EFT Discussion

[setht]

The tossup on the real numbers was mine.

"The continuum" is a perfectly cromulent synonym, it just didn't occur to me to put it in the answer line.

The irrationals can be shown to be uncountable using Cantor's diagonal argument, but my understanding is that the original use was in reference to the reals. Similarly, like the reals, the irrationals can be decomposed into (some of the) algebraic numbers and transcendental numbers. Finally, any method for constructing the reals from the rationals is going to produce the irrationals as a by-product. The algebraic/transcendental clue isn't particularly exciting and I'd be fine with dropping it, but I wanted to put in the diagonal argument and some common methods for constructing R, since those seem like juicy clues. The earlier clues do rule out the irrationals: the stuff about the long line and the coy clues about the continuum hypothesis don't apply, the irrationals aren't a field of any sort (or even a group), they don't have the LUB property, etc. All that said, if people can suggest a way of wording the construction clues and/or the diagonal argument clue to make it clear that the answer can't be the irrationals without also making things too easy at that point in the question, I'd be interested in seeing the suggestions.

I'm also interested in hearing any objections people may have had regarding the long line clue in the lead-in.

-Seth

[ThisIsMyUsername]

10. In “Getting Down Off the Beanstalk,” Susan McClary claims that the first movement of this piece represents the “murderous rage of a rapist incapable of attaining release.” Trombones first appear in a D major trio in its “Scherzo” second movement, which includes the unique use of timpani playing Ritmo di tre battute. This work features a solo for the fourth horn in its third movement, which takes place prior to the last movement, where the hymn-like theme passes from the cellos and basses to the vocalists. FTP, name this D minor symphony, whose fourth movement sets to music Schiller’s “Ode to Joy,” which was the last symphony by Ludwig van Beethoven.
ANSWER: Beethoven’s 9th Symphony or “Choral” Symphony [accept or Opus 125 before mention]

I must have just zoned out. This is generally fine. The one oddity is "unique use of timpani playing Ritmo di tre battute". Ritmo di tre battute denotes the way the music of this brief section is grouped into three-bar phrases as opposed to the four-bar phrases that were used most of the rest of the scherzo. It has no specific application to the timpani, since all the instruments that play in this section obey this phrase grouping. But anyway, this should not have interfered with the buzzability of the clue.

4. The narrator of this work recounts Socrates’s statement that “before thunder ceases, the rain comes,” made when his wife urinated on him, and quotes extensively from Ptolemey’s Amalgest. One character argues that gentility comes only from god, and another character draws a metaphor by claiming that a castle wall cannot be defended when it is besieged from every side. The central character tears pages out of Valerius and Theophrastus, which earns her a punch in the ear by Jankin. One character is forced to wed an old woman in return for information but that woman later transforms into a young beauty, and as punishment for raping a maiden, a knight is ordered to name the thing which woman desires most. FTP, name this Canterbury tale in which the title character recounts her misadventures with her five husbands.
ANSWER: “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” (accept the Prologue to the Wife of Bath's Tale)

I don't know about the first one, but you certainly were right to be a bit confused about the second one. It conflates the Tale and the Prologue; I guess the best solution was just to accept either of them. Honestly, the Prologue is more important than the Tale itself, I'm pretty sure, but the Prologue itself doesn't make for the best answer line. (As for tossing up individual Tales at this level...well, I'm not sure.)

For the record, I have no objection to individual tales being tossed up. The Pardoner's Tale tossup from last year was good. My problem was with the conflation of Prologue and Tale (the clues in the tossup alternate between references to the Prologue and Tale) and the fact that certain clues were confusing. The way I heard the first sentence made me think that this was something narrated by a male character who is pissed on and then quotes Socrates, rather than a narrator who quotes Socrates' reply to being pissed on, and this confused me for the rest of the tossup, though I see that this is phrased fine on paper. I would note that the Wife of Bath never actually quotes Ptolemy, she just keeps making things up while claiming that they are quotes from Ptolemy, which is a source of the comedy. It is a little bit confusing, though, to refer to the Wife of Bath as both the narrator in line one and the central character in line four, as if they're different people. She is the central character of her own prologue perhaps, but she is only the narrator of and not a character in her own tale.

[MicroEStudent]

I just wanted to give kudos to a few questions that I particularly enjoyed including "Milliken Oil Drop Experiment", "Bernoulli's Equation", "infrared", the bonus with "adsorption" and "Young's Modulus/Hooke's Law". One of my teammates especially enjoyed the bad white rapper bonus and I also liked the possible 2009 AL MVP bonus.

Regarding the trash, I know that it isn't that important in an academic tournament, but was the mention of Peyton Manning for "Indianapolis" the only football reference in the tournament? There were at least three baseball references (AL MVPs, Ruth/Hornsby and Tokyo) but beyond Manning I did not hear any other football. Is this just bad luck that we didn't hear a question?

EDIT: grammar, but there's probably still an error in there.

[grapesmoker]

Regarding the trash, I know that it isn't that important in an academic tournament, but was the mention of Peyton Manning for "Indianapolis" the only football reference in the tournament? There were at least three baseball references (AL MVPs, Ruth/Hornsby and Tokyo) but beyond Manning I did not hear any other football. Is this just bad luck that we didn't hear a question?

You have to keep in mind that the writers of this set are not particularly football fans. I usually view trash in academic tournaments (as opposed to trash in actual trash tournaments) as something that doesn't necessitate sticking to some predetermined distribution. Thus, generally people will write about whatever they like (my trash tossups were on bananas and the Portland music scene, bonuses on Funny People and the NBA).

[MicroEStudent]

Regarding the trash, I know that it isn't that important in an academic tournament, but was the mention of Peyton Manning for "Indianapolis" the only football reference in the tournament? There were at least three baseball references (AL MVPs, Ruth/Hornsby and Tokyo) but beyond Manning I did not hear any other football. Is this just bad luck that we didn't hear a question?

You have to keep in mind that the writers of this set are not particularly football fans. I usually view trash in academic tournaments (as opposed to trash in actual trash tournaments) as something that doesn't necessitate sticking to some predetermined distribution. Thus, generally people will write about whatever they like (my trash tossups were on bananas and the Portland music scene, bonuses on Funny People and the NBA).

That's a fair point regarding distribution for trash in an academic tournament. I did not stop to think about that.

[The Friar]

This set contained what I think was a relatively high concentration of grammatical and (less troublesomely) spelling errors, which made moderating a challenge and which, I assume, may be attributed to the intense effort to finish it on time, but the content was overall pleasing, if slightly less perfectly tuned to the target audience than the previous two EFTs. Thanks to those who put it together and made it possible!

My apologies again to Trygve and everyone playing or staffing at Illinois for my contributions to that site's lateness (getting lost with my team, getting loster by myself, no wireless, no MS Office for editing scoresheets).

[Mike Bentley]

This set contained what I think was a relatively high concentration of grammatical and (less troublesomely) spelling errors, which made moderating a challenge and which, I assume, may be attributed to the intense effort to finish it on time, but the content was overall pleasing, if slightly less perfectly tuned to the target audience than the previous two EFTs.

I thought the set was decent enough in terms of grammar and spelling. I didn't have any real issues getting through the questions because of poor grammar or bad spelling. It wasn't perfect, but I'd put it above average for college sets.

[Cheynem]

Yeah, I'm not entirely certain if trash should follow at least some attempt at a sub-distribution in academic tournaments or not. I suppose this would work better for a different thread.

[Lagotto Romagnolo]

Yeah, I'm not entirely certain if trash should follow at least some attempt at a sub-distribution in academic tournaments or not. I suppose this would work better for a different thread.

One moment...

[Geringer]

Only one tossup from the set stood out to me as hose-ish. The tossup on alveoli seemed like it could have been answered with lungs for a large portion of the tossup. There was a middle clue about surface area in there which made it specifically about alveoli. Long story short, someone buzzed with "lungs" in my room after the surface area clue and I had to neg him. It might have cost him the game. I'm no expert in biology, but it seemed kind of hazy to me.

The set, as well as the mirror I helped staff at UIllinois, seemed like a very warm welcome into the college quizbowl community. Props to Brown (and the other freelance writers too).

[tiwonge]

Is there an estimated time when the packet will be published? I understand that the last mirrors were Sunday.

[grapesmoker]

Is there an estimated time when the packet will be published? I understand that the last mirrors were Sunday.

Yeah, I think the set has already been sent to Chris Carter. If it's not posted by tonight I can post in on my webspace.

[Marble-faced Bristle Tyrant]

Only one tossup from the set stood out to me as hose-ish. The tossup on alveoli seemed like it could have been answered with lungs for a large portion of the tossup. There was a middle clue about surface area in there which made it specifically about alveoli. Long story short, someone buzzed with "lungs" in my room after the surface area clue and I had to neg him. It might have cost him the game. I'm no expert in biology, but it seemed kind of hazy to me.

Yeah, after the team we were playing negged, I was all set to say lungs until the very giveaway. Lucky that I waited and kept paying attention.

Changing subject: Both A Hundred... and One Hundred... seem to be perfectly acceptable English translations of Cien años de soledad. Why is one counted correctly while the other isn't? Honestly, both translations mean the same thing to me.

3. When the title of a work not originally written in English is the answer, titles in the original language are generally provided in the packet. Those titles in the original language are acceptable, as are idiomatic or literal English translations and any titles under which a translation of the work has been published in English. ... Ambiguities across languages will normally be resolved in favor of the player; for example, “A Dog’s Heart,” “Heart of a Dog,” “The Heart of a Dog,” and “The Heart of the Dog” are all acceptable for Mikhail Bulgakov’s Sobace serdtse, as the player is not expected to figure out whether or how to supply articles that do not exist in Russian. However, players will not receive credit for a correct answer when making implausible translations: “The Heart Inside the Dog” is never acceptable, since there is no correct way to translate the Russian title in that way. Since moderators and tournament directors cannot be expected to be familiar with the intricacies of every foreign language, players are encouraged to give non-esoteric or traditional English translations, or the original-language title, in order to avoid complicated protests over translated answers.

[Susan]

Do people really accept "idiomatic or literal" English translations? If I buzzed in with "the flying mouse" on a Die Fledermaus question, would it be taken?* In my experience, people accept any title under which a given work has been published and nothing more (so they wouldn't accept "Heart of the Dog" but would accept all other alternatives in the example in the rule).

*I think this used to be the canonical example of how you DON'T take Joe Blow's translation of the title.

[Lapego1]

For my own benefit, what was the verdict of that discussion awhile ago on the Guide to/for the Perplexed acceptability?

[Auroni]

I would take both answ

For my own benefit, what was the verdict of that discussion awhile ago on the Guide to/for the Perplexed acceptability?

Well, I've seen that both are acceptable, although Guide to the Perplexed is visibly weaker (indeed, I believe it titles a novel by some modern Hebrew author). Then again, we're translating from Hebrew (and originally from Arabic), however the idea is that it's a guide "for" people unclear about various Jewish religious and philosophical topics.

[Susan]

For my own benefit, what was the verdict of that discussion awhile ago on the Guide to/for the Perplexed acceptability?

Don't know what the verdict was, but since the work is published as a Guide of, for, and (more rarely) to the Perplexed, people ought to accept all three of those.

[Ethnic history of the Vilnius region]

Changing subject: Both A Hundred... and One Hundred... seem to be perfectly acceptable English translations of Cien años de soledad. Why is one counted correctly while the other isn't? Honestly, both translations mean the same thing to me.

3. When the title of a work not originally written in English is the answer, titles in the original language are generally provided in the packet. Those titles in the original language are acceptable, as are idiomatic or literal English translations and any titles under which a translation of the work has been published in English. ... Ambiguities across languages will normally be resolved in favor of the player; for example, “A Dog’s Heart,” “Heart of a Dog,” “The Heart of a Dog,” and “The Heart of the Dog” are all acceptable for Mikhail Bulgakov’s Sobace serdtse, as the player is not expected to figure out whether or how to supply articles that do not exist in Russian. However, players will not receive credit for a correct answer when making implausible translations: “The Heart Inside the Dog” is never acceptable, since there is no correct way to translate the Russian title in that way. Since moderators and tournament directors cannot be expected to be familiar with the intricacies of every foreign language, players are encouraged to give non-esoteric or traditional English translations, or the original-language title, in order to avoid complicated protests over translated answers.

The question itself didn't specify that a reader couldn't accept "A Hundred Years of Solitude." I talked to the reader, and the reader said that they recently had a class in which a professor said that, "A Hundred...." was not the way to translate that, so the reader used that knowledge and wouldn't count the answer given. Looking at the ACF rules, which were the rules we were using, I would have given points for "A Hundred...." if it came up in protest.

[Sir Thopas]

they're nowhere easy enough in the same tournament as a tossup on Otto von Bismarck where well-known and, as a bonus, memorably named thing the Reptiles Fund is in the second line.

If you're going to make a gratuitous knock on an easy question, you can surely do better than a clue which has come up three times in quizbowl history, all as lead-ins.

[Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN)]

Yeah, you must be high.

[theMoMA]

Apparently this set was very lazy in terms of providing alternate answers. Making the occasional mistake and leaving off answers is no big deal, but doing it consistently over an entire set is a big problem. Writing questions is about making them as playable as possible, and part of that is making sure that as many reasonable answers are provided as possible.

I thought this set ranged from good to excellent in rewarding knowledge and sticking to basic topics. There weren't very many transparent questions, which is often a problem with easier answers. There were some pretty hard tossup answers (Man at the Crossroads, really?), but probably more detrimental to the enjoyment of newer teams were the handful of bonuses in each packet with no real novice easy part, or the greater number with third parts that just weren't answerable. There were also some tossups that crossed over the seven-line mark, which is unnecessary and tiresome for some novices.

All that said, aside from last year's ACF Fall, I think this tournament was the best novice tournament I've come across, so kudos to the editors and writers for producing a tournament that accomplished its goals and provided quality, enjoyable questions for all ranges of players. The praise in this thread from newer players themselves shows that it lived up to its foremost function.

[grapesmoker]

they're nowhere easy enough in the same tournament as a tossup on Otto von Bismarck where well-known and, as a bonus, memorably named thing the Reptiles Fund is in the second line.

If you're going to make a gratuitous knock on an easy question, you can surely do better than a clue which has come up three times in quizbowl history, all as lead-ins.

Yeah, and this. I consider myself fairly well-educated on Bismarck-related topics, but I'll be damned if I remembered that bit about the Repitle Fund. This is a misguided criticism, especially considering that most of the players at EFT have not been reading packets all summer preparing for it. Even if it were true (which it's not) that the Reptile Fund was relatively well-known to quizbowl veterans, I would still leave it in; if you're a good player, you'll get points, but finding the next impossible Bismarck clue to challenge you with isn't really the goal of this tournament.

[Matt Weiner]

Do people really accept "idiomatic or literal" English translations? If I buzzed in with "the flying mouse" on a Die Fledermaus question, would it be taken?* In my experience, people accept any title under which a given work has been published and nothing more (so they wouldn't accept "Heart of the Dog" but would accept all other alternatives in the example in the rule).

*I think this used to be the canonical example of how you DON'T take Joe Blow's translation of the title.

I don't speak German. Does "fledermaus" actually mean "flying mouse" or is it just the word for "bat" that happens to be formed from roots meaning "flying" and "mouse," for obvious reasons? I think the idiom is supposed to work the other way and account for translations that preserve the meaning while using English words that sound better than a mechanical translation.

The purpose of the rule is to avoid penalizing people who obviously know what "One Hundred Years of Solitude" is because they didn't go and check to see if it had ever been published as "A Hundred Years of Solitude" before giving such an exactly equivalent answer.

[Matt Weiner]

All that said, aside from last year's ACF Fall, I think this tournament was the best novice tournament I've come across, so kudos to the editors and writers for producing a tournament that accomplished its goals and provided quality, enjoyable questions for all ranges of players. The praise in this thread from newer players themselves shows that it lived up to its foremost function.

Eh. This really struck me as more of a controlled-difficulty normal tournament. You could have mixed in one of these packets with 2008 Penn Bowl or 2009 Terrapin and not seen a lot of difference, except maybe that the latter two tournaments had a more consistently difficult hard bonus part. I think that if you took the teams who were having 60-40 games on these packets and read them the ACF Fall packets from the last two years, or what I expect this year's ACF Fall packets to be, their scores would double.

For the most part this tournament avoided overtly crazy tossup answers, which is probably the main thing in not scaring novices away, but it really wasn't novice level, and it's been clear that Brown has tried to avoid marketing it as a "novice" event for a while now.

[Mechanical Beasts]

Do people really accept "idiomatic or literal" English translations? If I buzzed in with "the flying mouse" on a Die Fledermaus question, would it be taken?* In my experience, people accept any title under which a given work has been published and nothing more (so they wouldn't accept "Heart of the Dog" but would accept all other alternatives in the example in the rule).

*I think this used to be the canonical example of how you DON'T take Joe Blow's translation of the title.

I don't speak German. Does "fledermaus" actually mean "flying mouse" or is it just the word for "bat" that happens to be formed from roots meaning "flying" and "mouse," for obvious reasons? I think the idiom is supposed to work the other way and account for translations that preserve the meaning while using English words that sound better than a mechanical translation.

It means "bat." I think "idiomatic" and "literal" in that rule are intended to go in two opposite directions--that is, idiomatic refers to what you just said, and literal points in the direction of "using hyper-literal direct translation even when weird or non-meaning-preserving," though I don't think it would let you say "flying mouse" there.

[Mechanical Beasts]

they're nowhere easy enough in the same tournament as a tossup on Otto von Bismarck where well-known and, as a bonus, memorably named thing the Reptiles Fund is in the second line.

If you're going to make a gratuitous knock on an easy question, you can surely do better than a clue which has come up three times in quizbowl history, all as lead-ins.

Yeah, and this. I consider myself fairly well-educated on Bismarck-related topics, but I'll be damned if I remembered that bit about the Repitle Fund. This is a misguided criticism, especially considering that most of the players at EFT have not been reading packets all summer preparing for it. Even if it were true (which it's not) that the Reptile Fund was relatively well-known to quizbowl veterans, I would still leave it in; if you're a good player, you'll get points, but finding the next impossible Bismarck clue to challenge you with isn't really the goal of this tournament.

Okay, that's totally true. And I'm not saying that, like, this tossup has to be a hard tossup on Bismarck or anything. This is pretty damn close to the exact tossup on Bismarck that there should have been! I'm just saying that I don't believe any of the clues in the FF VI tossup, including the giveaway, are as frequently known to the typical novice as the middle or even early middle clues in the Bismarck tossup--any at all. Of course, if I'm told by a huge cadre of college freshmen that I'm wrong about that and they all love FF VI, then fine. But I am pretty damn sure that that's not the case.

That means that the one tossup is a bunch harder than the other, and that ain't right.

[grapesmoker]

Apparently this set was very lazy in terms of providing alternate answers. Making the occasional mistake and leaving off answers is no big deal, but doing it consistently over an entire set is a big problem. Writing questions is about making them as playable as possible, and part of that is making sure that as many reasonable answers are provided as possible.

Could people point to the specific examples they thought were problematic in this regard? Not that I'm doubting there was a dearth of alternate answers, but a lot of the things people to me so far have not seemed particularly problematic. Someone claimed that "the continuum," should have been accepted for "reals" which is true, but it would have personally never occurred to me to add that information; while I'm dimly aware of them being referred to that way, in my mind that usage is about as current as "autogyro." Another person complained that a bonus part on Josquin des Prez did not accept just Josquin as an answer, which again strikes me as pretty understandable (if you are not a musicologist, you might not know he's standardly referred to by his first name). I would like to know what other instances of alternate answers we missed.

I thought this set ranged from good to excellent in rewarding knowledge and sticking to basic topics. There weren't very many transparent questions, which is often a problem with easier answers. There were some pretty hard tossup answers (Man at the Crossroads, really?), but probably more detrimental to the enjoyment of newer teams were the handful of bonuses in each packet with no real novice easy part, or the greater number with third parts that just weren't answerable. There were also some tossups that crossed over the seven-line mark, which is unnecessary and tiresome for some novices.

I think there were not many bonuses without an easy part. The stats back me on this, since the vast majority of the 100+ teams playing this tournament averaged over 10 PPG. The difficulty of the harder parts I agree was a problem in some packets.

All that said, aside from last year's ACF Fall, I think this tournament was the best novice tournament I've come across, so kudos to the editors and writers for producing a tournament that accomplished its goals and provided quality, enjoyable questions for all ranges of players. The praise in this thread from newer players themselves shows that it lived up to its foremost function.

There was some talk on IRC last night about a sort of EFT "identity crisis," in that it was an open question whether EFT was truly a novice tournament or a tournament with deep clues on easy answers. Let me put it this way: while I don't think that the two goals are incommensurable, I would never say that EFT is a tournament from which an experienced player could learn nothing, which is something I could say about novice tournaments in general (and that's not to knock novice tournaments, which serve a very useful purpose). So for example, the RL Stevenson tossup that appeared in my first packet is a fairly deep one for the field and even for relatively experienced players, whereas a more "true" novice tournament might have limited itself to more well-known Stevenson works. I am not particularly bothered by this problem; I want EFT to be a tournament that is both accessible and educational for newer players and also fun for some of the slightly more grizzled among us. If people want to call that something other than a novice tournament (I don't think it's quite what my conception of "regular difficulty," that elusive Grail, would be), I can live with that, and if they want to call it a novice tournament, I can live with that as well. But let's keep in mind that EFT, whether by virtue of its authors' inclinations or otherwise, is not the same as ACF Fall and it's not the same as Illinois Novice or MUT. Which again, is fine with me; there is room for both kinds of events in the circuit.

[Cheynem]

Yeah, the Reptile Fund is where I buzzed on Bismarck, but i think it's just one of those goofy, memorable clues that when you hear it once, you've got it, not that it's really that important for Bismarck. It was especially fine as a lead-in at this level.

I wondered what people thought about the "flowers" tossup. I negged it with lilies based on the Bible clue. It was an example of I guess of me being "too specific" for a common link, which is something I dislike. Okay, I understand common links have to disallow too general answers or just prompt on them, so you can't have someone buzz in and say "they're all animals" or "they're all rulers" or whatever, and I guess i understand getting too specific with just plain incorrect information ("They're all kings of Britain during the eighteenth century!"). But in this case, when I said lilies, that was in effect EXACTLY what the clue was referencing. Now that I can physically see the tossup, I see it says something "a type of these objects," but I didn't hear the reader say that clearly and even if I did, I might have thought you were talking about "lilies of the field" or some such oddballness.

Now, you can correctly point out that the early clues did not apply to lilies. That's absolutely true. My problem was that I did not recognize those early clues and was buzzing on what I knew, a clue referring to lilies. Since you can't "reverse prompt" for being too specific, I ended up getting negged. I guess I don't see the real reward in knowledge here or in other instances where the common link is so general. Like if there was a tossup on "dog" and someone said the specific type of dog a certain clue was referencing, I guess I wouldn't have a problem with giving them points. But maybe this is too unwieldy and I'm interested in what others think.

[Skepticism and Animal Feed]

I think it is silly to say that EFT has an identity crisis. I have played every EFT in the history of mankind, and they all struck me as the same event: a low-level difficulty tournament that tends to err on the side of "too difficult". EFT's difficulty has been far more consistent over the years than that of, say, MLK or ACF Regionals.

[Charbroil]

...(EFT) really wasn't novice level, and it's been clear that Brown has tried to avoid marketing it as a "novice" event for a while now...

While I didn't have any problems with EFT's difficulty level, and it wasn't too hard for the novices on our team (whether it was actually novice or regular difficulty I'll leave to other, more experienced players to decide), I'm somewhat confused by repeated statements along these lines. After all:

It will be a standard mACF academic tournament, and it will be on the same level as last year's tournament (around ACF Fall). Our goal is to attract newer players to quiz bowl by holding an early non-packet submission tournament...

This strongly implies (especially by tying EFT to the most popular novice event of the season, ACF Fall) that EFT was designed as a novice tournament. While I didn't find any serious issues with the tournament's difficulty, I don't understand where the idea that this wasn't marketed as a novice event comes from--unless I'm seriously misunderstanding the definition of novice, which I thought was roughly ACF Fall.

[grapesmoker]

I think it is silly to say that EFT has an identity crisis. I have played every EFT in the history of mankind, and they all struck me as the same event: a low-level difficulty tournament that tends to err on the side of "too difficult". EFT's difficulty has been far more consistent over the years than that of, say, MLK or ACF Regionals.

I'm not saying I agree with the "identity crisis" theory; I'm just relaying what people have mentioned regarding EFT. Personally, I think this is about a correct evaluation of what EFT realistically is.

[grapesmoker]

I wondered what people thought about the "flowers" tossup. I negged it with lilies based on the Bible clue. It was an example of I guess of me being "too specific" for a common link, which is something I dislike. Okay, I understand common links have to disallow too general answers or just prompt on them, so you can't have someone buzz in and say "they're all animals" or "they're all rulers" or whatever, and I guess i understand getting too specific with just plain incorrect information ("They're all kings of Britain during the eighteenth century!"). But in this case, when I said lilies, that was in effect EXACTLY what the clue was referencing. Now that I can physically see the tossup, I see it says something "a type of these objects," but I didn't hear the reader say that clearly and even if I did, I might have thought you were talking about "lilies of the field" or some such oddballness.

Now, you can correctly point out that the early clues did not apply to lilies. That's absolutely true. My problem was that I did not recognize those early clues and was buzzing on what I knew, a clue referring to lilies. Since you can't "reverse prompt" for being too specific, I ended up getting negged. I guess I don't see the real reward in knowledge here or in other instances where the common link is so general. Like if there was a tossup on "dog" and someone said the specific type of dog a certain clue was referencing, I guess I wouldn't have a problem with giving them points. But maybe this is too unwieldy and I'm interested in what others think.

This one is on me. I'm sorry that you got negged; I was trying to make it very clear that a general category of objects was being sought (hence the use of "types"). I think people have been writing common-link tossups on general things for a while (mythology questions are quite popular ways of doing this) and they generally work out ok. I thought it would be interesting to do the same thing as a religion tossup, and I thought about throwing Xochiquetzal in there but it was too long already so I left it out. I apologize if it misled anyone.

[TheKingInYellow]

Apparently this set was very lazy in terms of providing alternate answers. Making the occasional mistake and leaving off answers is no big deal, but doing it consistently over an entire set is a big problem. Writing questions is about making them as playable as possible, and part of that is making sure that as many reasonable answers are provided as possible.

Could people point to the specific examples they thought were problematic in this regard?

The SC/VCU match was decided when we protested that "Door to the Florence Baptistry" should be acceptable for "Gates of Paradise"

[Ringil]

Apparently this set was very lazy in terms of providing alternate answers. Making the occasional mistake and leaving off answers is no big deal, but doing it consistently over an entire set is a big problem. Writing questions is about making them as playable as possible, and part of that is making sure that as many reasonable answers are provided as possible.

Could people point to the specific examples they thought were problematic in this regard? Not that I'm doubting there was a dearth of alternate answers, but a lot of the things people to me so far have not seemed particularly problematic. Someone claimed that "the continuum," should have been accepted for "reals" which is true, but it would have personally never occurred to me to add that information; while I'm dimly aware of them being referred to that way, in my mind that usage is about as current as "autogyro." Another person complained that a bonus part on Josquin des Prez did not accept just Josquin as an answer, which again strikes me as pretty understandable (if you are not a musicologist, you might not know he's standardly referred to by his first name). I would like to know what other instances of alternate answers we missed.

The one thing I found amusing in this regard was that they didn't accept John I for John Lackland. Everyone was going what the crap in my room.

[Down and out in Quintana Roo]

I've read one packet of this tournament so far. I read it to Trey, as well, today after school. Again, this is just one packet, but there are my perceptions so far:

The History was quite good. Really good in fact. The Fine Arts/etc. was also good. Social Science/Philosophy... also good.

Literature was pretty good but slightly more difficult than the previously mentioned categories.

The science was by far the hardest. The questions were fine, the answers were just far and away harder than the other tossed-up answers.

I'll read more soon.

[at your pleasure]

Apparently this set was very lazy in terms of providing alternate answers. Making the occasional mistake and leaving off answers is no big deal, but doing it consistently over an entire set is a big problem. Writing questions is about making them as playable as possible, and part of that is making sure that as many reasonable answers are provided as possible.

Could people point to the specific examples they thought were problematic in this regard?

The SC/VCU match was decided when we protested that "Door to the Florence Baptistry" should be acceptable for "Gates of Paradise"

To be honest, that should be ruled wrong since there are two other sets of doors. Although the South Portal is pretty obscure, the North Portal is another major work of Ghiberti's.
EDIT: If I didn't make that clear, the "Gates of Paradise" are the West Portal.

[grapesmoker]

The one thing I found amusing in this regard was that they didn't accept John I for John Lackland. Everyone was going what the crap in my room.

Yeah, that was so ridiculous that when I saw it I couldn't believe it myself. Unfortunately, the first time I actually saw that question was just before reading tossup 20 of that round. That was indeed a serious oversight but hopefully one which would have been caught on protest.

[Theory Of The Leisure Flask]

Apparently this set was very lazy in terms of providing alternate answers. Making the occasional mistake and leaving off answers is no big deal, but doing it consistently over an entire set is a big problem. Writing questions is about making them as playable as possible, and part of that is making sure that as many reasonable answers are provided as possible.

Could people point to the specific examples they thought were problematic in this regard?

The SC/VCU match was decided when we protested that "Door to the Florence Baptistry" should be acceptable for "Gates of Paradise"

To be honest, that should be ruled wrong since there are two other sets of doors. Although the south doors are pretty obscure, the north doors are also by Ghiberti and are also some of his most important works.

We initially gave "doors to the Florence Baptistry", and were prompted. This strikes me as the correct thing to do.

Also, my earlier request must have gotten lost in the shuffle: could someone post the Shostakovich tossup from round 2?

[grapesmoker]

Also, my earlier request must have gotten lost in the shuffle: could someone post the Shostakovich tossup from round 2?

This man's first violin concerto is in A minor and ends with a "burlesque" movement, while his tenth symphony features the "Elmira" theme in honor of a student with whom he fell in love. This composer wrote a ballet about a soccer team called The Age of Gold, and many of his works use a motif based on his own name. He also wrote a Festive Overture, and both of his cello concertos were written for and premiered by Mstislav Rostopovich. His seventh symphony contains an "invasion theme" representing a Nazi march, and a choral symphony by this man includes text from a Yevtushenko poem memorializing massacred Jews. For 10 points, name this Russian composer of "Babi Yar" and "Leningrad" symphonies.
ANSWER: Dmitri Shostakovich

[at your pleasure]

Yeah, now that I think about it a prompt for "Gates of Paradise" or "East Portal"(my mistake earlier) is in order,although it's still a little too close to the "John Adams/John Quincy Adams" rule for my taste. Did the question make it clear which set of doors it was looking for right away?

[Theory Of The Leisure Flask]

Also, my earlier request must have gotten lost in the shuffle: could someone post the Shostakovich tossup from round 2?

This man's first violin concerto is in A minor and ends with a "burlesque" movement, while his tenth symphony features the "Elmira" theme in honor of a student with whom he fell in love. This composer wrote a ballet about a soccer team called The Age of Gold, and many of his works use a motif based on his own name. He also wrote a Festive Overture, and both of his cello concertos were written for and premiered by Mstislav Rostopovich. His seventh symphony contains an "invasion theme" representing a Nazi march, and a choral symphony by this man includes text from a Yevtushenko poem memorializing massacred Jews. For 10 points, name this Russian composer of "Babi Yar" and "Leningrad" symphonies.
ANSWER: Dmitri Shostakovich

Ah, ok, I must have misheard this question; for some reason I thought it said his first violin concerto was written in honor of a student with whom he fell in love. Never mind, this question is perfectly cromulent.

[Ethnic history of the Vilnius region]

Apparently this set was very lazy in terms of providing alternate answers. Making the occasional mistake and leaving off answers is no big deal, but doing it consistently over an entire set is a big problem. Writing questions is about making them as playable as possible, and part of that is making sure that as many reasonable answers are provided as possible.

Could people point to the specific examples they thought were problematic in this regard?

The only thing in this regard I remember causing a problem at the South Carolina site was a reader not taking Easter Rebellion for Easter Rising.

[grapesmoker]

The only thing in this regard I remember causing a problem at the South Carolina site was a reader not taking Easter Rebellion for Easter Rising.

I think the only part that was outlined there was Easter, but that should be obviously acceptable.

[Theory Of The Leisure Flask]

The only thing in this regard I remember causing a problem at the South Carolina site was a reader not taking Easter Rebellion for Easter Rising.

I think the only part that was outlined there was Easter, but that should be obviously acceptable.

We said "Easter Uprising" and were ruled incorrect.

[grapesmoker]

We said "Easter Uprising" and were ruled incorrect.

Ok, I'm really sorry about that. That should never happen. I think it's common practice to not include common nouns that refer to the answer if they are mentioned in the question; anything obviously referencing Easter + any synonym for revolt should be acceptable. If you had protested that I would have given it to you.

[dyetman89]

One point about the "reptile(s) fund" clue: I get seven hits in my archive (four singular, three plural), but all in the past year. This pileup of sorts may be skewing Andy's, and possibly others', notion of its difficulty.

[No Rules Westbrook]

I wanna say that, just looking at the ppg and the bonus conversion numbers from the various sites - I think Jerry's evaluation of what EFT should be was pretty faithfully carried out (and I think it's a really good vision of this tournament too).

Lots of teams without household recognizable names on them were putting up a decent amount of tu and bonus points in this tournament. It seems pretty hard to assail that.

Also, yes, Reptile Fund is fine as a second-line clue. It's very buzzable for the veteran qb player, but that's fine in this event....indeed, it's preferable.

[grapesmoker]

One point about the "reptile(s) fund" clue: I get seven hits in my archive (four singular, three plural), but all in the past year. This pileup of sorts may be skewing Andy's, and possibly others', notion of its difficulty.

This is actually an annoying phenomenon wherein instead of doing proper research to write their questions people just steal clues from recent packets. I'm not saying every one of those questions did that, but I'd be surprised if at least a few of the writers didn't just see the first question to do that and decide to reuse that clue. This is a bad idea.

[cdcarter]

For what it's worth, I have not received a copy of the set to post yet.

[grapesmoker]

For what it's worth, I have not received a copy of the set to post yet.

My mistake, I thought someone in IRC had said they sent it to you. It's been forwarded to you now.