The Quizbowl Resource Center

Meadowbrook has dropped out, so we now have space for two more teams. I'll have both a 30 team and 32 team schedule prepared, though I welcome suggestions on how to work an 11 round schedule for 30 teams (we have 12 rounds, one of which we'd prefer to keep as a tiebreaker). If I start with 5 brackets of 6, how do I run play-offs? Having more play-off than prelim rounds doesn't make sense to me, so if anyone has thoughts on how I can fix this, I welcome them. Otherwise I guess we'll just end up using fewer rounds...

OK, so at lunch I've had a bit more time to think about this. With 30 teams, do 5 pelim brackets of six, followed by 2 play-off brackets of six and cross bracket finals make sense? And then the remaining 18 teams could go into 3 brackets of 6 and get a total of 10 rounds that way.

MLWGS-Gir wrote:OK, so at lunch I've had a bit more time to think about this. With 30 teams, do 5 pelim brackets of six, followed by 2 play-off brackets of six and cross bracket finals make sense? And then the remaining 18 teams could go into 3 brackets of 6 and get a total of 10 rounds that way.

If this makes sense to people, we'll probably close the field at 30 and put any remaining interested teams on a waiting list should more people drop out, since this works better on our staff. Must go to Latin class; won't be able to respond to any comments until 3:15 or so, fyi.

MLWGS-Gir wrote:OK, so at lunch I've had a bit more time to think about this. With 30 teams, do 5 pelim brackets of six, followed by 2 play-off brackets of six and cross bracket finals make sense? And then the remaining 18 teams could go into 3 brackets of 6 and get a total of 10 rounds that way.

I would suggest brackets of 5 for the playoffs, that way you're not using statistical tiebreakers across brackets.

With 32 teams, you can do power matching for the first five rounds so that each team always plays a team with the same record as itself. This works well with all tournaments, novice tournaments in particular because it separates the pseudonovices from the supernovices quickly. After five rounds, you'll have six teams with one loss or fewer, which can lead to five rounds of round robin in the afternoon, though you'll have to be a little creative to divide up the rest of the field.

With 30 teams, you can do something very similar, though there are a small number of matches between teams with different records.

I can send you a schedule for either format if you are interested--I've already got them worked out.

Shcool wrote:With 32 teams, you can do power matching for the first five rounds so that each team always plays a team with the same record as itself. This works well with all tournaments, novice tournaments in particular because it separates the pseudonovices from the supernovices quickly.

Yeah, this might be a good idea, particularly for this tournament. This seems to be the most fair way.

Shcool wrote:With 32 teams, you can do power matching for the first five rounds so that each team always plays a team with the same record as itself. This works well with all tournaments, novice tournaments in particular because it separates the pseudonovices from the supernovices quickly. After five rounds, you'll have six teams with one loss or fewer, which can lead to five rounds of round robin in the afternoon, though you'll have to be a little creative to divide up the rest of the field.

This is an excellent idea. For the 1 loss and 1 win teams, the solution is obvious (5-round round robin). For the remainder of the field, I'd divide the 3-2 teams into two arbitrary brackets of five (based on say 1, 3, 6, 8, 10 in bonus conversion and 2, 4, 5, 7, 9 in bonus conversion) and have them play a round robin, with placement matches between 1st in one bracket and 1st in the other bracket (you'd need paper tiebreakers for this, I suppose); the 2-3 teams you can do the same way. This gives everyone 10 games in either 10 or 11 rounds; if you need to, you can then have finals with the rounds blind to the top bracket and (if you want) 3rd place/5th place games to give the top bracket at least 11 games.

One thing you should explicitly clarify is whether the prelim swiss-pair records carry over; i.e. whether the 0-loss team earns a 1-game advantage going into the playoffs.

cvdwightw wrote:

Shcool wrote:With 32 teams, you can do power matching for the first five rounds so that each team always plays a team with the same record as itself. This works well with all tournaments, novice tournaments in particular because it separates the pseudonovices from the supernovices quickly. After five rounds, you'll have six teams with one loss or fewer, which can lead to five rounds of round robin in the afternoon, though you'll have to be a little creative to divide up the rest of the field.

This is an excellent idea. For the 1 loss and 1 win teams, the solution is obvious (5-round round robin). For the remainder of the field, I'd divide the 3-2 teams into two arbitrary brackets of five (based on say 1, 3, 6, 8, 10 in bonus conversion and 2, 4, 5, 7, 9 in bonus conversion) and have them play a round robin, with placement matches between 1st in one bracket and 1st in the other bracket (you'd need paper tiebreakers for this, I suppose); the 2-3 teams you can do the same way. This gives everyone 10 games in either 10 or 11 rounds; if you need to, you can then have finals with the rounds blind to the top bracket and (if you want) 3rd place/5th place games to give the top bracket at least 11 games.

One thing you should explicitly clarify is whether the prelim swiss-pair records carry over; i.e. whether the 0-loss team earns a 1-game advantage going into the playoffs.

Thank you, Dwight and Mr. Reinstein. I can get a 30 team card system off Charter's website, which Harry linked me to during GSAC, so I suppose we'll go with that. I've got a bracketed 30 team schedule worked out, but I really have no idea of the relative strengths of a lot of these teams, so there may be unintentional brackets of death using that. I'll go with the card system for the prelims, and Dwight, I'm pretty sure I understand what you're saying about play-offs, but I'll take another look later and see if it still makes sense to me. Thanks.

How's the moderator situation looking, Sarah? You know i would love to help moderate (or scorekeep, or read for someone who would rather scorekeep), and i thoroughly enjoy doing so (especially to younger teams), so let me know if i can help in any way.

Caesar Rodney HS wrote:How's the moderator situation looking, Sarah? You know i would love to help moderate (or scorekeep, or read for someone who would rather scorekeep), and i thoroughly enjoy doing so (especially to younger teams), so let me know if i can help in any way.

I would very much appreciate you moderating, Mr. C. Moderator meeting's at 8:45 in room 120. Dr. B. rounded up some seniors who need more community service to graduate who are willing to be scorekeepers; hopefully I'll have enough of them to provide you with one.

Sweet. I'll be there.

dtaylor4 wrote:

MLWGS-Gir wrote:OK, so at lunch I've had a bit more time to think about this. With 30 teams, do 5 pelim brackets of six, followed by 2 play-off brackets of six and cross bracket finals make sense? And then the remaining 18 teams could go into 3 brackets of 6 and get a total of 10 rounds that way.

I would suggest brackets of 5 for the playoffs, that way you're not using statistical tiebreakers across brackets.

5 team brackets = byes or cross-bracket play. Boo.

We're going to leave really early (4:30ish) for our drive to Richmond, but in case we get stuck in traffic or anything happens, do you have a contact number for us to let you know if we're running behind? We've never been late but these long trips always make me nervous, even though we end up showing up at like 8am most of the time.

Otherwise, see you tomorrow.

Call 804-354-6800 ext 2072 if you are running into problems. Leave a message and a phone number and I'll call you. I'll check the messages in the morning a couple of times.

James River and Richard Montgomery B have dropped, so we're down to 28 teams and will be working from there.

TJ A defeats Dorman B on last TU, 325-295.

http://results.scobo.net/SQBS.aspx?org= ... =standings

Chris, you can go ahead and post the set. Our rooms are all put back in order, so we need to go. Longer post later.

TJ A defeats Dorman B on last TU, 325-295

I assume that this is what would normally be TJ's "B" team.

The set is up at http://quizbowlpackets.com/archive/09havoc.zip.

Anti-Climacus wrote:

TJ A defeats Dorman B on last TU, 325-295

I assume that this is what would normally be TJ's "B" team.

It was the team that was at RAPPoff and would probably be considered our "C" team under "normal" circumstances.

Hey, thanks to everyone who helped us out with this. You are awesome. Thanks to Chuhern Hwang, Charlie Rosenthal, George Berry, Andy Watkins, Brad Fischer, and Kristin Streyer for contributing questions and to my three fellow editors (Greg, Tommy, and Cameron) for being awesome, as well as Ian from GDS, Mr. Flint from Cave Spring, Mr. Gilbert from Howard, George Berry, Dan Goff, and Mr. C. from Caesar Rodney for helping us out with staff. If you have comments on the questions or logistics or whatever, feel free to post them or email me.

Overall, in my opinion, the questions were great and fit the level of the competitors, more or less. I am curious as to what distribution was, it seemed to me (though I may be biased) that there was more RMP than usual in the packets. Other than that, it was quite enjoyable.

This was a very well-run and fun tournament to play in. I'm especially thankful to the readers and the directors for making HAVOC so smooth and efficient. The questions seemed very well-written, but (this isn't a criticism, just an observation) it seemed to me that there were a lot of military history and myth questions. I know everyone else who came from TJ had a really great time as well and I know that our freshman are excited to return next year. Congratulations to all teams, especially Dorman B, with whom we had two really competitive matches, and thanks again to everyone who helped make this such a great tournament.

We went with 2/2 myth out of 3/3 RMP because we didn't think we had enough philosophy and religion at this level. The distro used was:
4/4 lit
4/4 science/math
5/5 History/CE
1/1 Geo
1/1 trash
3/3 RMP (.5/.5 R, 2/2 M, .5/.5 P)
2/2 art (1/1 visual, 1/1 music)
1/1 SS (which included govt because we didn't think we had enough straight SS, which we quickly realized was true).

The first couple of packets looked pretty good when I leafed through them a little while ago. The only question I saw that struck me as needing changes was the common-link tossup on Madonnas- I'm not sure that Theokotos really belonged in the second half of the question, and the clue right after that should probably have come after Virgin of the Rocks. I suspect myth was picking up the RMP slack created by the (necessary for a novice tournament) lack of philosophy.

MLWGS-Gir wrote:We went with 2/2 myth out of 3/3 RMP because we didn't think we had enough philosophy and religion at this level.

Ok that makes sense. I did appreciate the diversity in pantheons, I found that was a nice touch. One can only hear so much Zeus and Vishnu (even though I am terrible at the vast majority of religions and mythologies).
BTW, when can we expect stats to be up? (Sorry to prod, I understand that you are probably studying for APs)

rmgeokid wrote:...it seemed to me (though I may be biased) that there was more RMP than usual in the packets. Other than that, it was quite enjoyable.

lagazzaladra wrote:...it seemed to me that there were a lot of military history and myth questions.

Yes. I can't count how many ancient history/ancient battle questions i had to read that many HSers just have no clue about at all. Not to mention more mythology than i've ever seen in any packet before. Having that math theory tossup in there took away more science than i realized at first, as well, as i noticed less science question (hence our "science guy" did worse than he expected today, since there just wasn't as much for him to answer).

Still, the questions were very well written. I'll have more specific comments later. But this was a really fun day. Nice job to Sarah and the kids and Dr. Barnes for running a nice tournament. Next year, hopefully i'll be bringing a "C" team instead of our "B".

rmgeokid wrote:BTW, when can we expect stats to be up? (Sorry to prod, I understand that you are probably studying for APs)

Frater Taciturnus wrote:http://results.scobo.net/SQBS.aspx?org= ... =standings

Whoops. My bad.

Caesar Rodney HS wrote:

rmgeokid wrote:...it seemed to me (though I may be biased) that there was more RMP than usual in the packets. Other than that, it was quite enjoyable.

lagazzaladra wrote:...it seemed to me that there were a lot of military history and myth questions.

Yes. I can't count how many ancient history/ancient battle questions i had to read that many HSers just have no clue about at all. Not to mention more mythology than i've ever seen in any packet before. Having that math theory tossup in there took away more science than i realized at first, as well, as i noticed less science question (hence our "science guy" did worse than he expected today, since there just wasn't as much for him to answer).

Still, the questions were very well written. I'll have more specific comments later. But this was a really fun day. Nice job to Sarah and the kids and Dr. Barnes for running a nice tournament. Next year, hopefully i'll be bringing a "C" team instead of our "B".

Yeah, we keep having to revise this distro. Last year we learned that 3/3 art is waaaaay too much. This year we learned that we need to watch subdistros better and we should probably consider bumping science/math back up to 5/5. I think this distribution did work better that last year, but it's still evolving.

I noticed that the half-packets (or at least the one we played) counted as a whole game. Just thought y'all should know that

rmgeokid wrote:I noticed that the half-packets (or at least the one we played) counted as a whole game. Just thought y'all should know that

I see 10 TUH for both games. If you can show me how to do half a win in SQBS be my guest.

I'm just going to stop talking now.

Frater Taciturnus wrote: I see 10 TUH for both games. If you can show me how to do half a win in SQBS be my guest.

Oh. Haha. Didn't see that. I'm going to stop talking now.

MLWGS-Gir wrote: Yeah, we keep having to revise this distro. Last year we learned that 3/3 art is waaaaay too much. This year we learned that we need to watch subdistros better and we should probably consider bumping science/math back up to 5/5. I think this distribution did work better that last year, but it's still evolving.

When, God willing, we finally get to HAVOC next year, I don't think I'd mind 3/3 art

MLWGS-Gir wrote:

Caesar Rodney HS wrote:

rmgeokid wrote:...it seemed to me (though I may be biased) that there was more RMP than usual in the packets. Other than that, it was quite enjoyable.

lagazzaladra wrote:...it seemed to me that there were a lot of military history and myth questions.

Yes. I can't count how many ancient history/ancient battle questions i had to read that many HSers just have no clue about at all. Not to mention more mythology than i've ever seen in any packet before. Having that math theory tossup in there took away more science than i realized at first, as well, as i noticed less science question (hence our "science guy" did worse than he expected today, since there just wasn't as much for him to answer).

Still, the questions were very well written. I'll have more specific comments later. But this was a really fun day. Nice job to Sarah and the kids and Dr. Barnes for running a nice tournament. Next year, hopefully i'll be bringing a "C" team instead of our "B".

Yeah, we keep having to revise this distro. Last year we learned that 3/3 art is waaaaay too much. This year we learned that we need to watch subdistros better and we should probably consider bumping science/math back up to 5/5. I think this distribution did work better that last year, but it's still evolving.

Sarah, i'm glad you guys alter the distribution and try to figure out the best fit. That shows a lot of intelligence, knowing that you want to tweak this to make it the best for younger players. It's working and it'll get even better i'm sure

I agree with you that 3/3 art is crazy. But 3/3 RMP, in my opinion, is just as bad (unless there was an increase in Philosophy... i.e. was there a single question about Locke/Hobbes, or Rousseau, or Montesquieu (i didn't check the extra bonus questions i didn't get to though yet)? those are things i can guarantee most freshmen/sophomores should have knowledge about. plus you may be able to add in there more about Aristotle, Plato, and some more specific isms of philosophy like stoicism, etc.) if you're going to have 2 of them as mythology questions. I would have just left it 1/1 1/1 1/1 across the board for those three.

I think 5/5 science (with 1/1 math theory in there i suppose) would be best. Freshmen and sophomores can be expected to have at least a decent amount of knowledge on easy physical science, earth science (including some astronomy), chemistry, and biology (with physics really not something that most of them have taken, at least not in "regular" public schools).

Was there a specific breakdown of the 5/5 history/CE questions? I'd like to see what you were shooting for. 1/1 U.S., 1/1 Europe, 1/1 world, 1/1 ancient? Trying to figure it out. To me there seemed to be a glut of ancient history questions and all history questions based on military conflicts. Yes, wars are focused on way too much in social studies class (i would know, my curriculum forces me to do so while i teach), but i would have loved to have seen more questions on political history or social movements (civil rights, etc.) But perhaps that's just my personal liking.

Again, don't let this take away from the fact that the questions were written wonderfully (i even only noticed a couple typos, a rarity for house-written sets). There were one or two big difficulty cliffs (i.e. the TU on Chancellorsville, in my opinion, and maybe a couple others) but those were not common at all, and the TUs really stuck to great pyramidality.

As the History/Geo/Religion/SS editor, I should probably say what the subdistribution was for the history:

1/1 Ancient History (mostly Mediterranean)
1/1 European
1/1 American
1/1 World
1/1 Recent (overlaps slightly with some of the other categories)

I decided that ancient history was something that many novice players would have been likely to have studied in the past for fun, so it deserved 1/1. Also, I think wars and battles and the like are more accessible for people with little experience, either with the canon, or with advanced classes. I might have gone overboard a little with the wars, though.

As for current events, I ended up just scrapping that category entirely, mostly because I don't like it personally and didn't feel like writing questions on it.

Sarah, i'm glad you guys alter the distribution and try to figure out the best fit. That shows a lot of intelligence, knowing that you want to tweak this to make it the best for younger players. It's working and it'll get even better i'm sure

I agree with you that 3/3 art is crazy. But 3/3 RMP, in my opinion, is just as bad (unless there was an increase in Philosophy... i.e. was there a single question about Locke/Hobbes, or Rousseau, or Montesquieu (i didn't check the extra bonus questions i didn't get to though yet)? those are things i can guarantee most freshmen/sophomores should have knowledge about. plus you may be able to add in there more about Aristotle, Plato, and some more specific isms of philosophy like stoicism, etc.) if you're going to have 2 of them as mythology questions. I would have just left it 1/1 1/1 1/1 across the board for those three.

I think 5/5 science (with 1/1 math theory in there i suppose) would be best. Freshmen and sophomores can be expected to have at least a decent amount of knowledge on easy physical science, earth science (including some astronomy), chemistry, and biology (with physics really not something that most of them have taken, at least not in "regular" public schools).

Was there a specific breakdown of the 5/5 history/CE questions? I'd like to see what you were shooting for. 1/1 U.S., 1/1 Europe, 1/1 world, 1/1 ancient? Trying to figure it out. To me there seemed to be a glut of ancient history questions and all history questions based on military conflicts. Yes, wars are focused on way too much in social studies class (i would know, my curriculum forces me to do so while i teach), but i would have loved to have seen more questions on political history or social movements (civil rights, etc.) But perhaps that's just my personal liking.

Yes, the distribution will always be evolving. Even GSAC shifts around 1/1 a year to adjust to current good quizbowl standards, and I've always felt that HAVOC needs to be even more reactionary to avoid low conversion rates (the bane of novice-level quizbowl). 3/3 arts proved to difficult for the players of HAVOC's first incarnation, but I will say that the reaction to 3/3 RMP was not nearly as dissapointing, so I feel we did something right. Per philosophy, there was in fact a Locke bonus with a Leviathan part knocking, though no Rousseau or Montesquieu if I recall; the Plato's Republic TU prevented much more Plato stuff, but maybe Aristotle could be used a little more. I know we are already talking about decreasing the mythology to avoid relying on non-Greco-Roman to fill out the answerspace, but I thought that was still one of the strong points of this tournament: the use of convertible questions on traditions from Africa (Anansi) to Hawaii (the islands bonus) went well I found.
As for science, I was in charge of editing that, so I can say it would not have been difficult to expand to 5/5 per round. I like that no one has complained about the sometime doubling of biology, chemistry or "Other Science" to avoid overuse of Physics material, so that practice will likely continue into next year. Were teams fine with the relatively high number of CS and math questions (9/3 with a 4th bonus left unread in the 11th round tiebreaker packet)? We decided that these are things that younger students are most likely to have studied in and out of school rather than, say, organic chemistry or advanced physics.
I'll use that sentence as a lead-in to history, as we went into this tournament saying that students who enjoy history are more likely to do outside reading in military, rather than social, history and ancient, rather than recent, history. I doubt the premise altogether wrong, but did we go too far? For the record, there were 60/60 History/CE questions and non-military, non-Ancient history answers included: Thomas Jefferson, Olmecs, Salem Witch Trials, "sinking of the Lusitania", Incas, Han Dynasty (one military clue in the center), Compromise of 1850, Pogroms, Freedman's Bureau, Coronado, Albany Congress, Robespierre, Swahili, Cultural Revolution (these last six were all in rounds 9 and 10 interestingly enough), and roughly the same number of bonuses. Also, there were roughly 15 tossups on historical figures that included both military and social clues. The only recommendation I had for next year was a greater emphasis on American history, as many middle schoolers take pretty sweeping surveys of American history and then they take it again in sophomore or junior year, often as AP. I also enjoyed the noticeably minimal CE in this set.

Thanks for posting, Greg. You made good points, i pretty much agree with them. You did a good job with the questions.

Tower Monarch wrote:Were teams fine with the relatively high number of CS and math questions (9/3 with a 4th bonus left unread in the 11th round tiebreaker packet)? We decided that these are things that younger students are most likely to have studied in and out of school rather than, say, organic chemistry or advanced physics.

I can probably speak for my kids and say that we were, largely. Orgo or Physics is a bad idea for this tournament. Honestly, just a lil more Bio and Chem questions would be great, as those are 9th/10th grade classes at many schools.

Tower Monarch wrote:I'll use that sentence as a lead-in to history, as we went into this tournament saying that students who enjoy history are more likely to do outside reading in military, rather than social, history and ancient, rather than recent, history. I doubt the premise altogether wrong, but did we go too far? For the record, there were 60/60 History/CE questions and non-military, non-Ancient history answers included: Thomas Jefferson, Olmecs, Salem Witch Trials, "sinking of the Lusitania", Incas, Han Dynasty (one military clue in the center), Compromise of 1850, Pogroms, Freedman's Bureau, Coronado, Albany Congress, Robespierre, Swahili, Cultural Revolution (these last six were all in rounds 9 and 10 interestingly enough), and roughly the same number of bonuses. Also, there were roughly 15 tossups on historical figures that included both military and social clues. The only recommendation I had for next year was a greater emphasis on American history, as many middle schoolers take pretty sweeping surveys of American history and then they take it again in sophomore or junior year, often as AP. I also enjoyed the noticeably minimal CE in this set.

No/almost no CE is a very good thing. But A LOT of students learn about civil rights, political history, elections, explorers, and lots of other big topics that can/should be used likely more.

HAVOC 2008 wrote: This sixteenth century fresco is located across from La Disputa in the Stanza della
Segnatura [SEN-ya-tura]. The artist himself appears in the far right, and many of the
artist’s contemporaries, including Leonardo da Vinci, are depicted as the gathered
philosophers. FTP identify this fresco by Raphael whose central figures are Plato
and Aristotle.

HAVOC 2009 wrote:Four engravings are visible across of the bottom of this painting, which adorns the opposite wall from La Disputa in the Stanza della Segnatura. A statue of the goddess Athena appears in one of the alcoves it depicts, while Apollo stands in an opposite one holding a lyre. Four arches are visible above the crowd of figures. Pythagoras can be seen writing in a notebook and Diogenes is lounging on the steps while Michelangelo is depicted as Heraclitus. At the vanishing point stand Aristotle and Plato pointing in opposite directions in their disagreement. FTP name this fresco by Raphael depicting scholars, most of them Greeks, in the title location.

The leadins here are recycled. If this isn't a real problem, sorry. I just wanted to point it out.

We noticed some other very close similarities. I may point them out later when i have time.

I woudn't call it recycled so much as a stock clue, since I've heard "it's in the Stanze Della Segnatura" at other tournaments. That said, I think that this is one of those cases where it almost makes more sense to write about the artist than about the work.

I thought that the science and math question, especially the chem questions, were particularly well-written. However, there was one question that I didn't really like simply because of the insane level of transparency in the lead in.

TU 9 round 5:

One of these compounds, the heptahydrate of magnesium sulfate, is a common edible example. In electrochemical cells, these substances maintain separate electrolyte solutions in a namesake “bridge.” The halogens are so named because they form the anionic halves of these types of compounds. The presence of these compounds in water is measured via conductivity to give a value of salinity. FTP, name these common compounds, including an Epsom variety and one often including iodine, with formula NaCl, known as the “table” variety.

"common edible example?" For anyone, that pretty much narrows it down to sugars or salts, and "electrochemical cells," if not anything before that, pretty much gives it away. I don't know if anyone else had a problem with this, but this was the only TU that I remember that I wasn't satisfied with (TJ got it right after "edible example").

Caesar Rodney HS wrote:A LOT of students learn about civil rights, political history, elections, explorers, and lots of other big topics that can/should be used likely more

Yeah, in retrospect, I can't think of any civil rights at all (there were initially two civil rights bonuses on my answer list which I decided to remove- one because it was on Native American civil rights events and there had been a similar bonus in last year's HAVOC, and the other because I ultimately decided it was too hard [it was on SDS and Mario Savio, I think]). Also, I probably should have included more explorers, since I know I learned them every year from 3rd Grade up to 8th Grade, and some were even mentioned in AP US History.

lagazzaladra wrote:I thought that the science and math question, especially the chem questions, were particularly well-written. However, there was one question that I didn't really like simply because of the insane level of transparency in the lead in.

TU 9 round 5:

One of these compounds, the heptahydrate of magnesium sulfate, is a common edible example. In electrochemical cells, these substances maintain separate electrolyte solutions in a namesake “bridge.” The halogens are so named because they form the anionic halves of these types of compounds. The presence of these compounds in water is measured via conductivity to give a value of salinity. FTP, name these common compounds, including an Epsom variety and one often including iodine, with formula NaCl, known as the “table” variety.

"common edible example?" For anyone, that pretty much narrows it down to sugars or salts, and "electrochemical cells," if not anything before that, pretty much gives it away. I don't know if anyone else had a problem with this, but this was the only TU that I remember that I wasn't satisfied with (TJ got it right after "edible example").

First of all thank you for the first comment. I take full responsibility for the good and bad features of the science. A better example of the latter is accidentally leaving the RNA tossup open to an answer of DNA for the first line or two without marking it with "Accept".
Sure, I could have written a much more challenging lead-in. But I think you should note that chemistry-wise TJ was one of the top 3 teams present, and that most of the present teams didn't know that a salt bridge exists, I am satisfied. If I recall I read for your team that round and the other team wasn't buzzing. I believe an "insane level of transparency" in this case does not exist; instead, a "clue that TJ" exists. If, however, you can demonstrate that more than a third of the teams present (more than 15) answered the tossup correctly before the word "water" (my target conversion rate is a third half-way through the question), then I would admit a serious problem. Otherwise, this is only an issue when 2 of the top 5 or so teams (ie, the teams that need the tournament the least) play each other. Also, because there are many types of compounds that people ingest, I found edible to be more of a confirmation for someone who knows the chemical composition of Epsom salts, a clue which I would argue fewer know than the use of a salt bridge in electrochemistry.

yeah, that makes sense. I guessing looking back and thinking about the questions makes it seem a lot more obvious than when you're actually playing, which is probably what happened with me. Again, thanks for running such a high-quality and efficient tournament.

Bananaquit wrote:

Caesar Rodney HS wrote:A LOT of students learn about civil rights, political history, elections, explorers, and lots of other big topics that can/should be used likely more

Yeah, in retrospect, I can't think of any civil rights at all (there were initially two civil rights bonuses on my answer list which I decided to remove- one because it was on Native American civil rights events and there had been a similar bonus in last year's HAVOC, and the other because I ultimately decided it was too hard [it was on SDS and Mario Savio, I think]). Also, I probably should have included more explorers, since I know I learned them every year from 3rd Grade up to 8th Grade, and some were even mentioned in AP US History.

I was posting when this came in, so I didn't see it. Yeah, civil rights would have worked well as well as one or two more explorers, but I still believe that the answers that were in the tournament were convertible. So many time periods were represented, I believe any student interested in history should have come away with many good buzzes. Also, probably more important, everything covered in this tournament was of enough importance that if such a student did not do as well as expected, the answer list deserves to become a study list.
Take the Solidarity bonus. Few HAVOC players could 10 or 20 that bonus, despite it being central to the last 30 years of Poland. It's social history, so, again, I doubt many kids have read about it in there spare time, but it comes up AP European and throughout quizbowl from high school into college and deserves study. Therefore, I say a limited number of these level questions is more than fine, especially in military and ancient history that the player has a higher chance of having studied. I'd be interested to hear thoughts on the issues of era/field/geography distribution from a history-inclined player of this set.

While we're on the subject of science, I'd like to bring up a tossup which I was confused by, the gravity tossup in round 8:

In particle physics, the effect of this force on particles is mediated by the hypothetical Higgs Boson, and is itself carried by a hypothetical massless, chargeless particle. The kinetic energy of a body matches the potential energy associated with this force at the escape velocity. Two constants associated with this force are symbolized by lower- and uppercase letter Gs, the latter of which is found in a “Universal Law,” as it is constant on all planets. FTP, name this force that brought an apple down on Newton.

I buzzed right after Higgs Boson was mentioned and said "mass". In retrospect, it doesn't seem that mass could really be regarded as a force per se. However, from my limited knowledge of particle physics, the Higgs Boson is hypothesized to mediate mass, not gravity. As stated a few words after Higgs was mentioned, gravity is hypothesized to be mediated by the graviton instead. Can someone correct me if I am mistaken in my interpretation there?

t-bar wrote:While we're on the subject of science, I'd like to bring up a tossup which I was confused by, the gravity tossup in round 8:

In particle physics, the effect of this force on particles is mediated by the hypothetical Higgs Boson, and is itself carried by a hypothetical massless, chargeless particle. The kinetic energy of a body matches the potential energy associated with this force at the escape velocity. Two constants associated with this force are symbolized by lower- and uppercase letter Gs, the latter of which is found in a “Universal Law,” as it is constant on all planets. FTP, name this force that brought an apple down on Newton.

I buzzed right after Higgs Boson was mentioned and said "mass". In retrospect, it doesn't seem that mass could really be regarded as a force per se. However, from my limited knowledge of particle physics, the Higgs Boson is hypothesized to mediate mass, not gravity. As stated a few words after Higgs was mentioned, gravity is hypothesized to be mediated by the graviton instead. Can someone correct me if I am mistaken in my interpretation there?

Very good point. My use of "mediated" is a very poor choice as that has an actual definition in particle physics that I did not use and the "effect" is just as bad. I can't think of a better way of wording right now, but the point was to reward people who understand that the Higgs Boson gives mass to particles and that mass by tying mass into gravity. I am sorry for your specific result, and I can only hope that the word force allowed people to wait until the end of the sentence, which refers to gravitons and might have clarified the whole mess.
Please let me know here or by email any similar examples.

Tower Monarch wrote:

t-bar wrote:While we're on the subject of science, I'd like to bring up a tossup which I was confused by, the gravity tossup in round 8:

In particle physics, the effect of this force on particles is mediated by the hypothetical Higgs Boson, and is itself carried by a hypothetical massless, chargeless particle. The kinetic energy of a body matches the potential energy associated with this force at the escape velocity. Two constants associated with this force are symbolized by lower- and uppercase letter Gs, the latter of which is found in a “Universal Law,” as it is constant on all planets. FTP, name this force that brought an apple down on Newton.

I buzzed right after Higgs Boson was mentioned and said "mass". In retrospect, it doesn't seem that mass could really be regarded as a force per se. However, from my limited knowledge of particle physics, the Higgs Boson is hypothesized to mediate mass, not gravity. As stated a few words after Higgs was mentioned, gravity is hypothesized to be mediated by the graviton instead. Can someone correct me if I am mistaken in my interpretation there?

Very good point. My use of "mediated" is a very poor choice as that has an actual definition in particle physics that I did not use and the "effect" is just as bad. I can't think of a better way of wording right now, but the point was to reward people who understand that the Higgs Boson gives mass to particles and that mass by tying mass into gravity. I am sorry for your specific result, and I can only hope that the word force allowed people to wait until the end of the sentence, which refers to gravitons and might have clarified the whole mess.
Please let me know here or by email any similar examples.

I don't know physics that well, but can mass really be called "the effect of [gravity] on particles?"

I looked through the 1st packet, and I thought it was good, except for a few things:
The Nobel tossup was transparent pretty much the entire way through. I mean, how many explosives inventors are there?
The ravens clue came way too early on the Oden tossup.
Giving the clue about Balder "probably not kissing someone" under the plant that was thrown at him is just bad. If you don't think the bonus will be converted, pick a different topic and don't resort to NACuties like that one.

AlphaQuizBowler wrote:I don't know physics that well, but can mass really be called "the effect of [gravity] on particles?"

I looked through the 1st packet, and I thought it was good, except for a few things:
The Nobel tossup was transparent pretty much the entire way through. I mean, how many explosives inventors are there?
The ravens clue came way too early on the Oden tossup.
Giving the clue about Balder "probably not kissing someone" under the plant that was thrown at him is just bad. If you don't think the bonus will be converted, pick a different topic and don't resort to NACuties like that one.

RE: gravity- No, it cannot; as I said in what you quoted, "effect" and "mediated" made the everything before the comma in that first sentence essentially meaningless except that the answer is a force.
Even with my minimal level of Norse mythology, I will say "way too early" does not apply to Odin's ravens. You can argue it should appear after the eye story, but people who don't study previous packets and generally don't have much experience (i.e., the target audience of this set) are more likely to remember stories involving him than his possessions. I've never been quite sure why the ravens have become late clues, since I certainly read about his loss of an eye back in elementary school.
As for Baldr, we have already had some internal discussion to ensure that cross-disciplinary giveaways disappear altogether, and you picked the same example on which we focused.