Search found 40 matches

by csrjjsmp
Sat Jul 19, 2008 8:59 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ANNOUNCEMENT - BASQUE - UC Berkeley - 7/19/08(?)
Replies: 4
Views: 1843

Re: ANNOUNCEMENT - BASQUE - UC Berkeley - 7/19/08(?)

Preliminary results from the Chicago Open mirror at Berkeley today:
Stanford 9-0
Berkeley 5-4
Irvine 2-7
Mission San Jose High School: 2-7
by csrjjsmp
Tue Apr 22, 2008 5:52 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Ghetto Warz discussion
Replies: 22
Views: 4243

Re: Ghetto Warz discussion

I wrote 5/3 for the Berkeley packet, but I didn't go to the tournament, or see the questions. Does anyone remember individual problem questions?
by csrjjsmp
Fri Mar 17, 2006 1:21 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: How to Host
Replies: 15
Views: 7931

There is also a guide from Paul and Juliana on the Berkeley Quiz Bowl website.
http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~quizbowl/tdguide.html
by csrjjsmp
Sat Feb 25, 2006 12:06 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: National tournaments
Replies: 14
Views: 8104

Yes, at practice this Thursday all but Jeff had confirmed their interest in going, and David supposedly has been in touch with him since then. That will probably be our ICT team (it'd better be, because that's what I told the NAQT people).
by csrjjsmp
Fri Feb 24, 2006 11:59 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: The Poll
Replies: 25
Views: 17934

Berkeley's ICT team will probably be Paul Lujan, David Farris, Jeff Hoppes, and Brendan Shapiro.
by csrjjsmp
Mon Feb 13, 2006 12:00 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: THE thread for NAQT SCT discussion
Replies: 99
Views: 57408

No, I have not heard any official pronouncement regarding question security, my warning was based solely on the notices at the beginning of the packets themselves. If the standard procedure is different, I apologize for the confusion. The D2 questions seemed fairly easy to me as well, but I didn't g...
by csrjjsmp
Mon Feb 13, 2006 2:20 am
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Bad Negs
Replies: 826
Views: 353454

Are they only cleared after ICT? Security Question security is critical for the integrity of events which might use these questions in the future, as well as to protect the marketability of NAQT’s product. As such, the content of the questions may not be discussed with any person not affiliated w...
by csrjjsmp
Mon Feb 13, 2006 2:19 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: THE thread for NAQT SCT discussion
Replies: 99
Views: 57408

Actually, you're not allowed to talk about specific questions until July 1.
by csrjjsmp
Sun Feb 12, 2006 9:05 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: NAQT SCT West Results
Replies: 2
Views: 2720

Yesterday, NAQT SCT West was held at UC Berkeley. Division 1 consisted of 4 teams, UCI, USC, UCLA, and Stanford. They played a quintuple round robin. Since UCLA and Stanford were tied at 11-3 going into the final round, it was decided that the winner of that round would be the D1 champion, and UCLA ...
by csrjjsmp
Tue Feb 07, 2006 2:34 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Regs discussion
Replies: 66
Views: 51669

grapesmoker wrote:In days of yore Cardinal Classic attracted a large field, but I don't know if Stanford is still running that.
Last year, we hosted it because Stanford couldn't get rooms. This year, it's scheduled for late April.
by csrjjsmp
Sat Feb 04, 2006 11:40 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ICT predictions for 2006?
Replies: 21
Views: 11897

Berkeley isn't planning on going to ICT this year, and I don't think that's very likely to change. I played with Kevin (I forget his last name) in high school; he is a freshman at Stanford this year, and played at ACF Fall. He is a very good player. Nico as well, though I'm not sure of his status. E...
by csrjjsmp
Thu Jan 26, 2006 8:37 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Club Fair/Recruiting
Replies: 21
Views: 12060

miamiqb wrote:2) Make it seem informal and flexible (people don't like committments)
Won't that attract more flaky people?
by csrjjsmp
Fri Dec 16, 2005 6:39 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Bad Negs
Replies: 826
Views: 353454

He should have listenened to his father's advice and stayed away from sailing. On his second voyage, he was captured by turkish pirates
*buzz*
Gilligan

(correct: robinson crusoe)
by csrjjsmp
Tue Dec 13, 2005 11:52 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Best Powers
Replies: 161
Views: 76577

BobGHHS wrote:Last year at Solon

Q: p53
Jon: BUZZ -- Ribosomes...

I'm not exactly positive if p53 was the first word or not, but it was no more than 3 or 4 words into the question that he got it.
I would think something like "oncogenes" would be more likely off just the one word.
by csrjjsmp
Tue Nov 22, 2005 11:48 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: NAQT High School Math Questions
Replies: 11
Views: 8837

Thanks Dwight, my exposure to computation questions comes solely from Gaius, not NAQT, so I didn't know their format. That looks much better than the buzzer races I'm used to, but I would still say that questions like those are better replaced with conceptual questions. I don't know about other scho...
by csrjjsmp
Tue Nov 22, 2005 9:30 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: NAQT High School Math Questions
Replies: 11
Views: 8837

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say anything like get rid of math questions in general. Here are two examples of what I think: Tossups like this are bad: Two balls are selected at random, one after the other, without replacement from a box that contains three red balls and five blue balls. FTP what is t...
by csrjjsmp
Tue Nov 22, 2005 4:58 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: NAQT High School Math Questions
Replies: 11
Views: 8837

In addition, mathematics is not really taught in a way that allows for quiz bowl competition. Not like I've done a hard-core study of questions asked at MathCounts, but even they have 30-45 seconds to do a problem when they're doing it by themselves. Probably calculation questions don't mesh well w...
by csrjjsmp
Mon Nov 21, 2005 11:12 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: TRASH structure
Replies: 20
Views: 10060

Well, first of all, nobody has ever played 25-to life, it hasn't been released yet. I haven't been following it too closely, and am hardly an authoritative voice on the subject, but it may help to know that you can choose to play as either a gangster or a cop; the so-called "main character"...
by csrjjsmp
Sun Nov 20, 2005 7:34 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: double standard?
Replies: 61
Views: 31652

I think the best way to explain the difference in attitude is that academic competitions (usually) give away trophies as prizes while trash competitions usually give away trashy books and music as prizes. I have never seen trophies given away as prizes at an academic quiz bowl tournament, only used...
by csrjjsmp
Fri Nov 18, 2005 12:14 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Websites/Places to Find Round Robin Schedules?
Replies: 8
Views: 4826

Paul's guide is already up. It can be found at http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~quizbowl/schedules.html
by csrjjsmp
Thu Nov 17, 2005 8:15 pm
Forum: Best of the Best
Topic: ACF Fall discussion
Replies: 107
Views: 103519

I'm not a chemist, but as far as I know, SN2 and E2 are both concerted while SN1 and E1 first form a carbocation. Uniquely identifying the answer wasn't the issue, that was done adequately in the first clue (which, as I mentioned earlier, I thought was easier than later clues in the question), I jus...
by csrjjsmp
Thu Nov 17, 2005 7:25 pm
Forum: Best of the Best
Topic: ACF Fall discussion
Replies: 107
Views: 103519

Regarding the adenine question, there was one clue that identified the answer as being studied by Chargaff. But as far as I know, Chargaff studied all 4 DNA bases, so this clue struck me as not very helpful. I think the SN2 question has an analogous problem with the "facilitated by a better lea...
by csrjjsmp
Thu Nov 17, 2005 6:37 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Seth's myth tournament
Replies: 33
Views: 23833

Larry, I think you'll find, if you go back and look through the questions after you guys finish playing them, that in general I did not try to test myth depth by choosing harder answers—rather, I focused on well-known answers and tried to find hard clues as lead-ins for those answers. I did not h...
by csrjjsmp
Thu Nov 17, 2005 5:17 pm
Forum: Best of the Best
Topic: ACF Fall discussion
Replies: 107
Views: 103519

I think typically, the level of knowledge goes as [name of author]->[names of some of his books]->[names of characters in those books]. That said, I think Raskolnikov is sufficiently well-known to be ok, and a tossup on him would certainly be preferrable to a tossup on The Posessed at this level. I...
by csrjjsmp
Thu Nov 17, 2005 3:27 pm
Forum: Best of the Best
Topic: ACF Fall discussion
Replies: 107
Views: 103519

Seth, what is the reason to support having a more well-known answer, if the knowledge being tested is identical? It seems to me that what you propose is just changing a few pronouns, and it's not clear to me how that will by itself make the question easier.
by csrjjsmp
Wed Nov 16, 2005 10:28 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Seth's myth tournament
Replies: 33
Views: 23833

Matt Weiner wrote:I don't know where you got the idea that Maui doesn't come up
From never having heard a tossup about him :S
by csrjjsmp
Wed Nov 16, 2005 10:24 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Seth's myth tournament
Replies: 33
Views: 23833

ImmaculateDeception wrote:
csrjjsmp wrote:I don't think being unfamiliar is the same as being hard. Perhaps they're simply from pantheons people aren't familiar with.
No, actually those are exactly the same thing.
Ok, thank you.
by csrjjsmp
Tue Nov 15, 2005 10:16 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Mid-Atlantic TRASH Regionals Update
Replies: 22
Views: 11581

UndercoverParrothead wrote:
matt979 wrote:If there isn't already a place on the web where one can grab & print schedules for the most common QB field sizes, there will be soon.
There already is.
We also have a guide to creating schedules on the Berkeley quiz bowl website.
http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~quizbowl/schedules.html
by csrjjsmp
Tue Nov 15, 2005 7:29 pm
Forum: Best of the Best
Topic: ACF Fall discussion
Replies: 107
Views: 103519

I hope Chris won't be offended if I say that his tournaments aren't really suitable for veterans of the game; they aren't written to be. The handful of games that were played on those Sunshine packets at last year's MLK produced ludicrous results: an obscene number of powers and vastly inflated sco...
by csrjjsmp
Tue Nov 15, 2005 4:37 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Seth's myth tournament
Replies: 33
Views: 23833

I don't think being unfamiliar is the same as being hard. Perhaps they're simply from pantheons people aren't familiar with. I know nothing about Scottish/Welsh/whatever myth, so Cuchulainn, Rhiannon, Bran, or whoever were completely unfamiliar to me. Although I do appreciate the references which I ...
by csrjjsmp
Tue Nov 15, 2005 4:23 am
Forum: College area archives
Topic: Seth's myth tournament
Replies: 33
Views: 23833

We read a few packets in practice tonight, and I thought the questions were both well-written and mostly accessible. However, as far as diversity goes, I think it's still only a small step up from the myth distribution at your typical academic tournament (except for the Welsh and Gaelic sections, wh...
by csrjjsmp
Mon Nov 14, 2005 9:46 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: ACF Fall at Berkeley Results
Replies: 4
Views: 3278

The stats are correct, as far as I can see.
by csrjjsmp
Mon Nov 14, 2005 9:45 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Coaches' Corner
Replies: 90
Views: 47067

OK - I'm ashamed to have to ask this question to my fellow coaches, but here it goes: Do any of you have problems with your players' grades? I have one player, an absolutely brilliant young man and an anchor on our team, who just refuses to do his work and take any initiative. It seems that every t...
by csrjjsmp
Mon Nov 14, 2005 5:09 pm
Forum: Best of the Best
Topic: ACF Fall discussion
Replies: 107
Views: 103519

The problems Dwight mentions at Berkeley's ACF Fall were due to a combination of Stanford arriving over an hour late (we waited for them until 10 before deciding to start) and slow reading on our part. The length of questions was not the primary factor. I agree that it's a pity that the field was so...
by csrjjsmp
Mon Nov 14, 2005 12:58 am
Forum: Best of the Best
Topic: ACF Fall discussion
Replies: 107
Views: 103519

I am unclear whether, when you say "discussion," you mean public discussion here or comments/criticisms sent directly to the editors.
by csrjjsmp
Tue Nov 08, 2005 9:24 pm
Forum: College area archives
Topic: personal stats data analysis
Replies: 55
Views: 29777

I think it would be interesting to calculate the percentage of tossups a person answers when his teammates don't buzz in. That is, if your teammates buzz in (counting powers, regular +10s, and negs; not counting late wrong buzzes) on half the questions and you answer one-tenth of the questions, the...
by csrjjsmp
Tue Nov 08, 2005 7:36 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Best Powers
Replies: 161
Views: 76577

"This city has a lot of people"
Houston
by csrjjsmp
Tue Nov 01, 2005 6:18 pm
Forum: Best of the Best
Topic: Technophobia Discussion or Monologue, Really
Replies: 56
Views: 61333

Speaking of how to run tournaments, etc., isn't it about time that regional hosts for ACF Fall made their own individual announcements and stuff? Tournament's next weekend, guys. So far only Chicago has any information at all. Announcements have been sent out. Berkeley's is here: http://groups.yaho...
by csrjjsmp
Mon Oct 31, 2005 9:01 pm
Forum: Best of the Best
Topic: Technophobia Discussion or Monologue, Really
Replies: 56
Views: 61333

For reference, the packet Berkeley submitted was written entirely by first-year players, and regrettably, I don't think any of the experienced members had time to look over it before it was submitted. We had some transportation issues that were entirely my fault, and sadly, we ended up not going bec...
by csrjjsmp
Wed Oct 19, 2005 6:56 pm
Forum: High school area archives
Topic: Best quiz bowl/academic schools?
Replies: 51
Views: 29414

One of Stanford's best players graduated last year and is now at USC, though they still have a strong program. Chicago has no shortage of good players either.
Of course we haven't been doing so badly here at Berkeley either, a lot of new players this year and quite a few dinosaurs.