The Quizbowl Resource Center

This is just a thought I had one day; not sure whether it's just totally ridiculous or not really relevant or whatever.

If you look at powermarked quizbowl questions, they're all marked so that the powers make sense if you're reading or were writing the question; e.g. the power cuts off at the crucial word or right before the crucial phrase. Therefore, ideally, someone reading the question or seeing it could still power by recognizing the first part of the phrase right before it becomes significant (e.g. if someone buzzed on "this author wrote Ethan* Frome").

However, quizbowl questions aren't read or experienced visually; they're heard. And, at the speed that good moderators read questions, it's often a good ten words or so from the "moment" that a clue is recognized to the moment the actual "buzz" occurs. So, I guess, if the point of the power is to reward specific recognition of whatever clue was supposed to demonstrate the "deep" knowledge, then couldn't they build in some sort slight auditory "lag" so that the last "power-worthy" clue is still power-worthy by the time it's buzzed on, instead of people buzzing at the end of power always getting "10s" even if they knew it right before power cut off?

This isn't that ridiculous and I agree, a little bit of lag could be dropped in at times. One thing that works is also, if possible, having the powermark be after a description but right before a buzzword, which in general, tends to reward deeper knowledge and anticipate buzzer races. Obviously this isn't always possible nor a perfect science.

I disagree with the original post. There are times when a word triggers a buzzer race, and the power marks should come before those words.

The change proposed would also lead to more difficult calls for moderators, since there are buzzes that border on being somewhere the end of a major word and the beginning of the next word. To take an example from HSNCT that ended up in the QANTA match, let's pretend the power mark was placed like this: "George Osborne marries a schoolmate of Amelia Sedley. (*) For 10 points..." In such a case, the length of the pause before FTP would likely play a major role in determining whether a buzz was in power, and there would be a decent chance that there would be a virtual tie between the student buzzing and the moderator starting the next word. Those outcomes aren't good. Such things still happen, but the proposal would make them more common.

I'll add that the current system is designed to address the problem Nolan raises. Somebody who knows the previous clue can get a power whether they buzz in the moment the previous clue is said or a few words later--they just have to buzz in before the next major clue is said.

Hello, I'd like to revisit this thread since I'm writing some HS questions with powermarks. So, for each question I have, do I need to have like a definite point (not necessarily a cliff) where the question transitions from 15 point material to 10, as referencing the Ethan Frome example from above? If so, how would I determine what this material is? My struggle is that I'm trying to write questions that break away a little from traditionally asked subject matter and I don't really know where the average player would jump on. Is this just a play testing thing? Any help would be awesome, thanks!

ganman0305 wrote:Hello, I'd like to revisit this thread since I'm writing some HS questions with powermarks. So, for each question I have, do I need to have like a definite point (not necessarily a cliff) where the question transitions from 15 point material to 10, as referencing the Ethan Frome example from above? If so, how would I determine what this material is? My struggle is that I'm trying to write questions that break away a little from traditionally asked subject matter and I don't really know where the average player would jump on. Is this just a play testing thing? Any help would be awesome, thanks!

What are you writing for? Usually power marks are added by editors, not writers.

My general technique with power marking is to eyeball the middle of the question (in terms of word or character count), then move toward the end of the question and find the first substantive word* that a bunch of people could buzz on; power mark right before it. I vary this based on the actual clues, what I know about the expected audience (including, e.g., if I know the question is going to be used late in the playoffs), and other factors, but it's a reasonable place to start.

*This means you're almost never going to power mark before, e.g., "the" or "this".

Just to be clear, don't write the question differently because it has power marks. Also, keep in mind that power marking is very subjective, so it's OK if you aren't certain where to put the mark and to some extent are guessing.

jonah wrote:

ganman0305 wrote:Hello, I'd like to revisit this thread since I'm writing some HS questions with powermarks. So, for each question I have, do I need to have like a definite point (not necessarily a cliff) where the question transitions from 15 point material to 10, as referencing the Ethan Frome example from above? If so, how would I determine what this material is? My struggle is that I'm trying to write questions that break away a little from traditionally asked subject matter and I don't really know where the average player would jump on. Is this just a play testing thing? Any help would be awesome, thanks!

What are you writing for? Usually power marks are added by editors, not writers.

My general technique with power marking is to eyeball the middle of the question (in terms of word or character count), then move toward the end of the question and find the first substantive word* that a bunch of people could buzz on; power mark right before it. I vary this based on the actual clues, what I know about the expected audience (including, e.g., if I know the question is going to be used late in the playoffs), and other factors, but it's a reasonable place to start.

*This means you're almost never going to power mark before, e.g., "the" or "this".

I'm writing for a high school level packet with a lot of editors (WHAQ), so I'll leave the powermarking up to them to make sure its done right. Thank you for the insight!

For the record, as Ganon's head editor, I'm letting writers place powermarks initially if they want to, with the understanding that the editors have the final say about where the powermark goes.

As for where to place the powermark, I've always thought about what Matt Weiner says in this thread and make sure to apply that as well as I can.