Hey yall i just got back from a quizzing invatational and some people are just taking it WAY to far. This one team we quizzed made us feel horrible about winning and that isn’t right. I don’t think that they should do that. I mean we are there to have fun and learn the Bible. One of the stratigies used is suicide jumping on the last question if they could tie it up and you are accross from an empty seat on their team. Well thats what it came down to and thats what we did. It is a commonly know statigie that i personaly have gotten to do many times… i like doing that. They were horrible sports aobut losing to us. They made rude comments and didn’t acnowledge us polightly whjen shaking hands. That just URKS me to no end!
Umm… what? I, for one, am requesting a reposting of the OP with an explanation of what you’re talking about. Suicide jumping on questions? Are the questions in the form of grenades? Really… just repost it and tell us what these things mean.
Spell check is your friend.
Y’all
I
Invitational
Too
Strategies
Across
That’s
That’s
Strategy
I
I
About
Acknowledge
Politely
When
Irks
I kind of like the idea of feeling URKed. It’s got more oomph than being irked; being irked sounds kind of mild, almost pleasant. But being URKed… “Man, I’m URKED! That shit just URKS me! Unitelligible posting just makes me feel… URKED!”
URK.
There’s nothing worse than a Kamikaze Bible Quiz.
Hmm… well is this better for you.
Hey yall I just got back from a quizzing invitational and some people are just taking it WAY to far. This one team we quizzed made us feel horrible about winning and that isn’t right. I don’t think that they should do that. I mean we are there to have fun and learn the Bible. One of the strategies used is suicide jumping on the last question if they could tie it up and you are across from an empty seat on their team. Well that’s what it came down to and that’s what we did. It is a commonly know strategy that I personally have gotten to do many times… i like doing that. They were horrible sports about losing to us. They made rude comments and didn’t acknowledge us politely when shaking hands. That just IRKS me to no end!
Im sorry if it isn’t up to your perfect standards of anything Zenster.
Ok explanation. You have two teams and each team can have up to four people on the benches. You jump to get a question. A correct question is worth 20 points a incorrect question is worth
-10 points. If on the 20th question you are up bye only 20 you want to suicide jump if there is no one across from you. That is where you jump before they ask the question and it counts against you but its only -10 so you still win. Its a very good strategy especially for invitational which is what this was.
Oh come on Euty - don’t you know they’re to die for? 
Wait - so if you buzz in (or, jump, or whatever you do to indicate readiness) before the question is read, and get it wrong, then the reader doesn’t finish the question? Why do the regs let that happen?
Well, the Ultimate Fighting handbook doesn’t say I can’t punch you in the crotch, so stop whining and congratulate me on the win.
Okay, it’s probably not like that, but it does sound like a cheesy way to win.
I don’t think “suicide jumping” is a cheesy way to win. The whole point of playing a game is to win it; if you are able to gain some advantage by taking advantage of the rules, then way to go.
The problem is not with the person “taking advantage,” but with the glitch in the rules.
I don’t get it. So, in the situation you’re describing, “They” have 320 points and “You” have 300. On the last question, “They” jump in and intentionally guess wrong, putting them at 310. That part I get.
But, wouldn’t “You” be allowed to try to answer the question correctly after their miss? And I’m still scratching my head over this “empty seat across from you” business.
I’m afraid you’re going to get lot of criticism and very little sympathy on this one. I can see your point. The “suicide jump” is legitimate strategy. I moderated at the College Bowl regionals in St. Paul last month, and got to listen to a lot of complaints about “timed matches.” But I also had a very good discussion with another moderator about how clock management just becomes another skill for teams to learn. It took the game beyond just being a simple question and answer.
But it sucks to lose and it sucks to lose on a technicality in what purports to be a knowledge game. That doesn’t excuse “rude comments” from the other team, but losing a squeaker is tough. I’ve been on both sides of it myself; it was fun to win, and I tried to be a gracious winner–it wasn’t fun to lose, but I tried to be a gratious loser.
Think about the balance you need between “we are there to have fun and learn the Bible” and “[suicide jumping is] a commonly known strategy that I personally have gotten to do many times. I like doing that.” Exploiting a flaw in the game design isn’t going to win you a lot of friends.
Now then, about your grammar. I image your original message was typed in a bit of a rush of emotion, and this is The Pit, so emotion is to be expected. But this is also The Straight Dope Message Board, “Dedicated to Fighting Ignorance,” and orthographical criticism is also to be expected. Had Zenster picked up on one or two misspellings, we could reasonably infer that he might be something of a dick. But your original message is so full of typos that it becomes difficult to read and understand. His post points out, in true Pit fashion, that lengthy list of bloopers, and I’m glad he did it, because I hate uncapitalized I’s.
Might I suggest “Preview Reply” or even a simple rereading before posting, in consideration of those of us who will be reading what you write? It will help prevent further miscommunications.
Now then, I assume you are involved in some sort of Awana Quiz, yes? I’d be interested in finding out how your game works. I’m quite interested in that sort of thing.
Good luck to your team in the future.
-M
I thought “URK” was the sound you make right before you throw up. You know…
URK! “Um, 'scuse me…”
If I recall this method of Bible quizzing correctly, each team is made up of a set number of players and teams know ahead of time what they’re going to be quizzed upon. It can be anything from one chapter (for the younger kids) to an entire book of the Bible – the kids, in essence, memorize the entire selected portion, because they have to be able to answer questions about context and meaning of verses from only their reference, and to do so in a flash. (“Question: In Jude 20, in what manner are we to pray, and with what frequency?”)
In the actual competition, the seating is arranged thusly – the opposing teams are arranged on benches facing one another, with the moderator between. The benches have pressure sensitive seats. The question is given to the two players on the “end” of the bench, the players who are “up.”
When the question is asked, the way one indicates that they wish to answer is to jump up out of their seat, which causes the pressure sensitive mechanism to buzz, which signals that they have the right to answer the question.
If the question is answered incorrectly, the the player who is “up” on the other team is given the opportunity to stand and answer.
After the question, each player stands and moves to the end of the bench, and everyone else slides down a seat, in rotation.
But in the closing rounds of the game, a wrong answer (or three wrong answers, depending on the rules) from a contestant puts that person out of the game. They must leave the bench, leaving their seat empty. This means that when their “turn” would’ve come up, the other team has a “free” shot at answering. A correct answer from the other team will net them points, a wrong answer will lose points.
So if time is running out, and a team is ahead by enough points that they’ll win even with an incorrect answer, it makes perfect sense to “suicide jump” or jump up before the question is even read, take the loss in points, and still win. It only works if there are so few seconds left on the clock that there won’t be time for another question.
The thing about it is that there would be no penalty for not answering the question at all, so doing the “suicide jump” is rather seen (IIRC) as “rubbing in” the lead on the losing team. It is a competition, but it isn’t meant to be so much about “We won, haha, you suck.” as “We all competed fairly and, more importantly, worked hard to learn X portion of the Word of God.”
Bible quiz programs are usually predicated on II Timothy 2:15 “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” (That’s the good old KJV language, the only one which uses the “study to show” construction, I believe.) To gloat over wining, or win unfairly or win “haughtily” is considered a breach of the entire spirit and purpose of the practice. Of course, it’s easy for any losing team to look at any celebration by a winning team as being haughty, unfair, gloating and so on. Such is the nature of winning and losing.
Forgive me if I am misremembering the specifics of the quiz setup. It’s been quite a long time since I’ve been to a competitition – my nieces and nephew competed when they were grades 7-12, which was about a decade ago.
Up BY only …
Other than that, thank you ManDuh003 for taking the time to repost your OP. You will now reach a much larger audience here. Welcome aboard(s) and happy posting.
Ok, I will describe the whole posses of quizzing because tlw you have it wrong. Ok picture this, there are 8 seats in all, 4 for each team. The minimum number of players you are allowed to have on a team is 3 and the maximum number is 7. Each year there is a different book of the Bible we choose to quiz over, this year is John. They are in an 11-year rotation. We quiz over the whole book but we start out the first quiz of the year with three chapters the second with six and so on. The rules are simple enough; you get +20 for every correct answer and -10 for every incorrect answer. There is a maximum per person of 5 correct or 3 incorrect a quiz. When you reach either of those you are done. There are 20 questions in a quiz unless more is needed because of a tie.
Now we start the quiz. Each team chooses their top four quizzers to start the game, unless they don’t have four then everyone goes in. The seats are green 1, 2, 3, 4, and red 1, 2, 3, 4. In this quiz we were red and the green team had people on seats one through 3 and we had all four filled. I was on seat four. So if someone on seat g1 jumps and gets it right it goes to the next question if they get it wrong seat r1 gets a 10 point bonus question, no penalty for getting a bonus wrong. That goes on until the end. In this case I think the score was 80 to 120 on the 19th question. There was a time out called by the other team and my team worked on our strategy. If they get the 19th question it is 100 to 120 and if they get the 20th we risk going into 21 questions. Not good for us because this was out big come back game and the first game of the tournament. (Double elimination) Since I didn’t have anyone to take a bonus for me they told me to jump and suicide it if it came to it. The reason they officials let that go on is because it is in the rules that it is allowed. Since the question goes to the first person that jumped or there opposite seat no one can get mine. That is what I ended up having to do and that is why the team was mad. One of the old quizzers said when he quizzed that happened all the time and it happens many times in our leagues but these people didn’t like it. They were very bad sports about something that they would have also done to us. Every team says that is just how the ball rolls.
Oh, bye the way I used spell check so everything should be fine!
Well, everything should be fine, but I still don’t get it.
I never was very good at understanding the rules of games.
Continue to colour me 
Well, ManDuh, you might want to invest in grammarcheck also! A question mark at the end of a question helps also.
I’m confused. If you’re there just to have fun learning the Bible (admirable endeavour, btw), what difference does it make who wins?
I have grammarcheck also and it missed that. Yes, it is a fun way to learn the Bible but it is also a game. Just like quiz bowl in school is a fun way to learn you still want to win. You don’t go into a basketball game and decide that you do not care who wins do you. Why pratice if that is what you do? This is a way to motivate people to study the Bible and why study if the goal isn’t to win?
A little off the subject, I know, but how successful could “suicide jumping” in College Bowl really be? When I played College Bowl, I was under the impression that if you rang in, you had to answer within 15 seconds, and if you didn’t, the question was automatically thrown to the other side. If you’re far enough ahead to contemplate using that strategy, 15 seconds isn’t going to be that big a deal. With the bonus question, it can take over a minute for each question to be fully answered anyway, so you’d have to “suicide jump” at least four times for the equivalent of one question to be taken out of the game.
Well, for me the reason to study the Scriptures is to learn the Scriptures. One of my favourite games was a kind of clone of “The Game of LIFE” but based on the Book of Mormon instead. I had just converted so it was a very good way for me to get quizzed on the BoM. I didn’t get too many answers right at the beginning but as time went on, I learned more and more. To me, that was the point.
BTW, I don’t know a single grammarcheck program that’s worth a hoot. May I recommend that you spend some time learning the infamous spelling and grammar of English instead of relying on those lame programs. Learnign that is kind of fun also! (But then, I’ve been informed a number of times that such a view is very twisted.)