High School Themed Tournaments?

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Re: High School Themed Tournaments?

Post by Important Bird Area »

la2pgh wrote:Find me 11 skilled high school geography players. Seriously.
Eh, given the size of the canon for a niche subject tournament, there's no reason to limit it to high school players.

Now then: if an all-geography tournament ever actually existed, of course I would like to play. Would there be interest at HSNCT, perhaps? If we had seven players or so who would be interested in writing packets, all we'd need would be a volunteer to edit...
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Re: High School Themed Tournaments?

Post by AlphaQuizBowler »

Anti-Climacus wrote:I would like to retirate my interest in a Fine Arts side event, possibly for WoQ. I would be happy to contribute questions, paticuarly visual arts questions.
If a Fine Arts side event were planned for WoQ, I would also volunteer to contribute questions.
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Re: High School Themed Tournaments?

Post by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) »

Not only that, find me a tournament's worth of acceptable answers.
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Re: High School Themed Tournaments?

Post by Blackboard Monitor Vimes »

Greg Tito (MLWGS), Naren (TJ), Chuhern (James Monroe), Raynell (RM)... 7 to go, people!
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Re: High School Themed Tournaments?

Post by Kyle »

GARBAGE DAY 425 wrote:Not only that, find me a tournament's worth of acceptable answers.
You don't have to play if you don't want to, Charlie.

Seriously, if there are at least twelve people who want to play this, I will edit and organize it. I would like the challenge of showing that geography questions can be consistently interesting (maybe not to everybody, but to a lot of people).
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Re: High School Themed Tournaments?

Post by Terrible Shorts Depot »

I would probably play (assuming I can get to wherever it is), mostly because I'm down for anything. I was just wondering if there was any sort of demand.
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Re: High School Themed Tournaments?

Post by Self-incompatibility in plants »

I'm not sure how talk of a Geography tournament became such a serious consideration, but considering the level of controversy that seems to swirling around the idea of a just Geography tournament, I'm surprised that no one has to yet to seriously propose another, more plausible and appealing idea for a themed tournament. So... how about a Social Studies Tournament (with history, geography, politics, civics, etc).However much fun I think a Geo Tournament would be, I subsequently think that a more general Social Studies tournament would be infinitely better, and is less likely to be a "disaster", as some claimed the Geo tournament would be. I honestly doubt the people willing to play in the Geo tournament would be opposed to a Social Studies tournament, and many others, who were perhaps against a Geo Tournament, would be attracted a more tournament of this kind, as the knowledge field would be larger. Additionally, finding writers for, and then writing the questions for a Social Studies tournament (correct me if I am wrong) would likely be easier. So, a Social Studies tournament... any serious thoughts about this?
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Re: High School Themed Tournaments?

Post by Salt Lake Dream »

I'd probably also play in a geography tournament.
Whenever "Falkland Islands" is the answer, you know that you're supposed to say "Islas Malvinas" because they truly belong to Argentina.
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Re: High School Themed Tournaments?

Post by Angry Babies in Love »

GARBAGE DAY 425 wrote:Not only that, find me a tournament's worth of acceptable answers.
My vision is something along the lines of six packets, tops. That's not that hard to do, depending on how broadly one defines geography.
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Re: High School Themed Tournaments?

Post by ClemsonQB »

GARBAGE DAY 425 wrote:Not only that, find me a tournament's worth of acceptable answers.
Well, lets see:

There are around 192 countries, and within those, you have US States, Canadian Provinces, Australian states as well as plenty of other sub national entities. So we'll say 300 possibilities here (countries and subnational entities combined).

I hear countries have cities in them, and their are probably 100 cities that you could ask about.

Somewhere around 50-75 rivers to tossup on, while other bodies of water combined probably total somewhere around 50.

Islands, hmm, maybe 50ish.

Mountains and Mountain ranges, probably closer to 30.

National Parks, that's like 10-15 tossupable things.

Now, all of these are conservative estimates, but I count no less than 590 things you could tossup on, but again they're all only ballpark guesses. I'm probably even forgetting something obvious, but the point is that running out of acceptable answers is not a possibility.

EDIT: spelling and I forgot something in my addition...
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Re: High School Themed Tournaments?

Post by Sir Thopas »

Way to quantify a standard NAQT set, George.
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Re: High School Themed Tournaments?

Post by The Atom Strikes! »

I would gladly play in a Geography theme tournament. I do have to say, however, that a geography tournament can be made considerably more interesting with clues about polities' human geography as well as their physical features.
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Re: High School Themed Tournaments?

Post by ClemsonQB »

Yeah, I agree with Henry. Also, sometimes ethnic groups can even be considered geography.
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Re: High School Themed Tournaments?

Post by First Chairman »

Again, I do biography as my theme event, but it's not on buzzers so go with it as you will.

Geography can be challenging for an entire tournament set though if National Geographic can do it. I would certainly do more than just name locations and places. Geography can delve more into anthropology, sociology, and cultural facets which can be either really fascinating or too hard for standard quiz bowl.
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Re: High School Themed Tournaments?

Post by Kyle »

Inevitably when you write geography tossups you get clues from history, economics, anthropology, political science, or earth science. Geography isn't about particular places so much as people's interaction with those places. Knowing where the places are is an important framework, but it isn't the whole subject by any means.

If we're talking about all-tossup tournaments with six or seven rounds, couldn't you do three or even four of them in a single day? History in the morning, fine arts in the early afternoon, geography in the late afternoon, science after dinner?
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Re: High School Themed Tournaments?

Post by Stat Boy »

This brings up the question of what a subdistribution of geography would look like.
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Re: High School Themed Tournaments?

Post by at your pleasure »

If we're talking about all-tossup tournaments with six or seven rounds, couldn't you do three or even four of them in a single day? History in the morning, fine arts in the early afternoon, geography in the late afternoon, science after dinner?
I would prefer to spread the side events over both tournament days(assuming that these side tournaments are at WoQ or another weekend event), since that way it will be easier to avoid conflicting with the main event. I would say science either Friday evening(unless they run the lit singles friday evening this year too) or Saturday between the end of the main event and dinner, history after dinner Saturday,Geo Sunday morning, and fine arts midday Sunday, with geography or fine arts getting the Saturday before dinner slot if science is held Friday evening.
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Re: High School Themed Tournaments?

Post by ClemsonQB »

It appears that both Kyle and Douglas are forgetting that there will be two full tournaments held during the WoQ unless things have changed significantly. You can't fit six events into 2.5 days.
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Re: High School Themed Tournaments?

Post by First Chairman »

... not to mention... I would like to know how long I should reserve rooms per day. Can't do the overnight thing unless you really want to pay serious cash for security and stuff.
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Re: High School Themed Tournaments?

Post by Auks Ran Ova »

ClemsonQB wrote:It appears that both Kyle and Douglas are forgetting that there will be two full tournaments held during the WoQ unless things have changed significantly. You can't fit six events into 2.5 days.
That sounds like a challenge.
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Re: High School Themed Tournaments?

Post by Sir Thopas »

Ukonvasara wrote:
ClemsonQB wrote:It appears that both Kyle and Douglas are forgetting that there will be two full tournaments held during the WoQ unless things have changed significantly. You can't fit six events into 2.5 days.
That sounds like a challenge.
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Re: High School Themed Tournaments?

Post by Kyle »

Mine was sort of just a general comment that you could do a bunch of these tournaments on one day because they really shouldn't take very long to play. If you have a major "main event," then I guess it's much more difficult to schedule things in. But aren't 90% of the high schoolers volunteering to play these tournaments from somewhere in the greater DC metro area? If this many people really want to play subject tournaments from a variety of subjects, then you all should just agree on a free Saturday and run a bunch of subject tournaments back-to-back. It certainly wouldn't be hard to find different college students willing to take the lead in editing them.
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Re: High School Themed Tournaments?

Post by Angry Babies in Love »

Kyle wrote:Mine was sort of just a general comment that you could do a bunch of these tournaments on one day because they really shouldn't take very long to play. If you have a major "main event," then I guess it's much more difficult to schedule things in. But aren't 90% of the high schoolers volunteering to play these tournaments from somewhere in the greater DC metro area? If this many people really want to play subject tournaments from a variety of subjects, then you all should just agree on a free Saturday and run a bunch of subject tournaments back-to-back. It certainly wouldn't be hard to find different college students willing to take the lead in editing them.
That sounds really awesome, a day of subject tournaments.
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Re: High School Themed Tournaments?

Post by ClemsonQB »

Geography, History, Fine Arts and Science... Hmmm, I think we may be missing literature.
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Re: High School Themed Tournaments?

Post by Blackboard Monitor Vimes »

ClemsonQB wrote:Geography, History, Fine Arts and Science... Hmmm, I think we may be missing literature.
I greatly enjoyed Ted's lit tournament last year. I think there would be a decent amount of demand for another one, given the number of people still around who played last year.
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Re: High School Themed Tournaments?

Post by Ike »

I've yet to posted about it an announcement, but I talked with Chris Ray and will be writing a literature side event for WoQ.
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Re: High School Themed Tournaments?

Post by aestheteboy »

How wonderfully exciting it is to play high school quizbowl this year. I'm glad I was born late enough to be able to enjoy these opportunities.
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Re: High School Themed Tournaments?

Post by at your pleasure »

I like the idea of an all side event thingy. Prehaps that could be intergrated into WoQ as an alternative to the Sunday NAQT event? Alternativly, at a tournament running the last two days of a long weekend, people could play a series of side events the afternoon and evening of the day before. Come to think of this, depending on when DC area high schools let out, this could be done at WoQ as well.
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Re: High School Themed Tournaments?

Post by Magister Ludi »

First of all side events don't just materialize out of thin air. You need competent people to commit hundreds of hours to writing them. Second, the appeal of the weekend of quizbowl for many teams that are travelling is the chance to play against other national caliber teams in two tournaments, while only having to pay the travel fee for one location. Relegating the second day to side events could adversely affect the field size of WoQ because there is no incentive for teams to pick WoQ over any other national caliber regular season tournament. Many teams don't care about side events and might decide to go to TJ or UVA instead of WoQ.
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Re: High School Themed Tournaments?

Post by at your pleasure »

Sorry if I wasn't clear enough. I meant allowing teams to play the side event if they do not wish to play the NAQT set. Of course ,it's unlikely that many teams will want to do this, rendering my original point moot. I still like the "day of side events" deal.
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Re: High School Themed Tournaments?

Post by Magister Ludi »

Creating an option to play side events instead of the second tournament is foolish because it would dilute the fields of both tournaments. It sounds like there are two quality side events in the works (one for Friday and Saturday night) and anything more would probably adversely effect the overall success of the weekend.
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