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Use this thread for any discussion of the questions at the 2013-2014 PACE NSC.

The set one by far the best I have played on all year and was incredibly fun. The answer lines were clever and canon-expanding but not too difficult. Although this was my first NSC, I really enjoyed the questions and hope to be back next year for another!

The one problem I remember was that latent vs manifest was mentioned twice.

This was definitely my favorite NSC of the past 3 years. Great answer selection, especially on the science, keeping with some standard answers (benzene, colloids, glycolysis) while mixing in an incredible variety of new answers (rocket fuel, reducing agents, mass-energy equivalence, blood sugar). My compliments to the chef(s). I also loved the inclusion of general knowledge questions and the removal of some of the more esoteric answerlines of previous years.

As for (minor) complaints:
- Repeats this year were sort of a problem, with some answerlines being straight out repeated (Iran), while other rounds had the same type of tossup twice in a row (Round 7 with German and Sanskrit).
- The film this year was more of a weak point. The 4 movie questions were on Citizen Kane, Hitchcock, Charlie Chaplin, and Ben-Hur, the first 3 of which are some of the most overasked film topics in high school quizbowl. I would have liked to have seen some foreign films or lesser known American movies like those from last year.
- A few of the questions probably would have benefited from the use of a "description acceptable" tag, like those questions on the friends of Job and the soldiers of David, because a couple of times we were sitting there just trying to come up with a smart-sounding way to give the answer.
- That question on the mitzvot could have been more generous with the answerline; I talked to two other teams that negged it with "commandments" and didn't know the Jewish name until the giveaway.

Of course, none of this is enough to take away from what was without a doubt an incredible set. Thanks for writing!

Were the repeats also clue repeats? There's nothing wrong with asking about Iran (home of one of the world's oldest continuous civilizations) twice in a large tournament as long as both questions aren't about, say, Ayatollah Khomeini.

Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN) wrote:Were the repeats also clue repeats? There's nothing wrong with asking about Iran (home of one of the world's oldest continuous civilizations) twice in a large tournament as long as both questions aren't about, say, Ayatollah Khomeini.

One was literature and one was history, if I remember correctly.

There were three tossups on Iran (one is a history tossup on the Shah)--the other two were literature and religion (focusing on the religious places and movements founded there). They don't really intersect clues, so I have no problem with all of them, although it's probably weird packet feng shui if they appeared in the same packet--which I don't think they did (?).

I noticed a couple of feng shui issues while reading, but really liked the questions. Especially the Hiram Powers one.

Corner Grocery Store wrote:
- That question on the mitzvot could have been more generous with the answerline; I talked to two other teams that negged it with "commandments" and didn't know the Jewish name until the giveaway.

I concur with this sentiment. I powered this question, but I would like to see it in its entirety, as from what I garnered, commandments probably should have been prompted and Jewish commandments accepted, along with other things like Jewish law or Jewish law from the torah being prompted.

Overall, though, even though I did not play great on this set, I really enjoyed the set as a challenge, and enjoyed playing many good teams I hadn't seen before, like Bloomington (wow for beating Eric) and Northmont, even though we didn't make top bracket.

Congrats to LASA for winning, and to Eric for finishing second almost fully on his own, and I look forward to seeing many of you I met this week again next week in Chicago.

One thing I really did enjoy was the healthy dose of Indian mythology throughout the entire tournament; one tossup in particular that I found interesting was the archery contest one.

I buzzed in on the part where it said Arjun took part in this in the Mahabharat and said a contest to determine the main warrior(a long answer along those lines with the word contest) and I negged. My point is to(for the sake of gaining some closure) ask whoever wrote that tossup, if that is still correct. I had a great time trying to answer those types of questions like(Swans, Shiv, Krishna).

There was this one Japanese bonus, where the answer line(festivals), seemed to be mentioned in the question. Overall, my first NSC was a very fun experience and I hope to come back next year!

I have to say thanks to the writers and editors working for PACE for a great question set, one of the best I've ever played on, and a great first-time experience at a national tournament of this caliber. The questions were simultaneously challenging and yet accessible, and the study that I had done over the last few months had really helped on some of the tossups. Additionally, being able to play great teams like Western Albemarle, LASA A, Ladue, and Dorman (the latter three for the first time) was a great experience for a relatively young team like ours. A minor criticism I have, though, is that the religion questions at this tournament seemed really Judeo-Christian-centric. I don't particularly recall many other religions being represented besides the one on Iranian religions and the one on Bodhisattvas, but maybe that's just my confirmation bias speaking. Overall, I hope to be able to return for this experience again next year!

By the way, if the person who wrote the Turkmenistan bonus is reading this, please pat yourself on the back. I never though that reading articles on Cracked.com on insane dictators would pay off at a national tournament.

This set was suprisingly more fun than I thought it would be (I was expecting some harder, more dry tossups as well as some random esoteric things thrown in, which I don't find as fun and interesting), and I really enjoyed many of the history questions such as burning at the stake and Seljuks. I think it really would have been helpful to give "description acceptable" at the beginning of some questions, such as the one on Incan roads, and also to have better clarified referencing nouns, as they threw me off at times, i.e. refering to the Easter Rising as a "movement" rather an "event."

The Triduum is Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday, so Good Friday is the second day of the Triduum, and not the first. (That wasn't the only issue I had with the question, but it was the only factual error.)

Other than that (and some more generous answer lines--mitzvah was negged as commandments in my room, too), I thought it was good. There were a few favorite topics that got asked in a couple different categories, but over a tournament this large, I don't have huge issue with that. I did notice a larger number of Indian myth questions. I don't know if this was intentional or if it just happened, but I did enjoy that.

Hello all,

I was the head editor for this set, and I'll be happy to respond to and/or investigate any questions or complaints you have. I'll note now that packet feng shui was an issue I recognized--a variety of technological issues led to my not being able to do the fine-grained work rearranging questions I would've preferred to do. There's nothing wrong, per se, with consecutive lit tossups on languages, but it is aesthetically displeasing and ideally I would've been able to fix that. Other than that, though, I'm glad to see that the set seems to have been generally well-received. The other editors and I put a lot of work into it and it's great to see that pay off.

I am happy to post any questions you'd like to see, but I do request that you tell me why you want to see them. The set will be posted soon but not immediately, since there are some mechanical things I'd like to fix first (mostly typos and the like).

wcheng wrote:[...]the religion questions at this tournament seemed really Judeo-Christian-centric. I don't particularly recall many other religions being represented besides the one on Iranian religions and the one on Bodhisattvas, but maybe that's just my confirmation bias speaking.

The distribution for religion in this set was 10/10 Bible/Christianity, 16/15 other (which included Judaism). So there's a lot of J/C stuff by design, and it's entirely possible that the packets you heard happened to be heavy on them, but there were certainly a number of other religions represented.

tiwonge wrote:The Triduum is Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday, so Good Friday is the second day of the Triduum, and not the first. (That wasn't the only issue I had with the question, but it was the only factual error.)

I didn't edit this question and don't have it in front of me, but some cursory research suggests that this could've been written as it was because the Triduum runs from Thursday evening to Sunday evening, meaning that Good Friday is the first full day. I agree that that does produce ambiguity, at least.

I really enjoyed this set, I thought it was a very difficulty appropriate and challenging, yet entertaining set. Thanks to all who made it possible.

Sniper's Alley was a neat bonus part. The literature tossup on "Greek" was very refreshing, and the tossup on "Ports" was cool as well.

The only two bonus parts that bugged me were the ones on "Justinian's code" and "night prayer". The former could've used a "description acceptable" caveat (we tried to unsuccessfully give the Latin name "Corpus Juris Civilis", which at the time we were bungling up, when it was apparent you could've just said "Justinian's laws"). Also, "vespers" is a popular term for night prayer in eastern and western tradition, I don't understand why this wasn't an alternative answerline.

Regarding Good Friday; generally it's considered the second day of the Triduum, not the first... although we never heard this clue because ironically our team Methodist got it on the first clue.

Sniper, No Sniping! wrote:Also, "vespers" is a popular term for night prayer in eastern and western tradition, I don't understand why this wasn't an alternative answerline.

I haven't heard the set, but Vespers is evening prayer and Compline is night prayer.

I liked this set quite a bit after getting used to it, and I thought it did a very good job of asking about a lot of cool things and exposing the players to new and different answerlines. There were a lot of repeats in the set, and although they did not recycle clues, it was a little jarring and led to a lot of second guessing on my part about answers (notably, Freud, Sartre, and Iran). The other thing I wanted to mention in this set was, as previously mentioned, the vagueness of some of the relatively non-canonical high school answerlines. I think that this set could have used a lot more notes read aloud to the players, along the lines of "Description acceptable" or "Give this group of people". Quizbowl has a tendency to focus on proper nouns, which is fine, but when a question can be answered with "Friends of Job" or "Soldiers of David", I feel like it'd be good to give the players some notice so that they're not trying to think of a term to call these people and buzz in instead.

Those are just minor quibbles; I greatly enjoyed this set for the most part, and I appreciate all the hard work that the editors and writers of the set put into it!

vinteuil wrote:

Sniper, No Sniping! wrote:Also, "vespers" is a popular term for night prayer in eastern and western tradition, I don't understand why this wasn't an alternative answerline.

I haven't heard the set, but Vespers is evening prayer and Compline is night prayer.

We said evensong and that was accepted. I believe that bonus was on Anglican stuff specifically.

Mr. Joyboy wrote:

vinteuil wrote:

Sniper, No Sniping! wrote:Also, "vespers" is a popular term for night prayer in eastern and western tradition, I don't understand why this wasn't an alternative answerline.

I haven't heard the set, but Vespers is evening prayer and Compline is night prayer.

We said evensong and that was accepted. I believe that bonus was on Anglican stuff specifically.

Oh, that would do it; Evensong is a mixture between the two iirc (having played for it advertised as both Vespers and Compline at different churches).

Not much to say other than what has already been said: I thought this was one of the best sets I've seen, and I really enjoyed the unorthodox answerlines. I echo the remarks about how answers could have been accepted/prompted, although that was not a problem for my team(my teammate buzzed in with "commandments, mitzvot" and we received points). Topic repeats could have been avoided, but I didn't think that they were a problem at all.

I would like to see the "peaches" tossup again; it felt a bit out of place, but only in that the subject and clues were so different from all the other questions. Again, I loved the set- a great job by those who created it, and another thanks to the tournament staff/organizers.

Einhard wrote:Quizbowl has a tendency to focus on proper nouns, which is fine, but when a question can be answered with "Friends of Job" or "Soldiers of David", I feel like it'd be good to give the players some notice so that they're not trying to think of a term to call these people and buzz in instead.

Those are just minor quibbles; I greatly enjoyed this set for the most part, and I appreciate all the hard work that the editors and writers of the set put into it!

Another TU that could have used this: Incan road system.

Ditto Eric's second statement.

I really enjoyed the set, and it's arguably the best set I have played in my high school career. I liked the creative answer lines, and the fact that powers were hard to get. I was curious about a bonus in round 15 which had something to due with Russian literary women.On the second part which was about The Idiot, I answered Nastasya and my reader said it was Anastasia. I was wondering whether or not Nastasya could have been an alternative answer because that was what my copy of the book called her. I didn't say anything because we were winning, and I didn't want to be a prick.

This is a bit off topic, but I also wanted to give props to the people running the tournament. I thought it went very smoothly.

Sniper, No Sniping! wrote:"night prayer"

This bonus part was actually on "Evening Prayer" (or "Evensong"), which is the Anglican equivalent of the Catholic Vespers.

zelsc2014 wrote:I was curious about a bonus in round 15 which had something to due with Russian literary women.On the second part which was about The Idiot, I answered Nastasya and my reader said it was Anastasia. I was wondering whether or not Nastasya could have been an alternative answer because that was what my copy of the book called her.

Yes, this was entirely my fault--I managed to badly misread the source that I was using and convince myself that "Anastassya" and "Nastassya" were different characters. This was really stupid and obviously wrong, and I'm sorry if you or anyone else lost points because of it. You would've been well within your rights to protest.

KoreanTacos wrote:I would like to see the "peaches" tossup again; it felt a bit out of place, but only in that the subject and clues were so different from all the other questions.

In Round 3, I wrote:One of the most popular varieties of these things is named for farmer Samuel Rumph's wife Elberta. Auguste Escoffier invented a dish that combines this food item with ice cream and raspberry sauce for Australian soprano Nellie Melba. Juice from this foodstuff is combined with sparkling wine in a Bellini. A boy who befriends several animals who help him fight oni descended to earth in one of these (*) fruits and is named Momotaro, while in Chinese mythology, the Jade Emperor cultivates immortality-granting ones. The tree on which they grow lends its name to over 70 streets in Atlanta, and they appear in the state nickname of Georgia. For 10 points, name this stone fruit, which is the same species as the nectarine but has fuzzy skin.
ANSWER: peaches [or Prunus persicus]

This was a "General Knowledge" tossup.

Regarding "topic repeats": These will happen in most any set, especially across categories and especially in a set containing 25 packets and nearly 1200 questions. The Freud recurrence was probably a little much, though to my knowledge no actual information other than the latent/manifest thing was actually repeated, but as an editor (or as a player) I see nothing wrong with, e.g., having literature and history tossups in different rounds on "Iran".

May I see the Meiji, Barbarossa, Kiev, peloponnesian war, and Potemkin tossups please.
Thanks

User was reminded to enable a complete signature --Mgmt.

hanuman123 wrote:May I see the Meiji, Barbarossa, Kiev, peloponnesian war, and Potemkin tossups please.

I wrote:I am happy to post any questions you'd like to see, but I do request that you tell me why you want to see them.

Overall, I really liked the question set. There were a lot of different, interesting, answer lines, and a lot of challenging clues. I agree that some clarification on answers like "David's Army" and "Friends of Job" would have been helpful. Other than that, the only real problem I had with the set was a question on "murder" that randomly threw out the clue "this is the name for a flock of crows" in the middle of an otherwise completely fine question - it was really out of place and actually rather off-putting (but my team had already begged, so it didn't really matter).

Again, overall the questions were excellent, the tournament was well-run, and the competition brilliant. I'm absolutely thrilled I was able to go this year, and am already looking forward to next year's!

I loved the set overall, especially the literature!

I had just a few problems with it, including the Russian women bonus (Lara/Anna/Nastassya) that was mentioned earlier.

The 'Greek' literature tossup seemed more difficult than the other language questions, going to the description of Sappho in my room; may I see it?
I negged the 'Rousseff' tossup when it was describing Obama's phone tapping scandal with Merkel--I interpreted the clue as "...this person was phone tapped".
The 'sandstone' and 'crystallization' tossups seemed fairly transparent a few lines in.
I answered the 'Mycenaean' tossup with 'Minoan' on the language clues--may I see the question?

Overall, Loudoun had a great time playing!

Reese

Reesefulgenzi wrote:The 'Greek' literature tossup seemed more difficult than the other language questions, going to the description of Sappho in my room; may I see it?

In Round 1, Ike Jose wrote:A poem written in this language begins with a word meaning either "on a many-colored throne" or "of a many-colored mind". Another poem in this language claims "the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing". A third poem in this language ends with a force of crabs preventing the annihilation of frogs by mice, and is attributed to an author who began another of his poems with the word (*) "rage". That poem in this language includes an ekphrasis about a shield in its 18th book. The Five Ages of Man are related in Works and Days, a didactic poem written in this language by the author of Theogony. For 10 points, name this language in which the "Hymn to Aphrodite" was written by Sappho, and which was also used by Hesiod and Homer.
ANSWER: Ancient Greek [or Koine Greek]

Clues, respectively, refer to a Sappho poem, the most famous work of Archilochus, Homer's Batrachomyomachia and the Iliad, the Iliad again, the mythological works of Hesiod, and then the giveaway.

Reesefulgenzi wrote:I answered the 'Mycenaean' tossup with 'Minoan' on the language clues--may I see the question?

In Round 9, Matt Jackson wrote:Warriors of this culture often wore helmets made of boar tusks sewn on leather. Under a king called the wanax, this culture traded small vials of scented olive oil to Egypt, according to tablets written in Linear B. Its namesake site is home to "shaft graves" making up Grave Circle A and Grave Circle B, as well as the Lion Gate and nine massive, underground, beehive-shaped stone tombs called tholoi. An artifact from this culture depicts a handlebar mustache and beard on a gold burial mask. The (*) Dorian expansion ended this civilization, whose fall began the Greek Dark Ages. For 10 points, name this proto-Greek culture which postdates the Minoans and crafted the Mask of Agamemnon at its namesake Peloponnese citadel.
ANSWER: Mycenae [or Mikenes; or Mycenaean Greeks; prompt on "Greeks"]

This one?

Ukonvasara wrote:

In Round 9, Matt Jackson wrote:Warriors of this culture often wore helmets made of boar tusks sewn on leather. Under a king called the wanax, this culture traded small vials of scented olive oil to Egypt, according to tablets written in Linear B. Its namesake site is home to "shaft graves" making up Grave Circle A and Grave Circle B, as well as the Lion Gate and nine massive, underground, beehive-shaped stone tombs called tholoi. An artifact from this culture depicts a handlebar mustache and beard on a gold burial mask. The (*) Dorian expansion ended this civilization, whose fall began the Greek Dark Ages. For 10 points, name this proto-Greek culture which postdates the Minoans and crafted the Mask of Agamemnon at its namesake Peloponnese citadel.
ANSWER: Mycenae [or Mikenes; or Mycenaean Greeks; prompt on "Greeks"]

This one?

Yes--looking it over, I misremembered when I buzzed.
The question looks fine--thank you for posting!

Reese

Could I please see q's on Ishmael and bullfighting. I felt like I should've gotten these a lot earlier, and I would like to see them again.

User was reminded to enable a signature. - Mgmt.

Will this set be posted soon?

40th Day after death wrote:Will this set be posted soon?

As Rob mentioned, "The set will be posted soon but not immediately, since there are some mechanical things I'd like to fix first (mostly typos and the like)."

I'm not usually one to gripe about "easy" bonuses, since I think most of the time it feels like people complaining because they know things, but I thought a "Largo Al Factotum"-Barber of Seville-Rossini bonus was very out of place. I thought bonus difficulty was handled very well on the whole and I really enjoyed the set in large part because of that; that was just one thing that stood out to me. Very minor gripe, but I thought I'd mention it.

I agree with Jack on the bonus difficulty. I felt hard parts were challenging and distinguished "real knowledge" very well, while easy parts were convertible by the large majority of teams. Translated to a personal level, I was intrigued by many interesting connections presented by hard parts (eg Godard on Hitchcock, Spivak and Derrida), while the easy parts were received well by my teammates on Hunter C, who really enjoyed playing this tournament. Thanks so much to the writers and editors of this set!

I was pleased to see contemporary literature (by which I mean bestselling literature that's been widely reviewed and discussed recently) represented in this set. The Goldfinch in the Pamuk museum bonus, Zachary Mason in the Odyssey tossup, and the Alice Munro bonus come to mind. There were a couple lit tossups whose answer-lines seemed tough even for NSC; I'd be interested in how tossups like Quo Vadis? and Kiss of the Spider Woman fared.

Could I see the Death in Venice tossup? I'm definitely nitpicking here, but if I remember correctly, the pronoun used in the first line was "this book", which dissuaded me from buzzing in with Death in Venice. I don't believe Death in Venice was ever published in book form, only as Death in Venice and Seven Other Stories. (Digression: An English teacher allowed me to write a term paper on Death in Venice and Seven Other Stories, but not Death in Venice, because "Death in Venice is a novella, not a full-fledged book".)

Along with the feng shui repeats (eg Sartre in lit and philo in consecutive rounds, Oedipus and Oedipal complex in consecutive rounds) and actual clue repeats (eg Freud's manifest/latent) mentioned previously, I remember some kind of repeated dervishes clue in a round 2 bonus, although I'm not sure what kind of repeat it was.

Non-set-related comment tacked on here as it doesn't deserve its own post: I recall from the opening meeting that when buzzing on a tossup, the last answer given within the 5 seconds is the one accepted. Am I remembering correctly? I ran into some uncertainty with two moderators over whether that is the case. Specifically, the cases were "Madox... Ford" for Ford Madox Ford and "Malinows- wait, Mauss" for Marcel Mauss. Looking at the rules, these seem to be cases of H.1.1.1, but I'm not sure if "immediate" in the former case and "clearly misspoken" in the latter case are met.

This is just an observation but, round 15 I believe had three poetry tossups which sort of struck me since I've don't think I've encountered it before. Is that a generally acceptable packetizing practice when writing a tournament?

serasuna wrote:I was pleased to see contemporary literature (by which I mean bestselling literature that's been widely reviewed and discussed recently) represented in this set. The Goldfinch in the Pamuk museum bonus, Zachary Mason in the Odyssey tossup, and the Alice Munro bonus come to mind.

Excellent! I too love stuff like this, which is why I included all three of those things in the set.

serasuna wrote:Could I see the Death in Venice tossup? I'm definitely nitpicking here, but if I remember correctly, the pronoun used in the first line was "this book", which dissuaded me from buzzing in with Death in Venice. I don't believe Death in Venice was ever published in book form, only as Death in Venice and Seven Other Stories. (Digression: An English teacher allowed me to write a term paper on Death in Venice and Seven Other Stories, but not Death in Venice, because "Death in Venice is a novella, not a full-fledged book".)

http://www.amazon.com/Death-Venice-Dove ... 0486287149 -- Looks like your English teacher was being a little picky. Here's the tossup, though:

One character in this novel authored the treatise Intellect and Art, which is favorably compared to Schiller’s “On Naïve and Sentimental Poetry.” It opens with the main character being stared at by a red-headed stranger before the narrativor recounts the writing of the novel Maya and an epic about Frederick the Great. Halfway through this novel, the protagonist’s baggage is mistakenly sent to (*) Como when he is about to leave the Grand Hotel des Bains. The protagonist of this novel later eats some overripe strawberries and dies while looking at a Polish youth with whom he is enamored, named Tadzio. For 10 points, name this novella about the last days of Gustave von Aschenbach, by Thomas Mann.
ANSWER: Death in Venice [or Der Tod in Venedig]

"Book" probably would've been a better choice, since "novel" is if anything a little more misleading. I think what happened here was a well-intentioned attempt to avoid saying "this work" repeatedly, which itself is a slightly overblown reaction to a well-intentioned attempt at avoiding transparency. I apologize for the ambiguity! (I would also like to note, however, that while it's absolutely on the writers and editors to ensure accuracy in these things, it's also simply smart play as a player to not be dissuaded from buzzing by minor or half-inaccuracies when you can confidently place other clues.)

Sniper, No Sniping! wrote:This is just an observation but, round 15 I believe had three poetry tossups which sort of struck me since I've don't think I've encountered it before. Is that a generally acceptable packetizing practice when writing a tournament?

This is one of the previously-mentioned feng shui issues that I'd planned to fix only to have various circumstances conspire to prevent me from doing so. Basically, when we tell QEMS to packetize the set, it takes the big pile of questions and the distributional requirements of the set and throws it together as best it can. As far as I know, it doesn't really have the sort of fine-grained controls that allow you to specify things like "maximum two poetry tossups per packet", which is why we try to go through and do it manually. We were able to get some of the manual fixes done (each packet properly distributed both overall and by half, all of the all-star questions in the all-star game packet, etc.) but technical issues forced us to sacrifice some of the more intensive stuff. So, the tl;dr answer to your question is: it's not the worst thing, but it's not ideal and ordinarily we try to avoid it.

Ukonvasara wrote:

serasuna wrote:I was pleased to see contemporary literature (by which I mean bestselling literature that's been widely reviewed and discussed recently) represented in this set. The Goldfinch in the Pamuk museum bonus, Zachary Mason in the Odyssey tossup, and the Alice Munro bonus come to mind.

Excellent! I too love stuff like this, which is why I included all three of those things in the set.

Yeah, this stuff is really cool--I think there was a clue mentioning How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia as well. I'm a fan of this contemporary literature, and though it's kind of absurd, I guess, to throw out a tossup on non-canonical works like these, adding them in as leadins and bonus parts (as this iteration of NSC did fantastically) is very rewarding to hear as a player.

There was a physics bonus part on Hedy Lamarr, right? From her wikipedia page, it seems like her inventions were pretty significant, but I'm not sure if that bonus part was really physics-centered or just an excuse to get an interesting fact about Hedy out there.

Reesefulgenzi wrote:I negged the 'Rousseff' tossup when it was describing Obama's phone tapping scandal with Merkel--I interpreted the clue as "...this person was phone tapped".

I wrote that one. The question mentioned a cancelled US visit, which I believe applies to Rousseff but not Merkel. If you believe Snowden, then they both had their phones tapped by the US.

UlyssesInvictus wrote:There was a physics bonus part on Hedy Lamarr, right? From her wikipedia page, it seems like her inventions were pretty significant, but I'm not sure if that bonus part was really physics-centered or just an excuse to get an interesting fact about Hedy out there.

Nope! There was, however, a general knowledge bonus part on Hedy Lamarr, in a sort of physics-themed GK bonus.

Could I please see the tossups I asked for earlier? The ones about Ishmael and Bullfighting? Thanks

iamapagan wrote:Could I please see the tossups I asked for earlier? The ones about Ishmael and Bullfighting? Thanks

Sure, but in exchange you have to enable your signature.

In Round 2, Aidan Mehigan wrote:In his childhood, a phantom hand gripped this character after he was sent to bed early on the summer solstice for climbing up a chimney. This character likens his activity to a brief interlude between a presidential election and a battle in Afghanistan. At the beginning of the novel in which he appears, this character is spurred to leave Manhattan by “a (*) damp, drizzly November” in his soul. This character gets the 300th lay from Peleg and Bildad, two Nantucket Quakers, by changing his custom of enlisting as a merchant sailor. In New Bedford, this character hears Father Mapple’s sermon on Jonah. This character survives the aftermath of a three-day chase by floating on the coffin of his friend Queequeg. For 10 points, name this narrator of Moby-Dick.
ANSWER: Ishmael

In Round 7, Aidan Mehigan wrote:A character who attends one of these events suggests saying that the participants beat their mothers. A participant in these events explains to a woman who reads his palm that he kills his best friends lest they kill him. The un-retired Belmonte disappoints the crowd at one of these events, some of whose participants are calmed by a group of steers. An innkeeper stresses the importance of (*) afición for these events, and Montoya feels betrayed after seeing a nineteen-year-old prodigy drinking with Mike Campbell’s fiancée. After one of them, Pedro Romero presents a severed ear to Brett Ashley, who is accompanied to that one by Jake Barnes. For 10 points, name these Spanish sporting events that figure prominently in The Sun Also Rises.
ANSWER: bullfights [or tauromaquia]

As someone who likes to study Irish history, I'm interested in seeing the Easter Rising tossup.

Augustine Danglmayr wrote:As someone who likes to study Irish history, I'm interested in seeing the Easter Rising tossup.

In Round 12, Mike Bentley wrote:A year before this event, one of its leaders gave a funeral oration for Rossa, saying his nation "unfree shall never be at peace". Another participant in this event had his diary published while awaiting execution in Pentonville prison, revealing his homosexual affairs. This movement outlined its plan for a provisional government on the steps of a (*) post office. Roger Casement was arrested and executed for his participation in this event, after Eoin MacNeill backed out and forces under Patrick Pearse went through with it. In the wake of this rebellion, Eamon de Valera was elected president of the party Sinn Fein. For 10 points, name this failed Irish rebellion which began in 1916 after Holy Week.
ANSWER: Easter Rising [or Easter Rebellion; or Easter Revolution; accept Sinn Fein Rebellion before mentioned]

I'm curious to see where the power marks for the tossups on "A Confederacy of Dunces" and "fake leg" were located; can I see these tossups?

Can I see the questions on the Income Effect and Pascal's Principle?

Can you post the entire set, question by question, using quote tags, sorted by recency of answer line.

I remember hearing the word "denominator" for the bonus part on G in round 13, bonus 20, so I'd like to see that please.

As a moderator, I'd like to gently point out:

1. Please provide some semblance of rationale as to why you would like the questions posted (even if it's just "I thought I misheard something" or "I really liked/hated that question").

2. Contra Fred's satirical point, there is nothing wrong with asking for questions to be posted, so don't feel like the editors look down on you for doing that.

I'd like to see the text of the Saki tossup (because Brandon got it particularly early and I want to see any clues that came after his buzz). Also, if the tossup on David's army can be posted, that'd be cool. Our freshman went for it early, negged it with "Alexander's army" based on a clue about water I believe that sounded similar to an apocryphal story about Alexander's army. Thx

Ok, so now that I've had a few days to think the set over, here are my thoughts:
I felt like the Christianity tossups were really solid, with interesting new answerlines such as David's Mighty Men and Job's friends. They were also very first line gettable which was nice, as lots of past Christianity tossups that I've played were too ambiguous on what they were asking for or sounded like it could be more than one possible thing. These were really nice, the only thing is I feel like there should be maybe more tossups on Christianity because it seems like its especially historically significant, since when I read history books events seem to always relate back to Christianity.
Now, one thing that really confused me was the tossup on Temple Mount. I buzzed in with "the Temple" because I heard that it was the site of Araunah's threshing floor, which according to the Bible is where the Temple was located http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Araunah I was really confused when the moderator prompted me, and I said First Temple because I remembered the part from the Bible. Could I see the question, and could someone explain how I was supposed to know it was Temple Mount and not the Temple? Thanks!
Another thing that confused me was the tossup in the all star game on "Jude". I remembered thinking it was Phillip because of several clues. I can't remember the first few, but I was pretty much certain when I heard something along the lines that "he was with Bartholomew", as the Bible states that Phillip and Bartholomew were together http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartholomew_the_Apostle I also thought I heard something about "this apostle", and Jude was clearly not an apostle, just the brother of Jesus. Could someone post that question? Maybe my hearing was off.
The history tossups were generally pretty good. Most of my buzzes came off of actual history book reading, not old packet studying, which often seems to be the source of my buzzes at regional tournaments. The answerlines were pretty nice too, with interesting things like John Crossman for a bonus part. There were a few ones that were buzzer races; I lost the buzzer race to Eric Xu on the "Italy" tossup when "Red Brigades" was mentioned, and lost the buzzer race on "Ming" when they mentioned the giraffe, but overall the history tossups were really nice, with very few buzzer races.
The art tossups were great, I think I got all of them off of actual AP Art History knowledge instead of old packet reading. The tossup on "library" and "Napoleon" were ones I really enjoyed. I can't really remember any buzzer races, except for one with my own teammates since we had the same art history teacher.