Ben Cooper Memorial Tournament (NNT) at GDS (11/8/08)

[Nine-Tenths Ideas]

I have found that this doesn't really help in general; experience is what helps people push through long, unfamiliar science words.

Well, maybe so, but our prelim readers didn't have experience, and this was precisely the problem. At least with a pronunciation key they might try to read the word instead of skipping it and moving on.

[Judson Laipply]

I don't know if you're being sarcastic, so forgive me. CO is nothing like basic college level; it's generally the hardest event of the year. (I guess that could be an abbreviation for 'college', I realize; it's not meant to be.)

.

I thought that CO was some odd way of abbreviating college. What exactly is CO?

[BGSO]

Chicago Open

[Mechanical Beasts]

I thought that CO was some odd way of abbreviating college. What exactly is CO?

Here's a good way to explain it:

17. Parsbit may have been a female military commander of these people, whose military was traditionally led by a Bek, assisted by tarkhans. Other leaders include Irbis, who may not have existed, and Bulan or Sabriel. Their leader Barjik defeated the Umayyads in 730, while both Justinian II and Constantine V married princesses of this people. Severely weakened by the Kabar rebellion and the departure of the Magyars, their cities included their capital of Itil and the fortress of Sarkel, built with Byzantine assistance on the Don River. Though they enjoyed a revival under Joseph and Aaron II, they were eventually destroyed by Svyatoslav of Kiev. FTP, name this Turkic people on the lower Volga, perhaps most famous for converting to Judaism.
Answer: Khazars

[Judson Laipply]

Oh...

That was a very good way of explaining it.

[Gonzagapuma1]

Back to stuff about this tournament, I thought that Ian did a really good job with the set, and although there were some problems with the readers, it was well run.

[Judson Laipply]

My team members were not very happy with this set as was I. The difficulty was sporadic at best and the science was downright abyssmal as to uneven distribution and totally random difficulty. There were way too many questions that went like : "College level clue. College/AP level clue. FTP name this really obvious topic from this really Obvious clue." and also like: "College Specialist level clue, College Specialist clue. FTP, Maybe you could possibly get this from a Normal College level clue."

No, science was clearly harder than any of the other categories. Some of the literature was slightly obscure, but nothing compared to the science answers that were coming out of left field over and over again... with, again, "with periodic table symbol [symbol]" several times as a final clue on bonus questions to bring the difficulty back down to 6th grade by the end of them.

Amen

Moral: Non-specialists should get better at science, too.

Isn''t the Idea of a giveaway clue to bring the difficulty level to about 75% conversion?

My science was actively written easier than my literature (for example)

Not if you wrote a moderate amount of the science.

I still can't play real bio the way I could play NAQT bio.

I never realized that being able to play "real" bio involved massive memorization of protein codes, viruses, and virtually every code name in biology for any substance, genome or organism.

But I may be wrong.

[Mechanical Beasts]

My science was actively written easier than my literature (for example)

Not if you wrote a moderate amount of the science.

I still can't play real bio the way I could play NAQT bio.

I never realized that being able to play "real" bio involved massive memorization of protein codes, viruses, and virtually every code name in biology for any substance, genome or organism.

But I may be wrong.

As to the first point--I didn't; I wrote a packet. As to the second--if by "code names" you refer to, like, what biologists call things, then yes, having basic knowledge of biology is useful. Proteins have names; know them.

[Judson Laipply]

My science was actively written easier than my literature (for example)

Not if you wrote a moderate amount of the science.

I still can't play real bio the way I could play NAQT bio.

I never realized that being able to play "real" bio involved massive memorization of protein codes, viruses, and virtually every code name in biology for any substance, genome or organism.

But I may be wrong.

As to the first point--I didn't; I wrote a packet. As to the second--if by "code names" you refer to, like, what biologists call things, then yes, having basic knowledge of biology is useful. Proteins have names; know them.

I am talking about the tossups that mentioned 4 lines of M1 binding to M2 to form complex QRT34 which can connect to the HE process in some mammals to form protein Q commonly known as X21.

or something similarly complex that involved letters, numbers, and no clue that could be guessed by anyone who didnt have a PhD.

In our 3 games against Charter A(2) and TJ A(1) no one got a tossup on science before a real word clue was mentioned.

[Mechanical Beasts]

See, if those things are important, it doesn't matter if you use numbers or letters or hand gestures to refer to them: they're important, so know them. If they're not important, which we'll be able to discuss next week or so, then sure, they shouldn't be asked. But objecting "oh no, nomenclature" isn't a valid complaint.

It might be legitimate to say that those tossups aren't comprehensible, or that they're poorly written for having so many jumbled numbers, but "x is hard to name" does not imply "x should not be asked even if it's important."

[ieppler]

James, instead of making vague comments about "med-school level leadins" or "abyssmal" science, please e-mail me at [email protected] with specific examples of problems so that they can be fixed before this set is used again next Saturday. I'm sure that Shantanu Jha, who wrote or substantially edited all of the science used in the tournament, would also appreciate your comments. You can e-mail him at [email protected].

[Judson Laipply]

My only point is that the overall level of the science, especially the biology seemed too hard for a High School level tournament. There were no problems per se but there were many clues that are too difficult for at least the 8 players that were in the rooms I played in.

I apologize for my comment on abyssmal science questions. I guess I was ticked about it not being the SCIENCE! questions that I actually like.

The rest of the sets were very well written and again I apologize.

[aestheteboy]

Hey, you guys are making this too complicated. The problem is very simple: science questions in this set were too hard for the audience. It's not necessary to make judgment calls about questions being "real"/fraudable, interesting/stock, or med-school/HS level. A clue is too hard if it helps no one in the intended audience answer the question. Almost everything else, in my opinion, is irrelevant. I don't know if the science clues were med-school level or AP-level, but I feel comfortable saying that they were too hard because I've played quizbowl enough times to know how good average high school teams are at science and how good the top high school teams are - that is to say, not very good at all. I'd be interested to know how Naren or Freddy would have handled the bio tossups, but even if they were able to get things early, I think we can all agree that it's silly to use more than half the tossup to try to distinguish between the top 2 science players in the nation.

[vcuEvan]

Hey, you guys are making this too complicated. The problem is very simple: science questions in this set were too hard for the audience. It's not necessary to make judgment calls about questions being "real"/fraudable, interesting/stock, or med-school/HS level. A clue is too hard if it helps no one in the intended audience answer the question. Almost everything else, in my opinion, is irrelevant. I don't know if the science clues were med-school level or AP-level, but I feel comfortable saying that they were too hard because I've played quizbowl enough times to know how good average high school teams are at science and how good the top high school teams are - that is to say, not very good at all. I'd be interested to know how Naren or Freddy would have handled the bio tossups, but even if they were able to get things early, I think we can all agree that it's silly to use more than half the tossup to try to distinguish between the top 2 science players in the nation.

I haven't seen the questions but I'm pretty sure Daichi's right here.

[Mechanical Beasts]

I think we can all agree that it's silly to use more than half the tossup to try to distinguish between the top 2 science players in the nation.

I haven't seen the questions but I'm pretty sure Daichi's right here.

If what Daichi alludes to in the part I retained was actually the case, then he is absolutely correct.

[Matt Weiner]

Hey, you guys are making this too complicated. The problem is very simple: science questions in this set were too hard for the audience. It's not necessary to make judgment calls about questions being "real"/fraudable, interesting/stock, or med-school/HS level. A clue is too hard if it helps no one in the intended audience answer the question. Almost everything else, in my opinion, is irrelevant. I don't know if the science clues were med-school level or AP-level, but I feel comfortable saying that they were too hard because I've played quizbowl enough times to know how good average high school teams are at science and how good the top high school teams are - that is to say, not very good at all. I'd be interested to know how Naren or Freddy would have handled the bio tossups, but even if they were able to get things early, I think we can all agree that it's silly to use more than half the tossup to try to distinguish between the top 2 science players in the nation.

I heartily endorse this event or product

[Captain Sinico]

That train's not leaving without me!

MaS

PS:

Some of these are probably on med school level for the first clue.

Unless the editors went insane or all the packets were more difficult than the one I wrote, I will guarantee you that that's completely false.

"I haven't seen the set, but guarantee they're not too hard unless the editors messed up and made them be too hard," eh? I guess so, man.

[Mechanical Beasts]

"I haven't seen the set, but guarantee they're not too hard unless the editors messed up and made them be too hard," eh? I guess so, man.

I mean, we can agree that there's a difference between "the first clue is med school only" and "the first half of the question can only differentiate between Freddy and Naren." The first is really, really, ridiculous, and serves no discernible purpose. The second is ill-conceived and immensely more likely, if still purposeless. Hence why I was sure that they didn't do something so loopy as to create leadins that college would find hard.

[Auroni]

yeah, after Shantanu showed me some of the stuff he was working with, it became clear that the science here was out of line.. I hope that the humanities stuff was more accessible, though.

[Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN)]

I thought Daichi ended this argument, Andy.

[Mechanical Beasts]

I thought Daichi ended this argument, Andy.

Yes, and then I agreed with him, because he seems to be right?

Then Sorice seemed to bring up a separate quibble, and I discussed the semantic difference that he seemed to be pointing out, because it's a meaningful one, if not necessarily one pertinent to the argument.

I'm sorry if this is offensive to your sense of message board aesthetics; I was just having a conversation.

[Judson Laipply]

Why is there no option labled: delete post if you accidentally posted something stupid that you want to delete, but can only edit.

[at your pleasure]

I hope that the humanities stuff was more accessible, though.

I thought the arts and lit(which are the only things I feel qualifed to discuss) were prefectly reasonable. I do have a minor answer space quibble or two, and one painting tossup rather annoyed me, but other than that it was fine.

[Blackboard Monitor Vimes]

I hope that the humanities stuff was more accessible, though.

I thought the arts and lit(which are the only things I feel qualifed to discuss) were prefectly reasonable. I do have a minor answer space quibble or two, and one painting tossup rather annoyed me, but other than that it was fine.

I believe I was annoyed by the same one...but the visual art and lit were good. The music seemed fine as well, but Tommy's so quick on those I don't know if there were any difficulty cliffs, etc because we didn't get there. I also remember the RMP as being reasonable, as with everything else but science. I will say that, as a Genetics student, I recognized some of the science gibberish that people are complaining about, although it didn't do me a whole lot of good. Also, from my scant knowledge of chem and physics, those seemed to be less complaint-worthy than the bio.

Really, the set overall was pretty good. It just appears that high school students have issues calling proteins, etc. by their actual names.

[Judson Laipply]

I also remember the RMP as being reasonable, as with everything else but science. I will say that, as a Genetics student, I recognized some of the science gibberish that people are complaining about, although it didn't do me a whole lot of good. Also, from my scant knowledge of chem and physics, those seemed to be less complaint-worthy than the bio.

Really, the set overall was pretty good. It just appears that high school students have issues calling proteins, etc. by their actual names.

I don't have an issue with calling proteins by their names. I would not have objected if they used names like Collagen, Insulin, Hemoglobin, Myoglobin, or anything more substantive than 1 letter. These clues that were intended for a specialist failed to mean anything to a person taking a specific course on the subject in question. I don't know what that means to you, but I think it just supports my point and Daichi's

EDIT: Removed excessive Quotage

[Sir Thopas]

I don't have an issue with calling proteins by their names. I would not have objected if they used names like Collagen, Insulin, Hemoglobin, Myoglobin, or anything more substantive than 1 letter. These clues that were intended for a specialist failed to mean anything to a person taking a specific course on the subject in question.

OK, so let's stop calling it ATP and start calling it adenosine triphosphate. That's even better, because instead of a jumble of letters which express everything necessary, we have a jumble of words that slow readers tend to trip over. Yeah!

[Blackboard Monitor Vimes]

I don't have an issue with calling proteins by their names. I would not have objected if they used names like Collagen, Insulin, Hemoglobin, Myoglobin, or anything more substantive than 1 letter. These clues that were intended for a specialist failed to mean anything to a person taking a specific course on the subject in question.

OK, so let's stop calling it ATP and start calling it adenosine triphosphate. That's even better, because instead of a jumble of letters which express everything necessary, we have a jumble of words that slow readers tend to trip over. Yeah!

Exactly. Not everything has a nice, easy to remember name. Some of them are much more manageable when referred to by their alphanumeric designations. Trust me, at least with some of the moderators I had, some of the actual names may have been more useless than those. Also, it was not so much that they didn't mean anything to me as it was that I couldn't remember what certain things were called. I consider the lack of answer choice diversity to be a greater issue with the bio than the use of alphanumeric designations; there's more to bio than what came up.

Edit: And even that remains a fairly minor quibble.

[Judson Laipply]

OK, I get it, I know nothing about Biology. This discussion would be much better and clearer if all of my posts were deleted and replaced with Daichi and Sarah's quotes, because They, unlike myself, know how to phrase their arguments well.

EDIT: I would also like to apologize for using "Med school level clue" about as much as Joe the Plumber came up in the last presidential debate.

[Whiter Hydra]

One quick quirk about the set: I found what consisted as an acceptable answer was weird at times. There were some answers that were prompted when they probably shouldn't have been, and there were a couple of cases where an answer probably should have been prompted but weren't.

Also, we had one reader who kept on trying to give advice during the match as well as being almost painfully slow, but I guess there's not much one could do about that.

All in all, it was a good tournament, even if we only got to play nine rounds.

[Blackboard Monitor Vimes]

One quick quirk about the set: I found what consisted as an acceptable answer was weird at times. There were some answers that were prompted when they probably shouldn't have been, and there were a couple of cases where an answer probably should have been prompted but weren't.

Also, we had one reader who kept on trying to give advice during the match as well as being almost painfully slow, but I guess there's not much one could do about that.

All in all, it was a good tournament, even if we only got to play nine rounds.

I emailed Ian about some of the strange underlining and I believe most of it is being fixed. I don't remember too many non-prompts, though. If you remember specifically what they were, I'm sure Ian would love to hear about it before next weekend.

[Megalomaniacal Panda on Absinthe]

Retrospectively looking through a lot of the science I wrote, it clearly was too hard, even from a theoretical level. Some of it was certainly ridiculous; I have no idea what I was thinking (I suppose this would warrant jokes about my screenname, though I can assure everyone all questions were written when I was entirely sober).

In a lot of cases, however, I wasn't quite sure what I could put in. I used elements as easy parts of bonuses fairly often, but I generally paired them with legitimate clues as well, though perhaps the clues themselves were rather difficult. I did end up using higher level clues for the first few sentences simply because I was trying to get enough clues to fill 6 lines and I couldn't find enough without resorting to long, vague descriptions. I'm ashamed to admit that, yeah, at least one leadin clue I used probably would have been appropriate at CO (or med school level, whatever that means). Part of this was colored simply by the fact I saw college level leadins used fairly often in high school, and so they seemed more appropriate to me. I don't think any of my biology clues were vague or nonspecific, even if they were extremely difficult (and I'll freely admit that they were). If anyone disagrees, I would certainly like to hear about it.

I did show my questions to other people, and when I vocalized fears about making set too difficult I was generally told it was fine (I don't remember you saying anything, Auroni, but then my short term memory was always pretty bad); clearly I should have reigned myself in. My aversion to using what I perceive as stock clues or overused topics got the better of me, I think.

Perhaps the most egregious problem with my questions was the fluctuation in bonus difficulty; I would sincerely like to apologize for that. Some of the bonuses were clearly out of line, probably on target for the ACF Regionals level if anything. I think the science was probably more appropriate for PACE than anything else, but even then it suffers from a laundry list of issues.

In any case, it seems I erred gravely in my assumptions about difficulty, and for that, I apologize. I agree with Daichi and most reasonable people that the best test for difficulty is whether or not the field could answer them; by that criterion, I failed in my job as editor. Do feel free to send me nasty emails (externalsolipsism at gmail dot com) about specific questions or clues.

[Whiter Hydra]

In other news, what happened with Charter? I heard there was some tension between the players involved, but still.

[Down and out in Quintana Roo]

I really appreciate your post and your honesty, Shantanu. Hope you didn't think we were ganging up on you or anything. Generally what you wrote was very well done, but i'm glad that you can see where the problems occurred and why some of us have voiced our concerns. Thanks for listening and responding.

[jbarnes112358]

In other news, what happened with Charter? I heard there was some tension between the players involved, but still.

I am not sure what "happened" in their first loss, but in the semifinal game against us it was simply a matter of four Charter negs to our zero negs and some questions we liked coming up. A couple of those negs were doubly unfortunate in that the player obviously knew the answer but gave the wrong form or something like that. It was a single game. If we played them again the score could easily be reversed. With the high bonus conversion some of these teams were putting up, even a 200 point loss might be only a 3 or 4 toss-up swing, easily explained by untimely negs and the answers that happen to come up in a given packet.

Although there were several teams capable of winning this tournament, clearly WJ was the most consistent team and deserved to win the first-place trophy.

[Captain Sinico]

I thought Daichi ended this argument, Andy.

Yes, and then I agreed with him, because he seems to be right?

Then Sorice seemed to bring up a separate quibble, and I discussed the semantic difference that he seemed to be pointing out, because it's a meaningful one, if not necessarily one pertinent to the argument.

I'm sorry if this is offensive to your sense of message board aesthetics; I was just having a conversation.

Let me break down for you what's happening here. You have no basis to conclude what level the clues are on, regardless of what words anyone chooses to describe them! There is no meaningful semantic difference possible because there's no word I could use to describe the clues you could confirm or disconfirm your agreement of, because you haven't seen the set! The small fraction of the (unedited) set you have seen are questions you yourself wrote and, frankly, I have good reason to distrust your assessment of the difficulty of your own questions, especially science questions (largely because literally everyone I've thought to ask agrees that it's systematically low,) so the value of even the kernel of meaning in the truism I took issue with your stating is highly questionable.

In summary: I don't agree with the person you were disagreeing with (and his point has been ably handled elsewhere,) but I agree even less with you. Give it up, man.

MaS

[Mechanical Beasts]

Oh, I see what you meant. Yeah, I misread you. You're certainly right.

[Captain Sinico]

OK, I get it, I know nothing about Biology. This discussion would be much better and clearer if all of my posts were deleted and replaced with Daichi and Sarah's quotes, because They, unlike myself, know how to phrase their arguments well.

EDIT: I would also like to apologize for using "Med school level clue" about as much as Joe the Plumber came up in the last presidential debate.

Hey man, no need to be like that; your posts definitely had some good and meaningful things to say, even if you didn't use the words that most people would have. Buck up, mister.

MaS

PS: Thanks, Andy Watkins; you've made a stride today, I can feel it.

[Mechanical Beasts]

PS: Thanks, Andy Watkins; you've made a stride today, I can feel it.

It feels magical, man, magical.

And you're absolutely right that I'm delusional about difficulty because I don't know how much people know. I'm getting better at this, but slowly, and it's good and appropriate (particularly when HFT is next weekend) to point that out to everyone. Thank you for that. (Particularly because I can't really say it of myself nearly so meaningfully, since one can parse someone talking about how they like hard things or think high schoolers ought to know hard things as boasting.)

[The Atom Strikes!]

In other news, what happened with Charter? I heard there was some tension between the players involved, but still.

I am not sure what "happened" in their first loss, but in the semifinal game against us it was simply a matter of four Charter negs to our zero negs and some questions we liked coming up. A couple of those negs were doubly unfortunate in that the player obviously knew the answer but gave the wrong form or something like that. It was a single game. If we played them again the score could easily be reversed. With the high bonus conversion some of these teams were putting up, even a 200 point loss might be only a 3 or 4 toss-up swing, easily explained by untimely negs and the answers that happen to come up in a given packet.

Although there were several teams capable of winning this tournament, clearly WJ was the most consistent team and deserved to win the first-place trophy.

This is about what happened. You guys played excellently (Quint's comment about how Gov should be given the national championship trophy in 2010 wasn't nearly as hubristic as I thought), and we negged a lot. I also was in a post-caffeine crash, which delayed my speed a lot.

[ieppler]

Playoff stats are now available at http://results.scobo.net/SQBS.aspx?org= ... =standings.

[Down and out in Quintana Roo]

Consolation stats will be posted as well? I'm not that hopeful, considering how some teams just decided to start leaving at the 4th and 5th games, but it would be nice. Honestly i just want to correct results entered into our rankings, since it seems like other tournaments (here's looking at you TJ) haven't sent any stats to Byko yet.

[Auroni]

I did show my questions to other people, and when I vocalized fears about making set too difficult I was generally told it was fine (I don't remember you saying anything, Auroni, but then my short term memory was always pretty bad); clearly I should have reigned myself in. My aversion to using what I perceive as stock clues or overused topics got the better of me, I think.

Yeah, you're right. I didn't object to anything you showed me, Shantanu, it's just that as an afterthought, I could see how those questions would be too difficult for the tournament.

Man, I should probably get better at offering feedback.

[Down and out in Quintana Roo]

Did the consolation stats get misplaced, thrown out, or... what? Just wondering since i know some teams left around the last or second to last game, but we (and, well, i guess lots of other teams too) did have a couple legitimate wins in our consolation bracket while the "real" playoffs were taking place.

If they do exist, or if they could be posted here, it would be nice to have them so rankings etc. can be updated correctly.

[Down and out in Quintana Roo]

Last time i'll post about this, then i'll shut up. Just reference my earlier post since i don't feel like typing it up again. We played 4 games in the afternoon that don't exist now, apparently, so... yeah. It would be nice if they did.

[ieppler]

I've been pretty busy with college applications and recovering from a hard drive crash, but I should have some time to find and enter the consolation score sheets now that I've gotten into college. Since many teams left after the prelims, some rooms played intra-team scrimmages during the consolation rounds. I'll enter the available data sometime this week, but I can't promise full results.

[Down and out in Quintana Roo]

Cool, Ian... whatever you got would be nice. I was just hoping they weren't all lost. I'm pretty sure we played 4 legitimate consolation games but it might have been only 3.