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Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2018 5:00 pm
by Irreligion in Bangladesh
Taking the philosophy described in the previous post to its natural conclusion, you can expect harder questions at Sectionals and State. In particular, Setional rounds 4/5/6 are all meant to be of a certain level, then the State rounds 7/8/9 of a certain level harder than that, then the Championship packet 10 a certain level harder than that.

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2018 5:33 pm
by Irreligion in Bangladesh
I have O'Fallon's scoresheets; you can now talk openly about question content from Regionals.

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2018 5:47 pm
by dtaylor4
TylerV wrote:What did throw me into a rage however was a lit answerline, which I am unsure if its clear so I won't reveal it, which I felt was overly strict. This ended up not mattering in the room I was in but I think it easily could have caused issues.
Was it the "sword fight" answerline? I think it could have been better served with a moderator note prior to the tossup or a prompting instruction indicating what exactly was required. I saw something like this at Masonic State that fit the bill, but I obviously can't discuss the exact reference.

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2018 6:00 pm
by mhasquin
Irreligion in Bangladesh wrote:I have O'Fallon's scoresheets; you can now talk openly about question content from Regionals.
But the scores haven't been posted to Score Zone...

The scores are now posted.

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2018 6:04 pm
by TylerV
dtaylor4 wrote:
TylerV wrote:What did throw me into a rage however was a lit answerline, which I am unsure if its clear so I won't reveal it, which I felt was overly strict. This ended up not mattering in the room I was in but I think it easily could have caused issues.
Was it the "sword fight" answerline? I think it could have been better served with a moderator note prior to the tossup or a prompting instruction indicating what exactly was required. I saw something like this at Masonic State that fit the bill, but I obviously can't discuss the exact reference.
Indeed it was. I felt the theme of the question was fantastic and the clues chosen with the expectation of |sword duel| being the required portion were extremely solid, but I don't see any reason that duel shouldn't just be accepted, what is there to be gained by asking kids to identify both the weapon and the event? I know I would never write a question on |gun duel|s (accept |pistol duel|s). I think the question would have been much better if the answerline would have been sword |duel|s or just |sword|.

All that being said, I know Noah Prince not to be an irrational person and I expect he will provide insight, either in this thread or in an email, that will make me, at the very least, understand his decision to make the answerline the way he did.

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2018 6:10 pm
by Amiable Vitriol
As an IL kiddo who played this, this set was awesome. Writing for teams as varied as the ones who play IHSA Regionals is a ridiculously hard task and y’all did a fantastic job. Stevenson wouldn’t typically be the target audience of a set of this difficulty, but I thought leadins/hard bonus parts generally distinguished really well between teams. Cheers to a new era of IHSA!

P.S. I answered with just duel on the Cyrano de Bergerac clue and got prompted. Was this not accepted later? I don’t think a prompt is too heinous.

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2018 6:36 pm
by TheAngryBavarian
If we are allowed to talk about specific questions, then I would agree that the "sword fight" one was strange. I believe I answered "brawl" or something to that effect, and was slightly surprised that I wasn't at least prompted. The only other one that I found strange was the question about the Gateway Arch. I believe the answer of simply "arch" was given and was not considered to be correct, which I found a smidgen harsh. It didn't affect the outcome of the matches, so I have no major issue with them, I was merely curious to see what people's opinion on them were.

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2018 6:43 pm
by TylerV
TheAngryBavarian wrote:If we are allowed to talk about specific questions, then I would agree that the "sword fight" one was strange. I believe I answered "brawl" or something to that effect, and was slightly surprised that I wasn't at least prompted. The only other one that I found strange was the question about the Gateway Arch. I believe the answer of simply "arch" was given and was not considered to be correct, which I found a smidgen harsh. It didn't affect the outcome of the matches, so I have no major issue with them, I was merely curious to see what people's opinion on them were.
That is an odd one. If I am remembering the answerline correctly it instructed moderators to prompt on anything related to fighting, which I think a brawl obviously falls under.

In regards to "arch", I am in agreement with the packet. I'm not going to just say the standard, somewhat condescending, of "things have names" but I think that general idea plus the fact that everyone who played the set is in a state that borders Missouri makes the answerline fine. That being said, I don't believe the question ever says arch so I think a prompt would have been the merciful move.

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2018 6:44 pm
by Dominator
Olivia L wrote:P.S. I answered with just duel on the Cyrano de Bergerac clue and got prompted. Was this not accepted later? I don’t think a prompt is too heinous.
First off, nice buzz! That play is awesome, that clue is about a particularly awesome part of it, and I'm glad you got points for it.

"duel", "fight", and equivalents thereof should have been prompted throughout.
TheAngryBavarian wrote:The only other one that I found strange was the question about the Gateway Arch. I believe the answer of simply "arch" was given and was not considered to be correct, which I found a smidgen harsh.
At the risk of taking a Wienerian stance, things have names, and you need to say those names to get points. Is there any reason you felt that this question was not clearly asking for that specific one?

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2018 9:01 pm
by hcube
First of all, thank you to everyone (Mr. Fischer, Andrew, Dr. Prince) for writing this set! It was definitely a step up from previous years, and I really enjoyed playing it! I'm looking forward to playing the Sectional packets and hopefully the State ones as well.

A couple things I noticed--

Science was well done.
Math was a lot better than last year as well.
In Rd 1, a lit bonus mentioned Crane (the answer) as being the author of Sister Carrie.
Also in Rd 1, a math tossup led-in with something to the effect of "...the gradient is an example of these things." The answer was "vector," but I buzzed there and said "derivative" and got negged. I feel the clue is a little misleading--to my understanding, the gradient is a multivariable extension of the derivative, and it is a vector field, not exactly a vector. Perhaps Andrew or Dr. Prince (sorry I forgot who wrote math) can clarify this for me.

In Rd 3, the tossup on "0 & 1" was really creative, and I liked it a lot. However, it struck me as a little out-of-place, since the clue I buzzed on (Kolmogorov, which wasn't the lead-in) was early in power for Lederberg 2 (College Open Science Tournament) for a tossup on Kolmogorov.

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2018 9:12 pm
by dtaylor4
TylerV wrote:
TheAngryBavarian wrote:If we are allowed to talk about specific questions, then I would agree that the "sword fight" one was strange. I believe I answered "brawl" or something to that effect, and was slightly surprised that I wasn't at least prompted. The only other one that I found strange was the question about the Gateway Arch. I believe the answer of simply "arch" was given and was not considered to be correct, which I found a smidgen harsh. It didn't affect the outcome of the matches, so I have no major issue with them, I was merely curious to see what people's opinion on them were.
That is an odd one. If I am remembering the answerline correctly it instructed moderators to prompt on anything related to fighting, which I think a brawl obviously falls under.

In regards to "arch", I am in agreement with the packet. I'm not going to just say the standard, somewhat condescending, of "things have names" but I think that general idea plus the fact that everyone who played the set is in a state that borders Missouri makes the answerline fine. That being said, I don't believe the question ever says arch so I think a prompt would have been the merciful move.
The prompt never said arch, as I had this scenario come up in my room (and prompted the controlling team, who figured it out). I'm with Noah, thing has a specific name, and there's more than one famous arch.

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2018 9:18 pm
by heterodyne
hcube wrote:First of all, thank you to everyone (Mr. Fischer, Mr. Wang, Mr. Prince) for writing this set! It was definitely a step up from previous years, and I really enjoyed playing it! I'm looking forward to playing the Sectional packets and hopefully the State ones as well.

A couple things I noticed--

Science was well done.
Math was a lot better than last year as well.
In Rd 1, a lit bonus mentioned Crane (the answer) as being the author of Sister Carrie.
Also in Rd 1, a math tossup led-in with something to the effect of "...the gradient is an example of these things." The answer was "vector," but I buzzed there and said "derivative" and got negged. I feel the clue is a little misleading--to my understanding, the gradient is a multivariable extension of the derivative, and it is a vector field, not exactly a vector. Perhaps Mr. Wang or Mr. Prince (sorry I forgot who wrote math) can clarify this for me.

In Rd 3, the tossup on "0 & 1" was really creative, and I liked it a lot. However, it struck me as a little out-of-place, since the clue I buzzed on (Kolmogorov, which wasn't the lead-in) was early in power for Lederberg 2 (College Open Science Tournament) for a tossup on Kolmogorov.
I, elsewhere wrote: While it's great that quality writers are taking over the production of IHSA questions, I'd just like to note that this certainly does not warrant referring to Andrew as Mr. Wang.

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2018 9:18 pm
by Dominator
hcube wrote:In Rd 1, a lit bonus mentioned Crane (the answer) as being the author of Sister Carrie.
That shouldn't have happened.
hcube wrote:Also in Rd 1, a math tossup led-in with something to the effect of "...the gradient is an example of these things."


The gradient is a vector of partial derivatives. It is not itself a derivative.
hcube wrote:...and it is a vector field, not exactly a vector.
That's an interesting usage point. Now that you mention it, I have probably heard it used both ways.
hcube wrote:In Rd 3, the tossup on "0 & 1" was really creative, and I liked it a lot. However, it struck me as a little out-of-place, since the clue I buzzed on (Kolmogorov, which wasn't the lead-in) was early in power for Lederberg 2 (College Open Science Tournament) for a tossup on Kolmogorov.
I remember crushing that tossup on Kolmogorov and wondering where the question could possibly have gone from there. His name came up several times when I was in grad school, and usually because of his 0,1 Law.

Also...
hcube wrote:Mr. Prince
...come on, man!

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2018 9:20 pm
by db0wman
I noticed that there was very little RMP on the regionals sets--was this put in place just at regionals so that the weaker teams would be able to convert a higher percentage of the questions, or is the low ratio going to be used at the sectionals and state tournaments as well?

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2018 9:22 pm
by hcube
Dominator wrote:
Also...
hcube wrote:Mr. Prince
...come on, man!
Oops, sorry about that--fixed.

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2018 9:25 pm
by TheAngryBavarian
Dominator wrote:
Olivia L wrote:P.S. I answered with just duel on the Cyrano de Bergerac clue and got prompted. Was this not accepted later? I don’t think a prompt is too heinous.
First off, nice buzz! That play is awesome, that clue is about a particularly awesome part of it, and I'm glad you got points for it.

"duel", "fight", and equivalents thereof should have been prompted throughout.
TheAngryBavarian wrote:The only other one that I found strange was the question about the Gateway Arch. I believe the answer of simply "arch" was given and was not considered to be correct, which I found a smidgen harsh.
At the risk of taking a Wienerian stance, things have names, and you need to say those names to get points. Is there any reason you felt that this question was not clearly asking for that specific one?
No. That would make sense, so I guess that I was perhaps expecting a bit more leeway. No matter, just something I found slightly unusual.

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2018 9:28 pm
by Good Goblin Housekeeping
db0wman wrote:I noticed that there was very little RMP on the regionals sets--was this put in place just at regionals so that the weaker teams would be able to convert a higher percentage of the questions, or is the low ratio going to be used at the sectionals and state tournaments as well?
this is more a result of the IHSA's distribution

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2018 9:29 pm
by Irreligion in Bangladesh
I will note - hearing "zero-one law" and buzzing with Kolmogorov is a significantly different quizbowl experience than hearing "Kolomgorov" + a description of tail probabilities and thinking that "zero and one" might be the answer.
db0wman wrote:I noticed that there was very little RMP on the regionals sets--was this put in place just at regionals so that the weaker teams would be able to convert a higher percentage of the questions, or is the low ratio going to be used at the sectionals and state tournaments as well?
Andrew's right - the IHSA Terms and Conditions calls for 1/1 Myth (labeled as Literature), half as much Religion (labeled as Social Studies; it'll be either 1 tossup or 1 bonus in each game, with the complementary question going to Geography), and a comparable amount of Philosophy to Religion (Philosophy shares a 2/2 space with Current Events, Government, and other common SS topics like Psych, Anthro, Econ, etc.).

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2018 9:46 pm
by Dominator
Irreligion in Bangladesh wrote:I will note - hearing "zero-one law" and buzzing with Kolmogorov is a significantly different quizbowl experience than hearing "Kolomgorov" + a description of tail probabilities and thinking that "zero and one" might be the answer.
Brad is entirely right. (I forgot to complete this story after telling my anecdote.) Once we've established that the question is asking for two numbers AND they're probabilities of stuff, a really good fraud could work out a guess of 0 and 1. There is a lot more context in stating the clue this way than in the way Lederberg did, which asked for a guy based on some work that almost anyone could have done.

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2018 9:50 pm
by hcube
Dominator wrote:
Irreligion in Bangladesh wrote:I will note - hearing "zero-one law" and buzzing with Kolmogorov is a significantly different quizbowl experience than hearing "Kolomgorov" + a description of tail probabilities and thinking that "zero and one" might be the answer.
Brad is entirely right. (I forgot to complete this story after telling my anecdote.) Once we've established that the question is asking for two numbers AND they're probabilities of stuff, a really good fraud could work out a guess of 0 and 1. There is a lot more context in stating the clue this way than in the way Lederberg did, which asked for a guy based on some work that almost anyone could have done.
Thanks for the clarification. During my match, I reflex-buzzed on the word Kolmogorov, so I don't think I heard any mention of probabilities (probably later in the same line). It makes a lot more sense now that I see it in context.

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2018 9:52 pm
by Dominator
hcube wrote:I reflex-buzzed on the word Kolmogorov
What have we done?!?!?!

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2018 10:27 pm
by Berniecrat
Thank you for writing the bonus on the 2018 Illinois Gubernatorial Election.

I enjoyed hearing the name "Daniel Biss"

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2018 11:18 pm
by the return of AHAN
Berniecrat wrote:Thank you for writing the bonus on the 2018 Illinois Gubernatorial Election.

I enjoyed hearing the name "Daniel Biss"
You don't say...
https://www.danielbiss.com/chance/

Image

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2018 10:36 am
by dtaylor4
Irreligion in Bangladesh wrote:I will note - hearing "zero-one law" and buzzing with Kolmogorov is a significantly different quizbowl experience than hearing "Kolomgorov" + a description of tail probabilities and thinking that "zero and one" might be the answer.
db0wman wrote:I noticed that there was very little RMP on the regionals sets--was this put in place just at regionals so that the weaker teams would be able to convert a higher percentage of the questions, or is the low ratio going to be used at the sectionals and state tournaments as well?
Andrew's right - the IHSA Terms and Conditions calls for 1/1 Myth (labeled as Literature), half as much Religion (labeled as Social Studies; it'll be either 1 tossup or 1 bonus in each game, with the complementary question going to Geography), and a comparable amount of Philosophy to Religion (Philosophy shares a 2/2 space with Current Events, Government, and other common SS topics like Psych, Anthro, Econ, etc.).
Basically, the distribution is booty. Any reason why the IHSA and Masonic sets didn't include sub-distributions in the question headers this year?

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2018 11:33 am
by jonah
dtaylor4 wrote:Any reason why the IHSA and Masonic sets didn't include sub-distributions in the question headers this year?
Masonic didn't include them because they are not supposed to be read, and including them would make it likely that they would be read. I imagine, but do not specifically know, the IHSA-writing team did so for the same reason.

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2018 6:05 pm
by db0wman
I thought that the sectional set was well-written for the most part. One problem that I noticed was that the questions seemed inconsistent in difficulty--some answerlines were far too specific for this level, such as the Checkers speech and the Calvin cycle tossups, while others were too easy, like the bonus on key signatures. An argument could also be made that the set was too easy since so many close games occurred today, but I felt like it was around the right difficulty on average.

Two errors that I can recall were on the Ravel tossup and the Catalan's conjecture bonus. For the former, I believe that it said that he wrote the piece Syrinx, which is actually a piece by Debussy. For the bonus, it asked something along the lines of "what type of numbers does Catalan's conjecture say 9 and 8 are the only examples of whose difference is 1", and my team said "integer powers", but the answer that it was asking for was "powers of prime numbers". Catalan's conjecture refers to powers of natural numbers in general, so I believe this to be an error (although looking back, "integer powers" might not be acceptable).

I'm really looking forward to the state sets, as I've enjoyed both of the ones from regionals and sectionals. Congrats to all the teams who won their sectionals--see you on Friday!

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2018 6:39 pm
by jzlau2
It seemed to me that some of the questions had unclear wording as to what the question was asking for. I remember several toss-ups where the wording was confusing, especially regarding the words "the/this/those". Other than that, I thought the set was fairly well-written and the difficulty level was appropriate.

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2018 7:35 pm
by Berniecrat
Hello.

In our Game 3, the moderator couldn't even read one of the social studies questions and had to throw it out. Do you know why this may have been a problem (were there typos or something) or what the actual answer was?

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2018 10:46 pm
by apk1741
I think the Sectionals packets were pretty well-written, though wording was a little difficult to understand. And this is probably a dumb question, but do CE and Geo fall under Misc for IHSA? Unfortunately, I will not be able to make it to IHSA State, but I wish good luck to all of you who are going, and hope you have fun!

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2018 11:48 pm
by jzlau2
Our moderator at the East Central Illinois sectional stumbled a couple of times on questions and forgot to prompt us on a lot of the bonuses. Some of those questions were worded weirdly, or maybe it was just the moderator. I remember one myth question where I didn't buzz because he said "this figure", but then said "the man was torn to pieces by maeneads after failing to retrieve his wife from the underworld" or something like that at the start of a sentence.

Obviously, if he had said "this man", we would have said "Orpheus", but the moderator's slip-up threw us off. Our opponent realized that he read the sentence wrong and buzzed for 10 points. There was another bonus where it was unclear whether they were asking for the title of the Langston Hughes poem "Mother to Son" or the speaker in "Mother to Son".

However, it could have just as easily been a typo, as that was not the only question where the moderator mixed up the definite articles and flustered me a bit. There may have been plenty of typos in the the set, but we will never really know for sure.

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2018 11:55 pm
by jzlau2
db0wman wrote:I thought that the sectional set was well-written for the most part. One problem that I noticed was that the questions seemed inconsistent in difficulty--some answerlines were far too specific for this level, such as the Checkers speech and the Calvin cycle tossups, while others were too easy, like the bonus on key signatures. An argument could also be made that the set was too easy since so many close games occurred today, but I felt like it was around the right difficulty on average.
I also felt like some of the bonuses were super easy as well. In the last game against Mahomet, it seemed like they ended up with a lot of really easy and straightforward bonuses which they got 30 points on, which is what kept them ahead of us until we finally pulled ahead in question 20. However, our team seemed to end up with quite a few questions that asked for two different things or a specific sort of description which had to be just right for the moderator to accept it. I didn't feel like the Calvin Cycle tossup was "hard" for sectional level, mainly because there was a giveaway clue about the enzyme Rubisco two lines in.

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2018 3:04 pm
by Irreligion in Bangladesh
db0wman wrote:I thought that the sectional set was well-written for the most part. One problem that I noticed was that the questions seemed inconsistent in difficulty--some answerlines were far too specific for this level, such as the Checkers speech and the Calvin cycle tossups, while others were too easy, like the bonus on key signatures. An argument could also be made that the set was too easy since so many close games occurred today, but I felt like it was around the right difficulty on average.

Two errors that I can recall were on the Ravel tossup and the Catalan's conjecture bonus. For the former, I believe that it said that he wrote the piece Syrinx, which is actually a piece by Debussy. For the bonus, it asked something along the lines of "what type of numbers does Catalan's conjecture say 9 and 8 are the only examples of whose difference is 1", and my team said "integer powers", but the answer that it was asking for was "powers of prime numbers". Catalan's conjecture refers to powers of natural numbers in general, so I believe this to be an error (although looking back, "integer powers" might not be acceptable).

I'm really looking forward to the state sets, as I've enjoyed both of the ones from regionals and sectionals. Congrats to all the teams who won their sectionals--see you on Friday!
A lot of good theory stuff to unpack here - please don't interpret the fact that I'm about to argue with everything you said as an indication I disagree completely. :)

*Checkers speech and Calvin cycle are both within range of a regular difficulty set of tossups; in the Big 3 categories, I'd say that they're definitely no harder than O! Pioneers, Yellow Wallpaper, and the Homestead Act, to name the three tossups I was most worried about. I'm a big proponent of keeping a balanced range on tossup answers - if the answer can never be as hard as O! Pioneers, for example, you can just buzz with My Antonia the moment things sound too Nebraskan.

*The key signature bonus relied a bit (a bit too much?) on "music theory is naturally harder than most quizbowl music" as well as a dose of "I'm asking for a descriptive answer in the hard part," which always depresses conversion a bit more. In my room - not that "anecdote" is the singular form of "data" - a group of kids who I know have good musical knowledge weren't able to figure out what part 2 was asking for. I'm very interested to see the conversion data on this one - it's one of those quizbowl hunches that I'll finally have some hard data to justify/reject it with.

*Close games are going to be a part of good quizbowl, no matter what; my hope is that things weren't close just because teams were trading buzzer races on leadins (or second clues after an impossible leadin) and sweeping every bonus. I don't have tossup buzzpoint data, but the bonus conversion data that I'm seeing so far has some surprising "they should have gotten that right" in several places in the close, Sectional-deciding games.

*The Ravel tossup led in with "A work by this composer ends with tambourine-playing girls dancing a bacchanale after the title characters re-enact the story of Pan and Syrinx.", describing Daphnis et Chloe. Noah will address the Catalan conjecture part, but you're essentially right about that one.

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2018 3:06 pm
by Irreligion in Bangladesh
jzlau2 wrote:It seemed to me that some of the questions had unclear wording as to what the question was asking for. I remember several toss-ups where the wording was confusing, especially regarding the words "the/this/those". Other than that, I thought the set was fairly well-written and the difficulty level was appropriate.
Do you remember what sort of questions had this? I can look it up to see what sort of phrasing is causing that, and see if it's replicated in the State set before it goes to the printers tomorrow.

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2018 3:08 pm
by Irreligion in Bangladesh
Berniecrat wrote:Hello.

In our Game 3, the moderator couldn't even read one of the social studies questions and had to throw it out. Do you know why this may have been a problem (were there typos or something) or what the actual answer was?
I talked with Arjun via PM about this, and we figured out it was the Round 6 tossup on the Hamilton-Burr duel; there was one missing letter in that question, but the fix for that went out on Friday to Sectional managers, and should have been edited in the pre-meeting. Not sure what could have gone wrong there.

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2018 3:34 pm
by Bosa of York
Irreligion in Bangladesh wrote: *Checkers speech [is] within range of a regular difficulty set of tossups [and is] definitely no harder than [...] the Homestead Act
I'd disagree with this (but probably not with the Calvin Cycle). As far as I can tell, the Checkers Speech has been a tossup answerline six times--once at NASAT and three times at History Bowl Nationals, once at ACF Nationals, and once at CO History--all tournaments that should be above regular difficulty. It's been asked for in bonuses at several high-school regular tournaments, but typically as a hard part. Moreover, while I can't comment on Illinois's US History curriculum, I'd guess that very few US History classes talk about either the 1952 election or Nixon's pre-presidential career in any significant length, while I know that my own classes talked about the Homestead Act a decent bit because of its importance for the settling of the west. The Checkers Speech might be more "quizbowl famous" than the Homestead Act, but the latter is definitely more important and probably better known.

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2018 10:42 am
by jzlau2
apk1741 wrote:I think the Sectionals packets were pretty well-written, though wording was a little difficult to understand. And this is probably a dumb question, but do CE and Geo fall under Misc for IHSA? Unfortunately, I will not be able to make it to IHSA State, but I wish good luck to all of you who are going, and hope you have fun!
Most Geo was under Social Studies, but there was one question about Lake Victoria in the last round of Sectionals that was placed under "Miscellaneous". That was the only Geography in the whole packet, which is strange, because I thought at least one of the questions in SS is Geography. I think that CE is under Miscellaneous, but I think that Trash is under Misc as well.

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2018 2:06 pm
by Dominator
db0wman wrote:For the bonus, it asked something along the lines of "what type of numbers does Catalan's conjecture say 9 and 8 are the only examples of whose difference is 1", and my team said "integer powers", but the answer that it was asking for was "powers of prime numbers". Catalan's conjecture refers to powers of natural numbers in general, so I believe this to be an error (although looking back, "integer powers" might not be acceptable).
I apologize for that one. You're right that as asked, the best answer is "integer power" or some equivalent thereof. I can't speak to the intent since I don't have any particular memory of writing that question, but it feels to me like I only half-edited it - no matter what the answer was, I'd have preferred another clue and the answer line should have given more instruction to the moderator. I can only hope it didn't swing any matches.

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2018 2:07 pm
by Dominator
jzlau2 wrote:
apk1741 wrote:I think the Sectionals packets were pretty well-written, though wording was a little difficult to understand. And this is probably a dumb question, but do CE and Geo fall under Misc for IHSA? Unfortunately, I will not be able to make it to IHSA State, but I wish good luck to all of you who are going, and hope you have fun!
Most Geo was under Social Studies, but there was one question about Lake Victoria in the last round of Sectionals that was placed under "Miscellaneous". That was the only Geography in the whole packet, which is strange, because I thought at least one of the questions in SS is Geography. I think that CE is under Miscellaneous, but I think that Trash is under Misc as well.
Miscellaneous includes "Interdiscplinary", which is what I'm guessing was happening here.

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2018 2:25 pm
by the return of AHAN
Any complaints people have with the distribution should be directed at the people who have a say in the distribution, that is, the IHSA Advisory Committee members. The writing team is just following the prescribed distribution. Also, anyone who thinks the questions were anything other than a quantum leap forward is obviously new here.

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2018 9:01 pm
by hokie168
I was looking at the state tournament schedule at http://www.ihsa.org/data/scores/scb28r16.htm and was wondering if anyone knew how IHSA splits teams into pools. Is it seeded, random draw, geographic, or what?

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2018 9:09 pm
by Dominator
hokie168 wrote:I was looking at the state tournament schedule at http://www.ihsa.org/data/scores/scb28r16.htm and was wondering if anyone knew how IHSA splits teams into pools. Is it seeded, random draw, geographic, or what?
It's my understanding that pooling is random. Having the two best teams have to play for one spot in the finals is not uncommon.

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2018 9:53 pm
by the return of AHAN
Dominator wrote:
hokie168 wrote:I was looking at the state tournament schedule at http://www.ihsa.org/data/scores/scb28r16.htm and was wondering if anyone knew how IHSA splits teams into pools. Is it seeded, random draw, geographic, or what?
It's my understanding that pooling is random. Having the two best teams have to play for one spot in the finals is not uncommon.
100% this. In my two terms on the IESA Advisory Committee, it was as uncomplicated as rolling peas labeled A through H (with sectionals labeled roughly northeast to southwest, A through H) out of a bottle at the annual meeting 11 months prior to the next state finals, with members taking turns rolling out the peas, and the first four formed Class A, pool A, and what remained formed pool B. Repeat the process for Class AA. Now to be sure, the exact boundaries aren't known at that time, but there's very little wiggle room to make big changes.
IMSA getting drawn in with Uni Lab and Stevenson is a tough break, for sure, never mind Macomb. Some pretty good teams in that pool are going home empty-handed, which is too bad. On the other hand, at least one of Latin, Sandburg, and Mater Dei will get some sort of fat trophy and should be appropriately feted when they return home.

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2018 9:42 am
by jzlau2
Hello,

Does anyone know when All-State Teams will be released? I don't think I will make it, but I am just curious to see if my teammates make it.

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2018 9:55 am
by the return of AHAN
Usually in April, if I recall correctly.

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2018 11:34 am
by mhasquin
jzlau2 wrote:Hello,

Does anyone know when All-State Teams will be released? I don't think I will make it, but I am just curious to see if my teammates make it.
Ballots are due today at noon. I believe the goal is to release the teams on Friday morning.

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2018 12:47 pm
by mhasquin
Submission of ballots has been extended into Monday. Efforts from the IHSA state finals can be used by the voters.

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2018 7:36 pm
by the return of AHAN
Seeing the names associated with top tier teams in Illinois in 2018 got me feeling nostalgic...
http://www.hsquizbowl.org/db/tournament ... standings/
http://www.hsquizbowl.org/db/tournament ... standings/

See any names you recognize?

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2018 11:20 pm
by AGoodMan
Out of sheer curiosity, would stats from this year's sectionals and state be posted anywhere?

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2018 12:15 am
by Good Goblin Housekeeping
AGoodMan wrote:Out of sheer curiosity, would stats from this year's sectionals and state be posted anywhere?
beyond the ihsa scorezone?

Re: Illinois '17-'18

Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2018 12:24 am
by Irreligion in Bangladesh
AGoodMan wrote:Out of sheer curiosity, would stats from this year's sectionals and state be posted anywhere?
I don't have all the sectional stats in (and there's a chance I won't ever get some of them) but various stats will eventually be collected and posted. It will be a while before it's done; I'm busy with NHBB Nats for the next few weeks, and the stats we collect aren't going to just be SQBS - it's the part-by-part bonus conversion data along with it - so it'll take a while on its own.