2016 ICT general discussion

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Important Bird Area
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2016 ICT general discussion

Post by Important Bird Area »

This is your discussion thread for big-picture issues about the 2016 NAQT ICT (either division). If you'd like to discuss the specific text of a particular question, please use the two threads available for that purpose.
Jeff Hoppes
President, Northern California Quiz Bowl Alliance
former HSQB Chief Admin (2012-13)
VP for Communication and history subject editor, NAQT
Editor emeritus, ACF

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theMoMA
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Re: 2016 ICT general discussion

Post by theMoMA »

Hey, Seth might drop by later for a full rundown, but I just wanted to say thanks to a couple people who deserve it. Matt Bollinger served as a set editor this year, and it was great to have his input. Ike went through the set and offered helpful comments on difficulty. Seth put in a ton of work as the primary set editor, and Andrew did as well in many different areas. I think there's still a good bit of improvement that we can do with ICT, but I really liked how this year's turned out, and it was in large part thanks to these people.
Andrew Hart
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setht
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Re: 2016 ICT general discussion

Post by setht »

theMoMA wrote:Hey, Seth might drop by later for a full rundown, but I just wanted to say thanks to a couple people who deserve it. Matt Bollinger served as a set editor this year, and it was great to have his input. Ike went through the set and offered helpful comments on difficulty. Seth put in a ton of work as the primary set editor, and Andrew did as well in many different areas. I think there's still a good bit of improvement that we can do with ICT, but I really liked how this year's turned out, and it was in large part thanks to these people.
I actually would guess that Andrew H. and/or Andrew Y. put in more time working on the DI set this year than I did. I just did not have as much time to devote to it as I would have liked, but thankfully they stepped up, and we got valuable editing help from Matt B., Ike, Billy, and Jeff.

In DII, R. Hentzel and Jason Thompson teamed up to cover the set editing. I am very grateful that they left me free to focus almost entirely on the DI set.

We also benefited from receiving lots of excellent questions from a large group of people. I'm not going to list all the writers who contributed to this year's set, but I want to thank them heartily.

-Seth
Seth Teitler
Formerly UC Berkeley and U. Chicago
President of NAQT
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Excelsior (smack)
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Re: 2016 ICT general discussion

Post by Excelsior (smack) »

I don't know if this is new as of ICT 2016 or what (I haven't read any NAQT since HSNCT 2015), but I want to commend NAQT on their significantly improved styling of pronunciation guides in the packets. They are now _much_ easier to ignore for words I know how to pronounce, allowing me to read more quickly and articulately. (But one side note: the "u" in "ukiyo-e" is not pronounced /ju/ "YOU", but rather /u/ "OO".)
Ashvin Srivatsa
Corporate drone '?? | Yale University '14 | Sycamore High School (OH) '10
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Fado Alexandrino
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Re: 2016 ICT general discussion

Post by Fado Alexandrino »

I really liked the "other science" in this set.
Joe Su, OCT
Lisgar 2012, McGill 2015, McGill 2019, Queen's 2020
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Wynaut
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Re: 2016 ICT general discussion

Post by Wynaut »

The geography was really enjoyable and well-clued; a lot of the leadins and hard parts definitely sounded like they were worth knowing about. I also certainly wasn't expecting a whole tossup on Iqaluit! The one exception that comes to mind is the Chad bonus that pretty much relied on knowing its highest point.

The current events stuff was also pretty cool -- I especially liked the way tossups like "impeaching Dilma" and "Trump's wall" were constructed. More questions on hypothetical actions, please!
Kenji Shimizu
University of Michigan '18
Summit Academy North High School '13
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Re: 2016 ICT general discussion

Post by ryanrosenberg »

Pursuant the discussion in the tiebreaker thread, Round 8 of DI ICT had two American history tossups in the first half (plus an American CE tossup).
Ryan Rosenberg
North Carolina '16
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