The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Dormant threads from the high school sections are preserved here.
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by Tegan »

styxman wrote:I don't see it passing this year,
Me neither. I'll try. My approach is going to be to approach this from the standpoint of (oddly, but truly enough), better paralleling the IESA format (one bonus part at a time), and as a time saving measure (more three parts, a grand total of 15 seconds to confer, vs. 30 seconds.

In Illinois, for the most part, it has to go top down and not the other way. The acceptance of those tournaments you mentioned is in part because the IHSA changed, not because those tournaments caused the change. Most of the the coaches don't want change, and will only take to it if there is a loaded gun to their head, the hammer is cocked, and the trigger is being squeezed. Even then, it is slow. We are trying to undo decades of quizbowl .... and keep in mind the better we make it, the more work it takes to get better. If history has been an indicator: for a variety of reasons (only some of which are even marginally valid) coaches/teams don't want to work harder.
styxman wrote:Basically, if a couple tournaments would be interested in switching to NAQT untimed 20/20 next year, it'd do a world of good. Even A-level sets at this point. I'm talking to a few tournaments in this area about switching...if it's just us on the boards interested, people will shrug it off as the Chicagoans with their platinum sculls and ice skates again...but if the Winnebago/Sterling/Kaneland/Auburn/Boylan/etc. tournaments switch and the area Class A teams start liking it (like some already have at the Decemberist), there'll be a much better chance for a switch throughout the state.
QFT! Even if the Winnebago area is kind of won over on this, there is still a huge percentage of the state (central, west, south) that are out there ..... and politically they have more pull.
styxman wrote:Here's an interesting question that I haven't really seen well answered - and this might be better suited for the Illinois thread - what is the argument for Illinois format bonuses?
Answer: Because that's the way it always has been. Seriously. You can argue that having a block of 30 seconds to confer as a team is "more team"-like than having three blocks of five seconds to confer, but what it boils down to is: this is the way the rules were set, and this is the way it is. I wish change were easier. I wish change didn't need to be done with the care and patience of a male black widow getting on to the web to mate, but that is the way it is: try and hard sell it, it goes nowhere. The soft sell assures that it won't fly either.
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by Irreligion in Bangladesh »

Tegan wrote:
styxman wrote:Here's an interesting question that I haven't really seen well answered - and this might be better suited for the Illinois thread - what is the argument for Illinois format bonuses?
Answer: Because that's the way it always has been. Seriously. You can argue that having a block of 30 seconds to confer as a team is "more team"-like than having three blocks of five seconds to confer, but what it boils down to is: this is the way the rules were set, and this is the way it is. I wish change were easier. I wish change didn't need to be done with the care and patience of a male black widow getting on to the web to mate, but that is the way it is: try and hard sell it, it goes nowhere. The soft sell assures that it won't fly either.
That's what I thought. If the only logical argument for the old bonus format is tradition, and the laundry list for ACF format includes shorter match times, a more natural easy-medium-hard bonus difficulty progression, general better quality of question providers writing in this format, national acceptance, acceptance by the top Illinois teams, etc. etc.....we have to start forcing people to hear the argument. We need to start actually having the conversation with more people.

Also - what is the IESA bonus format?!?
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by dtaylor4 »

styxman wrote:Also - what is the IESA bonus format?!?
Same as IHSA, but after each individual answer, parts are ruled correct or incorrect.
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by Trevkeeper »

I'd be shocked if IHSA switches to ACF bonuses, but that would be utterly fantastic if they did.
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by Stephen Colbert »

For anyone opposed to the introduction of more pyramidal toss-ups at the middle school level (though it's not likely they're frequently visiting this board), I offer the following gems from a tournament I attended this weekend where I literally had to sit on my hands to avoid ripping out my hair.
Timber! Paul Bunyan felled the tree. Spell timbre as its used by scientists when they refer to sound quality.
I can just see some question-writer thinking, "I'm really going to trick them good with this one!"
After what city was the Miami neighborhood of "Little Havana" named?
And, yes, an answer of "Havana" was good enough for the points.
What is the shortest distance between two points?
Yes, the question is horrible. But, even better was this exchange between the answering player and moderator...

Player: "A line"
Moderator: "I need you to be more specific"
Player: "A straight line"
Moderator: "Correct. I needed you to say straight because some lines aren't."
The women blast off. Who was the first woman in space?
Let's go to the audio...

Player: "Tereshkova"
Moderator: "Sorry, it was Sally Ride"
Me (after politely asking for a time-out to clarify): "I'm pretty sure that Valentina Tereshkova went into space for the Soviet Union a few decades before Sally Ride."
Moderator: "You're probably right, but the question was clearly asking for Sally Ride...you should teach your players not to be so technical all the time."
Me: "I'll be sure to get right on that."

Now, had this been a year or so ago, and if I wasn't just filling it for the team's actual coach, I likely would've beat the moderator over the head with an encyclopedia.

I pray a little more effort went/goes into the state series questions this year.
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by Auks Ran Ova »

Yeah, how dare they be so "technical" with their "facts"? Teach your kids to psychically divine who the question writer thinks was the first woman in space!
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by dtaylor4 »

Stephen Colbert wrote:Player: "Tereshkova"
Moderator: "Sorry, it was Sally Ride"
Me (after politely asking for a time-out to clarify): "I'm pretty sure that Valentina Tereshkova went into space for the Soviet Union a few decades before Sally Ride."
Moderator: "You're probably right, but the question was clearly asking for Sally Ride...you should teach your players not to be so technical all the time."
Me: "I'll be sure to get right on that."
A better follow-up would be, "If you wrote these, remind me never to buy questions from you. If you didn't, where does the question clearly ask for Sally Ride?"
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by Stained Diviner »

Please do us a favor and find out who wrote these questions.

Had I been playing, I would have been tempted to answer Geodesic for the shortest distance question, hoping that my team would lose and thus go home earlier.

The sad thing about Illinois is that 95% of the teams who attended this tournament will return next year.
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by AKKOLADE »

Stephen Colbert wrote:Player: "Tereshkova"
Moderator: "Sorry, it was Sally Ride"
Me (after politely asking for a time-out to clarify): "I'm pretty sure that Valentina Tereshkova went into space for the Soviet Union a few decades before Sally Ride."
Moderator: "You're probably right, but the question was clearly asking for Sally Ride...you should teach your players not to be so technical all the time."
Me: "I'll be sure to get right on that."
You know those times where you laugh because if you did anything else it would involve a baseball bat or multiple curse words? That's me right now.
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by Tegan »

Stephen Colbert wrote:The following are quite possibly not only the worst examples of questions written in Illinois history .... but the worst job of officiating since ..... since ....
This is the lamest of the lame ..... the worst of the worst. Seriously, swear that some of this was made up because in the twenty-first fracking century no quizbowl can be run with a combination of such awful ...... I mean sucky awful ..... I mean so sucky awful, attempting to burn these questions wouldn't work because no self respecting spark would waste itself on burning the wasted paper these were written on, combined with officiating that, with due respect to Mr. Taylor, does not need to be hit upside the head with an encyclopedia, because every volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica ever published would lack sufficient weight to drive sense into the thick and blunted skull of this mouth breather.

Seriously, ten years ago in this state, that would have been considered bad.

Maybe our attempts at reform have driven many of the last stragglers of bad quizbowl to the middle schools.

For what its worth, I would have whipped a dictionary at the wall on the Paul Bunyan question ....

The Tereshkova question would have resulted in a box of scorpions that I have been harassing for the last half hour being thrown at the moderator ... not the big ones that are painful, the little ones that are both painful and lethal.


This just really irks me to no end ....... I do want a name of this question provider ..... there is absolutely no need for this!
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by First Chairman »

Tegan wrote:
Stephen Colbert wrote:The following are quite possibly not only the worst examples of questions written in Illinois history .... but the worst job of officiating since ..... since ....
This just really irks me to no end ....... I do want a name of this question provider ..... there is absolutely no need for this!
I agree... public humiliation is not considered fun for a middle-schooler. Junior high school is psychologically damaging enough.
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by Tegan »

ILoveReeses wrote: I agree... public humiliation is not considered fun for a middle-schooler. Junior high school is psychologically damaging enough.
You know, I never even thought about it in those terms, but I completely agree .....
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by Stephen Colbert »

Tegan wrote:I do want a name of this question provider ..... there is absolutely no need for this!
The questions for this particular tournament were provided by Questions Galore. I'll try to avoid ranting for now, b/c I'm not quite ready to relive the experience quite so soon. But, I can most definitely assure you that the above examples are entirely factual and, even more disappointingly, considered by many middle school coaches as "good" scholastic bowl.
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by Stephen Colbert »

I should probably also mention that they're also the question supplier for the IESA state tournament.
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) »

Haha Questions Galore wrote some pretty awesome local tournaments last year that totally ignored pretty much every requirement for being MSHSAA format but were pawned off as such.
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by Tegan »

Stephen Colbert wrote:The questions for this particular tournament were provided by Questions Galore.
I'm on it. I think I have someone I can go to for advice on the best way to handle this ...... I'm of to Olympus.
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by mlaird »

Stephen Colbert wrote:The questions for this particular tournament were provided by Questions Galore.
Ahh... they're a local flavour around these parts. From the upstanding community of Wheaton, IL, if I do recall correctly. Unfortunately for us, since they are a favorite son, Wheaton North uses them for their frosh/soph tournament every year. This produces some clunkers such as:

"The 16th Amendment was ratified in 1913." *BUZZ*
Player: Income Tax.
Moderator: Incorrect. (continues) "On what date is income tax usually collected?"

Luckily our moderator was none other than The Coach of AHAN Jr. himself, so the question was thrown out.

Needless to say, my team will not be going back to that tournament if they are using Questions Galore again.
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by David Riley »

And don't forget Cereal, the Roman goddess of agriculture . . .
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by Stained Diviner »

Questions Galore is the official writer for IESA through 2010.
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by Stephen Colbert »

ReinsteinD wrote:Questions Galore is the official writer for IESA through 2010.
With this being the case, I wonder if the IESA/advisory committee would consider, short of adopting completely pyramidal toss-ups, requesting that toss-ups used during the state series: contain multiple clues when possible moving from harder to easier (I realize this isn't always possible with spelling, computational math, and a few other categories that are traditional to the middle school level); uniquely identify an answer early in the question; avoid trickery/misdirection; are genuinely academic in nature (particularly in the bigger categories of language arts, math, science, social studies, and fine arts); and, limit the possibility of buzzer race after buzzer race after buzzer race.
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by Auks Ran Ova »

Stephen Colbert wrote:
ReinsteinD wrote:Questions Galore is the official writer for IESA through 2010.
With this being the case, I wonder if the IESA/advisory committee would consider, short of adopting completely pyramidal toss-ups, requesting that toss-ups used during the state series: contain multiple clues when possible moving from harder to easier (I realize this isn't always possible with spelling, computational math, and a few other categories that are traditional to the middle school level); uniquely identify an answer early in the question; avoid trickery/misdirection; are genuinely academic in nature (particularly in the bigger categories of language arts, math, science, social studies, and fine arts); and, limit the possibility of buzzer race after buzzer race after buzzer race.
What you have described here is a pyramidal tossup.
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by quizbowllee »

Questions Galore does our ASCA Middle School questions. They are the worst EVER. The guy running the company was at our coach's conference and basically told us that people who preferred pyramidal questions took the game too seriously... I don't know why in God's name our board continues to patronize this garbage. It's terrible.
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by AKKOLADE »

quizbowllee wrote:Questions Galore does our ASCA Middle School questions. They are the worst EVER. The guy running the company was at our coach's conference and basically told us that people who preferred pyramidal questions took the game too seriously... I don't know why in God's name our board continues to patronize this garbage. It's terrible.
hahahhahahhahaha
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by Tegan »

mlaird wrote:Luckily our moderator was none other than The Coach of AHAN Jr. himself, so the question was thrown out.
Actually, as I recall, I used the new anti-hose rule to accept your player's answer as correct, given that it was a blatant hose, and your player's answer was correct up to that point in the question. This led to another coach jumping in and getting very upset.

The backfly was the removal of the anti-hose rule with a rule that (inadvertantly) permitted hoses .... which led to a whole new round of fighting.
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by STPickrell »

quizbowllee wrote:Questions Galore does our ASCA Middle School questions. They are the worst EVER. The guy running the company was at our coach's conference and basically told us that people who preferred pyramidal questions took the game too seriously... I don't know why in God's name our board continues to patronize this garbage. It's terrible.
It's one thing to prefer buzzer-beaters over pyramidal. It's another thing to want questions that are well, correct.
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) »

What on earth do you mean?
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by AKKOLADE »

Deesy Does It wrote:What on earth do you mean?
I assume Shawn means questions with factually correct content.
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by Matt Weiner »

Actually, I think they are pretty much the same thing. Consider all the arguments for using short tossups- they make the game exciting, they allow upsets, they don't let those annoying teams who "study" and "work" and "care about performing well" dominate over "lazy idiots", they are easier to write, they may or may not have been approved by a majority unscientific vote of ignorant coaches of bad teams, they are more FUNN for hypothetical spectators...questions with wrong answers fit all of those premises too! I think Questions Galore and all of its indistinguishable sister companies know their market fairly well.
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by STPickrell »

fishsaidfred wrote:
Deesy Does It wrote:What on earth do you mean?
I assume Shawn means questions with factually correct content.
Yes.

5. Sally Ride was beaten by some twenty years by what Russian who was the first woman in space?
ANSWER: Valentina Tereshkova

While this is not a good question by any means (for Missouri I'd put in a clue or two that implied she was in space and she was Russian, for VHSL I'd put in another couple clues about her life before or after going into space), it is correct, and in being so is a better question than the QG example cited earlier.

I believe the 'bad coaches want six-word questions with incorrect answers' is as much a bogeyman as the 'pyramidal is TEH IMPOSSIBLE!' bogeyman presented by buzzer-beater partisans.

I'm inclined to think that everyone wants questions that are factually correct, and might be willing to pay a small premium for that.
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) »

Apparently not, since I'm pretty sure CBI is exorbitantly costly.
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by Tegan »

STPickrell wrote:I'm inclined to think that everyone wants questions that are factually correct, and might be willing to pay a small premium for that.

SP, I would nominally agree with you on this .... however my experience in coaching against some coaches .... some of whom are the very same who want the short questions in the first place .... are not real sticklers for correct answers. I have seen enough of these coaches get very quiet when someone is arguing for a correct answer to be allowed ..... even if it is something up their alley. In short, and I find this sad, they will take anything they can to get their team a win, as long as it doesn't involve directly cheating or working. These coaches are thankfully the minority, and they are the lowest of the low. At least an overt cheater (whom I have really never seen) you figure they at least have some desire to win to the point they will risk something for it. Some of these coaches will take a win anyway they can get it ... even if it means enforcing the on-paper answer or "Moops" when everyone in the room knows the answer is "Moors" (or not accepting "Ceres" when the on-paper answer of "cereal" is so obviously wrong).
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by the return of AHAN »

Nathan,
Do you have copies of those questions? If you're going with SAS to Antioch, can you bring me a set this weekend? I'd REALLY like to plop those down on the table this June and perhaps initiate the first serious discussion regarding the quality of QG. There once was a time when QG, under different ownership, wrote decent toss-ups that generated few complaints. People were grateful to be done with Global Press and things were fine. I think, as has been pointed out before, change will need to be incremental. I say the first volley I'd like to fire is to eliminate 'consumer economics' since it has become a place for FUNN questions about the color of labels on products in grocery stores, name brands of products, etc. If the State questions, which are reviewed by a comittee of retired coaches and moderators, have the kinds of issues you raised, I'll be surprised. On the other hand, I'll be sure to prod Julie to find out just how much editing the sets required. Even if the sets are good for state (by IESA standards), I might still argue that they're taking unfair advantage of their position as state series writer to sell questions of poor quality to the masses that feel like they NEED to hear QG so they can be 'ready' when state series rolls around. The problem is, I need to be ready to offer a solution if I'm going to gripe.
In the meantime, feast your eyes on these parts of a bonus question asked today in conference play (written by, yes, QG)...
Identify the college or uninversity identified by the following sets of initials:
A.) U.S.C.
B.) M.I.T.
C.) T.C.U.
D.) U.N.C.
E.) S.M.U.

This is so potentially hose-ariffic... I was relieved that my kids said University of Southern California and not University of South Carolina (which is what they call themselves: USC), when I could clearly hear them debating between the two during conference time. And no, South Carolina was not an alternate answer on the page. I like the wrong answers given by both teams; Texas Central University, Southern Minnesota University, you get the idea. I'm sure there are other real life examples to fit the others. But again, here we go with, "What am I thinking now?" question writing.
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by Stained Diviner »

The problem is, I need to be ready to offer a solution if I'm going to gripe.
Feel free to use my name and state that I will take care of anything that needs taking care of.

It won't matter, though. If the IESA is anything like the IHSA, they will not get out of a contract. Also, there will be people on the Advisory Committee who claim that Sally Ride was the first woman astronaut, that all questions should be like the Little Havana one, and that it's important for students to learn which colors are associated with which brand names. Still, it is a good idea to bring the matter up, because in three years the contract will be up, and if the IESA has not heard any complaints they will extend it five years.
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by Stephen Colbert »

BarringtonJP wrote:Nathan,
Do you have copies of those questions? If you're going with SAS to Antioch, can you bring me a set this weekend?
I do still have copies of the questions, but I won’t be at Antioch. I will probably go to watch the state tournament and I’ll definitely be moderating at Northlawn’s all-star tournament if you’re sending players this year. If not, I’m sure I could find some way to get you them before June.

To be completely fair, I haven’t seen a lot of QG stuff this year, so my opinion is based on relatively few rounds. I really think they seriously suffer from mass-producing such a huge quantity of questions without any regard for quality. These particular sets are labeled in the 120’s & 180’s, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re spewing out at least 200 rounds of 30/20 a year. The result is a high percentage of either really poorly written or really trashy questions. There are some good toss-ups in the mix, but they’re lost amid so much garbage. The same is true for bonuses; there’s a huge distribution of really bad trash, bonuses that are either impossibly difficult or incredibly easy, and finally a handful of decent stuff. There were several matches where we would have three to five more toss-ups than the other team, but the variability of bonus difficulty kept the matches really close. I realize that some variability is going to happen at this level, but it never really seemed to even itself out over time. The biggest problem, however, is that change is never going to happen at this level when such a large percentage of coaches are genuinely happy with their questions.
I say the first volley I'd like to fire is to eliminate 'consumer economics' since it has become a place for FUNN questions about the color of labels on products in grocery stores, name brands of products, etc.
I don’t mind consumer economics when it’s good, but here are some examples (from this tournament) of what it’s become…presidents on currency, animal logo on Aussie hair products, fill-in the product slogan blanks, nuts in candy bars, name the type of product from the brand name, maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s ____, name the food chain where you can get these signature items, legendary dolls that aren’t Barbie, soft drink flavors, Sloppy Joe sauce, most popular flower, product slogans again, sponsors of TLC shows, and name the flavor from the color of the can of Pringles.
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by Tegan »

BarringtonJP wrote:Identify the college or uninversity identified by the following sets of initials:
A.) U.S.C. yadda
Back where I grew up .... UCLA was the "University Closest to LaGrange Avenue" (aka Moraine Valley Community College)
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by Tegan »

Perhaps I am getting myself in trouble, but there have been years when I read IESA Sectionals, got the questions, and gutted them. I tried to keep the questions relatively the same, but I chopped the hoses as best I could. I felt I had an ethical responsibility to the players and coaches ..... I of course did not do it because I was worried about the kids' emotional state, because I WILL make kids cry!

I did contact my conduit into QG today ..... I am hoping that some very straight talk will get through to the ownership, and very soon. I am certain this is far too late to do anything for the IESA state series.

I can pass on what worked at the IHSA: contact coaches who care ...... and get them to write letters to the IESA AdCo. Coaches of teams who place at state work best, because it becomes too easy to dismiss anyone else as "sour grapes for losing." What eventually pushed the IHSA over was the complaints. They eventually got to the point where "enough is enough". It would help even more if the representatives sending letters were also geographically diverse, as this helps defeat anyone saying "This is only people from the north, or from Chicago, etc)."

I will write a letter to the IESA as well. I have some connection to working with Julie. My letter will carry very little weight. I will try to make a case that changes need to be made in this regard. The coaches will carry weight. I've never heard of it before, but maybe even players writing letters would carry weight (again, teams who advance and win carry the weight of not being dismissed).
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by STPickrell »

Stephen Colbert wrote:I really think they seriously suffer from mass-producing such a huge quantity of questions without any regard for quality. These particular sets are labeled in the 120’s & 180’s, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re spewing out at least 200 rounds of 30/20 a year.
My own questions have suffered from a drop in quality after taking on the Missouri contract, so this is entirely probable.
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) »

Maybe that's because for some reason you decided it was a good idea to remove the really hard clues and make all your questions less than 3 lines in TNR size 12 font with larger than normal margins.
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by Howard »

Easy, Charlie. That probably has something to do with the way the contract was written and what was specified to Mr. Pickrell. The example
STPickrell wrote:5. Sally Ride was beaten by some twenty years by what Russian who was the first woman in space?
ANSWER: Valentina Tereshkova
is an excellent one. Colbert's examples are all just plain bad questions, and I think that has little to do with the fact they're not pyramidal.
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) »

Actually, no it didn't when the contract was written. better luck next time.
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by Golran »

Tegan wrote:
BarringtonJP wrote:Identify the college or uninversity identified by the following sets of initials:
A.) U.S.C. yadda
Back where I grew up .... UCLA was the "University Closest to LaGrange Avenue" (aka Moraine Valley Community College)
And around me UCLA used to mean "University on the Corner of Lexington Avenue" until I decided to go to University of California, Los Angeles.
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by Stained Diviner »

When the smog lifts, UCLA.
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by Golran »

WOW! That was the riddle that first got me interested in UCLA! On the 1st day of 7th grade we did a worksheet with the riddle "What happens the smog lifts over Los Angeles?", and so I looked into the school, and lo and behold, it has been my #1 dream (now a reality) school for the past 5 1/2+ years.
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by the return of AHAN »

OK, let's play a game of 'answer space'! Write pyramidal toss-ups around the following answers from regional round #1 in Illinois Middle School scholastic bowl. Ready? Let's play!

1.) (Grammar) SENTENCE
2.) (History) ABRAHAM LINCOLN
3.) (Life Science) OVARY
4.) (Sports) 162
5.) (Geometry Computation) 339 cm squared
6.) (Current Events) GORDON BROWN
7.) (Literature) ANDROCLES
8.) (Physical Science) ELASTICITY
9.) (General Math Computation) 1,440
10.) (Music) CARNEGIE HALL
11.) (Spelling) A-N-N-I-H-I-L-A-T-E-D
12.) (Geography) MONGOLIA
13.) (Computers) REGISTRY
14.) (Agriculture) DUCKS
15.) (Earth Science) CONDENSATION
16.) (Civics) ARTICLE 3
17.) (Geometry) ACUTE
18.) (TV & Movies) STEVE CARELL
19.) (General Science) JOSEPH LISTER
20.) (Vocabulary) HONEST
21.) (Geography) NAIROBI
22.) (Physical Science) SOLUTION
23.) (Art) LEONARDO DAVINCI
24.) (Vocabulary) CHORTLE or CHORTLED
25.) (General Math Computation) $13.41
26.) (Life Science) VILLI
27.) (Literature) "SOUNDER"
28.) (History) AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY WAR
29.) (Industrial Arts) WARPING or WARP
30.) (Algebra Computation) 53

The winner gets a Tom Egan-autographed copy of the IESA Rulebook, and his empty bottle of Dasani used while moderating live competition! :yay:

Good luck to all contestants!
Jeff Price
Barrington High School Coach (2021 & 2023 HSNCT Champions, 2023 PACE Champions, 2023 Illinois Masonic Bowl Class 3A State Champions)
Barrington Station Middle School Coach (2013 MSNCT Champions, 2013 & 2017 Illinois Class AA State Champions)
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by Stephen Colbert »

BarringtonJP wrote:12.) (Geography) MONGOLIA
Don't tell me you were spared from the awesomeness of the original twelfth toss-up:
Where do you put Odor Eaters?
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by the return of AHAN »

OH! SNAP! I saw that was x'd out on the packet with a note to replace it with replacement TU from the yellow placet.... But I thought perhaps it was just something that came down from the IESA because the original question... well... it speaks for itself.
This can only mean one thing; Mr. Egan's moderating services were worth every nickel and then some! :grin:
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by Tegan »

Under the elastic clause, granting me exclusive authority to conduct the match, I felt it extremely necessary to remove that question on general principle. I felt that the replacement was not going to give either team an advantage. I suppose it may get me a lifetime ban from ever moderating in the IESA again, but I will live with that, should it come to that.

I suppose that I could have replaced like every question, but there are limits to what I can physically do.
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by the return of AHAN »

No need to apologize. Nay, I'm submitting your name to be put of the IESA State Series review committee!!
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by Golran »

BarringtonJP wrote:OK, let's play a game of 'answer space'! Write pyramidal toss-ups around the following answers from regional round #1 in Illinois Middle School scholastic bowl. Ready? Let's play!

1.) (Grammar) SENTENCE
2.) (History) ABRAHAM LINCOLN
3.) (Life Science) OVARY
4.) (Sports) 162
5.) (Geometry Computation) 339 cm squared
6.) (Current Events) GORDON BROWN
7.) (Literature) ANDROCLES
8.) (Physical Science) ELASTICITY
9.) (General Math Computation) 1,440
10.) (Music) CARNEGIE HALL
11.) (Spelling) A-N-N-I-H-I-L-A-T-E-D
12.) (Geography) MONGOLIA
13.) (Computers) REGISTRY
14.) (Agriculture) DUCKS
15.) (Earth Science) CONDENSATION
16.) (Civics) ARTICLE 3
17.) (Geometry) ACUTE
18.) (TV & Movies) STEVE CARELL
19.) (General Science) JOSEPH LISTER
20.) (Vocabulary) HONEST
21.) (Geography) NAIROBI
22.) (Physical Science) SOLUTION
23.) (Art) LEONARDO DAVINCI
24.) (Vocabulary) CHORTLE or CHORTLED
25.) (General Math Computation) $13.41
26.) (Life Science) VILLI
27.) (Literature) "SOUNDER"
28.) (History) AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY WAR
29.) (Industrial Arts) WARPING or WARP
30.) (Algebra Computation) 53

The winner gets a Tom Egan-autographed copy of the IESA Rulebook, and his empty bottle of Dasani used while moderating live competition! :yay:

Good luck to all contestants!
I am up to the challenge! Already about 1/6th done, I should finish by the end of the week after APs! I want that rulebook!
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Re: The Great Middle School Pyramidal Experiment

Post by Mechanical Beasts »

BarringtonJP wrote: 2.) (History) ABRAHAM LINCOLN
3.) (Life Science) OVARY
7.) (Literature) ANDROCLES
8.) (Physical Science) ELASTICITY
10.) (Music) CARNEGIE HALL
14.) (Agriculture) DUCKS
15.) (Earth Science) CONDENSATION
23.) (Art) LEONARDO DAVINCI
26.) (Life Science) VILLI
28.) (History) AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY WAR
So it seems like more than half the set is going to be one or two lines. Should I balance that with some eight liners on these? No? Damn.
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