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Truman State Spring Tournament -- March 1, 2008

Tournament announcements, results, and discussion about specific tournaments.
NKCtrashman
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Truman State Spring Tournament -- March 1, 2008

Post by NKCtrashman »

That's why I don't like college quizbowl.
I hate to break it to ya but thats what nationals are like. If you guys want to be nationally competitive you gotta know that stuff. Maybe you guys are ok with playing local teams repeatedly and feel that winning a state title is the limit of quiz bowl. But it would do the state a lotta good to strive for nationals. That doesn't go for just Kirksville but also teams like Ladue and SLU High who could represent Missouri well if they traveled more. The questions at Truman State were not to hard just look at the scores of teams at Georgia who played on the sets(especially Dorman).

As for math in college, math calculations basically don't exist. I can see why you wouldn't like that (neither does Grant) but math speed is something that is hard to teach. It is something innate more than it is something you learn. Charles and i can do most of the math that is presented in tournaments but we just cant work with numbers that fast.

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Charlie Dees
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Truman State Spring Tournament -- March 1, 2008

Post by Charlie Dees »

Yeah, the reason that calculation has been fully abandoned in college is because it doesn't test depth of knowledge - I am a perfect example of a player who understands math well enough to figure out what the formula is that I need to do, or who can do pretty well on questions about theoretical math (both of which, by any reasonable standard, means I know what's going on), but no matter what it is just impossible for me to quickly calculate it all. Does that mean I know less about the topic than a player who can figure out what all the numbers actually come up with when you plug them in? Of course not, it just means they are innately faster at plugging in those numbers.

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redliberte
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Truman State Spring Tournament -- March 1, 2008

Post by redliberte »

ashkenaziCD wrote: Yeah, the reason that calculation has been fully abandoned in college is because it doesn't test depth of knowledge - I am a perfect example of a player who understands math well enough to figure out what the formula is that I need to do, or who can do pretty well on questions about theoretical math (both of which, by any reasonable standard, means I know what's going on), but no matter what it is just impossible for me to quickly calculate it all. Does that mean I know less about the topic than a player who can figure out what all the numbers actually come up with when you plug them in? Of course not, it just means they are innately faster at plugging in those numbers.
QFT. math calculations aren't hard... there wasn't a single person on our team that couldn't do them, but being able to do them within the time limits of quizbowl is something different entirely... as brandon says, it's not a teachable skill, but decidedly innate.

FZW Coach
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Truman State Spring Tournament -- March 1, 2008

Post by FZW Coach »

Should quizbowl have an aspect of skill, as you would find in other sports? Or is it entirely about what you can be taught?

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Charlie Dees
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Truman State Spring Tournament -- March 1, 2008

Post by Charlie Dees »

Good quizbowl should be entirely about rewarding the team who has deeper knowledge of the subject being asked.

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Truman State Spring Tournament -- March 1, 2008

Post by FZW Coach »

That sounds well and good if the subject being asked is clearly defined.

When I played Bible Quiz, we would quiz over one book or two shorter books. One year we quizzed over Luke. So, yes the team that knew Luke the best and and the best quiz instincts won nationals. It is still a combination deal, though.

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Charlie Dees
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Truman State Spring Tournament -- March 1, 2008

Post by Charlie Dees »

Huh?

AShoaib
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Truman State Spring Tournament -- March 1, 2008

Post by AShoaib »

I think Mr. Gibbs is trying to say that knowledge AND a good "instinct"/"ability to predict where the question is going to go" are the keys to a good team and should be rewarded by good QB.

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Charlie Dees
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Truman State Spring Tournament -- March 1, 2008

Post by Charlie Dees »

Oh, so that's just defending lateral thinking? See, lateral thinking has little to no place in quizbowl.

KentB
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Truman State Spring Tournament -- March 1, 2008

Post by KentB »

That's true, Abdullah, but I think the overall question here is whether "skill" should be rewarded as well as knowledge. Skill, I think in this case, is defined by ability to do rapid math calculations and have amazing thumbing abilities on the buzzer? I am not sure where this thread is going and whether this will turn into a pyramidal vs. buzzer-race debate again or what is really going on here..... I'm kind of confused at the arguments on all sides, actually.

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L-Town Expatriate
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Truman State Spring Tournament -- March 1, 2008

Post by L-Town Expatriate »

ashkenaziCD wrote: Oh, so that's just defending lateral thinking? See, lateral thinking has little to no place in quizbowl.
Not sure if I'm talking about lateral thinking here, but...

One key thing to have in quiz bowl is the ability to make connections between subjects. Case in point: studying a copious list of Greek and Latin prefixes and suffixes provides a gunkload of help when it comes to biology, psychology, chemistry, linguistics, political science, geology, mythology, sociology, etc. etc.

The ability to deduce an answer, in terms of earning points and kicking someone's butt, is about as valued, albeit ultimately generating less rewards, is still key to winning games. It's what would kick in during a clutch situation.

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Charlie Dees
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Truman State Spring Tournament -- March 1, 2008

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Ravi Fernando
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Truman State Spring Tournament -- March 1, 2008

Post by Ravi Fernando »

That's one definition of "lateral thinking," but not necessarily what everyone but you is talking about (I agree with the thing about "clues" in your link though.) The point is that thinking (as opposed to just memorizing and recalling) is a part of quizbowl, whether you like it or not. As Einstein once said, the true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination; this imagination (aka thinking) really doesn't show up enough in quizbowl.

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L-Town Expatriate
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Truman State Spring Tournament -- March 1, 2008

Post by L-Town Expatriate »

Pulling answers out of the proverbial rump will always be a part of quiz bowl: generally rare, reviled by some, remembered fondly by others.

It's just like last-second three-pointers from mid-court that actually go in. They're still three-points, require more luck than skill, but they manage to make the highlight reel on the sports report even if the team that made it still wound up losing by a double-digit margin. The guy that made it will be remembered for that shot, and pretty much that shot only.

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Truman State Spring Tournament -- March 1, 2008

Post by FZW Coach »

If only knowledge is to be rewarded, then everything should just be a pencil and paper test. Obviously these academic competitions do exist (in fact we will have a special speaker at the MACA convention this year telling us about one they do in Rolla and at McKendree College . . . and maybe other places . . it is one of which I am not familiar), but they are not nearly as popular as quiz bowl or as fun.

Actually, another competition like this is World Quest (a competition about world events) which is designed like a trivia night. Westminster won the competition this year in St. Louis and will compete at Nationals sometime soon (I think).

So, sure knowledge can be rewarded, but you certainly would not have a message board like this if it was only knowledge. Eh . . . maybe you would. I guess Ken Jennings gets some responses on his message board about his weekly trivia quizzes.

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Charlie Dees
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Truman State Spring Tournament -- March 1, 2008

Post by Charlie Dees »

See, maybe you should read some really good questions (check out, say, ACF regionals 2006) to see why that's not actually true. You can have quizbowl questions that test actual depth of knowledge and don't reward lateral thinking, speed, or any other "skill" besides knowing things.

KentB
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Truman State Spring Tournament -- March 1, 2008

Post by KentB »

I think the argument though is that "lateral thinking" questions, such as many of the NAQutie-style questions are fun AND test knowledge. Thus, these questions are "rewarding." I will not argue against the 2006 Regionals set being great and an almost-perfect example of what "good" quizbowl should be in my personal opinion. However, I do not feel that it is necessary to discount other forms of competition as long as we recognize them for what they are, not completely knowledge-based. I agree with Chuq here that knowledge-based questions ARE compatible with quiz bowl as we know it and that set is a good example. Helping Missouri move toward this level of play, which is on par with the difficulty and depth of knowledge expected in the more competitive regions of the countries, is something I think we should shoot for in order to raise our own standards as a state.

It's a whole different issue whether this particular tournament was effective in moving toward this goal or whether more baby steps are needed? Obviously, NKC was already accustomed to tournaments such as this but for the rest of the field it came as a slight difficulty shock, I think. Progressing the average question quality throughout the state will be very difficult when many tournaments still promote companies of ill-repute. Although they are more expensive, more NAQT tournaments may be the way to go to ease the state into competing on a national scale. Shawn's questions have been doing well for this goal as well but I believe he has said he will be discontinuing writing conference sets next year and I don't blame him. He already has a lot on his plate.

By this time next year, I hope that we will have re-established the CCOMBB or some semblance of it in an attempt to raise the quality of academic competition throughout the state. While I don't necessarily mean that we will resume writing questions ourselves, we will work to bring quality question sets to Missouri through mirrors and other means. I'm just throwing that out there now but expect a lot of brainstorming and ideas to be in the works in the next few months to determine how to more reasonably ease Missouri into national prominance.

The sink or swim attitude can only get you so far. We are dealing with a much bigger issue than simply question preference in the attitude many of the schools have toward learning beyond or stretching the cirriculum. Keeping up with the national difficulty level of quiz bowl starts in the schools. It requires teachers to challenge students to not just stop at the class notes and to take some personal initiative to learn more about difficult topics. This is especially important in smaller schools that can't offer some of these diverse topics as actual courses.

I would conclude this post but I am le tired. I hope this makes sense.

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Truman State Spring Tournament -- March 1, 2008

Post by FZW Coach »

No, no, no.

There was no problem (well not really) with the questions at the tournament (particularly the first 5). For us, we had to play Charles Dees (or NKC), Savannah, and a hot Kirksville team (coming off a great game where they demolished our B team).

Back to the issue at hand, I agree that pyramidal questions will reward knowledge. However, there is still quiz instincts involved. There are going to be so many questions where everyone knows the answer at the same spot (this happened to us Saturday and Charles Hang was better at buzzing at these words). This would happen with any set. Yes, there are early clues, but not everyone is an expert in every field.

I don't know . . . to me it seems like commmon sense . . . otherwise we would have no sport and just take tests.

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Charlie Dees
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Truman State Spring Tournament -- March 1, 2008

Post by Charlie Dees »

On the stats- how do you explain the top ranked small school only getting 120 points per game then? None of them had to play NKC or Savannah or Kirksville?
More later.

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