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In the LASA/Auburn game, this tossup was answered with "momentum," which was initially negged, but protested. The protest resolution stated that the tossup was vague and unclear and pointed to multiple possible answers. No idea if "motion" was one of them, but there certainly seemed to be issues with the tossup.2013 in amusement parks wrote:In round 16, I negged "inertia" with "motion" at the Aristotle clue. A teammate of mine wanted to protest, but we did not because it wouldn't have changed the outcome of the match. Was "motion" a viable answer?
This was a deliberate style choice and it was not found in other NAQT sets. I wanted to try it as an experiment. The rationale is that I don't think the phrase, e.g., "this author of Oliver Twist" makes sense: there is only one author of that novel, but the word "this" suggests a selection from several authors of it. This is contrary to quiz bowl convention, but I don't think that "name the author of Oliver Twist" is substantially less clear—"name the author" is about as direct a command as there can be.jonpin wrote:Without regard to the content of any specific question, I noticed what appeared to be a shift in the grammatical phrasing of the giveaway line of tossups and certain bonus prompts. I don't think this phrasing was around even in NAQT sets from earlier this year.
Almost every tossup I can remember reading that ends with a demand rather than a question would end with something like: "For 10 points, name this first president of the United States." A significant number of tossups at 2016 HSNCT would end with: "For 10 points, name the first president of the United States."
Likewise, the first part of a bonus, when following on from the lead-in, would often say "Name the bloodiest one-day battle in American history" rather than "Name this bloodiest one-day battle in American history."
If this was a conscious style choice, I think it's a poor decision. The word "this" is universal in quiz bowl to mean "THIS is the thing you are trying to name", and especially in the case of bonuses, it links together the thing you talked about in the lead-in with the thing we're now asking about in the first part.
We probably won't have conversion data for at least a month, possibly a few months; entering 1509 scoresheets is quite a task :-) . Jeff or I will do our very best to remember to come back to this thread when the data are ready.2013 in amusement parks wrote:What was the neg rate on "nonideal gases"? There was a buzzer race to say "ideal gases" in our room, and I heard it was problematic in some other rooms.
In another match, "momentum" was given as an answer and we determined that the question ought to be thrown out. I don't know if we would have done the same for a protest with an answer of "motion", but it's within the realm of possibility. We apologize for that problematic question.2013 in amusement parks wrote:In round 16, I negged "inertia" with "motion" at the Aristotle clue. A teammate of mine wanted to protest, but we did not because it wouldn't have changed the outcome of the match. Was "motion" a viable answer?
As soon as I read this question, I was concerned that it seemed vague -- but the more I read about Avicenna, the more I started to become convinced that it was actually okay. The word "mayl" in Arabic comes from a root that can mean things like "to turn" or "to tilt" or "to incline," and virtually every translation of Avicenna I could find translates "mayl" as "inclination." In other words, it refers to the inclination of an object to continue traveling in the direction it's already traveling, unless something comes along to incline it in a new direction. As a result, I became convinced that even though the wording of the first sentence sounds vague, it does specifically identify the concept of inertia.HSNCT Packet 16 wrote:"A precursor to the classical understanding of this property was {Avicenna}'s [AH-vuh-SEH-nuh's] ~{mayl}~ ["mail"], which concerned {projectiles}."
The most important NAQT tournament of the year is not exactly a time to experiment with a very bad stylistic choice!jonah wrote:This was a deliberate style choice and it was not found in other NAQT sets. I wanted to try it as an experiment. The rationale is that I don't think the phrase, e.g., "this author of Oliver Twist" makes sense: there is only one author of that novel, but the word "this" suggests a selection from several authors of it. This is contrary to quiz bowl convention, but I don't think that "name the author of Oliver Twist" is substantially less clear—"name the author" is about as direct a command as there can be.jonpin wrote:Without regard to the content of any specific question, I noticed what appeared to be a shift in the grammatical phrasing of the giveaway line of tossups and certain bonus prompts. I don't think this phrasing was around even in NAQT sets from earlier this year.
Almost every tossup I can remember reading that ends with a demand rather than a question would end with something like: "For 10 points, name this first president of the United States." A significant number of tossups at 2016 HSNCT would end with: "For 10 points, name the first president of the United States."
Likewise, the first part of a bonus, when following on from the lead-in, would often say "Name the bloodiest one-day battle in American history" rather than "Name this bloodiest one-day battle in American history."
If this was a conscious style choice, I think it's a poor decision. The word "this" is universal in quiz bowl to mean "THIS is the thing you are trying to name", and especially in the case of bonuses, it links together the thing you talked about in the lead-in with the thing we're now asking about in the first part.
In the case of bonuses, I agree that it makes the relationship between intro and first part a little bit less clear. That, along with the long tradition of "this" (despite its possible illogicality), are among the reasonable arguments against this experiment. I don't know whether we will continue or standardize this experiment, but I'm guessing no.
This was probably the easiest HSNCT set that NAQT has ever produced, I think that the lower stats are probably just indicative of a somewhat weaker field than last year.That DCC guy wrote:So first off could I just have confirmation that u guys made these questions harder than last year like looking at the stats their isn't even a comparison.
I also negged this tossup with "momentum". I buzzed on the clue describing Buridan's theory of impetus, which is defined very similarly to momentum.Kyle wrote:The inertia question happened to be in one of the packets that I was helping to edit. I'm not especially up on my physics, so I didn't attempt to make any definitive determination about the question as a whole, but I did spend some time reading about the first sentence. Here is that sentence:
As soon as I read this question, I was concerned that it seemed vague -- but the more I read about Avicenna, the more I started to become convinced that it was actually okay. The word "mayl" in Arabic comes from a root that can mean things like "to turn" or "to tilt" or "to incline," and virtually every translation of Avicenna I could find translates "mayl" as "inclination." In other words, it refers to the inclination of an object to continue traveling in the direction it's already traveling, unless something comes along to incline it in a new direction. As a result, I became convinced that even though the wording of the first sentence sounds vague, it does specifically identify the concept of inertia.HSNCT Packet 16 wrote:"A precursor to the classical understanding of this property was {Avicenna}'s [AH-vuh-SEH-nuh's] ~{mayl}~ ["mail"], which concerned {projectiles}."
I'll leave it to the scientists to speak up on behalf of the subsequent three sentences...
My analysis would be that it was somewhere in between 2014 and 2015 in difficulty level. I would really object to the idea that the field was weaker than last year in a significant way.AKKOLADE wrote:Numbers instead of speculation.
I would like to pop up again and note that the alleged "illogicality" of quizbowl's use of "this x", by the above reasoning, would apply to every usage of "this x" in all good questions. There is (should be) only one answer at every point in the question, which would contravene with quizbowl's use of "this x" at every point in a question!Cody wrote:The most important NAQT tournament of the year is not exactly a time to experiment with a very bad stylistic choice!jonah wrote:This was a deliberate style choice and it was not found in other NAQT sets. I wanted to try it as an experiment. The rationale is that I don't think the phrase, e.g., "this author of Oliver Twist" makes sense: there is only one author of that novel, but the word "this" suggests a selection from several authors of it. This is contrary to quiz bowl convention, but I don't think that "name the author of Oliver Twist" is substantially less clear—"name the author" is about as direct a command as there can be.
In the case of bonuses, I agree that it makes the relationship between intro and first part a little bit less clear. That, along with the long tradition of "this" (despite its possible illogicality), are among the reasonable arguments against this experiment. I don't know whether we will continue or standardize this experiment, but I'm guessing no.
Among the many proper English usages of "this" is to refer to a singular thing that you are indicating. Your stated rationale doesn't make any sense and I'm pretty astonished that this was allowed!
This is precisely why I was pretty astonished!setht wrote:To be clear, Jonah okayed the "the-not-this" experiment with R. and myself. I figured it wouldn't affect gameplay and might turn out to be a stylistic tweak players liked. If it did affect gameplay I apologize. If we get positive feedback we'll consider continuing; if we don't, we won't.
I'd go one step further and say that I think if there's a tossup on a "concept" (as this seemed to be), there's no difference between inertia and momentum - inertia, the tendency of objects to stay in motion, is just a manifestation of conservation of (linear) momentum. Avicenna's idea of "mayl" and Buridan's "impetus" could both be said to presage the idea of momentum just as much as they do the idea of inertia (especially given that Buridan proposes a formula of "impetus = weight x velocity", which is eerily similar to p=mv).schen wrote:I also negged this tossup with "momentum". I buzzed on the clue describing Buridan's theory of impetus, which is defined very similarly to momentum.Kyle wrote:The inertia question happened to be in one of the packets that I was helping to edit. I'm not especially up on my physics, so I didn't attempt to make any definitive determination about the question as a whole, but I did spend some time reading about the first sentence. Here is that sentence:
As soon as I read this question, I was concerned that it seemed vague -- but the more I read about Avicenna, the more I started to become convinced that it was actually okay. The word "mayl" in Arabic comes from a root that can mean things like "to turn" or "to tilt" or "to incline," and virtually every translation of Avicenna I could find translates "mayl" as "inclination." In other words, it refers to the inclination of an object to continue traveling in the direction it's already traveling, unless something comes along to incline it in a new direction. As a result, I became convinced that even though the wording of the first sentence sounds vague, it does specifically identify the concept of inertia.HSNCT Packet 16 wrote:"A precursor to the classical understanding of this property was {Avicenna}'s [AH-vuh-SEH-nuh's] ~{mayl}~ ["mail"], which concerned {projectiles}."
I'll leave it to the scientists to speak up on behalf of the subsequent three sentences...
This is addressed somewhat between your post and this one. I might add some more data later. If in fact the set was harder than last year, which is plausible, I suspect it is more that last year was unusually easy than this year was unusually hard. (This does not contradict what you said.)That DCC guy wrote:So first off could I just have confirmation that u guys made these questions harder than last year like looking at the stats their isn't even a comparison.
The events in question can be viewed at https://www.periscope.tv/w/1dRJZkbnaemxB starting around 27 minutes in.That DCC guy wrote:Secondly what was the decision made specifically during the debacle at the end of the DCC TJ game?
Couch's Kingbird wrote:Can I see the bonus on Adam Bede? I personally felt like that was pretty difficult.
This bonus probably needed an easier easy part (by adding information to part C.) The most obvious fix is precluded by the presence of an entire tossup on Middlemarch elsewhere in the set.2016 HSNCT round 13 wrote:This character lives with her uncle, Martin Poyser, at his farm. For 10 points each—
A. Name this woman, the cousin of a preacher named Dinah Morris. The title character of an 1859 novel loves her.
answer: Hetty Sorrel (or Hester Sorrel; accept any underlined portion)
B. Arthur Donnithorne impregnates Hetty even though this man loves her more; he ends up marrying Dinah instead.
answer: Adam Bede (accept Adam; prompt on "Bede")
C. Adam Bede was the first full-length novel by this Victorian author.
answer: George Eliot (or Mary Ann Evans or Marian Evans or Mary Ann Cross; accept Marian Evans Lewes; prompt on "(Marian) Lewes")
swimmerstar wrote:Could I see the tossups on New Orleans and quintic?
2016 HSNCT round 19 wrote:A myth about this battle claims that the 7th Infantry made defenses out of cotton bales. Ignace de Lino de Chalmette's plantation was contested in this battle. Before Christmas, a "Baratarian" force led by the (*) pirate Jean Lafitte entered this battle. Edward Pakenham lost this battle on January 8, after the signing of the Treaty of Ghent. For 10 points—name the battle in the War of 1812 that made Andrew Jackson famous.
answer: Battle of New Orleans
2016 HSNCT round 21 wrote:"Bring radicals" are defined in terms of zeroes of these expressions, and are used to write other zeroes of them. Because the splitting fields associated with these expressions do not always have solvable (*) Galois groups, the Abel-Ruffini theorem states that there is no general formula to solve this kind of polynomial. For 10 points—give the term for a polynomial whose degree is 5.
answer: quintic polynomials (or quintics; accept quintic equations; accept fifth-degree polynomial or polynomial of degree 5 before "degree")
Urech hydantoin synthesis wrote:Could I see the tossup on colon (in computer science)? The Java clue seemed potentially inaccurate.
2016 HSNCT round 10 wrote:This punctuation mark is used for definitions and indenting when editing MediaWiki sites like Wikipedia. In Java and C, it follows the label for a block of code like a loop. This punctuation mark separates the bytes of an IPv6 address, and separates (*) keys and values in JSON. In a URL, it goes before a port number. For 10 points—name the punctuation mark that also appears in URLs immediately after a protocol like "http."
answer: colon
I negged semicolon on that... it was pretty tragicUrech hydantoin synthesis wrote:Could I see the tossup on colon (in computer science)? The Java clue seemed potentially inaccurate.
break;2016 HSNCT round 10 wrote: answer: colon
Also just so people who are interested don't have to look it up themselves, labels are pretty much only used to break the outer loop of a nested loop, with the syntax as follows:Santa Claus wrote:colons
Code: Select all
label1:
for(){
label2:
for(){
break label1; //this breaks the outer loop, rather than the inner
}
}Gibberish Nonsense wrote:Can I see the tossup on Jake Arrieta's no hitters? I vaguely remember that first date being off.
"August 2015" is correct (boxscore).2016 HSNCT round 20 wrote:Athlete and feat required. The first of these events was in August 2015 on ESPN Sunday Night Baseball against the Dodgers, and was followed by a press conference featuring a mustache onesie. The second of these games, in April 2016, had a nearly unprecedented (*) 16-run margin of victory and was against the Reds. For 10 points—name these events in which the Chicago Cubs' ace allowed no singles, doubles, triples, or homers.
answer: Jake Arrieta's no-hitters (accept any answer containing Jacob (Joseph) Arrieta and no-hitter; prompt on partial answers; do not accept or prompt on answers containing "perfect game")
bluqiu wrote:Could I please see the tossup on Shanghai? I wanna see what I missed.
2016 HSNCT round 25 wrote:Replicas of European towns were built around this city as part of its "One City, Nine Towns" program. A red, upside-down pyramid and a structure with a giant, funnel-shaped membrane roof were built in this city for its 2010 World Expo. This city's historic Bund district is across the (*) Huangpu River from its Pudong district, which contains the Oriental Pearl Tower. For 10 points—name the most populous city in China.
Round 17 contained the expected number of math and science questions:The_Imperator wrote:What was the distribution for Packet 17? It felt to be incredibly lit heavy, with most of the remainder filled by geography, music, and history. We only got to three math and science questions in my room.
I'm afraid I don't understand the complaint. The clue clearly states it is talking about labels for loops. If a player doesn't know what labels are or how they work, they probably shouldn't buzz on a clue about labels. I don't believe NAQT or quiz bowl in general has adopted a standard that second clues (or any particular clue in general) has to be part of a curriculum in some fashion; even if such a standard were possible (no) it would not be a good idea.Santa Claus wrote:I want to just point out second clue in colons, which was a really, really bad hose in it.
First off, colon's probably one of the harder punctuation marks to tossup in a CS context, since it's not very commonly used in the big programming languages, but that's fine; there's lots of clues, and as in the first line of the tossup, you can have clues like those for editing Wikipedia. The main problem was the the second clue referenced colons as something used to end labels, citing the example of loops. Immediately there's a problem here, since labels are not taught in most CS classes, as it's not part of the AP curriculum. It's in the same group of loop manipulation as continue and break, but is significantly less well known (a fun exercise is to look up "what is a label in Java" or "why does loop: compile" on Stack Exchange). I personally thought that the question was actually wrong, much as Ben did, but it turns out that that's actually a thing.
As a result, I am almost certain that most teams buzzed there and said either some variation of a brace or semi-colon or parentheses - basically any other punctuation mark. All of those answers are really reasonable in the context of loops, especially since practically the only application of colons I can think of in either C or Java is in switch statements (also not in the AP curriculum). I'm pretty sure once conversion stats come out, they will not look favorably upon this question.
OK thanks.bird bird bird bird bird wrote:Round 17 contained the expected number of math and science questions:The_Imperator wrote:What was the distribution for Packet 17? It felt to be incredibly lit heavy, with most of the remainder filled by geography, music, and history. We only got to three math and science questions in my room.
tossup 2 Red Queen hypothesis
tossup 7 common link on "four" in chemistry
tossup 12 moraines
tossup 15 halving
tossup 20 function composition
(and tossup 23, a physics tossup on Planck's constant which was unheard in the round 17 game for Saint Stephen's Episcopal A)
Hose is probably the wrong word, but I also doubt the second line here is a good clue. As far as I understand, labels are a very obscure and rarely-used feature in Java and C that most high schoolers would have never encountered. So I suspect that the clue likely would've prompted many negs from players who mistook labels for some other better-known aspect of loops.jonah wrote:I'm afraid I don't understand the complaint. The clue clearly states it is talking about labels for loops. If a player doesn't know what labels are or how they work, they probably shouldn't buzz on a clue about labels. I don't believe NAQT or quiz bowl in general has adopted a standard that second clues (or any particular clue in general) has to be part of a curriculum in some fashion; even if such a standard were possible (no) it would not be a good idea.
What makes the question a hose? It sounds to me like the only problem is "a clue that lots of people didn't know," which is not a hose nor necessarily a problem for a second clue.
Ah, okay. I could've sworn it said August 24, 2015, but that's totally correct (and come to think of it, would seem like poor question writing). Thanks!bird bird bird bird bird wrote:Gibberish Nonsense wrote:Can I see the tossup on Jake Arrieta's no hitters? I vaguely remember that first date being off."August 2015" is correct (boxscore).2016 HSNCT round 20 wrote:Athlete and feat required. The first of these events was in August 2015 on ESPN Sunday Night Baseball against the Dodgers, and was followed by a press conference featuring a mustache onesie. The second of these games, in April 2016, had a nearly unprecedented (*) 16-run margin of victory and was against the Reds. For 10 points—name these events in which the Chicago Cubs' ace allowed no singles, doubles, triples, or homers.
answer: Jake Arrieta's no-hitters (accept any answer containing Jacob (Joseph) Arrieta and no-hitter; prompt on partial answers; do not accept or prompt on answers containing "perfect game")
This was a big part of what the complaint was; sorry for not stating it properly. Using clues that don't appear in classes isn't a bad thing, but this clue in particular seems particularly liable to lead people astray. In this case I thought it was particularly egregious because of how heavily the question seems to imply any number of alternative (incorrect) answers.Corry wrote:Hose is probably the wrong word, but I also doubt the second line here is a good clue. As far as I understand, labels are a very obscure and rarely-used feature in Java and C that most high schoolers would have never encountered. So I suspect that the clue likely would've prompted many negs from players who mistook labels for some other better-known aspect of loops.
Do math contest people learn about the Galois theory stuff in this question? Or is this just really really really hard for a high school question? (I don't think Bring radicals showed up in any of the algebra or number theory material I've studied!)bird bird bird bird bird wrote:swimmerstar wrote:Could I see the tossups on New Orleans and quintic?2016 HSNCT round 21 wrote:"Bring radicals" are defined in terms of zeroes of these expressions, and are used to write other zeroes of them. Because the splitting fields associated with these expressions do not always have solvable (*) Galois groups, the Abel-Ruffini theorem states that there is no general formula to solve this kind of polynomial. For 10 points—give the term for a polynomial whose degree is 5.
answer: quintic polynomials (or quintics; accept quintic equations; accept fifth-degree polynomial or polynomial of degree 5 before "degree")
No, but it's a common topic of self-study for "math contest people".vinteuil wrote:Do math contest people learn about the Galois theory stuff in this question?
I wouldn't say common, but it's also certainly not unheard of. Nevertheless, I would be very surprised if anyone powered this unless it was a quick guess based on "do not always have solvable" (and that kind of buzz would have required anticipation of such a clue).The Quest for the Historical Mukherjesus wrote:No, but it's a common topic of self-study for "math contest people".vinteuil wrote:Do math contest people learn about the Galois theory stuff in this question?