Calvin's Quiz tiebreaker errors

[Mark Brader]

Starting with Calvin's Quiz #238, Calvin introduced a tiebreaker,
which he explained as:

| I have introduced a tiebreaker (TB) based on the rgt standard of
| whoever got more harder questions right. It is the sum product of
| the player's question scores x the question totals, lower is better.

I've just noticed that in some quizzes in the series, the tiebreaker
has been computed wrongly. I have no idea of how this might have
happened.

It was wrong for quizzes #410 through #419, and this produced the
wrong winner for #413 in November 2015. Calvin's score table was:


Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6 Q7 Q8 Q9 Q10 TOTAL TB Quiz 413
1 1 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 8 52 Peter Smyth
0 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 8 57 Marc Dashevsky
0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 8 60 Chris Johnson
1 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 7 39 Gareth Owen
1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 6 38 Mark Brader
1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 5 28 Bjorn Lundin
1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 5 31 Pete Gayde
1 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 5 33 Dan Tilque
0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 4 25 David Brown
1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 3 17 Bruce Bowler
0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 2 17 Erland S
- - - - - - - - - - --- ----------
7 4 9 4 8 3 5 4 6 11 61 55%

But with the correct tiebreaker, Peter doesn't win, Marc does:

Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6 Q7 Q8 Q9 Q10 TOTAL TB Quiz 413
- - - - - - - - - - --- --- -------------
0 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 8 49 Marc Dashevsky
0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 8 50 Chris Johnson
1 1 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 8 53 Peter Smyth
1 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 7 50 Gareth Owen
1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 6 40 Mark Brader
1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 5 38 Bjorn Lundin
1 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 5 38 Dan Tilque
1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 5 40 Pete Gayde
0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 1 4 29 David Brown
1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 3 27 Bruce Bowler
0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 2 19 Erland S
- - - - - - - - - - ---
7 4 9 4 8 3 5 4 6 11 61

So, delayed congratulations to Marc!


The computation was also wrong for quizzes #466 and #468, and then for
the last four -- #478 through #481. And for #480 the error has again
produced the wrong winner, but since that thread is still current, I'll
post the correction there.

This lists above may not be exhaustive, for various reasons not worth
bothering to enumerate here. In particular, for one thing, I only
checked quizzes where every question was scored as either 0 or 1 point.
--
Mark Brader | "Now I feel stupid. Well, I guess it's not bad
Toronto | if that happens once a decade or so."
m...@vex.net | --Al Fargnoli

My text in this article is in the public domain.

[Calvin]

On Friday, April 7, 2017 at 7:52:42 PM UTC+10, Mark Brader wrote:
> Starting with Calvin's Quiz #238, Calvin introduced a tiebreaker,
> which he explained as:
>
> | I have introduced a tiebreaker (TB) based on the rgt standard of
> | whoever got more harder questions right. It is the sum product of
> | the player's question scores x the question totals, lower is better.
>
> I've just noticed that in some quizzes in the series, the tiebreaker
> has been computed wrongly. I have no idea of how this might have
> happened.

Thanks for spotting that Mark. I guess it was caused by copying and pasting cells with absolute references.

When I get time I'll go through all the my quizzes for this year (only) and post the amended scores if the top 3 placegetters have changed.

cheers,
calvin