jswingle
commented
2 years ago Agreed on MA. 2-7 was way too much, but 1-2 was an overcorrection. I think 2-3 is great, but would suggest possibly a 2-4 or even 3-4 on epistle years when we don't have SITs? I think we run the risk of having too many INTs in epistle years if we don't allocate a little more to the specialty types.
Agreed completely on Quotes. There are way too many of those now. Perhaps we could do 2-3 on epistle years, in line with my sentiment above on MAs. Not sure.
As for References, I think we should consider splitting off the min/max distribution into two, and slightly emphasizing CRs over CVRs (because CRs have a much more significant purpose, pedagogically, than CVRs). But this discussion would fit better on a separate issue, I think.
I'm torn on CVRs as far as importance goes. At higher levels of competition, when quizzers jump on just the reference, I think they become impressive tests of skill and material knowledge as the quizzer works through the verse carefully to find the question. But at lower levels of competition, a ton of "he will what?" CVRs don't seem to have much of a purpose.
jttower
JoshJetto
scottpeterson
ZacharyTinker
Current Rule: Narratives Epistles INT 8-14 9-16 FTV 3-4 3-4 Q 2-3 3-4 Ref 3-6 3-7 MA 1-2 1-2 SIT 2-4 0
Tot: 19-33 19-33
Proposed Rule: Narratives Epistles INT 8-16 8-16 FTV 3-4 3-4 Q 1-3 1-3 Ref 2-4 2-4 MA 2-3 2-3 SIT 2-4 0
Tot: 18-30 16-30
Rationale: For reference, I am including the 2013 rulebook question distribution below:
2013 Rulebook Narratives Epistles INT 8-12 8-12 FTV 2-3 2-3 Q 1-2 1-2 Ref 3-5 3-5 MA 2-7 2-7 SIT 2-4 0
Tot: 18-33 16-29
The rationale for this change is divided into three sections: 1) Quote and Reference question changes 2) Multiple Answer changes 3) Total Minimum Question changes
1) Quote and Reference question changes The current rule mandates in Narrative material years that a minimum of 25% and a maximum of 39% of questions asked in a quiz must be a Quote or Reference question. In Epistle years that number is even higher – 30%-46%. This is way, way too high. How important is it, Biblically, to know where a Scripture is by the chapter and verse reference? What does our current distribution say about the importance of that? Biblically speaking, how important was it for the writers of the New Testament to know “Chapter and Verse” when they were quoting the Old Testament?
The versification of the New Testament didn’t come around until 1551. For the first 1,500 years the New Testament was in existence and used by the Holy Spirit to lead people into the obedience of faith in Jesus, there were no verse numbers and no chapters. The versification of the text is not inspired by the Holy Spirit, so we should not be so highly incentivizing Quote and CVR question types. By our very heavy reference distribution, we are communicating that knowing Scripture by the non-inspired reference system is extremely important. In fact, the chapter and verse divisions sometimes obscure the meaning of Scripture as people automatically disconnect what is happening before a chapter break from what comes after it. In one of John Stumbo’s video blogs last year, he actually mentioned that with regard to the connection between 1 Corinthians 13 and 1 Corinthians 14:1.
You can advance the video to 9:59. He talks about this devotionally for the last two minutes of the video blog.
The fact that you can make lots and lots of CVR questions (of the 5,700 total questions in the District Set, just over 2,000 are Reference-type) does not justify having more of them in every quiz. The reason you can make lots of CVR questions (as opposed to other question types) is because CVR questions are by nature short, vague, and use common language – “He will what?” for example. How important is it for students to know that in Matthew 12:18 “He will proclaim justice to the nations” but in Matthew 12:19 “He will not quarrel or cry out” but in Matthew 12:20 “He will not break a bruised reed”? Isn’t more important for them to know that in Jesus this prophecy that came through Isaiah is fulfilled in its entirety, and to simply know what the text says in these three verses rather than having to devise a way to remember and give great energy to remembering in which numbered verses it says “he will” do specific things? Why are we putting so much focus on and incentivizing kids to pour so much effort into knowing the Scripture by the non-inspired reference system when that effort would be better poured into knowing the inspired text itself? Shouldn’t we be incentivizing that more and not less? The above proposed rule change does just that, while keeping Quotes and Reference Questions viable specialties at the District and International levels (15%-32% in Narrative years and 15%-35% in Epistle years).
For 95-98% of quizzers, the current reference-heavy question distribution means that they are essentially locked out of more and more questions, unless they have both the time and the natural ability for cold-recall of numbers instead of text clues. Locally, this results in large numbers of un-jumped on questions as well as boredom and discouragement with quizzing, because there are fewer questions they can answer, which means that under the current distribution, Bible quizzing is producing less motivation to memorize and read and study the word of God than it otherwise could. Not only that, but a Quote and Reference-heavy distribution creates higher barriers to successful participation by greater numbers of potential quizzers (and potentially very good quizzers), which, again (as I said in my rant under 1.2.2.3) actually lowers the competitive level locally and Internationally.
2) Multiple Answer changes The current distribution makes Multiple Answer questions a virtual non-entity among the specialty questions. This puts quizzers who are not reference quizzers at a further disadvantage to those who are. MAs are more difficult to answer than INTs, and in that, they encourage quizzers to know the inspired text better. They are also found in a significant number of verses in the text. Separating MAs from CVRMAs and CRMAs was a good move as these are two very different kinds of specialties. However, lowering them down to 1-2 in the distribution was a swing too far of that pendulum. It has been argued that MAs are too easy of a specialty to master (because there are fewer MAs in the question pool than some other questions), so we should have very few of them. To that argument I would pose several questions and comments:
1) Is the average MA question and answer more or less significant than the average CVR or CR? 2) If learning the specialty is so easy to master, then it would follow logically that more quizzers (at the International level) would have that specialty mastered, so wouldn’t that make them more difficult as a question type for any one individual to score on? 3) The number of Situation questions in the database is slightly lower than the number of MA questions. Why should there be twice as many Situations asked in Narrative years than MAs? Shouldn’t these be somewhat comparable? Aren’t Situations just as easy (or easier, given that there are multiple Situation questions in the database for the same quotation) a specialty for International quizzers to master as MAs?
MAs are more significantly distinct from INTs than CVRMAs and CRMAs are from CVRs and CRs and should be their own specialty category (and thus, should have a higher distribution than the current rulebook) for at least two reasons:
I quizzed at Internationals 6 years and was a pretty decent competitor, and I never had the material referenced. Under the current distribution, as someone whose brain recalls better from the text than from the reference system, this reference system would have hurt my ability to compete as well as I did, because of the sheer number of questions I would have been locked out of.