Reminder: Don't discuss specific questions...

[First Chairman]

Just a reminder that one should not discuss specific questions unless cleared by the tournament directors. Just want to be sure any mirrors are not compromised.

[Matt Weiner]

In particular:

Penn Bowl was held at two sites yesterday and is done, so go ahead and discuss that tournament.

MLK is being mirrored at Boston in two weeks, so do not discuss it.

[cdbarker]

Ann B. Davis is also being mirrored in Boston that MLK mirror weekend, so please do not discuss those as well until that time.

[First Chairman]

Just posing the question: discussion of NAQT Sectionals questions should be embargoed until Monday after sectionals. However, D2 questions could possibly be used at NAQT HSCT or other sets.

Suggestions?

[cdbarker]

Thank you for raising this, it's an excellent question:

This came from R regarding this, and I have included it in our update to hosts:

The Division I and Division II SCT questions will overlap. Some questions will be exactly the same, some will be modified versions. When questions are shared (whether or not they are identical), they will appear in the same round of the DI and DII sets. CC SCTs will use Invitational Series #66. The Division II SCT and Invitational Series #66 questions will also overlap. Again, some questions will be identical, others will be modified. However, shared questions are not constrained to appear in the same packet of the DII SCT as in Invitational Series #66. This shouldn't be an issue since those two sets will not be used at a single site.

The Division I SCT questions will have no overlap with Invitational Series #66. There are no (non-CC SCT) college tournaments scheduled that are using Invitational Series #66. However, if you plan to recruit high school players to staff your SCT, then they must only work in DI rooms or avoid playing in a future tournament that uses IS #66. You would also need to exercise care in your statistics headquarters to ensure that they did not inadvertently see the DII questions.

So basically, any Division I question is fair game for discussion, any D-II question only must wait until after May 12, the last scheduled use of IS-66.

I hope that this makes sense to people, but if not, please email me and I'll get you a clarification.

[grapesmoker]

So basically, any Division I question is fair game for discussion, any D-II question only must wait until after May 12, the last scheduled use of IS-66.

Hey, way to give new players a "voice" there.

I hope that this makes sense to people, but if not, please email me and I'll get you a clarification.

Or, you know, you could refrain from running collegiate tournaments on IS (translation: high school) questions. In fact, I recently learned that NAQT questions are ranked from 1 to 7 in terms of difficulty (7 being ICT and 1 being easiest) and that SCT questions are actually ranked below the HS-NCT questions (NCT being ranked 4, SCT ranked 3).

[Rothlover]

So basically, any Division I question is fair game for discussion, any D-II question only must wait until after May 12, the last scheduled use of IS-66.

Hey, way to give new players a "voice" there.

I hope that this makes sense to people, but if not, please email me and I'll get you a clarification.

Or, you know, you could refrain from running collegiate tournaments on IS (translation: high school) questions. In fact, I recently learned that NAQT questions are ranked from 1 to 7 in terms of difficulty (7 being ICT and 1 being easiest) and that SCT questions are actually ranked below the HS-NCT questions (NCT being ranked 4, SCT ranked 3).

Quiet Jerry, don't want to let out the non-secret company secrets and have naqt members speaking while "not speaking as a member of NAQT."

[wd4gdz]

It's been a while since I was "employed" by NAQT, but I'm pretty sure it's like this:
Div I ICT = 7
Div II ICT = 5
Div I SCT = 5
Div 2 SCT = 3
HSNCT = 3
IS = 2
ISA = 1

I hope this isn't a big mystery that could get me in trouble with R.

[Matt Weiner]

I've seen the same chart on the publicly available writers kit so there would be no reason to go after anyone who releases that information. Which is not to say that National Security Agency Quiz Tournaments and their philosophy of total secrecy will not take some ire at this discussion.

Anyway, if NAQT, which is going to make at least $4000 if not much more from the licensing fees for Sectionals, somehow cannot find the money to pay for the construction of a separate D2 set, then I really think it is better to just use the DI questions for both divisions than to stick high school questions in there. DI Sectionals is really not that hard of a tournament.

[yoda4554]

As far as I know, difficulty levels aren't a corporate secret, because NAQT has more or less said how their tournaments compare to each other in the past (mods, feel free to erase this if that turns out to be inaccurate). Billy's numbers are right only up until recently. Over the summer, NAQT upped HSNCT's difficulty, as well as upping Div I SCT's. So, Div II SCT is now supposed to be easier than HS Nationals (probably, I would guess, to accomodate college players new to serious quiz bowl and doing more to challenge the top HS teams), but Div I SCT is now supposed to be harder than Div II Nationals (probably, I would guess, to give more of a challenge towards people who view SCT as a junior-league thing to be endured to qualify for ICT).

I don't know if that will actually influence anything about the difficulty of the questions practically speaking, because questions are usually given a difficulty range, and people tend to keep tournament difficulty levels in mind when assigning numbers. DII then ends up with a mix of questions that are ranked towards the harder end of what could go for HS and also questions that are towards the easier side of what's being written for DI.

[grapesmoker]

Quiet Jerry, don't want to let out the non-secret company secrets and have naqt members speaking while "not speaking as a member of NAQT."

I didn't think it was a secret. When I said that I'd "recently learned" of it, I meant that I just found out and didn't know before. Not that it matters or anything.

[Rothlover]

Quiet Jerry, don't want to let out the non-secret company secrets and have naqt members speaking while "not speaking as a member of NAQT."

I didn't think it was a secret. When I said that I'd "recently learned" of it, I meant that I just found out and didn't know before. Not that it matters or anything.

Was joking man. Should I try to include rolling eyes emoticons in the future?