The Quizbowl Resource Center

are now available here.

Just curious, would it be possible for the category questions (difficulty and distro) to see the split between DI and DII results, or is that not possible with the way the survey is done?

(Basically, I'm really wondering where the 12% that believes 8.9% Fine Arts is WAY TOO MUCH and the 4% who think that ICT Philosophy is TOO EASY come from.)

So I think it's worth discussing a few of these results: hardness of literature and what the top four teams ppb should be.

1st point - I think that some of the literature questions are bit top-heavy, and that should be fixed; I just want to point out that it's not that the answer lines are too hard. For example, the "To His Coy Mistress" and Henry Adams tossups are perfectly fine if you just consider the answer line difficulty, but I think there needs to be better gradation of clues in both of those, especially in consideration of what the top and above average teams potentially know. I don't know if people who answered that survey are complaining about what I articulated or saying my tossup on Louis-Ferdinand Celine is too hard; I sure hope it's the former and boo-hoo if it's the latter.

2nd point - 20% of the field thinks that the top four teams ppb should be 25ppb - that's nuts. You really have to tone down bonus difficulty to the point of pretty much ACF Regionals if you want the top four teams to have a remote shot of hitting 25 ppb. (In fact, did any team break 25 ppb at Regionals this year?) Furthermore, NAQT requires knowledge in more topics than ACF Regionals - more current events, sports, geography, trash, etc - so much so that if you want the top 4 tams to have 25 ppb you have to make it significantly easier, to the point that you increase tournament variance.

Dead link: http://www.naqt.com/downloads/2014-ict-survey.pdf

fett0001 wrote:Dead link: http://www.naqt.com/downloads/2014-ict-survey.pdf

Link fixed.

Frater Taciturnus wrote:Just curious, would it be possible for the category questions (difficulty and distro) to see the split between DI and DII results, or is that not possible with the way the survey is done?

(Basically, I'm really wondering where the 12% that believes 8.9% Fine Arts is WAY TOO MUCH and the 4% who think that ICT Philosophy is TOO EASY come from.)

Fine arts amount
Division I: 28% much more, 23% more, 36% same, 8% less, 5% much less
Division II: 13% much more, 24% more, 33% same, 13% less, 16% much less

Philosophy difficulty
Division I: 21% too hard, 77% about right, 2% too easy
Division II: 12% too hard, 83% about right, 5% too easy