The Quizbowl Resource Center

Hey all,

My schools is trying very hard to improve at quizbowl, and some advice I have read is the necessity of pouring through packets. So far we have gone through stuff like old MD spring packets and 2013 Prison Bowl. But as an intermediate level team, what are some must-read packets on the archives?

Thanks

1991 Wisconsin ELVIS

VinaiRachakonda wrote:Hey all,

My schools is trying very hard to improve at quizbowl, and some advice I have read is the necessity of pouring through packets. So far we have gone through stuff like old MD spring packets and 2013 Prison Bowl. But as an intermediate level team, what are some must-read packets on the archives?

Thanks

Almost any HSAPQ ones, LIST, NSC if you're up for a challenge, ACF Fall (easier than NSC, probably).

I would say Prison Bowl, LIST, and GSAC are annually very good. LIST is probably the easiest of the three, prison bowl the hardest. 2013 BHSAT was a fantastic regular difficulty set, but I wouldn't recommend 2012 (I don't know about other years). Harvard Fall is good if you want slightly more difficult questions. If you want to go a step beyond that there is PACE NSC.

It seems like it would be good idea if the difficulty level of each packet set on the archive was marked (so labeled as novice, regular, nationals or whatever). Also, I'm just wondering what exactly "highly recommended as practice material" is supposed to mean? I'm assuming it's referring to the quality of the writing as tournament question material, but in that case I could imagine that any packet from like 2005 onward would be as good as any to just pick up stock clues.

Ted Gan made a pretty nice difficulty index.

The Difficulty Index is pretty good, except, I believe that NASAT is meant to be regular college difficulty. I know when we practice on NASAT sets we drop a handful of toss-ups per round, while we nearly never drop a PACE question in practice by the give away.

mithokie wrote:The Difficulty Index is pretty good, except, I believe that NASAT is meant to be regular college difficulty. I know when we practice on NASAT sets we drop a handful of toss-ups per round, while we nearly never drop a PACE question in practice by the give away.

Thank you, that's been noted. I appreciate the constructive criticism, and encourage others to email/PM (don't want to derail this thread) me with comments on missing and mis-categorized sets as well.

To answer the question of "What packets should I study?", I would recommend practicing on a variety of difficulty levels, aka not just regular high school difficulty. Always try to push your comfort zone and play on sets a bit more difficult than what you're accustomed to. Once a week (or more!), play on the highest difficulty that does not frustrate you (e.g. if it's difficult to the point where it isn't fun and demotivates you, tone it down a notch).

I think you should consider breaking sets out in terms of difficulty by year; for example, HFT is usually a hard regular HS set, but in 2012-13 was pretty close to an IS set; Prison Bowl started out pretty easy, then inflated in difficulty, etc.

zachary_yan wrote:It seems like it would be good idea if the difficulty level of each packet set on the archive was marked (so labeled as novice, regular, nationals or whatever). Also, I'm just wondering what exactly "highly recommended as practice material" is supposed to mean? I'm assuming it's referring to the quality of the writing as tournament question material, but in that case I could imagine that any packet from like 2005 onward would be as good as any to just pick up stock clues.

The bolding of highly recommended sets has not been updated well. At this point, it means absolutely nothing.