2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Dormant threads from the high school sections are preserved here.
User avatar
Frater Taciturnus
Auron
Posts: 2463
Joined: Mon Dec 12, 2005 1:26 pm
Location: Richmond, VA

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by Frater Taciturnus »

Dan-Don wrote:
myamphigory wrote:
Dan wrote:Well now my question is: do bdelloids engage in Prophase I and not meiosis? If that is the case, Monica was wrong (albeit slightly hosed) and we can sleep easier. But, when I made this post last night, I was making the assumption that because bdelloids do not engage is meiosis, they also do not engage in Prophase I. If that is the case, then Monica was definitely right.
Bdelloid rotifers don't engage in meiosis and hence don't engage in substages of meiosis*, including prophase I. (Engaging in prophase I, which involves the deliberate formation of potentially lethal DNA damage, would be an extraordinarily costly maneuver for a creature that didn't proceed through the rest of meiosis and gain the benefits of sexual reproduction.)

(While bdelloids are considered to be the most definitive ancient-asexual eukaryotic taxa, there are a lot of critters that sexually reproduce only rarely, and plenty of putative "asexuals" have been found to actually engage in meiosis/sex--I assume that's why the tossup hedges a bit by saying they "appear" not to engage in meiosis.)
So then Monica was indeed correct when she buzzed. Now my question is: does someone have the scoresheet handy that can see how many points Maggie Walker earned on that bonus? If I'm not mistaken, the game was close enough that SC could have automatically won depending on how many points would have been subtracted from MW's score.
so then if "meiosis" or "prophase I" were not uniquely identified answers, then I believe this comes into play
NAQT Rule J.6 wrote: Players may not protest that they gave an answer that was "correct when they buzzed" if their answer was not uniquely specified by the clues at the time that they signaled.
Janet Berry
[email protected]
she/they
--------------
J. Sargeant Reynolds CC 2008, 2009, 2014
Virginia Commonwealth 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013,
Douglas Freeman 2005, 2006, 2007
Thundercougarfalconbird
Lulu
Posts: 17
Joined: Fri Oct 02, 2009 6:41 pm

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by Thundercougarfalconbird »

I might not be in the majority, but I felt that the math-comp questions were well-handled. The easy parts required math that could be done mentally in a second or two if one understood the theory behind the question (e.g., "What value is below and between the two 10s on the 6th row of Pascal's triangle?" or "In a truth table for p, q, and r, how many rows are there?"). Similarly, the hard parts required a deep understanding of the mathematics to be solved. Although some of the hard parts seemed to require more than five seconds' worth of calculation, I noticed that there seemed almost always to be a mathematical trick that made the calculation quite easy (e.g. finding a given value on the third diagonal of Pascal's triangle might seem difficult, but it becomes trivial if you know or can recognize that the third diagonal is just the triangular numbers).

So, in summary, I'm not sure exactly what people are upset about. If a team is consistently getting zeroes on mathcalc bonuses, they're clearly really weak in math, and if a team is getting thirties, they've got someone with relatively deep knowledge of whatever is being asked (truth-tables, integrals, Pascal's triangle, etc.). Most of the complaints seem to be coming from teams who are upset that they were unable to finish all of the allotted calculations in five seconds; to whom the only response is: getting a 30 at HSNCT shouldn't be easy; you aren't expected to be able to 30 the mathcalc bonuses, unless you have someone who knows enough math to simplify the calculations.
User avatar
Kanye West
Lulu
Posts: 28
Joined: Wed Dec 23, 2009 1:25 am
Location: Solon, Ohio

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by Kanye West »

Kilogrammage wrote:If a team is consistently getting zeroes on mathcalc bonuses, they're clearly really weak in math, and if a team is getting thirties, they've got someone with relatively deep knowledge of whatever is being asked (truth-tables, integrals, Pascal's triangle, etc.). Most of the complaints seem to be coming from teams who are upset that they were unable to finish all of the allotted calculations in five seconds; to whom the only response is: getting a 30 at HSNCT shouldn't be easy; you aren't expected to be able to 30 the mathcalc bonuses, unless you have someone who knows enough math to simplify the calculations.
Except that if one knew how to do all the bonuses, all it came down to was testing multiplication and addition speed, rather than actual knowledge. Take the integral bonus, for example. I think we ended up getting 10 on that bonus even though all four of us had taken at least Calc BC, because the two "harder" parts had fairly easy antiderivatives but the true speed test came with using the first FTC and coming out with a number all in under five seconds. Perhaps for that one case, it might have been better to use indefinite integrals instead of definite ones.
Ashu Udipi
Solon High School '10
User avatar
matt979
Lulu
Posts: 80
Joined: Wed Apr 13, 2005 10:22 pm
Location: Alameda, CA
Contact:

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by matt979 »

Stephen Fontenot wrote:It seems more likely that we could get them to just record what rooms they were in when they had good or bad experiences. Even if you don't know people's names, which I totally understand, the rooms people are in are unchanged at least for all of Saturday. Blank cards to turn in somewhere after Saturday play, maybe, listing round number, room number, and comment? They wouldn't have to be any larger than the record cards turned in after saturday play.
This is the best idea I've seen so far to fix this problem.
Harry White wrote:I felt the moderators could be handled better. In one room, there were Ian and Guy, two people who easily got to 26 each. Meanwhile, in my room, we had someone who could only read 16 in a round, and me, who couldn't read due to my accent.
Harry, your room was Convention Center 52, I think? When I noticed a low tossup total on one scoresheet I meant to make a switch -- Ian or Guy would've been perfect in hindsight -- but then there were other fires to put out. (Although ironically if I had made the switch, Stephen's point above would no longer hold.) So this one's on me.

As Joel Gluskin mentioned in this thread, we're strongly interested in feedback on good/bad readers. I don't envy him the task of optimally staffing 67 game rooms. Most of the time there's a high correlation between being good at playing quiz-bowl and being good at reading quiz-bowl, though come to think of it the exceptions to this would be more likely noticed by someone who's seen/read a lot of matches than someone who spends most HSNCTs behind the scenes.
Matt Bruce
Harvard '96, Boston University School of Law '99
BRizzle
Lulu
Posts: 14
Joined: Mon May 25, 2009 2:21 pm

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by BRizzle »

Sorry, I was wrong about the Berlioz question, it seems that a teammate and I overlooked information while researching him :sad: .

However, two of my main questions are still unanswered. Why is watching sports more important than learning about economics?
Secondly, why is so much of the geography American? Isn't a question on Akron biased towards an Ohio team? Or is this insignificant?
Brandon Williams
Northmont High School, OH
Class of 11
User avatar
Auroni
Auron
Posts: 3145
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 6:23 pm

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by Auroni »

Crazy Andy Watkins wrote:
Captain Sinico wrote:
Ice Warrior wrote:RMS is a potential HSNCT middle part ONLY IF you discuss velocity and Graham's law of effusion.
That's just so drastically wrong.
Yeah, I really don't see how that's true.
maybe not "ONLY," but Graham's law contains a much more familiar example of a root-mean-squared quantity to the target audience of this set than the one asked about in the RLC circuits bonus
Auroni Gupta (she/her)
User avatar
SnookerUSF
Rikku
Posts: 310
Joined: Sun Oct 03, 2004 2:55 am
Location: USF-Tampa, FL
Contact:

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by SnookerUSF »

Hiya,

I think NAQT does need to do something more formal with moderators, like maybe some kind of qualification process, or at least a formal training session on the Friday night. I routinely heard that I was the first or maybe second moderator that a team had had that managed to get to 20+, more than one team said that they heard only 16 or 17 (one team said 15 tossups!). I would be interested in seeing what percentage of matches got to 20, I did hear that the tournament mean was like 21, but I wonder what the mode of questions read.

Perhaps some of the more experienced moderators should read a round (this could be fun) in front of new or inexperienced moderators and scorekeepers, and the players (also moderators) could reenact some of the issues that come up during a round that might slow down a reader (interruptions, saying answers really quietly, etc.). There is no excuse not to get to 20, I consider myself a slightly above-average moderator and I never went under 22. Above and beyond the structural considerations of the packet (tournament-wide distro) these schools pay too much to have that kind of thing go on a regular or even occasional basis and NAQT expends non-trivial amounts of resources in writing 156/156 (26 rounds 6 tossups/bonuses) to ignore this. Little things really help: separating the bonuses and tossups, flipping pages in anticipation, really paying attention to timing, and just paying attention.

The questions did seem quite good, a few noted exceptions aside, and thankfully they were quite noticeable because they were pretty rare. I thought that the current events were generally pretty reasonable things to ask about. I got a kick out of (read: painfully confused) at the bonus part which asked for the original host of the Today show in 1952 (Dave Garroway), apparently he had some connections to the local Chicago radio and TV scene in the 1940's and 50's, but it seems a stretch. Systematically, I thought some of the literature tossups lacked in concrete clues (vague plot summaries, cutesy descriptions, the Absalom, Absalom and Joe Christmas tossup comes to mind) and some of the lit bonuses seemed harder than they had to be.

Again, NAQT did a great job with logistics (especially given the split venue), and I enjoyed the opportunity to read for such good teams (I was lucky, I don't think I read one "bad match").
Ahmad Ragab, itinerant moderator at the New School for Social Research

ACF Nationals 2011:"Too real for the streets"
-Auroni Gupta

"Can 40,000 redacted topic Tossups be wrong?"

"With my gnomes I'm highlighting the danger of political opportunism and right-wing ideology. I get the feeling that this gnome has reopened an old wound."
-Ottomar Hoerl
User avatar
Cheynem
Sin
Posts: 7220
Joined: Tue May 11, 2004 11:19 am
Location: Grand Rapids, Michigan

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by Cheynem »

Yeah, I really think the Friday night scrimmage things could be better handled. As it is, it seems like quite a few people wander away from it still not with a solid grasp of the rules. I realize it's hard to schedule the scrimmaging, but it definitely could be done better.
Mike Cheyne
Formerly U of Minnesota

"You killed HSAPQ"--Matt Bollinger
jagluski
Wakka
Posts: 125
Joined: Tue Nov 11, 2003 1:59 am

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by jagluski »

SnookerUSF wrote:Hiya,

I think NAQT does need to do something more formal with moderators, like maybe some kind of qualification process, or at least a formal training session on the Friday night. I routinely heard that I was the first or maybe second moderator that a team had had that managed to get to 20+, more than one team said that they heard only 16 or 17 (one team said 15 tossups!). I would be interested in seeing what percentage of matches got to 20, I did hear that the tournament mean was like 21, but I wonder what the mode of questions read.

I just went through the stats dump from the prelim 15 rounds. To answer Ahmad's question:

15 tu: 2
16 tu: 5
17 tu: 16
18 tu: 55
19 tu: 63
20 tu: 123
21 tu: 164
22 tu: 180
23 tu: 153
24 tu: 113
25 tu: 66
26 tu: 59
27 tu: 1 (tiebreak)


This gives an average of 21.875 tossups per game. I think 22 tossups per game is a respectable average; however, I'm extremely disappointed to find out that 14% of the games heard less than 20 tossups. That's, quite frankly, unacceptable in my book.
Joel Gluskin
WUSTL '04
NAQT Vice President for Logistics
User avatar
Captain Sinico
Auron
Posts: 2675
Joined: Sun Sep 21, 2003 1:46 pm
Location: Champaign, Illinois

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by Captain Sinico »

Ice Warrior wrote:maybe not "ONLY," but Graham's law contains a much more familiar example of a root-mean-squared quantity to the target audience of this set than the one asked about in the RLC circuits bonus
WRONG AGAIN! In my experience, most people will learn Graham's law in terms of effusion/diffusion rates, since that's what it actually is. Conversely, anyone who learns anything about AC circuits (not just RLC circuits) will probably learn about RMS quantities. I'd say that at best, they're known on the same order; the former is certainly not "much more familiar" than the latter.

M
Mike Sorice
Former Coach, Centennial High School of Champaign, IL (2014-2020) & Team Illinois (2016-2018)
Alumnus, Illinois ABT (2000-2002; 2003-2009) & Fenwick Scholastic Bowl (1999-2000)
Member, ACF (Emeritus), IHSSBCA, & PACE
User avatar
jdeliverer
Rikku
Posts: 296
Joined: Tue Sep 29, 2009 10:26 pm
Location: Providence

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by jdeliverer »

Maybe our schools' program is just crazy, but we have two students that took 2 years of AP Physics and weren't familiar with that material. Meanwhile Graham's law came up several times in both Honors and AP Chemistry.
Robert Volgman
Brown '14
Latin School of Chicago '10
User avatar
Bloodwych
Wakka
Posts: 148
Joined: Tue Jun 01, 2010 3:12 pm
Location: not College Park anymore

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by Bloodwych »

Carangoides ciliarius wrote:Speaking of stats, when can we expect to see them all?
Seconded and bumped. :party:

I thought most of the tossups were well written, but some of the 3rd bonuses and even the 2nd bonuses were pretty hard, especially the lit and physics. But I guess that's just HSNCT.
Also, get rid of math comp. Please. :sad:
🚿
Quince Orchard HS '11
Maryland - College Park '15

Well, you built up a world of magic
Because your real life is tragic
Yeah, you built up a world of magic
User avatar
pblessman
Rikku
Posts: 486
Joined: Fri Sep 12, 2003 10:38 am
Location: Culver, Indiana

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by pblessman »

Thanks to Joel for posting the stats on the number of questions read. Certainly an average of 22 is great, and I also agree that less than 20 is not good, and less than 18 is just plain scary. If I may make a suggestion: What if NAQT made a switch to 20 cycles OR 20 minutes, whichever comes first. No halftime and give both teams TWO timeouts per match so teams can take one in the middle if they want, or they can save timeouts for the end of the game. This would solve several problems:

1. Adding 11% time would allow any of the readers who completed 18 or more questions to get to 20, so we should have a miniscule percentage (2%?) of matches end up with less than 20 questions, and those will have 18 or 19.

2. There would still be some time pressure on moderators so they try to keep things going, so we shouldn't end up with rooms taking 45 minutes per round.

3. Some of the time pressure would be relieved, as people would be trying to get through 20 in 20 min, rather than 13 in 9 min, so stress should go down for everybody, and people should be easier to understand.

4. Time per match should still be well under 30 minutes, and only slightly longer than right now, as we are able to save some time by not having halftimes and most teams will not take both timeouts in most matches.

5. This would allow for more coaching, and as somebody has noted previously, high school coaching HAS improved, so there is a place for this. I, for one, would like to have another timeout at my disposal, so I could interrupt an early run AND calm my troops for the final questions in a close match.
Phil Blessman- Culver Academies Head Quizbowl Coach
User avatar
Frater Taciturnus
Auron
Posts: 2463
Joined: Mon Dec 12, 2005 1:26 pm
Location: Richmond, VA

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by Frater Taciturnus »

pblessman wrote:Thanks to Joel for posting the stats on the number of questions read. Certainly an average of 22 is great, and I also agree that less than 20 is not good, and less than 18 is just plain scary. If I may make a suggestion: What if NAQT made a switch to 20 cycles OR 20 minutes, whichever comes first. No halftime and give both teams TWO timeouts per match so teams can take one in the middle if they want, or they can save timeouts for the end of the game.
This is the only part i have an issue with- I recommend that it should be whichever comes last, not first.
Janet Berry
[email protected]
she/they
--------------
J. Sargeant Reynolds CC 2008, 2009, 2014
Virginia Commonwealth 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013,
Douglas Freeman 2005, 2006, 2007
User avatar
DrCongo
Wakka
Posts: 114
Joined: Tue Apr 13, 2010 10:35 pm

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by DrCongo »

BRizzle wrote: Secondly, why is so much of the geography American? Isn't a question on Akron biased towards an Ohio team? Or is this insignificant?
I'm don't think that this is a problem. It's like saying a toss up on the Great Salt Lake is biased towards a team from the Utah. It happens.
Bobby Dorigo Jones
Detroit Catholic Central '12
Michigan State University '16
Harvard '17
centralhs
Wakka
Posts: 231
Joined: Wed Jan 24, 2007 6:11 pm

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by centralhs »

Ahmad Ragab wrote:
Perhaps some of the more experienced moderators should read a round (this could be fun) in front of new or inexperienced moderators and scorekeepers, and the players (also moderators) could reenact some of the issues that come up during a round that might slow down a reader (interruptions, saying answers really quietly, etc.). There is no excuse not to get to 20, I consider myself a slightly above-average moderator and I never went under 22
Ahmad has read for us before at tournaments here in Georgia. He is one of the best readers that I have heard, both extremely fast but also very clear. After he read for us a few months ago, several of my students said "Why can't all readers be more like that?" It seems like it would be beneficial to have Ahmad (and/or other experienced "fast and clear" readers) lead a few practice rounds/sessions the day before the tournament where they can explain to less experienced readers how to get through lots of questions quickly without sacrificing quality.
Cathy Hirsch
Chamblee Middle School (2013-present)
Central Gwinnett High School (1997-2012)
User avatar
Joe Romersa
Rikku
Posts: 355
Joined: Wed Oct 22, 2008 12:20 am

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by Joe Romersa »

BRizzle wrote:Secondly, why is so much of the geography American? Isn't a question on Akron biased towards an Ohio team? Or is this insignificant?
On that note, would a current events question on, say, Chris Christies be biased towards a New Jersey team?
Alex Wang
Arcadia High '10
UCLA '14 or so
User avatar
Ben Dillon
Rikku
Posts: 323
Joined: Thu Apr 28, 2005 10:47 pm
Location: South Bend, IN
Contact:

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by Ben Dillon »

jagluski wrote: I just went through the stats dump from the prelim 15 rounds. To answer Ahmad's question:
15 tu: 2
16 tu: 5
17 tu: 16
18 tu: 55
19 tu: 63
20 tu: 123
21 tu: 164
22 tu: 180
23 tu: 153
24 tu: 113
25 tu: 66
26 tu: 59
27 tu: 1 (tiebreak)
Renewing my objection in another post that Tossups Heard is not as good an indication of reader speed/quality as Bonuses Heard. I'm not nearly as impressed with a reader who gets through 24+ tossups when I know several tossups went dead, especially if I thought that reader read so fast that it caused a few of those to go dead.
Ben Dillon, Saint Joseph HS

"Why, sometimes I've believed as many as
six impossible things before breakfast!"
User avatar
Mechanical Beasts
Banned Cheater
Posts: 5673
Joined: Thu Jun 08, 2006 10:50 pm

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by Mechanical Beasts »

centralhs wrote:
Ahmad Ragab wrote:
Perhaps some of the more experienced moderators should read a round (this could be fun) in front of new or inexperienced moderators and scorekeepers, and the players (also moderators) could reenact some of the issues that come up during a round that might slow down a reader (interruptions, saying answers really quietly, etc.). There is no excuse not to get to 20, I consider myself a slightly above-average moderator and I never went under 22
Ahmad has read for us before at tournaments here in Georgia. He is one of the best readers that I have heard, both extremely fast but also very clear. After he read for us a few months ago, several of my students said "Why can't all readers be more like that?" It seems like it would be beneficial to have Ahmad (and/or other experienced "fast and clear" readers) lead a few practice rounds/sessions the day before the tournament where they can explain to less experienced readers how to get through lots of questions quickly without sacrificing quality.
Well, the scrimmage rounds did make a point of pairing experienced with unexperienced moderators. I think the bigger thing is that moderators should be spread out more. As much as I like running a room with Hannah, we probably should be required to run separate rooms.
Andrew Watkins
GBRodgers12
Wakka
Posts: 136
Joined: Thu Feb 19, 2009 10:21 pm
Location: Dayton, OH
Contact:

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by GBRodgers12 »

DrCongo wrote:
BRizzle wrote: Secondly, why is so much of the geography American? Isn't a question on Akron biased towards an Ohio team? Or is this insignificant?
I'm don't think that this is a problem. It's like saying a toss up on the Great Salt Lake is biased towards a team from the Utah. It happens.
I think the important issue about this question is why is there so much American Geography? The regional bias is a non-issue to me, but the ratio of World to American Geography desperately needs fixed in my opinion.
Joe Czupryn
Ohio Academic Competition Committee Executive Director
Sidney Coach 2012-2015
Northmont Assistant Coach 2008-2011
Northmont '08
User avatar
Not That Kind of Christian!!
Yuna
Posts: 847
Joined: Mon Feb 26, 2007 10:36 pm
Location: Manhattan

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by Not That Kind of Christian!! »

Ben Dillon wrote:Renewing my objection in another post that Tossups Heard is not as good an indication of reader speed/quality as Bonuses Heard. I'm not nearly as impressed with a reader who gets through 24+ tossups when I know several tossups went dead, especially if I thought that reader read so fast that it caused a few of those to go dead.
Even if 0 tossups go dead, there is no reason that a reader shouldn't be able to get through 20 tossups. Andy and I never got through fewer than 21, I think, even when teams were letting everything go to the end. And, on that note,
Andy Watkins wrote: I think the bigger thing is that moderators should be spread out more. As much as I like running a room with Hannah, we probably should be required to run separate rooms.
This is, unfortunately, true.
Hannah Kirsch
Brandeis University 2010
NYU School of Medicine 2014

"Wow, those Scandinavians completely thorbjorned my hard-earned political capital."
User avatar
kayli
Auron
Posts: 1525
Joined: Sat Jun 21, 2008 10:15 pm
Location: Illinois

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by kayli »

Yeah, it's definitely not impossible to convert every tossup AND read more than 20. I believe this happened in a match against Bellarmine.
Kay, Chicago.
User avatar
TheKingInYellow
Rikku
Posts: 310
Joined: Sun Sep 14, 2008 5:13 pm

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by TheKingInYellow »

Just out of curiosity, who was the moderator in conference center room 45 on Sunday? I liked him a lot, but never really figured out who he was
Graham Moyer
State College 2011
Harvard 2015
jonah
Auron
Posts: 2383
Joined: Thu Jul 20, 2006 5:51 pm
Location: Chicago

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by jonah »

TheKingInYellow wrote:Just out of curiosity, who was the moderator in conference center room 45 on Sunday? I liked him a lot, but never really figured out who he was
Aaron Layton.
Jonah Greenthal
National Academic Quiz Tournaments
User avatar
Cheynem
Sin
Posts: 7220
Joined: Tue May 11, 2004 11:19 am
Location: Grand Rapids, Michigan

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by Cheynem »

One thing that I noticed was that the lit seemed to make an effort to downplay the sort of musty Allen Drury, Agatha Christie type literature that NAQT is stereotypically associated with. That doesn't mean the lit was perfect--it suffered from vagueness (Joe Christmas!) and some of the hard parts of bonuses were insanely difficult, but I hope this was an intentional step in a positive direction.
Mike Cheyne
Formerly U of Minnesota

"You killed HSAPQ"--Matt Bollinger
User avatar
etchdulac
Rikku
Posts: 350
Joined: Thu May 29, 2003 6:02 am
Location: Texas, for better or worse

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by etchdulac »

jagluski wrote:I just went through the stats dump from the prelim 15 rounds. To answer Ahmad's question:

15 tu: 2
16 tu: 5
17 tu: 16
How many of these 23 games involved teams that were 6-4 or better?
Not That Kind of Christian!! wrote:Even if 0 tossups go dead, there is no reason that a reader shouldn't be able to get through 20 tossups.
While I agree that the above numbers are poor, I'm not ready to draw the horizon of failure above 18 when two below-mediocre (but not awful) teams are involved. If no questions are powered, a vast majority of toss-up questions reach their ends and are answered correctly, every bonus part is read in its entirety followed by 5 seconds of discussion time, a prompt and a answer... throw in some brief delays for negs... I believe it's possible to be reading at a sufficient speed and still average just over a minute per cycle. While that may all sound like a bit of a "perfect storm", I think there are some games at a national event where a majority of cycles go like that.
Stephen Fontenot
Texas Quiz Bowl Alliance Deputy Director
Communications, UT Dallas
Strake Jesuit '96 -+-+- Southwestern '00
User avatar
dtaylor4
Auron
Posts: 3733
Joined: Tue Nov 16, 2004 11:43 am

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by dtaylor4 »

Ben Dillon wrote:Renewing my objection in another post that Tossups Heard is not as good an indication of reader speed/quality as Bonuses Heard. I'm not nearly as impressed with a reader who gets through 24+ tossups when I know several tossups went dead, especially if I thought that reader read so fast that it caused a few of those to go dead.
This is foolish. I read on Saturday, and had a game where I got through 8 bonuses. Of course, about 1:44 was left on the clock when I finished. Is it necessarily my fault that two teams at nationals cannot answer a history tossup on Indonesia? I'm pretty sure my reading was not the problem, since the players were complimentary after the match.
jbarnes112358
Tidus
Posts: 654
Joined: Mon May 03, 2004 5:58 am
Location: Richmond, VA

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by jbarnes112358 »

bt_green_warbler wrote:
RyuAqua wrote:For better or for worse, though, this was certainly the hardest HSNCT in recent memory - if "difficulty creep" is a real thing that's happening, this tournament suffered far more for that than for previously-decried NAQT issues. The bonuses, especially, fluctuated some but were on the whole too hard. It seemed like teams at even the highest levels of this tournament were getting 17 to 19 points per bonus (the stats will make or break this claim; for now it's a ballpark estimate)
If that's the right ballpark, then we will certainly have some work to do for 2011.

Compare the last four years' worth of stats:

(champion, team ranked x/2, team ranked x-5)
where x=field size

2009: 21.58, 10.91, 5.33

2008: 21.03, 10.48, 5.95

2007: 21.73, 13.01, 6.58

2006: 20.59, 14.44, 5.98

That's actually very consistent, the only obvious trend being that the performance of the median team is dropping slightly. (That would appear to be a logical consequence of expanding the field size for constant difficulty; by contrast, there is a larger pool of replacement-level teams capable of converting about half of the easy parts.)

If, in fact, this year's Maggie Walker and State College teams were under 19 ppb (I have no idea, since I was reading on Saturday and didn't spend any time in the stat rooms), then my instinct is that the bonus difficulty would have been very punishing to teams 120 or so on down. Maybe that happened.
I went back through my score sheets and unofficially computed our points per bonus as 20.85 (20.94 on Sat. and 20.69 on Sun). Although that is in line with recent years, I perceived that, on the whole, the bonuses were a bit more difficult than usual. Furthermore, in previous years there were not any of those insane 5 second computation questions.
John Barnes
Maggie Walker Governor's School

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."
User avatar
Down and out in Quintana Roo
Auron
Posts: 2907
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2008 7:25 am
Location: Camden, DE
Contact:

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

We practiced on every set of last year's HSNCT before we went to Chicago this year. And on the sets that we didn't see (we heard i think 18 or 19 rounds, including our scrimmages on Sunday morning last year) we averaged slightly over 15ppb. So that was our goal this year, knowing/thinking that the set would likely be a pinch harder than that.

While we started very poorly this year in our first few games, our overall ppb ended up exactly 13.81. That's close, but i think the bonuses were slightly harder this time around. Or, if anything, without the ridiculous math computation, i think we might have hit our goal.

Keeping stats was pretty fun. Of interest, Trey's pp20tuh increased in almost every game throughout the tournament, starting at 19.05 after game 1, to 36.36 after game 5, to 52.56 after game 10, to 55.73 after our 12th and last game, even as we faced better teams as the day went on. It basically proves that our slow start hurt him pretty bad, but that my other players had the exact opposite effect and got less questions later in the tournament.
Mr. Andrew Chrzanowski
Caesar Rodney High School
Camden, Delaware
CRHS '97-'01
University of Delaware '01-'05
CRHS quizbowl coach '06-'12
http://crquizbowl.edublogs.org
User avatar
Captain Sinico
Auron
Posts: 2675
Joined: Sun Sep 21, 2003 1:46 pm
Location: Champaign, Illinois

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by Captain Sinico »

dtaylor4 wrote:
Ben Dillon wrote:Renewing my objection in another post that Tossups Heard is not as good an indication of reader speed/quality as Bonuses Heard. I'm not nearly as impressed with a reader who gets through 24+ tossups when I know several tossups went dead, especially if I thought that reader read so fast that it caused a few of those to go dead.
This is foolish. I read on Saturday, and had a game where I got through 8 bonuses. Of course, about 1:44 was left on the clock when I finished. Is it necessarily my fault that two teams at nationals cannot answer a history tossup on Indonesia? I'm pretty sure my reading was not the problem, since the players were complimentary after the match.
I'm not sure if it's quite foolish, but maybe not precise. I think rather that tossups heard is possibly a weaker correlate to moderator speed than bonuses heard. Neither is independent of team quality or strategy; a match between two good teams that power a ton of questions and know and snap up the vast majority of bonus parts is going to kick up any moderator's BH (and TH.) A team like that from this weekend was Georgetown Day. Conversely, teams that gets a lot of tossups and take the full time on every bonus - Seven Lakes and LASA were like that this weekend - is going to cap BH and a match between teams that simply don't get many tossups is going to do so stringently.
So I'd say that, really, any raw number is probably going to fail to give a good sense of moderator speed unless the moderator is reading for a well-averaged sample of games. To evaluate a moderator, it's really necessary to look a little closer than that.

M
Mike Sorice
Former Coach, Centennial High School of Champaign, IL (2014-2020) & Team Illinois (2016-2018)
Alumnus, Illinois ABT (2000-2002; 2003-2009) & Fenwick Scholastic Bowl (1999-2000)
Member, ACF (Emeritus), IHSSBCA, & PACE
User avatar
jdeliverer
Rikku
Posts: 296
Joined: Tue Sep 29, 2009 10:26 pm
Location: Providence

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by jdeliverer »

Captain Sinico wrote:
dtaylor4 wrote:
Ben Dillon wrote:Renewing my objection in another post that Tossups Heard is not as good an indication of reader speed/quality as Bonuses Heard. I'm not nearly as impressed with a reader who gets through 24+ tossups when I know several tossups went dead, especially if I thought that reader read so fast that it caused a few of those to go dead.
This is foolish. I read on Saturday, and had a game where I got through 8 bonuses. Of course, about 1:44 was left on the clock when I finished. Is it necessarily my fault that two teams at nationals cannot answer a history tossup on Indonesia? I'm pretty sure my reading was not the problem, since the players were complimentary after the match.
I'm not sure if it's quite foolish, but maybe not precise. I think rather that tossups heard is possibly a weaker correlate to moderator speed than bonuses heard. Neither is independent of team quality or strategy; a match between two good teams that power a ton of questions and know and snap up the vast majority of bonus parts is going to kick up any moderator's BH (and TH.) A team like that from this weekend was Georgetown Day. Conversely, teams that gets a lot of tossups and take the full time on every bonus - Seven Lakes and LASA were like that this weekend - is going to cap BH and a match between teams that simply don't get many tossups is going to do so stringently.
So I'd say that, really, any raw number is probably going to fail to give a good sense of moderator speed unless the moderator is reading for a well-averaged sample of games. To evaluate a moderator, it's really necessary to look a little closer than that.

M
If one had enough stats, one could evaluate a moderator compared to teams' averages in TUH and BH, sort of like ERA+. This might be too complicated to work out, but it'd give a better indication than raw numbers
Robert Volgman
Brown '14
Latin School of Chicago '10
samer
Lulu
Posts: 75
Joined: Wed Jun 18, 2003 3:01 pm

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by samer »

jdeliverer wrote:
Captain Sinico wrote:
dtaylor4 wrote:
Ben Dillon wrote:Renewing my objection in another post that Tossups Heard is not as good an indication of reader speed/quality as Bonuses Heard. I'm not nearly as impressed with a reader who gets through 24+ tossups when I know several tossups went dead, especially if I thought that reader read so fast that it caused a few of those to go dead.
This is foolish. I read on Saturday, and had a game where I got through 8 bonuses. Of course, about 1:44 was left on the clock when I finished. Is it necessarily my fault that two teams at nationals cannot answer a history tossup on Indonesia? I'm pretty sure my reading was not the problem, since the players were complimentary after the match.
I'm not sure if it's quite foolish, but maybe not precise. I think rather that tossups heard is possibly a weaker correlate to moderator speed than bonuses heard. Neither is independent of team quality or strategy; a match between two good teams that power a ton of questions and know and snap up the vast majority of bonus parts is going to kick up any moderator's BH (and TH.) A team like that from this weekend was Georgetown Day. Conversely, teams that gets a lot of tossups and take the full time on every bonus - Seven Lakes and LASA were like that this weekend - is going to cap BH and a match between teams that simply don't get many tossups is going to do so stringently.
So I'd say that, really, any raw number is probably going to fail to give a good sense of moderator speed unless the moderator is reading for a well-averaged sample of games. To evaluate a moderator, it's really necessary to look a little closer than that.

M
If one had enough stats, one could evaluate a moderator compared to teams' averages in TUH and BH, sort of like ERA+. This might be too complicated to work out, but it'd give a better indication than raw numbers
It's not too hard, actually; you already have the TU heard/B heard numbers for the teams anyways, so it's just a matter of comparing the moderator's TU/game (etc.) to the average for the teams for which the moderator read. [As an example, a moderator is doing fine if he gets 23/21 for two teams that average 21/18, but not for two teams that average 25/23.]
samer dot ismail -at- gmail dot com / Samer Ismail, PACE co-founder, NAQT editor
User avatar
Stained Diviner
Auron
Posts: 5085
Joined: Sun Jun 13, 2004 6:08 am
Location: Chicagoland
Contact:

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by Stained Diviner »

The only useful purpose of this statistic is to figure out which moderators should not have been moderating at a national tournament. To figure that out, you figure out who moderated for more than one match that did not get through at least 18 tossups and don't invite them back. The ones that missed the target once or were consistently only getting to 18 or 19 you only invite back if you have difficulty getting enough moderators, or you pair them with a good moderator and tell them to read as little as possible. I fail to see why this requires any statistics beyond what is commonly taught to 2nd graders.
David Reinstein
Head Writer and Editor for Scobol Solo, Masonics, and IESA; TD for Scobol Solo and Reinstein Varsity; IHSSBCA Board Member; IHSSBCA Chair (2004-2014); PACE President (2016-2018)
User avatar
Down and out in Quintana Roo
Auron
Posts: 2907
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2008 7:25 am
Location: Camden, DE
Contact:

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

Westwon wrote:The only useful purpose of this statistic is to figure out which moderators should not have been moderating at a national tournament. To figure that out, you figure out who moderated for more than one match that did not get through at least 18 tossups and don't invite them back. The ones that missed the target once or were consistently only getting to 18 or 19 you only invite back if you have difficulty getting enough moderators, or you pair them with a good moderator and tell them to read as little as possible. I fail to see why this requires any statistics beyond what is commonly taught to 2nd graders.
Yep. I just don't understand how you can't read faster. Guy (with Ian scorekeeping) got through 26 tossups with more than a minute remaining (it might have been two minutes) in our first playoff game, and we're a team that gets a lot of tossups but usually a little later, and we often need 3-5 seconds on bonus questions. But yet he got through all the questions with lots of time to spare and was clear, coherent, and generally excellent. It really isn't that hard folks.
Mr. Andrew Chrzanowski
Caesar Rodney High School
Camden, Delaware
CRHS '97-'01
University of Delaware '01-'05
CRHS quizbowl coach '06-'12
http://crquizbowl.edublogs.org
samer
Lulu
Posts: 75
Joined: Wed Jun 18, 2003 3:01 pm

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by samer »

Westwon wrote:The only useful purpose of this statistic is to figure out which moderators should not have been moderating at a national tournament. To figure that out, you figure out who moderated for more than one match that did not get through at least 18 tossups and don't invite them back. The ones that missed the target once or were consistently only getting to 18 or 19 you only invite back if you have difficulty getting enough moderators, or you pair them with a good moderator and tell them to read as little as possible. I fail to see why this requires any statistics beyond what is commonly taught to 2nd graders.
Hypothetical situation, same packet:
Room A: 18/17
Room B: 20/15

If anything, moderator A is quite likely to have read more in 18 minutes than moderator B, but by your suggestion above, moderator A would immediately be in danger of being disinvited, while moderator B wouldn't.

Yes, moderators who clearly shouldn't be moderating at this level obviously should not be doing so, but, given the high need for moderators for an event this large, I'd rather see NAQT judge moderators on a more nuanced basis rather than just blindly applying a set of rules.
Last edited by samer on Wed Jun 02, 2010 1:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
samer dot ismail -at- gmail dot com / Samer Ismail, PACE co-founder, NAQT editor
User avatar
Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN)
Chairman of Anti-Music Mafia Committee
Posts: 5647
Joined: Wed Jul 26, 2006 11:46 pm

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) »

Who cares?
Charlie Dees, North Kansas City HS '08
"I won't say more because I know some of you parse everything I say." - Jeremy Gibbs

"At one TJ tournament the neg prize was the Hampshire College ultimate frisbee team (nude) calender featuring one Evan Silberman. In retrospect that could have been a disaster." - Harry White
User avatar
Dresden_The_BIG_JERK
Tidus
Posts: 709
Joined: Tue Dec 09, 2008 10:56 am
Location: Lowell, IN

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by Dresden_The_BIG_JERK »

samer wrote:
Westwon wrote:The only useful purpose of this statistic is to figure out which moderators should not have been moderating at a national tournament. To figure that out, you figure out who moderated for more than one match that did not get through at least 18 tossups and don't invite them back. The ones that missed the target once or were consistently only getting to 18 or 19 you only invite back if you have difficulty getting enough moderators, or you pair them with a good moderator and tell them to read as little as possible. I fail to see why this requires any statistics beyond what is commonly taught to 2nd graders.
Hypothetical situation, same packet:
Room A: 18/17
Room B: 20/10

Which moderator did the better job?
I'd say neither did spectacularly given the circumstances, but overall its about the same.
Jeremy Gibbs Freesy Does It wrote:Who cares?
People who like more accurate results? Think of it this way: If a Team A averages hearing two less questions a round on Saturday than Team B, that's essentially an entire round extra Team B heard. From a statistical analysis standpoint that's incredibly relevant.
BJ Houlding

Winnebago '04
Saint Joseph's College '08
IHSSBCA Certified Moderator
User avatar
Captain Sinico
Auron
Posts: 2675
Joined: Sun Sep 21, 2003 1:46 pm
Location: Champaign, Illinois

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by Captain Sinico »

Well, for one, one is often in the situation of having to make the best of a pool of bad moderators, so such stats have some value in that regard. For two, they could be used to guide improvement in certain moderators.

M
Mike Sorice
Former Coach, Centennial High School of Champaign, IL (2014-2020) & Team Illinois (2016-2018)
Alumnus, Illinois ABT (2000-2002; 2003-2009) & Fenwick Scholastic Bowl (1999-2000)
Member, ACF (Emeritus), IHSSBCA, & PACE
User avatar
Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN)
Chairman of Anti-Music Mafia Committee
Posts: 5647
Joined: Wed Jul 26, 2006 11:46 pm

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) »

Yo BJ, I was responding to Samer's very silly hypothetical example, which I don't see as at all worth discussing, not the general idea that we should talk about fixing moderator quality.
Charlie Dees, North Kansas City HS '08
"I won't say more because I know some of you parse everything I say." - Jeremy Gibbs

"At one TJ tournament the neg prize was the Hampshire College ultimate frisbee team (nude) calender featuring one Evan Silberman. In retrospect that could have been a disaster." - Harry White
User avatar
Dresden_The_BIG_JERK
Tidus
Posts: 709
Joined: Tue Dec 09, 2008 10:56 am
Location: Lowell, IN

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by Dresden_The_BIG_JERK »

Jeremy Gibbs Freesy Does It wrote:Yo BJ, I was responding to Samer's very silly hypothetical example, which I don't see as at all worth discussing, not the general idea that we should talk about fixing moderator quality.
My mistake...carry on.
BJ Houlding

Winnebago '04
Saint Joseph's College '08
IHSSBCA Certified Moderator
samer
Lulu
Posts: 75
Joined: Wed Jun 18, 2003 3:01 pm

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by samer »

Jeremy Gibbs Freesy Does It wrote:Yo BJ, I was responding to Samer's very silly hypothetical example, which I don't see as at all worth discussing, not the general idea that we should talk about fixing moderator quality.
My point was that according to David's suggestion, moderator A would be "OK," while moderator B would immediately be "in danger" of being disinvited from future NCTs. I'll make that clearer.
samer dot ismail -at- gmail dot com / Samer Ismail, PACE co-founder, NAQT editor
User avatar
Stained Diviner
Auron
Posts: 5085
Joined: Sun Jun 13, 2004 6:08 am
Location: Chicagoland
Contact:

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by Stained Diviner »

People moderate more than one match, and my guess is that the 20/10 moderator would have a few matches where s/he did not reach 20.
David Reinstein
Head Writer and Editor for Scobol Solo, Masonics, and IESA; TD for Scobol Solo and Reinstein Varsity; IHSSBCA Board Member; IHSSBCA Chair (2004-2014); PACE President (2016-2018)
samer
Lulu
Posts: 75
Joined: Wed Jun 18, 2003 3:01 pm

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by samer »

Westwon wrote:People moderate more than one match, and my guess is that the 20/10 moderator would have a few matches where s/he did not reach 20.
20/10, as Charlie pointed out, is a bit of a straw man (although it's not out of the realm of possibility), but my point still remains that I would use "failure to reach X TUs" as a screen, not an automatic disqualifier.
samer dot ismail -at- gmail dot com / Samer Ismail, PACE co-founder, NAQT editor
User avatar
Dresden_The_BIG_JERK
Tidus
Posts: 709
Joined: Tue Dec 09, 2008 10:56 am
Location: Lowell, IN

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by Dresden_The_BIG_JERK »

samer wrote:
Westwon wrote:People moderate more than one match, and my guess is that the 20/10 moderator would have a few matches where s/he did not reach 20.
20/10, as Charlie pointed out, is a bit of a straw man (although it's not out of the realm of possibility), but my point still remains that I would use "failure to reach X TUs" as a screen, not an automatic disqualifier.
Yes and no. One match of 20/10 can be an anomaly...if someone was 20/10 for the tourney, that would rightly draw red flags, despite being over the hypothetical threshold.
BJ Houlding

Winnebago '04
Saint Joseph's College '08
IHSSBCA Certified Moderator
User avatar
kayli
Auron
Posts: 1525
Joined: Sat Jun 21, 2008 10:15 pm
Location: Illinois

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by kayli »

Sort of off of topic, but why are there questions on comic books but like none of manga or anime. I'm pretty sure manga and anime are more popular than comic books for anyone under 30.
Kay, Chicago.
User avatar
Captain Sinico
Auron
Posts: 2675
Joined: Sun Sep 21, 2003 1:46 pm
Location: Champaign, Illinois

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by Captain Sinico »

I've been dreading this day for a long time.

M
Mike Sorice
Former Coach, Centennial High School of Champaign, IL (2014-2020) & Team Illinois (2016-2018)
Alumnus, Illinois ABT (2000-2002; 2003-2009) & Fenwick Scholastic Bowl (1999-2000)
Member, ACF (Emeritus), IHSSBCA, & PACE
User avatar
Auroni
Auron
Posts: 3145
Joined: Thu Nov 15, 2007 6:23 pm

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by Auroni »

several critical quizbowl theorists would be quick to point out that almost everyone playing HSNCT is also over the age of 13, which is when they should have outgrown the anime/manga craze
Auroni Gupta (she/her)
User avatar
Down and out in Quintana Roo
Auron
Posts: 2907
Joined: Wed Apr 09, 2008 7:25 am
Location: Camden, DE
Contact:

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by Down and out in Quintana Roo »

Ice Warrior wrote:several critical quizbowl theorists would be quick to point out that almost everyone playing HSNCT is also over the age of 13, which is when they should have outgrown the anime/manga craze
Tell that to my college roommates from 5 years ago.
Mr. Andrew Chrzanowski
Caesar Rodney High School
Camden, Delaware
CRHS '97-'01
University of Delaware '01-'05
CRHS quizbowl coach '06-'12
http://crquizbowl.edublogs.org
User avatar
Whiter Hydra
Auron
Posts: 1418
Joined: Tue Dec 04, 2007 8:46 pm
Location: Fairfax, VA
Contact:

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by Whiter Hydra »

Ice Warrior wrote:several critical quizbowl theorists would be quick to point out that almost everyone playing HSNCT is also over the age of 13, which is when they should have outgrown the anime/manga craze
But then you're discriminating against the seventh grader!
Harry White
TJHSST '09, Virginia Tech '13

Owner of Tournament Database Search and Quizbowl Schedule Generator
Will run stats for food
User avatar
kayli
Auron
Posts: 1525
Joined: Sat Jun 21, 2008 10:15 pm
Location: Illinois

Re: 2010 HSNCT discussion thread

Post by kayli »

A lot of people watch anime in high school and college >_>. I think in terms of trash, comic books are a little dated while anime and manga have been gaining a steady following. Ideally, there's no trash in HSNCT or any national tournament. But, while there is still trash, I don't understand why comic books can be represented but not manga or anime.
Kay, Chicago.
Locked