd. 2 tossup on clay tennis courts? I only started paying attention when I heard the name of an actual tennis tournament and am curious to see what the first sentence was going on about. As an aside, I thought the Z^N/N! was a great hard part and the only part that was confusing abou...
- Sun Feb 19, 2017 3:31 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2017 ACF Regionals - thanks and general discussion
- Replies: 39
- Views: 10796
Re: 2017 ACF Regionals - thanks and general discussion
If anyone wants feedback on their bio and chem submissions, email me at adsilverman627 at gmail dot com and I will do my best to respond quickly. The submissions tended to cluster very heavily toward a few areas (especially organic functional groups and elements), so if you wrote a question that got...
- Sun Feb 19, 2017 3:12 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2017 ACF Regionals - specific-question discussion
- Replies: 90
- Views: 25100
Re: 2017 ACF Regionals - specific-question discussion
Can I see the exact phrasing of the "vibrations" tossup, especially the lead-in about PQR branches? I might be remembering wrong, but I think that part was more applicable to transitions between vibrational states than to the act of vibrating itself. I'm not sure there's really a fundamen...
- Sun Feb 19, 2017 1:20 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2017 ACF Regionals - specific-question discussion
- Replies: 90
- Views: 25100
Re: 2017 ACF Regionals - specific-question discussion
Can I see the albinism question please? In case it's unclear, the second sentence is referring to the OCA2 gene, one of the proteins that gets lost/mutated in Prader-Willi, so I think the clue is fine as it reads. Perhaps it's unclear because albinism isn't the most famous symptom of Prader-Willi, ...
- Sun Feb 19, 2017 1:12 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2017 ACF Regionals - specific-question discussion
- Replies: 90
- Views: 25100
Re: 2017 ACF Regionals - specific-question discussion
Can I see the exact phrasing of the "vibrations" tossup, especially the lead-in about PQR branches? I might be remembering wrong, but I think that part was more applicable to transitions between vibrational states than to the act of vibrating itself. I'm not sure there's really a fundamen...
- Sun Feb 19, 2017 8:58 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2017 ACF Regionals - specific-question discussion
- Replies: 90
- Views: 25100
Re: 2017 ACF Regionals - specific-question discussion
For the gram negative bacteria bonus (don't remember which packet, sorry), I'm pretty confident that "injectisome" should have been acceptable, or at least promptable, for the part on the Type 3 Secretion System. Yep, that's totally my bad. I added that late to the list of acceptable answ...
- Sat Nov 26, 2016 10:32 am
- Forum: Theory
- Topic: On Exactitude in Science Writing
- Replies: 45
- Views: 22637
Re: On Exactitude in Science Writing
Well, your experiences trump my claims, so I'll concede these specific examples. :) More than a lot of writers, I value concise clues when writing--I find simple sentences to be the most effective in quizbowl settings. So I stylistically oppose clarifying or flowery language if it's at all avoidable...
- Sat Nov 26, 2016 12:08 am
- Forum: Theory
- Topic: On Exactitude in Science Writing
- Replies: 45
- Views: 22637
Re: On Exactitude in Science Writing
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 characterize...
- Fri Nov 25, 2016 2:28 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: 2016 Terrapin General Discussion
- Replies: 30
- Views: 5407
Re: 2016 Terrapin General Discussion
I don't have much to add other than thanks for a really great set, especially to Sam, Billy, and others for a very well-executed science distribution. I also thought the literature was excellent. There was one packet that seemed to have two CS bonuses (I think it was round 10? The first round of pla...
- Sun Oct 23, 2016 10:11 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: EFT 2016: Tournament Goals/Philosophy and Discussion
- Replies: 14
- Views: 2316
Re: EFT Tournament Goals/Philosophy and Discussion
Just wanted to chime in to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this set, but especially the science; Andrew + others, you did a tremendous job to keep it real but also accessible. There were a lot of hard parts in this set that would be in a gray area between middle and hard at Regionals, but worked great...
- Mon Aug 01, 2016 5:53 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Chicago Open 2016 Set Discussion
- Replies: 110
- Views: 41064
Re: Chicago Open 2016 Set Discussion
I'm a little disappointed that several clues were added to the Trypanosoma tossup that I had specifically avoided because they were non-unique -- there seems to have been a conflation between kinetoplastids or trypanosomatids and Trypanosoma , despite important other kinetoplastid genuses existing ...
- Sat Jul 30, 2016 9:15 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Chicago Open 2016 Set Discussion
- Replies: 110
- Views: 41064
Re: Chicago Open 2016 Set Discussion
so like 50% of the chem I played this tournament was orgo, in particular 4/5 of the playoff rounds I played had orgo tus for chem I don't think there was a single tu on inorganic chem? What's wrong with 50% orgo? That seems to be about standard in most college tournaments I've played (ACF Nats this...
- Fri Jul 29, 2016 10:06 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Chicago Open 2016 Set Discussion
- Replies: 110
- Views: 41064
Re: Chicago Open 2016 Set Discussion
1) The bio was very, very biochemistry heavy and had almost no questions on human/medicinal bio (the only things that I can remember off the top of my head were the biochemistry-heavy tossup on osteoclasts and the bonus on antibiotics). Also there were a ton of "this organism" questions. ...
- Thu Jul 28, 2016 5:21 pm
- Forum: Collegiate Discussion
- Topic: The Barbarism of Specialization
- Replies: 13
- Views: 5475
Re: The Barbarism of Specialization
(To further clarify my stance on the original question to Ike): It's easier for me to write a very hard question on something "real" that I know than a very hard question on something "fake" that I don't. That's a natural consequence of having specialists write quizbowl questions...
- Thu Jul 28, 2016 4:47 pm
- Forum: Collegiate Discussion
- Topic: The Barbarism of Specialization
- Replies: 13
- Views: 5475
Re: The Barbarism of Specialization
(Before I ramble: I take full blame for the questions in these categories, and it's not like people were submitting questions with these perceived "barbarisms". I'm not exaggerating when I say that re-wrote every submitted question in my categories, with the exception of a single bonus in ...
- Wed Jul 27, 2016 1:29 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Chicago Open 2016 Set Discussion
- Replies: 110
- Views: 41064
Re: Chicago Open 2016 Set Discussion
several science questions that seemed to be on unnecessarily hard answerlines for the material ("specific volume"). I think a lot of the difficulty of this tournament came from the science. My impression was that the "engineering slant" (I'm not saying that every question was wr...
- Tue Jul 26, 2016 6:41 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Chicago Open 2016 Set Discussion
- Replies: 110
- Views: 41064
Re: Chicago Open 2016 Set Discussion
Pichia was really hard. It's not even mentioned in the 1500+-page Alberts textbook (which talks about S. pombe -- what Eric and I negged with -- multiple times), or even on the Wikipedia list of model funguses... It's mainly used in pretty specific circumstances for protein expression, more like a ...
- Sun Jul 24, 2016 10:11 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Chicago Open 2016 Set Discussion
- Replies: 110
- Views: 41064
Re: Chicago Open 2016 Set Discussion
I want to thank Matt and John for giving me the opportunity to work on this set. Editing CO is a blast just for the opportunity to ask about a lot of things that you simply can't do at an ACF tournament. Also, many thanks to Shan for his invaluable advice on the non-molecular bio, and to my brother ...
- Sun Jul 24, 2016 12:26 am
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24
- Replies: 73
- Views: 45143
Re: Chicago Open 2016 - July 23-24
I've got it--emailing it to you now.The Superfluous Man wrote:Combined stats are here but the scoresheet for the round 15 game between "Just what is it" and "Golgari Glenn Ross" is missing. Did anyone pick it up, or keep their own score during that game?
- Mon Apr 25, 2016 10:03 pm
- Forum: High school area archives
- Topic: 2015 BISB Seeking Mirrors
- Replies: 6
- Views: 7069
Re: 2015 BISB Seeking Mirrors
It appears to be up on the archive now.
- Mon Apr 18, 2016 9:25 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: Where Are You Going Next Year? (Collegiate 2016)
- Replies: 46
- Views: 26437
Re: Where Are You Going Next Year? (Collegiate 2016)
In the fall, I will be starting a one-year medical laboratory science program on the North Shore of Chicago, and do not intend to return to Georgia. I look forward to witnessing Illinois high school quizbowl firsthand. Continuing the Georgia to Illinois exodus--I'm starting a PhD in Chemical Engine...
- Sat Mar 26, 2016 11:31 am
- Forum: High school area archives
- Topic: 2015 BISB Seeking Mirrors
- Replies: 6
- Views: 7069
Re: 2015 BISB Seeking Mirrors
We've finished our last planned mirror for the semester. I'll leave this announcement up for another week or so in case anyone is still interested in planning a late-semester tournament, and if not, I'll submit the set to the archive.
- Sat Nov 07, 2015 6:16 pm
- Forum: College area archives
- Topic: ACF Fall Southeast @ University of Florida (11-8-15)
- Replies: 5
- Views: 3574
Re: ACF Fall Southeast @ University of Florida (11-8-15)
Hey, I'm not our team contact anymore, but is there info about time/place for tomorrow? Emma has been having trouble posting here and is wondering if she missed an email somewhere along the line. Thanks!
- Sun Oct 25, 2015 9:09 am
- Forum: High school area archives
- Topic: California Cup @ UC Berkeley
- Replies: 15
- Views: 10354
Re: California Cup @ UC Berkeley
I hope everyone enjoyed this tournament. Please access the private discussion forum from your User Control Panel if you'd like to offer feedback on the 2015 BISB set, or feel free to send me an email. Thanks!
- Wed Oct 21, 2015 11:27 pm
- Forum: High school area archives
- Topic: Golden Eagle Bowl III - Sept 26,2015 - Raleigh NC
- Replies: 3
- Views: 1861
Re: Golden Eagle Bowl III - Sept 26,2015 - Raleigh NC
We've got a private usergroup set up for set discussion now; you can join it from your User Control Panel. Feedback is much appreciated!
- Wed Oct 21, 2015 11:26 pm
- Forum: High school area archives
- Topic: Earlybird at Illinois - Urbana, IL - 10/10/2015
- Replies: 6
- Views: 3858
Re: Earlybird at Illinois - Urbana, IL - 10/10/2015
We've got a private usergroup set up for BISB set discussion now; you can join it from your User Control Panel. Feedback is much appreciated!
- Sun Oct 11, 2015 8:29 am
- Forum: High school area archives
- Topic: Earlybird at Illinois - Urbana, IL - 10/10/2015
- Replies: 6
- Views: 3858
Re: Earlybird at Illinois - Urbana, IL - 10/10/2015
I've sent a couple requests to get a private usergroup for the set arranged, but until that happens, please email me at adsilverman at bellsouth dot net if you've got any immediate general criticisms/fact-checks/requests to see a specific question. Thanks!
- Thu Sep 10, 2015 11:06 pm
- Forum: High school area archives
- Topic: North Carolina 2015-2016
- Replies: 20
- Views: 9500
Re: North Carolina 2015-2016
Betsy: I've sent a couple of messages to Enloe with no response, and I haven't heard anything from them since we started the calendar over the summer. I'll assume if we don't hear anything by the end of this weekend, the tournament on September 26th is not happening. I received an email from Celia ...
- Thu Aug 20, 2015 10:47 pm
- Forum: High school area archives
- Topic: 2015 BISB Seeking Mirrors
- Replies: 6
- Views: 7069
Re: 2015 BISB Seeking Mirrors
The set is completely written, edited, and packetized. We'll be working on playtesting it for the next few weeks. Still looking for mirrors, particularly in New England; shoot me an email if you're interested.
- Sun Jul 26, 2015 4:47 pm
- Forum: High school area archives
- Topic: 2015 BISB Seeking Mirrors
- Replies: 6
- Views: 7069
Re: 2015 BISB Seeking Mirrors
This set is now 80% complete, so we are right on track to finish in early August. The questions will be extensively play-tested during August and early September as well. We don't have too many interested mirrors this year compared to previous years. I encourage you, if you're hesitating on which se...
- Sat Jun 20, 2015 12:01 pm
- Forum: High school area archives
- Topic: 2015 BISB Seeking Mirrors
- Replies: 6
- Views: 7069
Re: 2015 BISB Seeking Mirrors
List of mirrors to be updated here: September 19, Germantown HS, Germantown, TN (contact Keith Mattix) September 26/October at Enloe HS, Raleigh, NC (contact Celia Rowland) October 10: Earlybird at UIUC, Champaign, IL (contact Tristan Willey) October 24: California Cup 1, Varsity Division, UC Berkel...