Studying for MS qb

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Greenwood_Satvik26
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Studying for MS qb

Post by Greenwood_Satvik26 »

Hello, first-time poster here. I am currently an 8th grader that is playing on our school's Freshman team as the second-best scorer. I have just started to take studying seriously as we have regionals in 2 weeks. I have been taking notes on packet reading and doing a bit of carding. I have been using protobowl to absorb some lit topics (I know protobowl is controversial but our lit player, who is our highest scorer, will not be at the tournament.) I was wondering if any people here have any helpful links or advice. I have been using quizdb to write some clues too. Any advice would be greatly appreciated and I need to absorb knowledge fast. I feel like the packets I've been reading are too complex for junior high (if that makes any sense at all) Regionals are a big deal for me and it will hopefully let us qualify for state. I live in Arkansas btw.

Edit: I have read many of the threads in the Theory forum and they were extremely helpful.
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cchiego
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Re: Studying for MS qb

Post by cchiego »

Glad to see someone from Arkansas middle school quizbowl on the forums!

If Arkansas is still using Questions Unlimited (QU) as their question supplier, the best preparation will almost certainly be reading old questions previously used at Arkansas middle school regionals before if your school has access to those. Even if most of the questions aren't verbatim repeats from previous years (and some might be; see this example from 2015), reading the old questions helps to get an idea of what topics the QU question-writers are most interested in and especially how they phrase questions. You might get the most benefit from a simple binary-matching author-work flashcard approach then, but preparing will still require a considerable bit of mind-reading of what the QU writers want, so it makes sense to read old questions. You can read more about Criticisms of QU on the QBwiki.

It's great that you are studying the pyramidal quizbowl questions freely available online. As you note, pyramidal questions tend to be longer and involve more clues than QU questions. You can still learn much in the way of specific information from reading these questions though. Just select the difficulty on QuizDB to Middle School level and keep going through those to practice. Question-writing is a great way to study too and it's good that you're working on that as well.

Though I know state is a very big deal in Arkansas and teams spend a great deal of time preparing for the regionals/state competitions, you may want to eventually see if you can attend some quizbowl events in Oklahoma or SW Missouri on pyramidal if you get a chance (I know Greenwood also has a very solid HS team) since those questions would likely reward this kind of study and preparation that you're admirably doing now.
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Greenwood_Satvik26
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Re: Studying for MS qb

Post by Greenwood_Satvik26 »

Thank you very much! If you don't mind, could you link some Arkansas regionals packets if you have any?
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Atlashill
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Re: Studying for MS qb

Post by Atlashill »

cchiego wrote: Thu Feb 03, 2022 10:17 pm Though I know state is a very big deal in Arkansas and teams spend a great deal of time preparing for the regionals/state competitions, you may want to eventually see if you can attend some quizbowl events in Oklahoma or SW Missouri on pyramidal if you get a chance (I know Greenwood also has a very solid HS team) since those questions would likely reward this kind of study and preparation that you're admirably doing now.
I will echo the suggestion about tournaments in Southwest Missouri. The circuit in that part of the state has grown by leaps and bounds the past five years, and it is seeping into the middle school ranks. It would certainly be worth the drive through the Bobby Harper Tunnel and across the line to consider attending events hosted by Clever, Springfield Kickapoo, and others.

I'll encourage you and your cohorts to check out the schedule of events on the Missouri Quizbowl Alliance website. Tournaments listed here have affirmed to the alliance that they will schedule at least seven rounds of competition on pyramidal questions and with round-robin preliminaries. I hope Greenwood and other Arkansas teams along the I-49/US-71 corridor will make the drive north, or log onto any virtual events that may also develop in the coming years.
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Greenwood_Satvik26
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Re: Studying for MS qb

Post by Greenwood_Satvik26 »

I'll encourage you and your cohorts to check out the schedule of events on the Missouri Quizbowl Alliance website. Tournaments listed here have affirmed to the alliance that they will schedule at least seven rounds of competition on pyramidal questions and with round-robin preliminaries. I hope Greenwood and other Arkansas teams along the I-49/US-71 corridor will make the drive north, or log onto any virtual events that may also develop in the coming years.
Will definitely look into this.
Satvik Vuluvala Greenwood Jr High
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quizzical1
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Re: Studying for MS qb

Post by quizzical1 »

Greenwood_Satvik26 wrote: Thu Feb 03, 2022 2:52 pm Hello, first-time poster here. I am currently an 8th grader that is playing on our school's Freshman team as the second-best scorer. I have just started to take studying seriously as we have regionals in 2 weeks. I have been taking notes on packet reading and doing a bit of carding. I have been using protobowl to absorb some lit topics
You should also use hsquizbowl packets and You Gotta Know lists also help.
(I know protobowl is controversial but our lit player, who is our highest scorer, will not be at the tournament.)
Protobowl is good in private rooms, bur kinda bad for ms ngl
I was wondering if any people here have any helpful links or advice. I have been using quizdb to write some clues too. Any advice would be greatly appreciated and I need to absorb knowledge fast. I feel like the packets I've been reading are too complex for junior high (if that makes any sense at all) Regionals are a big deal for me and it will hopefully let us qualify for state. I live in Arkansas btw.

Edit: I have read many of the threads in the Theory forum and they were extremely helpful.
Try finding book summaries online or asking your lit person for advice
Last edited by quizzical1 on Wed Oct 18, 2023 11:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Elliot L.
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quizbowlchamp1
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Re: Studying for MS qb

Post by quizbowlchamp1 »

I'm an MS Player who placed in the top 40 at nationals and I average over 100 points a game so hopefully this will help.

1) Protobowl. There are private and public servers for you to practice on. It doesn't always give the best questions, but playing it a lot for maybe 3 months will get you accustomed to the MS Canon.

2) Anki/Carding. This approach is perfect if you want to improve at lit. The best carding app is Anki, which uses a spaced repetition algorithm to evaluate how well you know your cards.

3) Notetaking. You can pick between this and carding. You should use both if you want to improve the fastest. I use a combo of Google Docs and Google Sheets.

4) Reading Questions. You can use the database housed on this website. There is also an app called QuizDB. It can be separated into categories, subcategories, and difficulties.

5) Writing Questions. Once you get more advanced, writing questions is a great way to improve. It makes you research specific topics and improves your knowledge of the canon.

For more information, refer to this forum https://hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=14099
Russ McGlaughn
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quizzical1
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Re: Studying for MS qb

Post by quizzical1 »

MS Protobowl isn't the best, since its very low question count. But QBReader is also useful. Anki is also extremely useful. I deeply recommend it.
Elliot L.
7th Grade
The Meadows School, NV
NAQT, IAC player
"Preparation is key"
Stats for my league at: lvqba.org
:party:
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