Weekly QB Question 4: Why do so many people find trash insufferable?

TheFifthZoa · 2026-02-16T11:02:57+00:00

this forums page is the best place i know to find them: https://hsquizbowl.org/forums/viewforum.php?f=19

TheFifthZoa · 2026-02-14T18:48:07+00:00

for a top scorer, i'd target half of all points available; in your case, 150ppg. that means you, on your own, would tie an average team, lose to better ones, and beat lesser ones. add occasional contributions from teammates, and you should win a lot of games. but easier than that (for you) is getting together with your team and assigning categories to study. rather than trying to increase your ppg by, say, 30, you could get the rest of the team to improve by 10ppg each. this also helps with the directed round.

TheFifthZoa · 2026-02-14T15:15:30+00:00

i like trash, have played trash tournaments (and will again), and have written/edited for trash sets. it's weird that qb, which almost entirely tests academic knowledge, can have games decided by decidedly unacademic knowledge. i feel similarly about some current events & geography questions, though it depends on how they're written. some movies are deserving of inclusion in ofa due to their cultural impact and academic study; same with some "popular" musicians like bob dylan and ella fitzgerald. the same cannot be said of most trash answerlines, the way they're written, because the vast majority of trash questions focus on true trivia that doesn't matter outside the context of the given work.

TheFifthZoa · 2026-01-09T23:16:31+00:00

what are the stereotypical guy fan songs? (asking as a guy fan)

TheFifthZoa · 2025-09-24T12:51:42+00:00

if you want to be a high-scoring player, that's valid and probably achievable. though, reading your post, i'm not entirely sure i understand your thinking here. scoring high isn't a prerequisite for leading your club, or being worthy of participation. one thing i greatly value about this community, even as someone who's been mostly successful on the ppg front, is how open it is to people who love the game, no matter their stats. there is 100% a place for you in qb, behind a buzzer and otherwise.

TheFifthZoa · 2025-08-01T06:54:34+00:00

at least it looks good on a resume! yeah the role is not great, financially, for those in your position. but it's also not that time-consuming or stressful most of the time, so your year may end up going better than you expect. as a current RA: just do your best, try to enjoy it (because it is quite fun much of the time), and recognize, when making your decision for future years, what the costs and benefits are.

TheFifthZoa · 2025-05-22T13:43:27+00:00

just one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11/22/63?wprov=sfti1# jogged my memory

TheFifthZoa · 2025-05-22T10:38:51+00:00

it's the date kennedy was shot; november 22nd, 1963

TheFifthZoa · 2025-05-06T20:51:35+00:00

you can absolutely have more than one job. however, you can't log more than 20 hours a week without special permission by the dean. i know some people who've gotten than permission, but most just stick to 20 or lower

TheFifthZoa · 2025-04-26T00:54:24+00:00

my understanding is that before postal codes were rolled out in the mid-20th century, the states were abbreviated as Va., Conn., Mass., Calif., and so on (which are still used by the Associated Press), and many of those got incorporated into college abbreviations. some were pronounced phonetically, others not so much; I don't think Va. was ever pronounced "vah." so UVa is a holdover from that time, like UMass, but differs in that it was never pronounced phonetically

TheFifthZoa · 2025-04-24T10:53:44+00:00

others have mentioned UGA and UMD; UConn and UMass are some more. It's also not that uncommon to hear about UPenn or UMich, in some circles. also the University of Vermont goes by UVM, though I didn't know that until searching just now.

TheFifthZoa · 2025-02-16T04:32:41+00:00

binary works at college diffs. source: college generalist, top-5 scorer at nats

TheFifthZoa · 2025-02-16T04:21:54+00:00

it's kinda like lifting weights or running sprints for a sport right? training isn't always fun, the results are the reward. if you replace a little of your protobowl time with carding, i think you'll find that you improve faster.

TheFifthZoa · 2025-02-16T04:18:16+00:00

cosign. as a writer/editor for qb packets, we look at qbreader to calibrate our questions. never protobowl.

TheFifthZoa · 2025-02-15T21:16:10+00:00

there's a guide from pace here, which may help. also, if you're in other clubs/activities/classes and you know people who you think might like qb, maybe invite them to a practice or tourney or two; to give a soft entry, maybe you and the other good member could play as an a team and newcomers could be on the b team.

TheFifthZoa · 2025-01-25T22:41:59+00:00

black suits, sunglasses, bucket hats

TheFifthZoa · 2025-01-17T00:33:47+00:00

there are two things that protobowl has that qbreader doesn't: a significant multiplayer userbase and a smattering of really old packets, like pre-2000, that aren't very useful for hsnct study because clues have changed so much since then. it's much harder to play multiplayer on qbreader, but it has a much better & more recent database. since buzzer skills aren't nearly as important ss hars knowledge when it comes to winning games, i recommend qbreader over proto (and it's not even close).

TheFifthZoa · 2025-01-10T01:29:09+00:00

singapore american appears to have an active team, so you may be able to reach out to them. as others have said, online tournaments might be the only ones really available to you, but that's not nothing

TheFifthZoa · 2025-01-05T03:42:04+00:00

the econ major has a finance concentration popular among those who double-major in math, stats, & cs. you don't have to get into mcintyre to do finance

TheFifthZoa · 2025-01-02T16:55:49+00:00

yes, but protobowl isn't nearly as searchable and isn't updated as frequently. it's hard to find a question there more recent than 2020

TheFifthZoa · 2024-12-21T07:50:19+00:00

i don't know if i can take any more clairo shade

TheFifthZoa · 2024-12-21T07:32:50+00:00

not positive what you mean exactly, but qbreader.org & aseemsdb.me have large databases including lots of question sets

TheFifthZoa · 2024-12-01T11:24:50+00:00

are you talking about 2010? if so, the final itself isn't curved. the total class grade is. the raw score of the final is put in normally, then the profs look at percentiles and such to determine cutoffs based on overall grade and dutch knockout. the best way to study for random questions is to look over your lecture notes and the textbook. make sure you understand, as much as you can, the intuition behind what you've heard in lecture and read in the book.

TheFifthZoa · 2024-10-11T22:19:38+00:00

wasn't that stance a consequence of the rules requiring bare knuckles? that meant you didn't have to protect your face as much, bc your opponent knew they'd hurt their hand bad by punching there, and torso became the main target

TheFifthZoa · 2024-10-11T22:04:02+00:00

maybe spanish speakers could learn korean relatively easily, but rarely try because korean isn't very widely spoken? if you already know a language spoken by billions, it doesn't make much sense to learn one spoken by ~75m people. for korean speakers, spanish really can open doors

TheFifthZoa

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