2014 NAQT MSNCT: Congratulations Harmony-Excellence!

Dormant threads from the middle school section are preserved here.
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Re: 2014 NAQT MSNCT: May 10-11, Atlanta

Post by MichaelFalk »

MoeMoney wrote:Yes, I have noticed as well that St. Marks stats were weird for a team finishing so high, and yet for the eventual runners-up to almost have not made the playoffs is a bit weird. Also, the 2 and 3 card getting knocked out relatively early on is very weird. I feel like inconsistencies in the set may have been at play here especially with the previous example pointed out that Kealing lost to a team it crushed. When you can beat a team by that much, you don't just magically drop a game to them later on...
In last year's finals, Station lost to Kealing by 10 and then, immediately afterward, beat them by 430.
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Re: 2014 NAQT MSNCT: Congratulations Harmony-Excellence!

Post by MichaelFalk »

the return of AHAN wrote:No, I'm genuinely positing that there is not nearly the separation among the top teams this year as last.
There seemed like more close games, but I don't have any statistics other than my own team's to back that up.

Comparing this year to last year is difficult anyway because of the turnover in teams. 45% of this year's top 20 didn't even go to Chicago last year, and 40% of last year's top 20 didn't even go to Atlanta this year.
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Re: 2014 NAQT MSNCT: Congratulations Harmony-Excellence!

Post by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) »

This was only my second time ever reading at the middle school level, but I actually found many of the questions to be rather difficult, for example, a leadin about TORCH in placenta that my scorekeeper noted was something he learned in med school. I suspect that a lot of difficulty complaints here actually are because middle school is such a rapidly growing part of quizbowl. Remember guys, the first MSNCT happened only 4 years ago and had all of 35 teams show up, and at that time there were basically 3 middle school teams that had a real understanding of how to get great at pyramidal quizbowl. MSNCT has over tripled in size since then, and based on what I saw, a WHOLE lotta teams have figured out how to catch up since then. I was extremely impressed with both how good all of the top teams are, and more importantly, how much stuff the mid-level teams were able to pull. I suspect that, in an activity where there is only so much that you could reasonably ask of middle schoolers before things just get ridiculously hard (meaning that if you have a couple kids put in some pretty focused studying it's super easy to turn into a playoff level team), and which really had no national standards until the last couple years, there are going to be some growing pains until the exploding circuit development levels off and there is a better understanding of the "middle school canon." My hat is off to NAQT for doing such a good job of figuring out how to make middle school quizbowl work, and for helping facilitate its rapid improvement. I have high hopes that middle school quizbowl will fairly quickly turn into an activity that is of universally high quality after reading here.

I have a few stray thoughts-

1. I have to wonder again, why are there math computation tossups at this tournament? I thought when HSNCT moved away from computation that was an acknowledgement that computation tossups weren't a good idea and are definitely not appropriate for nationals. It seems to me like, with middle school, it would be that much easier to move the circuit away from math comp since NAQT is currently exerting such a profound influence over its development. What would it take to convince NAQT to abandon computation tossups here?

2. I have no problem with computation bonuses, but again I just want to make my complaint that 5 seconds never seems like enough to reasonably get the math done. There were many many times that kids I was reading for would reach the correct answer soon after time was called, and I suspect this is one of those issues where if you asked coaches and players, they would much rather have a little more time on these bonuses. In all the local formats I've ever read for, math gets more time on both tossups AND bonuses. This gripe also applies to HSNCT.

3. Did NAQT know that this date would be a big conflict with IESA? It seems like it's not the best timing in the world to have the most active state in this sparsely populated activity be unable to send their best teams, especially the defending champions. The only other time I read for middle schoolers was at the Barrington tournament, and not to denigrate any of the top teams here, but I felt like both Daniel Wright and Barrington Station could have easily been in the mix for a finals spot. More good teams always makes a more exciting tournament, so I hope this conflict is avoidable in the future.

4. Is there any way to offer maybe 1 more game to participants in the prelims? I felt like 8 games in 12 rounds is a little sparse, and I don't think any of the players I saw were too fatigued at the end of the day.

5. I think that focusing on whether or not St. Mark's School should have been in the finals is not an especially productive thing to focus on. Looking at the results, they did the minimum that they needed to stay in contention after Saturday, and then they beat everybody they were up against, including the 3rd and 4th place teams (and t8th and t12th), until they finally lost two games in a row to the champion. There are sometimes flaws in a double elimination bracket, but to me this doesn't seem like one of them, and instead seems like a team that truly had a great run, the kind that makes a national tournament like this so exciting.

All in all I was really impressed with how well calibrated the difficulty of this tournament was, how efficiently run it was, and most importantly, just how talented all of the teams I read for were. Great job everybody, and I can only imagine some of these kids are about to have futures where they terrorize the high school circuit.
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Re: 2014 NAQT MSNCT: Congratulations Harmony-Excellence!

Post by the return of AHAN »

Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) wrote: The only other time I read for middle schoolers was at the Barrington tournament, and not to denigrate any of the top teams here, but I felt like both Daniel Wright and Barrington Station could have easily been in the mix for a finals spot. More good teams always makes a more exciting tournament, so I hope this conflict is avoidable in the future...
Don't forget Rockford Marshall (Little Auburn). We were 0-6 against them this year. It'd be awesome if Bloomington JHS enters the MSNCT mix for next year, too. They're going to continue to get better.
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Re: 2014 NAQT MSNCT: Congratulations Harmony-Excellence!

Post by etchdulac »

dtaylor4 wrote:Friday was the IESA State Series in downtown Peoria, which Daniel Wright won in AA. Given that the Sectional qualifier was Monday (and DW's Sectional included Marshall and Station), trying to make plans ahead of time would have been complicated, to say the least.
It is known yet if next year's IESA dates will conflict with 2015 MSNCT (May 8-10)? It would be unfortunate if this conflict was a recurring issue.
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Re: 2014 NAQT MSNCT: Congratulations Harmony-Excellence!

Post by gimmedatguudsuccrose »

Siegfried wrote:
Ithaca Cricket Ump wrote:Do you know when the questions will be released?
NAQT's questions are normally not released; you most likely should have received a copy of the set at the tournament.
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Re: 2014 NAQT MSNCT: Congratulations Harmony-Excellence!

Post by TSIAJ »

Alexandrescu wrote:
Siegfried wrote:
Ithaca Cricket Ump wrote:Do you know when the questions will be released?
NAQT's questions are normally not released; you most likely should have received a copy of the set at the tournament.
That's right. I'll have to ask my coach about it.
Thanks.
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Re: 2014 NAQT MSNCT: Congratulations Harmony-Excellence!

Post by Great Bustard »

Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) wrote: 1. I have to wonder again, why are there math computation tossups at this tournament? I thought when HSNCT moved away from computation that was an acknowledgement that computation tossups weren't a good idea and are definitely not appropriate for nationals. It seems to me like, with middle school, it would be that much easier to move the circuit away from math comp since NAQT is currently exerting such a profound influence over its development. What would it take to convince NAQT to abandon computation tossups here?

2. I have no problem with computation bonuses, but again I just want to make my complaint that 5 seconds never seems like enough to reasonably get the math done. There were many many times that kids I was reading for would reach the correct answer soon after time was called, and I suspect this is one of those issues where if you asked coaches and players, they would much rather have a little more time on these bonuses. In all the local formats I've ever read for, math gets more time on both tossups AND bonuses. This gripe also applies to HSNCT.
For once, I completely agree with Charlie on these points. In the room I read in, both Saturday and Sunday, it seemed like math comp was getting converted at a way lesser rate than anything else on both tossups and bonuses, though especially the latter because of the timing problem. Can NAQT provide conversion data for both math tossups and bonuses vis a vis other categories? I understand wanting to keep comp time down to a minimum to avoid clock issues, but if math comp were limited to bonuses, even with 2 math bonuses a game, going from 5 seconds to 10 would add at most 30 seconds to a game (1/36 of the time available). If comp math is going to be a part of MSNCT (or any other quizbowl event), then it needs to be done in a way commensurate with the difficulty of other subjects and in a way that makes sense for what's being asked of the students.
Other than that, it's great to see the growth of quizbowl at the middle school level. If there's any danger to the growth of the middle school game, it's that the top teams might largely outgrow the middle school canon quickly. Hopefully, middle school sets can be written in a way that new teams are encouraged by getting in on a fair amount of questions, while top teams are still challenged. To me, at least, it seemed like a lot of what was being asked about (perhaps by necessity, but still, this is a potential issue) was way beyond what the overwhelming number of middle schoolers learn about in class. Have we reached the point yet where middle school difficulty needs to be disaggregated into different levels beyond just regionals and nationals? If not, this might be on the horizon soon.
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Re: 2014 NAQT MSNCT: Congratulations Harmony-Excellence!

Post by the return of AHAN »

etchdulac wrote:
dtaylor4 wrote:Friday was the IESA State Series in downtown Peoria, which Daniel Wright won in AA. Given that the Sectional qualifier was Monday (and DW's Sectional included Marshall and Station), trying to make plans ahead of time would have been complicated, to say the least.
It is known yet if next year's IESA dates will conflict with 2015 MSNCT (May 8-10)? It would be unfortunate if this conflict was a recurring issue.
Once again, it's May 8th.
then May 6th in 2016
then May 5th in 2017.
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Re: 2014 NAQT MSNCT: Congratulations Harmony-Excellence!

Post by Lo, Marathon Ham! »

Great Bustard wrote: Other than that, it's great to see the growth of quizbowl at the middle school level. If there's any danger to the growth of the middle school game, it's that the top teams might largely outgrow the middle school canon quickly. Hopefully, middle school sets can be written in a way that new teams are encouraged by getting in on a fair amount of questions, while top teams are still challenged. To me, at least, it seemed like a lot of what was being asked about (perhaps by necessity, but still, this is a potential issue) was way beyond what the overwhelming number of middle schoolers learn about in class. Have we reached the point yet where middle school difficulty needs to be disaggregated into different levels beyond just regionals and nationals? If not, this might be on the horizon soon.
In our region we have seen this problem where a local school (Independence) and several other schools from out of state easily defeat the lower level local teams thus discouraging them. To counteract this, next season we were thinking of running a few extra tournaments, one house-written possibly, and one being SCOP MS, to provide various difficulty ranges and aimed at teams of varying experience levels. While I don't think MS needs sets of too much variance in difficulty right now, I do think at some point NAQT could go down the same path as NHBB and create an A,B,C set sort of system with packets of different difficulty.
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Re: 2014 NAQT MSNCT: Congratulations Harmony-Excellence!

Post by Marble-faced Bristle Tyrant »

Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) wrote:This was only my second time ever reading at the middle school level, but I actually found many of the questions to be rather difficult, for example, a leadin about TORCH in placenta that my scorekeeper noted was something he learned in med school.
I knew I should have replaced that clue :/ I've been letting occasional tossups with difficult leadins based on the fact that some previous questions in the database are like that; I think I'll just revise them all from here on out. In general, though, I've been trying to make the MS and MSNCT biology submissions I get easier (sometimes while making them "real science" at the same time), and I'd really like feedback as to whether I've been successful in my attempts.

Anyway, I wish I could have staffed to see firsthand how my questions played, but I couldn't get my dumb Friday final moved. The good news for me is that next year's tournament won't coincide with the end-of-semester crunch time.
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Re: 2014 NAQT MSNCT: Congratulations Harmony-Excellence!

Post by Auks Ran Ova »

MoeMoney wrote:While I don't think MS needs sets of too much variance in difficulty right now, I do think at some point NAQT could go down the same path as NHBB and create an A,B,C set sort of system with packets of different difficulty.
NAQT already has a huge number of finely-distinguished difficulty levels. Attempting this within middle school difficulty itself is basically impossible--any distinctions at that point would be essentially meaningless.
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Re: 2014 NAQT MSNCT: Congratulations Harmony-Excellence!

Post by AKKOLADE »

NAQT wrote, what, one regular MS set this year? Two, maybe? Do we really need them to all of a sudden come up with multiple more difficulties for no reason that really makes it necessary?
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Re: 2014 NAQT MSNCT: Congratulations Harmony-Excellence!

Post by Urech hydantoin synthesis »

By my count, NAQT produced MS-07, 08, 09, and 10 this year.
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Re: 2014 NAQT MSNCT: Congratulations Harmony-Excellence!

Post by Lo, Marathon Ham! »

Dr. Loki Skylizard, Thoracic Surgeon wrote:NAQT wrote, what, one regular MS set this year? Two, maybe? Do we really need them to all of a sudden come up with multiple more difficulties for no reason that really makes it necessary?
NAQT put out 3 or 4 I think... Also, my suggestion was based on the fact that some middle schools dominate MS and then struggle on A set. This is why some middle schools who have great programs avoid playing A set. That is why I suggested a possibility that in the future there may be another distinction in difficulty, but yes I do agree that it is definitely not currently needed (if ever). But one thing that can't be ignored is that the MS field is rapidly expanding (just look at the rise in MSNCT interest levels). I commend NAQT for doing such a great job in promoting the field!
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Re: 2014 NAQT MSNCT: Congratulations Harmony-Excellence!

Post by dwd500 »

They wrote 4 regular sets this year, (MS 07-10) another sign of the growth of MS Quiz Bowl.

Just at first glance/gut feeling, tossups were fine. Science was a little harder than last year. History level was about the same as last year.

I'm worried about literature. It seemed in all of our games that every Lit question would get a 1st clue, maybe 2nd clue buzz, and very rarely would one hear "for 10 points." It's always seemed to me that the lit canon is small compared to the other major subjects. Not sure what can be done about that. What all can they be expected to have had that much contact with at that age?

It's growing more obvious to me that the overall gap I have to fill between what our kids have been taught and where they're expected to be in order to take on the top echelon is getting bigger. It seems as though breaking through to the next level is becoming a steeper climb, partly because more teams are making that climb. On so many bonuses, I'd be sitting behind the kids and think "Nope, they've only heard that as a clue before, just not in class or an answer line," or "they won't get to that until they're sophomores."
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Re: 2014 NAQT MSNCT: Congratulations Harmony-Excellence!

Post by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) »

I forgot my other observation, which is that man, people LOVE clapping for middle school quizbowl.
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Re: 2014 NAQT MSNCT: Congratulations Harmony-Excellence!

Post by TSIAJ »

Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) wrote:I forgot my other observation, which is that man, people LOVE clapping for middle school quizbowl.
Literally, or figuratively?...

I can't speak for high school, so I can only assume, but there was quite a bit of applause after every round at MSNCT (even for subpar rounds).
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Re: 2014 NAQT MSNCT: Congratulations Harmony-Excellence!

Post by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) »

Literally. The only times you ever really have people clapping in high school games is towards the end of the national playoffs, whereas here it was after almost every half.
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Re: 2014 NAQT MSNCT: Congratulations Harmony-Excellence!

Post by jonpin »

MoeMoney wrote:
Dr. Loki Skylizard, Thoracic Surgeon wrote:NAQT wrote, what, one regular MS set this year? Two, maybe? Do we really need them to all of a sudden come up with multiple more difficulties for no reason that really makes it necessary?
NAQT put out 3 or 4 I think... Also, my suggestion was based on the fact that some middle schools dominate MS and then struggle on A set. This is why some middle schools who have great programs avoid playing A set. That is why I suggested a possibility that in the future there may be another distinction in difficulty, but yes I do agree that it is definitely not currently needed (if ever). But one thing that can't be ignored is that the MS field is rapidly expanding (just look at the rise in MSNCT interest levels). I commend NAQT for doing such a great job in promoting the field!
The fact that many great high school teams don't play college sets isn't reason for us to fine-tune 3 or 4 layers of high school questions. A-sets are high school questions. It should not be expected that middle school teams must be able to play high school questions. As the students grow up, they will become better and when they are in high school, they will play high school questions.
When I was a child, I used to buzz as a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish sets and got better and played harder questions.

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Re: 2014 NAQT MSNCT: Congratulations Harmony-Excellence!

Post by TSIAJ »

Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) wrote:Literally. The only times you ever really have people clapping in high school games is towards the end of the national playoffs, whereas here it was after almost every half.
Definitely.

It didn't hurt, but it was quite odd to have that much applause for even the first preliminary games that were honestly quite boring. The applause for the playoff games were much better received however.
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Re: 2014 NAQT MSNCT: Congratulations Harmony-Excellence!

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Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) wrote:Literally. The only times you ever really have people clapping in high school games is towards the end of the national playoffs, whereas here it was after almost every half.
There was one game I played last year, where my team had no parents with us, while our opponents had a crowd of at least 10. They got two or three tossups, and there was a roar of applause each time; but then my team sweeped 8-9/10 of the second half, and as we were leaving I could feel their stares drilling into my head.

Soccer moms? Football dads? Please. Quizbowl is legit.
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Re: 2014 NAQT MSNCT: Congratulations Harmony-Excellence!

Post by the return of AHAN »

KoreanTacos wrote:
Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) wrote:Literally. The only times you ever really have people clapping in high school games is towards the end of the national playoffs, whereas here it was after almost every half.
There was one game I played last year, where my team had no parents with us, while our opponents had a crowd of at least 10. They got two or three tossups, and there was a roar of applause each time; but then my team sweeped 8-9/10 of the second half, and as we were leaving I could feel their stares drilling into my head.

Soccer moms? Football dads? Please. Quizbowl is legit.
(Looks for the "LIKE" button, forgetting this isn't Facebook)
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Re: 2014 NAQT MSNCT: Congratulations Harmony-Excellence!

Post by btressler »

MoeMoney wrote:While I don't think MS needs sets of too much variance in difficulty right now, I do think at some point NAQT could go down the same path as NHBB and create an A,B,C set sort of system with packets of different difficulty.
I had several good discussions with other NAQT editors over the weekend. One of the questions brought up was whether we could get to a point of offering two MS difficulties analogous to the Introductory (A level) and regular IS sets. It's my opinion that this is not impossible, but that we won't get there for a few more years. I imagine that both the demand for more sets and a larger writing staff would need to be in place to make that happen.

One thing that does tend to happen is the easiest questions get used in earlier sets of a year. The difference will be slight, but I suspect the overall difficulty of MS-11 will be a little easier than the sets that come after it.
Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) wrote:What would it take to convince NAQT to abandon computation tossups here?
Having seen the surveys that come back at HSNCT, there is a large set of players and coaches who keep asking for *more* computation. I suspect that most of those opinions are coming from people who are not readers of this board, so having battle #1,646,835 over it here is probably futile.

For what's it's worth, I agree with Dave. I think giving the students more time would be a great idea.
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Re: 2014 NAQT MSNCT: Congratulations Harmony-Excellence!

Post by Matt Weiner »

btressler wrote:Having seen the surveys that come back at HSNCT, there is a large set of players and coaches who keep asking for *more* computation. I suspect that most of those opinions are coming from people who are not readers of this board, so having battle #1,646,835 over it here is probably futile.
Uh...there's no "battle." There's people who know how quizbowl works, and people who don't. NAQT already joined the former group when it dropped these questions from the HSNCT. There is NO remotely legitimate quizbowl tournament that uses arithmetic tossups, except, for whatever reason, the MSNCT -- I assure you whatever time and money is spent on putting these questions in IS sets is completely wasted, because every halfway sensible host skips those questions. The question is why, given that NAQT itself understands this, this one and only of their products is taking such a huge step backwards.

I also agree with the above comments about the bonuses and have said similar things about them at HSNCT. Including them isn't the worst idea, but the time limits given are unrealistic. At VCU's high school tournaments, when we use IS sets, we just declare that you have 10 seconds on a calculation part unless otherwise indicated by the packet. At HSNCT I just go through the predictable ritual of cutting people off after five seconds as I've been instructed, and no one besides 2 schools ever scoring any points on these as a result.
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Re: 2014 NAQT MSNCT: Congratulations Harmony-Excellence!

Post by Aaron Goldfein »

Matt Weiner wrote: Uh...there's no "battle." There's people who know how quizbowl works, and people who don't. NAQT already joined the latter group when it dropped these questions from the HSNCT. There is NO remotely legitimate quizbowl tournament that uses arithmetic tossups, except, for whatever reason, the MSNCT -- I assure you whatever time and money is spent on putting these questions in IS sets is completely wasted, because every halfway sensible host skips those questions.
I disagree that putting computational math tossups in IS sets is necessarily a bad idea for a few reasons. Most notably, regular season matches run on IS sets rarely get to 24 tossups. Thus, if a tournament decides to skip the computational math tossups it really isn't hurting that tournament. The real question then is whether the effort of NAQT writing ~75 computational math tossups every season is a worthwhile investment. I believe it is, because while in an ideal world everyone would realize the negatives of computational math, it is the unfortunate reality that many people, probably the majority of people, involved in quiz/academic/scholastic/scholar's/knowledge bowl or its variants generally play on packets with a whole lot more computational math (and computational math done much more poorly) than one would find in an IS set. For these sorts of people, the presence of computational math in IS sets could be the difference between getting them to play good questions instead of bad questions.

The fact that NAQT has been so effective in marketing its products not just to the "good quizbowl" crowd but also to those more neutral on the issue of good quizbowl practices is notable. HSNCT draws nearly three times the next largest quiz bowl tournament's field, and it's not because it is held in higher standing by members of the good quizbowl community than the NSC. And although I don't have the data for it, I would imagine that IS sets are probably the most heard pyramidal questions in high school quizbowl. We should all give NAQT credit for so effectively marketing pyramidal quizbowl.
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Re: 2014 NAQT MSNCT: Congratulations Harmony-Excellence!

Post by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) »

But that line of argument I don't think applies to MSNCT. There are very few entrenched middle school circuits with set-in-stone diehard format warriors, especially compared to the high school world of a decade ago. For this particular tournament, I don't believe for a minute that NAQT couldn't get away with moving all of the computation into the bonuses (and appropriately increasing the amount of time on each bonus part) and actually lose field size. They're up to 128 teams and only going to get bigger from there. If some coaches grumble, would they really quit going to MSNCT? We already have shown that, for all the computation grumbling at HSNCT, the tournament has only gotten bigger and bigger after it was ditched, so I don't believe that these survey results and supposed desires of participants actually indicate anything about computation being an intractible necessity in MSNCT.
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Re: 2014 NAQT MSNCT: Congratulations Harmony-Excellence!

Post by Important Bird Area »

Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) wrote:Did NAQT know that this date would be a big conflict with IESA?
Yes, we were aware of this conflict. There are a limited number of weekends that work well for national championship tournaments (especially given the presence of multiple national championships in late spring).
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Re: 2014 NAQT MSNCT: Congratulations Harmony-Excellence!

Post by jonah »

Aaron Goldfein wrote:the effort of NAQT writing ~75 computational math tossups every season
For what it's worth, we actually used 276 distinct math tossups in 2013-14.
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Re: 2014 NAQT MSNCT: Congratulations Harmony-Excellence!

Post by TSIAJ »

jonah wrote:
Aaron Goldfein wrote:the effort of NAQT writing ~75 computational math tossups every season
For what it's worth, we actually used 276 distinct math tossups in 2013-14.
That's some real computational dedication. I don't think I've encountered too many at tournaments (max 10, maybe 15), which is great.
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Re: 2014 NAQT MSNCT: Congratulations Harmony-Excellence!

Post by jeremylu »

Darn I did terrible this tournament. I felt the packet difficulty was harder than the MS used this year, and a little easier than SCOP. I remember hearing Pharell Williams and unconsiously buzzing. Luckily I heard Happy and guessed Despicable Me 2. Anyways, did awards go out to top 12 scorers? I remember seeing a line drawn at top 20 on the scoreboard.

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Re: 2014 NAQT MSNCT: Congratulations Harmony-Excellence!

Post by TSIAJ »

jeremylu wrote:Darn I did terrible this tournament. I felt the packet difficulty was harder than the MS used this year, and a little easier than SCOP. I remember hearing Pharell Williams and unconsiously buzzing. Luckily I heard Happy and guessed Despicable Me 2. Anyways, did awards go out to top 12 scorers? I remember seeing a line drawn at top 20 on the scoreboard.

If any of you guys saw me, I was a guy in a blue Nike sweatshirt
At least you did better than me...
Probably should've gotten more sleep, rather than binge on Red Bull, but no excuses.

The packet was not harder, I don't think, rather different perecentages of different topics (way more computational math tossups than I would have liked, and way too much trash)

Not sure about the scorers, but it was at least top 20.
There were a ton of Asians in blue sweatshirts there... I remember seeing at least five solely on Saturday.

EDIT: Spelling.
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Re: 2014 NAQT MSNCT: Congratulations Harmony-Excellence!

Post by jeremylu »

There was indeed a lot of computational math, which isn't good for a national competition. We actually ate chips, watched NBA playoffs and played video games. Stayed up till 11 friday and saturday.

I felt that there wasn't enough lit, and a little too much history. Also, we went to the Coke place in Atlanta
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Re: 2014 NAQT MSNCT: Congratulations Harmony-Excellence!

Post by TSIAJ »

jeremylu wrote:There was indeed a lot of computational math, which isn't good for a national competition. We actually ate chips, watched NBA playoffs and played video games. Stayed up till 11 friday and saturday.

I felt that there wasn't enough lit, and a little too much history. Also, we went to the Coke place in Atlanta
Haha, nice! Although I didn't have time that night, I rewatched the Heat game the next day.

I agree that the lit was a bit on the sparse side, but I can't complain. Also, not nearly as much fine arts as I would've liked (especially music). Although that is my strong suit, so there's a bit of bias there.

The Coke place is great, but it stagnates after the second time there...
You should've gone to the Margaret Mitchell house and museum! I've gotten a few tossups on her just by remembering the tour.
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Re: 2014 NAQT MSNCT: Congratulations Harmony-Excellence!

Post by jagluski »

jeremylu wrote:Darn I did terrible this tournament. I felt the packet difficulty was harder than the MS used this year, and a little easier than SCOP. I remember hearing Pharell Williams and unconsiously buzzing. Luckily I heard Happy and guessed Despicable Me 2. Anyways, did awards go out to top 12 scorers? I remember seeing a line drawn at top 20 on the scoreboard.

If any of you guys saw me, I was a guy in a blue Nike sweatshirt

Individual awards went out to the top 20 scorers.
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Re: 2014 NAQT MSNCT: Congratulations Harmony-Excellence!

Post by i never see pigeons in wheeling »

Siegfried wrote: Probably should've gotten more sleep, rather than binge on Red Bull, but no excuses.
Middle schoolers binging Red Bull? Why is this a thing now? And moreover, stop doing it. It won't end well.
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Re: 2014 NAQT MSNCT: Congratulations Harmony-Excellence!

Post by TSIAJ »

List of Fighting Spirit characters wrote:
Siegfried wrote: Probably should've gotten more sleep, rather than binge on Red Bull, but no excuses.
Middle schoolers binging Red Bull? Why is this a thing now? And moreover, stop doing it. It won't end well.
It was my second time drinking it ever, and "binge" was essentially one before lunch, and another in the afternoon.
Unhealthy, yes, but I don't do it regularly.

Alltogether, I don't think it's too bad unless one goes over two a day, or for more than two days at a time.
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