Generalist

[arjunvivekraj21]

I had a quick question, how do I become a better generalist? I do really well in literature/history sometimes but I don't do as well in other categories, is it just reading more packets and just learning multiple categories at once like you do with any other category or is there a different strategy? I would appreciate any advice, thank you :D.

[Krik? Krik?! KRIIIIK!!!]

Hey Arjun! Good question. I'll give you the advice that I give a lot of high schoolers when they ask me where to start with becoming better generalists or just picking up a lot of points. It is very easy to go from a 10 PPB team to a 15 PPB team. That's, on average, pulling the easy part each time and a medium part every other time. At the high school level, I really don't think this is hard to do. The canon, while it feels really big, is somewhat repetitive, with the same content coming up every single tournament. I will guarantee you that at whatever tournament you go to in high school, there will be, say, a question of Chinua Achebe or Gabriel García Márquez. A five minute read of a plot summary of their major books (Things Fall Apart and One Hundred Years of Solitude respectively) will nab you a good buzz or a 20 on a bonus. Further reading might be needed to get, say, a first-line or a 30 though.

I say this because to be a good generalist, you have to be the player who can consistently get mid-question buzzes across all categories and 20 bonuses. If you're good at certain categories, maybe early buzzes and 30s are more up your alley there, but its unrealistic to go into the competition thinking you alone with get every content area early.

Since you said you like literature and history, let's say you want to get better at mythology and religion. Where would you start? Well, for one, you probably already have a lot of knowledge given the overlap of these subjects into everyday life and other categories. Your job should be to comb through something like qbreader at a certain difficulty and see what answerlines AND clues come up. For instance, Anansi commonly comes up in housewrites, but also seems to go late whenever I read a question locally about him. Spending 5 minutes and learning some of the basics (the sky god Nyame, the different creatures he had to trick and capture, etc) will get you a lot of points. At high school regs difficulty, the Islam content is fairly limited in scope - at least on tossups. You'll like see questions on the Qur'an, Muhammad, Mecca, the Ka'aba maybe, etc. This isn't a guarantee, but these are topics that have come up again and again and even having a surface level understanding at HS regs difficulty can turn into some really good buzzes.

So that's my advice: look for what comes up every single tournament through like qbreader or NAQT's frequency lists (NAQT certainly has topics they really like to ask about again and again), aim for 20ing bonuses at first, then go from there!

[arjunvivekraj21]

Alright Thank you Ganon for the advice! Just to make sure I understand what you meant, go through qbreader or packets at a certain difficulty, see what comes up and try to learn about them for about 5-10 minutes and try to aim to get the easy and medium part on bonuses?

[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 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. You can also use 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

[Good Goblin Housekeeping]

I've never placed at middle school nationals (by virtue of never playing it) but I'm also not a complete chump and I'd like to think sometimes my advice can occasionally be useful.

You first gotta ask yourself "how good do I actually want to be?" - I think you'll find that you'll somewhat subconsciously find it easier to pick up certain things based on if you mentally think yo uneed to learn it. Otherwise just read a lot of packets! There's a ton of stuff on qbreader, some people are sickos who physically print out paper packets and use those, but just expose yourself to a lot of stuff and what comes up becomes more apparent after some time. You can study through just "looking up what clues come up a lot on a packet archive" or just by playing/reading a lot of questions - if you approach it w/ the intent of picking up more clues, you will eventually find yourself doing well in a generalist sense as long as you're just consistent about picking stuff up.

Being willing to "study up" in difficulty can often be quite helpful too.

Otherwise just be open minded and interested in learning more stuff. Finding people who also want to get better can sometimes be helpful both for friendly rivalry or just to talk about stuff w/

If you want to go full sicko mode you can always listen to a bunch of old HSNCT podcasts too - some people (myself included) find it easier to remember a fact/clue if I hear someone else knows about it

(Note taking's generally pretty helpful as well, some sort of repetition or way to expose yourself to material is helpful for retention too. Flashcarding software is the hot stuff these days but "just reading a ton of questions" is another way to do so that doesn't restrict you to only what you've studied but your mileage is going to vary drastically.)

[quizbowlchamp1]

listen to a bunch of old HSNCT podcasts too - some people (myself included) find it easier to remember a fact/clue if I hear someone else knows about it

I have done this so many times. It sounds stupid, but it's so helpful. My power rate went up 20% just from listening to it.

[Metacarpal]

Also, do NOT use protobowl unless you’re looking for a random fun thing to do. Qbreader is better in every way.

[quizbowlcaptain]

Trust me when I say this, I play with quizbowlchamp1 and his advice is very good.

[quizzical1]

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 Canon.

QBReader is better. I also sometimes feel like the two don't help since rereading it helps stamp it out, and a random fact that you will forget doesn't.

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.

Definitely. I agree 100%

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. You can also use 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.

And these too. I am currently writing themed packets, say, for example, rivers or celestial moons. These help a ton, since you research and write it.

[quizbowlcaptain]

Another great thing to use are the You Gotta Know study guides on NAQT and the Qwiz5 study guides.

[SomeArkansan]

Arkansas doesn't use NAQT format questions, so my experience may just be completely different from yours, but I averaged over 200 ppg in my last junior high event and 122 in my first high school one. So I may be able to help.

1) Reading practice sets. It's cliche, I know. But a ton of questions will be recycled, especially from one year to the next.

2) NAQT You Gotta Know. It's in the name. You have to know those things to be successful in the NAQT formatted tournaments.

3) QBreader is a great resource. I recommend playing yourself tho because there are trolls and hyper-sweats on the multiplayer site lol. Maybe get a friend or two in a private game. There is also a bonus reading option.

4) Listen to old games. they don't even have to be NAQT formatted. There are NAQT audio files on their site and on YouTube, though, if you insist on them being in the NAQT format. There are also PACE NSC videos on YouTube.

[SomeArkansan]

QBReader is better. I also sometimes feel like the two don't help since rereading it helps stamp it out, and a random fact that you will forget doesn't.

What I like to do is study the packets from the hsquizbowl database, then input those into QBReader and use that. I also find that writing things down by hand is huge for retention, at least in my case. I have a folder of handwritten notes from the NAQT You Gotta Knows. I've covered Enzymes, modernist authors, and celestial moons thus far, as this is a newer endeavor for me.