Question Writing
Doug O'Neal
> That is an extremely narrow-minded statement. Sure physics has had alot o
> impact on who and what we are today but someone can by a functioning person
> in society and contribute a great deal to it without knowing the least
> bit of physics.
The same could be said of just about any field of knowledge. You can be
a good business(wo)man without knowing jack about literature or art
history. You can be a good science teacher even though all you know about
economics is how much your paycheck is each month.
> On the other hand, ideas which are expressed through literature, plays
> and films and other media have long influenced society more than the study
> of physics. To know a culture best you have to understand its arts. That
> is why art history goes hand in hand with the study of the culture's history.
> You can't have one without the other.
The study of physics influences everything: without physics, there'd be no
modern (semi-)accurate weather forecasting, there'd be no computers, to
name two. In our post-Renaissance western culture, science is just as much
an integral part of that culture as the arts.
I basically wanted to reply to this point:
> When was the last time scientific knowledge was supressed? Now compare it
Today, in America, in public schools across the country. Many science
teachers are still wary of discussing Darwinian evolution.
> to the book bannings that are going on in the world today and even in our
> own contry. _Schindler's List_ was banned from Saudi Arabia. _Equus_
> remains controversial today.
> Look at the impact books like _The Jungle_ had on society. Sure physics
> causes technological revolutions which I am not downgrading and they are
> probably as important than literary revolutions. But I'd say on the whole,
> the arts have had more impact on society and vice-versa than physics has
> or could have.
Again, you're comparing two different things. The arts have had a great
impact on how society thinks, but modern physics has had a tremendous
impact on the way society works. Without quantum physics, we'd have no
computers, no information age, no communication satellites, no easy access
to information from across the globe that we take for granted today.
> Case in point. I wrote a good chunk of the packet for JMU's tourney (You
> many all shoot me now. :) and included questions on basic anthropology
> knowledge that I had in my Intro class. No one got the questions. This
> wasn't esoteric knowledge but stuff I've also had in a few other classes
> as well. One even included something on the two camps about the evolution
> of man which I had in my Intro to bio class as well. I wrote those questions
> for the "non-traditional" college bowl player. Roanoke B has a theater major
> on their team which loved my lighting instrument question but even someone
> who knew nothing about lighting could have gotten 2 parts of the question
> by educated guesses.
I agree that anthropology knowledge is pretty lacking, beyond whether
Java Man was an example of Homo Erectus or Homo Habilis. No one knew my
question on Teotihuacan at the NLIT, for instance, despite the fact that
it's one of THE major archaeological sites on this continent.
> Other questions that went unanswered were the one on the Skinner box,
> (I can't even count how many classes I've had that in) and one on
> utilitarianism which is basic ethics that is in all intro philosophy
> classes. We even had a question on Kant which went unanswered in my
> round. This is stuff that is intro level material in classes all good
> liberal arts core curriculums have.
All these things should be known by one of eight people on two good teams.
> It seems to me that sounds like you are trying to make college bowl an
> exclusive club. If you can't answer questions on physics, you shouldn't
> be in college bowl. Seeing that the people in college bowl don't know
> theater, one shouldn't write theater questions.
Questions on both subjects are just fine. If you don't know one of those
subjects, get someone on your team who does -- that's why teams have four
players.
> Why is it that sciene questions get more alottment than social sciences?
> Why should we not write questions that people aren't going to get? Isn't
> the purpose of college bowl to increase someone's knowlege as well as test
> it? Seems to me that if a team doens't collectively know the basics in
> almost all subject areas including theater, art, anth., arch., and phil
> then they aren't a good team. Basic theater questions should be as routine
> as basic phyiscs and a good team should be confortable with both.
I think, as Jim Dendy has said, good teams (even those from techie schools
like his) are indeed comfortable with most, if not all, of these subjects.
Basic physics IS fair game -- and that includes things like the questions
at NLIT that started this whole discussion.
> Wendel, who is a player on Roanoke's team, I think is an example of what
> a good college bowl player should be like. He is a history major but is
> extremely well read. He won't be able to answer the upper level hard
> science questions but in a good packet, there should be no more than 2
> of those kinds of questions and not enough so that a team who knows nothing
> about upper level science should loose the game. His kind of knowledge
> is the kind that one can get from being well read, as opposed to being
> a list memorizer. From also being a history major, he's probably had
> alot of cross-over classes and gotten a broader range of knoweldge than
> a science major would have.
Although there are a heck of a lot of science majors in this game who know
a lot about liberal arts-type subjects. And most, if not all, of the good
players are well-read people, not "list memorizers". There's also the fact
that at the NLIT, there were an average of only 3 tu's and 3 boni on
science per pack -- I doubt if all of those were "upper level".
> Another example, a packet from a "top team" had no questions on the social
> sciences or any other science except chem. and physics. That was a bad
> packet in my opinion. Ours wasn't perfectly balanced either but it covered
> a broader range of topics. On an evenly balanced packet, I'd wager the
> teams that normally don't do so well could give a "top team" a run for
> their money.
I'd wager that you're still under the mistaken belief that when a team
does bad it's because the questions aren't very good, just like the
athletes who blame the referees for their loss. An evenly-balanced, well-
composed packet would produce LESS "upsets" than a bad pack, since the
better team -- one with the broader and deeper distribution of knowledge --
would have a better chance, on average, on each question. It's the BAD
packets that produce low-scoring games where the lesser team has a
chance to pull a 95-90 upset or something.
> So all in all, if you want to increase the areas of knowledge in college
> bowl, write in areas that are under represented that you know that not alot
> of college bowlers will know about but that are still considered basic
> knowledge in their field. Maybe some day we'll have just as many psych,
> social science questions as physics/chem ones.
> Deb
Doug
Happy Samhain everyone!!!
Thomas Schmidt
Patrick G. Matthews <matt...@red.seas.upenn.edu> wrote:
>Debbie Fuller (DEB...@dirac.physics.jmu.edu) wrote:
(has no one else noticed this^^^^^^^ and thought of the irony of Ms. Fuller's
complaints: to wit, no PHysics, no posting from physics.jmu.edu?)
>One physics
>question out of ten total science questions is somewhat on the low side
>of what IMHO a desired intracategory science distribution ought to be.
Well, one wishes that Physics questions would be balanced between pre- and
post-Einstein. But why do you think that more than 10% of questions in the
science area must necessarily be Physics (you explain some below, but more
on that when we come to it.) Physicists have run the national science
establishment throughout the cold war, with obvious reasons: you can't nuke
the Russkies with genetically-engineered ballistic missiles. Methinks
the end of the cold war may lead to a reordering of the leadership, with
more emphasis on biotech, etc.
>>On the other hand, ideas which are expressed through literature, plays
>>and films and other media have long influenced society more than the study
>>of physics. To know a culture best you have to understand its arts. That
>>is why art history goes hand in hand with the study of the culture's history.
>>You can't have one without the other.
>I think you'd be hard pressed to demonstrate that literature has changed
>human society more than the study of physics. From the study of physics
>we get technology, IMHO by far the most important force at work in
>shaping society. Think about what applied physics has given us: fire, the
Well, let's not put the cart before the horse (I'd say confuse cause and
effect, but then I'd be tying myself to a philosophy predating much of
twentieth century science). For example, use the sample "Edison effect"
question, or consider Lee DeForrest: it is often doubtful that originators
of technology understand the physics that underlie it.
Which leads to a question: why is technology not a category in and of itself?
>designs. The wacky results of quantum physics may even have had an
>influence on early- and mid-20th Century authors and artists.
Which recalls also the social thoughts on determinism inspired by F=MA. Or
did those social thoughts on determinism lead to F=MA? "Social darwinism"
preceded darwin's theories, though Darwin still managed to shake the
comfortable bourgeois world of Victorian England.
>>When was the last time scientific knowledge was supressed? Now compare it
>>to the book bannings that are going on in the world today and even in our
>>own contry. _Schindler's List_ was banned from Saudi Arabia. _Equus_
>>remains controversial today.
that's right, the church JUST three years ago absolved Galileo...scientific
knowledge, Deb, is not so much suppressed as repressed.
>Scientific knowledge continues to be suppressed today, even if it's in
>more subtle ways than in the past. Before, scientists faced the
>Inquisition; nowadays, their grant proposals are refused for
>socio-political reasons. Different scale of suppression, but effective
there's a simple solution: stop depending on the public purse for research.
'Course that would kill most Physics research, but we'd still have chemical
companies, computer firms, etc. Who pays the piper...
>nonetheless. In addition, in many countries *today*, scientists who do
>not cooperate with the regime do so at great peril to themselves and/or
>their families.
Not to mention the scientists who have been assassinated by Mossad for
working on nuclear weapons... this last point deserves more prominence
than denial of funding, Pat.
>But just think about those technological changes: fire enabled our
>forebears to live in any climate. Before that, applied physics was used
>to make tools. Those australopithecines didn't know it, but they were the
>first people to study mechanical engineering and materials science,
Well...by that token, you'd need to call football practice Physics or
Calculus. Certainly, training to throw a football can be examined as an
attempt to solve an equation involving gravitation, wind speed and
a moving object. It's difficult, but that doesn't make Joe Montana one of
our foremost physicists. Science starts at the attempt to explain the
phenomenon, not just perfect or initiate it.
>On the *individual* level, NO ONE is saying this. But if, at the *team*
>level you're helpless on a physics question, the team has no one to blame
>but itself. There really is no excuse for team-wide blind spots; such
>deficiencies should properly be blamed on the players and not on the
>question writers.
The question again arises: what level of difficulty? Should you expect
every team to be able to answer senior-level physics? Does that expectation
extend to seminar-level history, etc?
My preference is for teams that have some knowledge of an area to get, say,
5 points, moderate knowledge, 15 points, deep knowledge 30 points. Done as
a 5/10/15, this is quite doable.
(for example: for 5 points, spell the first name--9 letters-- of the guy
who painted The Night Watch, and the Dutch Masters cigar box. For 10 pts,
spell his two-syllable 7 letter last name. For 15 more pts, spell his
middle name. EVERYONE oughta know of Rembrandt; people who know art history
oughta know Van Rijn; and people who know Rembrandt oughta know Harmenszoon)
YMMV.
> You don't have to be a science major to
>be competent on the science questions.
Well, you shouldn't need to be to get some points. Far worse than "stumping
the liberal-arts chump" though, is watching science-heavy teams get beat to
too-easy scientific tossups by lightweight teams. Neither should happen.
Tom
--
"Any escape might help to smooth the unattractive truth
but the suburbs have no charms to soothe the restless dreams of youth."
Thomas Schmidt
Doug O'Neal <on...@astro.psu.edu> wrote:
> Without quantum physics, we'd have no
> computers, no information age, no communication satellites, no easy access
> to information from across the globe that we take for granted today.
patible, was designed in the early 1800's, well before quantum physics.
Granted, wasn't built til recently, but it was still possible w/o QUANTUM
physics...
> I'd wager that you're still under the mistaken belief that when a team
> does bad it's because the questions aren't very good, just like the
> athletes who blame the referees for their loss. An evenly-balanced, well-
> composed packet would produce LESS "upsets" than a bad pack, since the
> better team -- one with the broader and deeper distribution of knowledge --
> would have a better chance, on average, on each question. It's the BAD
> packets that produce low-scoring games where the lesser team has a
> chance to pull a 95-90 upset or something.
Well, bad packets can still bring about scores of 350-180. I remember in
particular a packet all given to Washington DC trivia which I had the
misfortune to play against a team from Georgetown. Talk about unbalanced:
all we got were the questions releating to the author's otherlove,
Florida!
TMS
John Engelke
Furthermore, physics is an ancient science, the name itself derived from
"physos," the Greek word for nature. Both Aristotle and Ptolemy were
physicists, as well as Copernicus. Sanctioned by the Roman Catholic Church for
a millenia, the geo-centric world view existed beyond question. Physics created
this world view, as well as destroyed it. Over the past few hundred years, no
single academic investigation has altered our perceptions of the world more nor
changed human life to a greater extent than physics. We owe physics for
electricity, internal combustion (through thermodynamics), nuclear power, and
much, much more. Anyone who argues that physics is of little import is on very
shaky ground.
I have been part of a team and involved in coaching over the past few seasons.
One of the most adept players I have ever seen was a physics graduate student
from UC Santa Barbara. I think very esoteric physics questions add an element
of random luck to bunus questions. Sometimes no one can answer the questions;
however, other subjects can also be this way.
Furthermore, physics questions need not be at a graduate level. I once answered
a toss-up against Stanford that read something like: "This worker in a Swiss
patent office..." Of course, it referred to Einstein when he first conceived
his special theory of relativity.
Anyone who does not know who Copernicus, Newton or Einstein is is hurting. The
people are also hurting if they do not realize what Newton's Second Law is.
Physics questions can be a good way to weed out the people who possess
specialized knowledge over general knowledge. Now, that's an irony!
---
Email: jmen...@csupomona.edu
Debbie Fuller
> I think there is a very good reason why there should be at least one
> physics question per round. In the "great scheme of things" [tm] physics
> and the study of physics has had a very large impact on who and what we
> are today (I think this would be very hard to argue against). On the
> other hand, films and other such stuff (uh-oh, here come the flames) have
> not affected society as much.
That is an extremely narrow-minded statement. Sure physics has had alot of
impact on who and what we are today but someone can by a functioning person
in society and contribute a great deal to it without knowing the least
bit of physics.
On the other hand, ideas which are expressed through literature, plays
and films and other media have long influenced society more than the study
of physics. To know a culture best you have to understand its arts. That
is why art history goes hand in hand with the study of the culture's history.
You can't have one without the other.
When was the last time scientific knowledge was supressed? Now compare it
to the book bannings that are going on in the world today and even in our
own contry. _Schindler's List_ was banned from Saudi Arabia. _Equus_
remains controversial today.
Look at the impact books like _The Jungle_ had on society. Sure physics
causes technological revolutions which I am not downgrading and they are
probably as important than literary revolutions. But I'd say on the whole,
the arts have had more impact on society and vice-versa than physics has
or could have.
> Here's where I disagree. Unless the rounds are well-edited, that
> tournament will be swamped with meteorolgy and technical theatre
> questions. First, how does that fit into perspective with the other
> subjects? Second, how does that fit into perspective with the classes
> taught at most schools in the United States? Lastly, how has that
> influenced our society? Sure, some, but not as much as physics or
> painting for the most part.
I can tell you that at JMU and probably alot of other universities, there
will be more ppl involved with theater than with physics. Note I saw
involved with because there are probably about twice as many ppl who are
non-majors who are involved with theater than there are theater majors.
This is because ppl can learn theater without taking theater classes and
that many theater classes have few pre-requestists(sp?!?!). Many
theater classes also count as English classes esp. ones about Dramatic
literature and theory.
Physics, on the other hand, is mainly a major thing. Above 200 level
classes, you will probably only find physics majors. One also cannot
take an upper level physics class without having a slew of background
knowledge whereas many upper level classes in Theater and English have no
pre-reqs to them.
> Sorry, but she couldn't even remember what all eight were. And who else
> will? If you want more processes and concepts, sure, write more questions
> on processes and concepts. But don't go into stuff that most people
> couldn't get. Maybe we should come up with a new rule: if the Legion of
> Superheroes, Demolition, Georgia Tech, Maryland, Chicago, ... (and add
> your other five favorite teams) can't get a question (or thirty points
> together on a bonus), then there's probably something wrong with the
> question. I know, somebody will say that this will stifle the game, keep
> it close-minded, etc. Well, here's my reason for it. Simply put, if
> these teams can't get the question, who can? Sure, Bovine College may be
> able to beat Tech on a round exclusively on cows, but then again, cows
> haven't been an earth shattering change to our culture (unless you just
> domesticated them...I can imagine Neanderthals playing college bowl with
> rock buzzers a la Flintstones).
That asumption is total and utter BS. There are plenty of questions out
there that big name teams cannot get.
Case in point. I wrote a good chunk of the packet for JMU's tourney (You
many all shoot me now. :) and included questions on basic anthropology
knowledge that I had in my Intro class. No one got the questions. This
wasn't esoteric knowledge but stuff I've also had in a few other classes
as well. One even included something on the two camps about the evolution
of man which I had in my Intro to bio class as well. I wrote those questions
for the "non-traditional" college bowl player. Roanoke B has a theater major
on their team which loved my lighting instrument question but even someone
who knew nothing about lighting could have gotten 2 parts of the question
by educated guesses.
Other questions that went unanswered were the one on the Skinner box,
(I can't even count how many classes I've had that in) and one on
utilitarianism which is basic ethics that is in all intro philosophy
classes. We even had a question on Kant which went unanswered in my
round. This is stuff that is intro level material in classes all good
liberal arts core curriculums have.
I know more people that have heard of "The Blue Man Group" than of HUP. A
friend of mine who is a CS major even knew them because they have been on
numerous TV shows yet he didn't know HUP.
Last year we had a question in our packet on Atari 800 games that during
the round I was reading the questions I snickered and said, "I wonder if
Ramesh would know this?" It turned out he was watching on and shook his
head no. Not to knock Ramesh because I have a lot of respect for the man,
but we shouldn't use the top teams as an standard because there are plenty
of areas that they know nothing about.
> Social science is _not_ pure or applied science. It goes under another
> category. Look at Jim's specs for ACF Nationals, or even Swisdak's guide.
> I think that these guidelines are very reasonable. It's up to the
> question writers to add variety (These guidelines aren't unbendable...
> they're just guidelines). There's no rule that says "no meteorology, no
> theater" but, like I said, try to keep these things in perspective. How
> many people will be able to answer these questions? Is this relatively
> important or of some redeeming significance? Heck, I could write all day
> about Chinese grammar and Chinese paintings and Chinese sculptures and
> Chinese dynasties, and so on, but I know my teammates won't like it (Jim
> would kill me :) , other people won't like it, and probably no one could
> answer it. It'd be fine if I were in Taiwan, but not in America.
It seems to me that sounds like you are trying to make college bowl an
exclusive club. If you can't answer questions on physics, you shouldn't
be in college bowl. Seeing that the people in college bowl don't know
theater, one shouldn't write theater questions.
I think that college bowl should be trying to get an equal representation
of all the majors, not just science ones. If one was going for writing
questions for the most popular majors out there, not just the ones that
are represented in college bowl, I dare say they would be mainly business
English and psychology. How many business majors are on college bowl teams?
Why is it that sciene questions get more alottment than social sciences?
Why should we not write questions that people aren't going to get? Isn't
the purpose of college bowl to increase someone's knowlege as well as test
it? Seems to me that if a team doens't collectively know the basics in
almost all subject areas including theater, art, anth., arch., and phil
then they aren't a good team. Basic theater questions should be as routine
as basic phyiscs and a good team should be confortable with both.
Wendel, who is a player on Roanoke's team, I think is an example of what
a good college bowl player should be like. He is a history major but is
extremely well read. He won't be able to answer the upper level hard
science questions but in a good packet, there should be no more than 2
of those kinds of questions and not enough so that a team who knows nothing
about upper level science should loose the game. His kind of knowledge
is the kind that one can get from being well read, as opposed to being
a list memorizer. From also being a history major, he's probably had
alot of cross-over classes and gotten a broader range of knoweldge than
a science major would have.
Another example, a packet from a "top team" had no questions on the social
sciences or any other science except chem. and physics. That was a bad
packet in my opinion. Ours wasn't perfectly balanced either but it covered
a broader range of topics. On an evenly balanced packet, I'd wager the
teams that normally don't do so well could give a "top team" a run for
their money.
So all in all, if you want to increase the areas of knowledge in college
Patrick G. Matthews
>In <JQYT...@math.fu-berlin.de> ho...@cc.gatech.edu writes:
>> I think there is a very good reason why there should be at least one
>> physics question per round. In the "great scheme of things" [tm] physics
>> and the study of physics has had a very large impact on who and what we
>> are today (I think this would be very hard to argue against). On the
>> other hand, films and other such stuff (uh-oh, here come the flames) have
>> not affected society as much.
>That is an extremely narrow-minded statement. Sure physics has had alot of
>impact on who and what we are today but someone can by a functioning person
>in society and contribute a great deal to it without knowing the least
>bit of physics.
What Mr. Hong says above is eminently reasonable. Take, for example, the
CB question guidelines. These call for 4/4 science questions. Of those
eight science questions per packet, at least one really should be a
physics question. The ACF guide calls for, I believe, 5/5. One physics
question out of ten total science questions is somewhat on the low side
of what IMHO a desired intracategory science distribution ought to be.
>On the other hand, ideas which are expressed through literature, plays
>and films and other media have long influenced society more than the study
>of physics. To know a culture best you have to understand its arts. That
>is why art history goes hand in hand with the study of the culture's history.
>You can't have one without the other.
I think you'd be hard pressed to demonstrate that literature has changed
human society more than the study of physics. From the study of physics
we get technology, IMHO by far the most important force at work in
shaping society. Think about what applied physics has given us: fire, the
wheel, the basics of architecture, the Industiral Revolution (and all
machines and tools, for that matter). Physics has even contributed to the
arts: instrument makers had to study acoustics to find ideal instrument
designs. The wacky results of quantum physics may even have had an
influence on early- and mid-20th Century authors and artists.
>When was the last time scientific knowledge was supressed? Now compare it
>to the book bannings that are going on in the world today and even in our
>own contry. _Schindler's List_ was banned from Saudi Arabia. _Equus_
>remains controversial today.
Scientific knowledge continues to be suppressed today, even if it's in
more subtle ways than in the past. Before, scientists faced the
Inquisition; nowadays, their grant proposals are refused for
socio-political reasons. Different scale of suppression, but effective
nonetheless. In addition, in many countries *today*, scientists who do
not cooperate with the regime do so at great peril to themselves and/or
their families.
>Look at the impact books like _The Jungle_ had on society. Sure physics
>causes technological revolutions which I am not downgrading and they are
>probably as important than literary revolutions. But I'd say on the whole,
>the arts have had more impact on society and vice-versa than physics has
>or could have.
But just think about those technological changes: fire enabled our
forebears to live in any climate. Before that, applied physics was used
to make tools. Those australopithecines didn't know it, but they were the
first people to study mechanical engineering and materials science,
>> Here's where I disagree. Unless the rounds are well-edited, that
>> tournament will be swamped with meteorolgy and technical theatre
>> questions. First, how does that fit into perspective with the other
>> subjects? Second, how does that fit into perspective with the classes
>> taught at most schools in the United States? Lastly, how has that
>> influenced our society? Sure, some, but not as much as physics or
>> painting for the most part.
>I can tell you that at JMU and probably alot of other universities, there
>will be more ppl involved with theater than with physics. Note I saw
>involved with because there are probably about twice as many ppl who are
>non-majors who are involved with theater than there are theater majors.
>This is because ppl can learn theater without taking theater classes and
>that many theater classes have few pre-requestists(sp?!?!). Many
>theater classes also count as English classes esp. ones about Dramatic
>literature and theory.
>Physics, on the other hand, is mainly a major thing. Above 200 level
>classes, you will probably only find physics majors. One also cannot
>take an upper level physics class without having a slew of background
>knowledge whereas many upper level classes in Theater and English have no
>pre-reqs to them.
It depends on what you mean by "involved". Many engineering students will
have to take physics above the mid-level classes. It's also not
outlandish to see some chem students up there as well. In addition, while
there aren't as many *specific* prereqs for those English and/or theater
classes, there are certain skills that must be acquired before those
classes can be taken. Just as you don't take the senior seminar on
recent developments in quantum mechanics before tackling the basics, you
don't take Advanced Acting without prior experience and you don't take
300 level English classes without first mastering the art of
college-level writing.
[snip]
>Case in point. I wrote a good chunk of the packet for JMU's tourney (You
>many all shoot me now. :) and included questions on basic anthropology
>knowledge that I had in my Intro class. No one got the questions. This
>wasn't esoteric knowledge but stuff I've also had in a few other classes
>as well. One even included something on the two camps about the evolution
>of man which I had in my Intro to bio class as well. I wrote those questions
>for the "non-traditional" college bowl player. Roanoke B has a theater major
>on their team which loved my lighting instrument question but even someone
>who knew nothing about lighting could have gotten 2 parts of the question
>by educated guesses.
Anthro is, IMHO, an underrepresented category, but anthro more properly
should be classified as a social science question, not a "science" question.
There's nothing wrong with the other two questions you mentioned.
[snip]
>> Social science is _not_ pure or applied science. It goes under another
>> category. Look at Jim's specs for ACF Nationals, or even Swisdak's guide.
>> I think that these guidelines are very reasonable. It's up to the
>> question writers to add variety (These guidelines aren't unbendable...
>> they're just guidelines). There's no rule that says "no meteorology, no
>> theater" but, like I said, try to keep these things in perspective. How
>> many people will be able to answer these questions? Is this relatively
>> important or of some redeeming significance? Heck, I could write all day
>> about Chinese grammar and Chinese paintings and Chinese sculptures and
>> Chinese dynasties, and so on, but I know my teammates won't like it (Jim
>> would kill me :) , other people won't like it, and probably no one could
>> answer it. It'd be fine if I were in Taiwan, but not in America.
>It seems to me that sounds like you are trying to make college bowl an
>exclusive club. If you can't answer questions on physics, you shouldn't
>be in college bowl. Seeing that the people in college bowl don't know
>theater, one shouldn't write theater questions.
On the *individual* level, NO ONE is saying this. But if, at the *team*
level you're helpless on a physics question, the team has no one to blame
but itself. There really is no excuse for team-wide blind spots; such
deficiencies should properly be blamed on the players and not on the
question writers.
>I think that college bowl should be trying to get an equal representation
>of all the majors, not just science ones. If one was going for writing
>questions for the most popular majors out there, not just the ones that
>are represented in college bowl, I dare say they would be mainly business
>English and psychology. How many business majors are on college bowl teams?
Depends on where you are. Many schools don't *have* undergrad business
curricula. Penn has had at least one Wharton (business) student on its
regional team for the last four years, and has sometimes had two. BTW, as
a Finance and English major, I was responsible for PHYSICS and other
sciences when I was on the team. You don't have to be a science major to
be competent on the science questions.
>Why is it that sciene questions get more alottment than social sciences?
>Why should we not write questions that people aren't going to get? Isn't
>the purpose of college bowl to increase someone's knowlege as well as test
>it? Seems to me that if a team doens't collectively know the basics in
>almost all subject areas including theater, art, anth., arch., and phil
>then they aren't a good team. Basic theater questions should be as routine
>as basic phyiscs and a good team should be confortable with both.
Theater questions properly belong in either the arts category or with
literature (or occasionally with pop culture), depending on the question
itself. There is a place for theater; your harping on the lack of it
amounts to a red herring.
>Wendel, who is a player on Roanoke's team, I think is an example of what
>a good college bowl player should be like. He is a history major but is
>extremely well read. He won't be able to answer the upper level hard
>science questions but in a good packet, there should be no more than 2
>of those kinds of questions and not enough so that a team who knows nothing
>about upper level science should loose the game. His kind of knowledge
>is the kind that one can get from being well read, as opposed to being
>a list memorizer. From also being a history major, he's probably had
>alot of cross-over classes and gotten a broader range of knoweldge than
>a science major would have.
Science majors can be extraordinarily well-read; indeed, many of our
foremost scientists of today are quite conversant in the arts and social
sciences. Instead of making antagonistic "it's the science majors against
the rest of us" statements, why not just drop the field of study
argument, which is spurious, and adopt the "you have to be well-read to
succeed", which is quite meritorious?
>Another example, a packet from a "top team" had no questions on the social
>sciences or any other science except chem. and physics. That was a bad
>packet in my opinion. Ours wasn't perfectly balanced either but it covered
>a broader range of topics. On an evenly balanced packet, I'd wager the
>teams that normally don't do so well could give a "top team" a run for
>their money.
Such a packet is indeed unbalanced. Writers *AND EDITORS* should strive
for as much balance as possible.
>So all in all, if you want to increase the areas of knowledge in college
>bowl, write in areas that are under represented that you know that not alot
>of college bowlers will know about but that are still considered basic
>knowledge in their field. Maybe some day we'll have just as many psych,
>social science questions as physics/chem ones.
I'm not sure that such a distribution is even desirable, but I'm all for
increasing the number of *good* social science questions.
Pat
--
"Young Patrick" Matthews matt...@eniac.seas.upenn.edu
271 S. 15th Street #1804
Philadelphia, PA 19102 "Never feed the hand that bites you."
(215) 546-1108
Sigismundo Pandolfo
>No TV, no mass media, very little entertainment. Theatre literature was
>being written far before scientific literature.
>
I don't mean to be rude about this, but:
Thales (considered the first scientist in the Western tradition)-
active circa 585 B.C.
Thespis (the inventor of Greek theater)- active circa 535 B.C.
If your criterion for ranking the age of these two fields is the oldest
surviving writings, then compare:
Anaximander (first scientist whose works survive in fragment)- 550 B.C.
Aeschylus (oldest of the surviving Greek tragedians- 525-456 B.C.
Which brings me to my major point (a criticism of both you, Jason, and
everybody else on this thread): IT DOESN'T MATTER. Physics and theater
are both ancient, well-established parts of the intellectual tradition
and, without question, components of general cultural literacy that belong
in college bowl questions. The relative proportions of each that should
be present cannot be determined by any bandwidth-wasting discussion of how
ancient the two fields are or how persecuted each group has been in
history. IT IS AND ALWAYS WILL BE A MATTER OF THE PERSONAL PREFERENCE OF
THE TOURNAMENT DIRECTOR. Deb, if you want to hold a tournament with
ten modern theater questions for every science one, go right ahead.
However, if you wish to take issue with somebody else's choice of
category breakdowns, I advise that you merely vote with your feet and
spend your money on another invitational with a more favorable balance.
These my-category-is-better-than-your-category debates are, I think, a
waste of everybody's time.
--
===========================================================================
John Sheahan
jshe...@midway.uchicago.edu
============================================================================
Gary Greenbaum
Maybe it's time to call a truce. Sounds to me like there were flaws in
the question writing/editing process for the JMU tourney. But I can't
agree 100% with Vishnu's "you hurt US" attitude--tossups are certainly
equal access, and while I can sympathize with the minus fives on
misleading or incorrect questions--I've been there myself--sounds to me
like Maryland did what was needed at the tourney--overcame the errors and
turned in a spectacular result. A word to the wise to the tournament
director should have been all that was needed after that--Maryland let
its buzzers do the talking when it counted. I don't know why we have
this flame exchange roasting the wires on the net. Maryland is one of
the top ACF teams, indeed, and is a terror on the invitational circuit
(note: I consider this sport to be bifurcated, so I ALWAYS use qualifiers
like "ACF" or "CB" before using superlative towards a team, and Maryland
does not play in CB Regionals), so I suspect Maryland would not keep
showing up to a tournament with problems, accordingly, the level of
competition would go down, and probably teams wishing to devote limited
funds towards playing the better teams would keep away. Nuff said.
Gary Greenbaum
--
"The Judge left the court, looking deeply disgusted,
But the Snark, though a little aghast
(As the lawyer to whom the defense was entrusted)
Went bellowing on to the last." Carroll, THE HUNTING OF THE SNARK
Steve Wang
[deletia]
>scientist accpet this) is equally true as such scientific facts as the water
>molecule having two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom and laws of
>thermodynamics?They mihgt all be ture (I think so), but that does not mean
>that the hard evidnece we have for them are as equally convincing. We
>cannot do experiments to confirm macroevolution-- we only have some good
>ideas and some fossils to work with. [...]
I presume what is at issue here is the Darwinian theory of Natural
Selection, not 'evolution'. Only the most ardent creationist would
dispute that evolution has occurred; the argument is over how it has
occurred.
This is getting off the subject of College Bowl, but it is simply not
true that the only evidence for evolution is 'some good
ideas and some fossils'. There is considerable genetic and molecular
evidence; DNA sequencing and Motoo Kimura's Neutral Theory of
molecular evolution are the most important additions to evolutionary
theory of the last few decades. You've probably heard the finding that
chimps and humans share 99.X% of their DNA sequences, and from this kind
of information we can estimate the approximate time of divergence of the
human/chimp line. And the behavior, biochemistry, and comparative
anatomy of living animals also provide clues to how evolution has occurred.
As to the general point, so what? Many sciences rely on historical and
otherwise inferred information. We have a pretty good idea of what
stars are made of even though we can't just go up to a star and scoop of
a sample of it. We know about the history of ice ages even though none
of us was there when it happened. We know about the Big Bang even though
we 'cannot do experiments to confirm' it. This doesn't invalidate
astronomy or geology or cosmology, and it certainly doesn't invalidate
natural selection.
Regards,
Steve
Steve Wang The University of Chicago
wa...@galton.uchicago.edu Department of Statistics
Jason I. Hong
First, I think this discussion still has some merit. I don't believe it is a
"my field is better than your field" argument, as I will try to clarify. Nor
has it degraded into useless name calling. The questions _are_ the game. If
we have bad questions we have a bad game, and if we have good questions we
have a good game (hopefully).
Second, if there are going to be any changes to the game, it had better
start here instead of in the rounds.
All right, I've been thinking about this for a while, so here we go...
Debbie Fuller (DEB...@dirac.physics.jmu.edu) wrote:
: > If we didn't develop physics, where would we be today?
: One doesn't need to understand the law of gravity to fall on one's face.
To use your analogy, I could also say I wouldn't have to know anything about
technical lighting, characterization, or themes in order to put on a play.
Well, it's possible, I'm sure, but how good could the play be? Just as the
play would be lacking, so would one's understanding of the physical world.
But, like I said earlier, it'll be your loss. There really is an incredible
beauty in science.
: > Now take it with theater.
: >
: > If we didn't develop theater, where would we be today?
:
: No TV, no mass media, very little entertainment. Theatre literature was
: being written far before scientific literature.
Well, I thought we were talking about theater only, but...
But, let me see if I can clarify my problem with this entire discussion:
I interpreted what was written as comparing a subfield (technical theater)
to an entire field (physics). To me, this is like saying earth is the only planet
in our solar system. It's like comparing cryogenics to _all_ of 20th c.
poetry or comparing electrochemistry to all of Baroque music. It shouldn't
be done. I would have as much trouble as someone comparing physics to _all_
of literature.
All I'm saying (and have been trying to say) is keep things in perspective.
To change the subject slightly, look at what was recently released as a
guide to American History. From the top of my head, eight or nine references
to Harriet Tubman and only one passing reference to the Gettysburg address.
McCarthyism encompasses all that is mentioned on the cold war. Forget the
Wright Brothers and Edison. Sure, all of these are important, but things
seem to be blown out of proportion here.
: > I'm not saying theater is unimportant. I like it. But ask yourself the
: > above. We would probably be playing college bowl with rocks right now if
: > we didn't develop science.
: And a poly sci major would proport that without government that none of
: this would have happened since it takes an organized society to distribute
: resources so that some people can concentrate on science and not gathering
: food. Its all from your perspective.
Yes, that's true. So can we agree that it would probably be a dull life
without either? Like I've been saying, keep things in perspective. It's like
comparing little league to professional baseball.
: > I'm not suggesting an exclusive club at all. The more teams the merrier.
: > What I said was to keep things in perspective. Just because something is
: > huge in a relatively small field does not mean that it is automatically
: > suitable for question writing. Like Matt Colvin said in an earlier post,
: > it's better to err on the side of conservatism, on established and, for
: > the most part, widespread subjects. Physics and literature are going to
: > be classes at practically every college in the US. I couldn't say the
: > same for theater. I'm not saying that the occasional question on theater
: > is bad, but questions should be answerable.
: Every college is going to have some sort of theater going on. I think people
: need to look at their catalogues and major distribution more. Plus look
: at extra-circuluar activities. Theatre is a huge field when you take in
: mass media.
Anything's a huge field when you take in mass media. :)
But, that wasn't my point you responded to. I think what I wrote previously
still applies to what you wrote.
Can I take it you agree with me on the parts you didn't respond?
Come on, let's try keep things in a reasonable proportion.
(Can't we all get along? :)
--
- Jason Hong (ho...@lennon.cc.gatech.edu)