2020 WORKSHOP Specific Question Discussion

[vinteuil]

If you'd like to see or discuss a specific question, do it here! (Please give a reason for why you want to see it.)

[entropy]

Can I see the tossups on "aromaticity," "fatty acids," "hero twins," and "violin concerto" ?

[Daedalus]

note: I have slightly modified the aromaticity tossup since it was played, but no clues were added or removed

20. Shu-Li You’s group pioneered a class of reactions in which compounds lose this property known as CADA reactions. When a nucleophile displaces a substituent of a molecule with this property, the intermediate is a negatively-charged compound called a Meisenheimer complex. The cationic intermediate in a class of reactions on compounds with this property is stabilized by substituents known as (*) activators, which are also ortho-para directors. A compound with this property is nitrated by sulfuric acid and nitric acid in a classic example of their electrophilic substitution. Molecules with this property must have 4n + 2 pi electrons by Huckel’s rule. For 10 points, name this property characterized by the combination of being planar, cyclic and resonant, as exemplified by benzene.
ANSWER: aromaticity [or aromatic compounds; prompt on rings; prompt on cyclic compounds; prompt on resonant compounds or word forms] <VF>

4. These compounds are the targets of a 3,2-enoyl isomerase that acts before the hydration step of their metabolism. One of these compounds is given a 1,2-di·oxane ring by a cyclo·oxygenase as part of the synthesis of PGH2. These compounds bind carnitine to be translocated against free carnitine in the rate-limiting step of their metabolism. A thio·lytic retro-Claisen produces acetyl-CoA from these compounds in (*) beta-oxidation. PLA2 removes a phosphate head to produce the 20-carbon arachidonic example of these compounds, which has a near-terminal double bond that makes it an omega-6 unsaturated one of these compounds. For 10 points, name these compounds that are bound to glycerol in triglycerides and defined by a carboxyl group with a long carbon tail.
ANSWER: fatty acids [prompt on acyl-CoA; prompt on lipids or fats; prompt on organic acids] <RRP>

1. These figures gave the rabbit a short tail and the rat a hairless one as punishment for exposing their laziness. An elaborately nested request is brought to these figures in the form of a quote of a quote of a quote carried by a louse in a toad in a snake in a falcon. A stele from the Izapa site showing a descending bird is typically linked to these figures’ prowess with the blowgun, which they used to defeat a demon and replace his teeth with (*) corn. One of these defeaters of Seven Macaw was forced to replace their head with a pumpkin after being decapitated in the Bat House. For 10 points, the Popul Vuh describes what pair of brothers defeating the lords of Xibalba at the Mayan ball game?
ANSWER: Hero Twins [or Hunahpu AND Xbalanque; prompt on partial answer; prompt on the Maya Twins] <EA>

4. The finale of a piece in this genre begins with this melody, which is doubled a third below: “F-sharp [pause] G, G, A, F-sharp.” The original slow movement of one of these pieces was reused in the piece Souvenir d’un lieu [soo-ve-NEER dun lyuh shehr] cher. Two attempts at slow movements for a piece in this genre were published as Romances in F and G. The “Adagio” of one of these pieces is in the flat mediant of F and begins with a long oboe melody. A D-major piece in this genre transitions directly into the finale from its G-minor (*) “Canzonetta.” Johannes Brahms’s piece in this genre was written for Joseph Joachim [YAW-khim] . Beethoven’s piece in this genre begins with soft quarter notes played by the timpani alone. For 10 points, what orchestral works are played by soloists like Hilary Hahn and Itzhak Perlman?
ANSWER: violin concertos [or violin concerti; prompt on partial answer] <EF>

[rahulkeyal]

Here are some assorted thoughts on particular questions in the 9 rounds we played at Stanford. Apologies for the rather scatterbrained notes and extremely long post - hopefully at least some of these comments are useful in improving questions for future mirrors.

Round 1:
_globalization_: I recognized the “golden straitjacket” metaphor from Friedman’s Lexus and the Olive Tree but was too hesitant to buzz since the question framed the idea from the perspective of, what seems to me, a much less well-known book. I’m not sure if this is an issue, but thought I would point it out in case that relationship should be made clear in the question. Also, I think the whole word should be underlined in the main answer.
_Czech_: The second line of this tossup is missing a referent to the answerline. Additionally, I find it a bit strange that power ends at “Tana Masa” when the protagonist of War with the Newts is (as far as I know) better known? Perhaps that sentence should be rearranged.

bonus 5: A Secular Age is missing underlining
bonus 10: This bonus seems to be lacking a clear easy part to me - perhaps Dark Lady should be eased up a bit?
bonus 20: I think the wording of the second part could be improved a bit to be less jarring of a run on. For example: “... one’s solitary confinement cell,’ an allusion to this author of Reply to Sister Filotea" (I think this would be much more effective than simply italicizing "this"). I think the wording could also be improved on the last part to be a bit more direct. Otherwise, I was a huge fan of this bonus.

Round 2:
_Hurston_: Though I think this is on the tougher end of the difficulty spectrum, I really liked the angle taken on this question.
_Cronenburg_: I may be missing something, but the clue about Howard Shore in this tossup seems supremely unhelpful to me given that he’s significantly better known for his Peter Jackson film scores. That said, I really liked the diverse selection of film in this set (e.g Cronenberg, Rosemary’s Baby).

bonus 1: To me, the first part of this bonus seems unnecessarily coy. Why not give the fact that the translator and publisher disagreed about the title? I think you could even give that “benign” describes the “indifference of the universe” because, as is, this bonus has little substance to lead the player to the answer. I do like the intention of the bonus - it just seems to be lacking in execution.
bonus 4: It seems strange to me to reward rather basic vocabulary knowledge for (what I think is) the hard part of the bonus
bonus 8: Perhaps I’m mistaken, but this bonus doesn’t seem to have a clear medium part to me. Maybe “soul” could be eased up a bit by giving “selects her own society” or “hope is the thing with feathers”? (or maybe I'm overestimating the difficulty of those lines). “Great pain” was a great idea for a hard part
bonus 17: As someone who knows little about history, this bonus seemed a bit tame to me

Round 3:
_Mars_: Fun idea! I think the Martian Chronicles clues could be improved by making it clear that the events are occurring in short stories. Additionally, I think Jonson should be attributed in the clue about “Ylla” to not confuse players.
_Fujimori_: This tossup seems well above the length caps for this tournament.
_Holy Sonnets_: I think the Paglia book is too well-known to be a lead-in at this difficulty.

bonus 5: I don’t know if there is a clear easy part in this bonus. That said, it seems to touch on very interesting topics!
bonus 11: Also really like this bonus. That said, Saatchi seems inconsistent with the median difficulty of medium parts (e.g Heinrich Heine or Ted Hughes in the same packet)

Round 4:
_Italy_: This tossup seems pretty difficult to me (not a single Pirandello clue?) That said, seems like a great use of relevant contemporary theater.
_New York City_: It was pretty frustrating to hear the referent “this place” and recognize the quote from Claude McKay’s poem “Harlem Dancer” in the first line of this tossup, confidently buzz in with “Harlem”, and receive a neg.
_Rodin_: Both the second and third line seem a tad easy for where they are placed (primarily the third)
_Texas_: As someone who doesn’t know history, I thought this tossup was pretty cool
_optimization_: I was a bit surprised to see a description of simulated annealing in the third to last line - that seems tough to me? That said, this tossup touches on a bunch of super relevant stuff that a CS student would be likely to encounter, so it’s a rather minor complaint for an otherwise terrific question!

Round 5:
_Jainism_: I enjoyed this tossup a lot.
_frogs_: I think the second sentence of this tossup could end with “in a story by Haruki Murakami” to make it clear what the clue is referring to and pin it down a bit more, and I don’t think it would be significantly easier. Fun idea!
_goats_: Unfortunately, I was not a fan of this tossup. As far as I can tell, the first line of this question describes a rather insignificant painting (if this is not the case, the question doesn’t indicate as such.) Having discussed The Joy of Life in one of my classes a mere two weeks ago, it was pretty frustrating to hear a clue asking for an extremely insignificant detail of the painting, rather than about its influences, historical context, etc. Lastly, there doesn’t seem to be much linking these clues. While not every tossup need be “themed”, e.g clocks [in Surrealist painting] or frogs [in short fiction], I feel like this tossup falls too far on the opposite side of the spectrum. Not all the clues are about modernist painting (Goya) or even painting (Rauschenberg), making this tossup feel extremely disjointed and lacking purpose.

bonus 1: Fun bonus!
bonus 6: “Automatic” seemed like a rather tough medium part to me, especially when af Klint is already quite a tough hard part (though someone whose work is very interesting and worth asking about).
bonus 16: Both “fusion” and drums seem like easy parts to me.
bonus 18: Our moderator stumbled over reading the first part of this bonus - maybe some of the clauses should be split up?

Round 6:
_airplanes_: I found this question pretty interesting.
_Arbus_: A cursory Google search indicates that Dorothea Lange, Yousuf Karsh, Richard Avedon, Philippe Halsman, and many, many other photographers are all correct for this tossup’s second line.

bonus 5: This was a lot of fun, though I’m not sure if there’s a clear easy part to this bonus.
bonus 9: To me, it seems strange to describe Ern Malley as the author of these poems, rather than as author to which they were attributed (though perhaps that would make it too easy).
bonus 12: Prompt on “triangle” for the last part?
bonus 18: I’m not quite sure what’s the intended hard part of this bonus, but both “twins” and Minnesota seemed closer to medium.

Round 7:
_diving_: This tossup seemed very interesting and fun to me.
_James I_: As someone who knows little about history, I was surprised to hear the book on tobacco mentioned so early.
_Maine_: This tossup seems rather difficult to me - maybe it could include a clue or two about “A White Heron”?

bonus 6: Our moderator struggled to pronounce Krajiek, maybe include a PG?
bonus 9: Revenge was a pretty great hard part
bonus 10: Sarah Sze seems rather difficult to me - maybe there’s another way to test knowledge of her work without asking for her directly?
bonus 12: “computer-generated poetry” was a fascinating hard part
bonus 18: I would recommend restructuring the last sentence of the first part of this bonus to have “this character” earlier

Round 8:
_random_: This tossup was a pretty awesome approach to a well-trodden topic, I really liked the choice of “this resource” as a referent, as that frame of reference is pretty natural for someone familiar with the topic. Only thing: the tossup should have a writer tag so I can thank them.
_Czech_: Also missing a writer tag.
_aging_: Maybe I’m misremembering my Erikson, but I’m having trouble understanding how “aging” involves “ego integrity” vs “despair” but not other stages in his model.
_Persepolis_: This seemed like a great tossup
_Chekhov_: Fun lead-in! I think it’s pretty dubious to call Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike the most famous play by Christopher Durang (I think that could be Sister Mary Ignatius…). Furthermore, that clue seems excessively difficult for where it is placed in the tossup (which might be better served by another plot clue of a major Chekhov play).

bonus 3: I think Hungary is on the easy side for a medium part with Brahms included.
bonus 7: Great bonus!
bonus 12: It seems misleading to solely refer to hiphop as an “artistic movement” rather than, say, a genre
bonus 17: Cool bonus! The alternate acceptable answers should be bolded for the third part.

Round 9:
_”The Bells”_: My hunch is that people don’t really care about this poem that much, but maybe that isn’t sufficient justification alone to not write about it.
_Gramsci_: This tossup seems rather tough, in particular the in-power clues
_Haitian Revolution_: As someone who knows little about history, the lead-in to this seemed on the easy side.
_3rd of May, 1808_: This tossup seems significantly easier than the average tossup in this set. My hunch is that this painting might be too well-mined to create an appropriate pyramidal tossup at this difficulty.
_Satyricon_: Given how short the power on this tossup is, I think it could maybe use another clue.
_writing_: What a cool idea!

bonus 3: This bonus seemed on the easy side to me.
bonus 8: I think the hard part of this bonus could be improved by indicating that the answer is a graph problem.
bonus 10: Is this book by Korsgaard really that well-known? I was a bit surprised this part didn’t mention her work on Kant, which (as far as I understand) is much more significant.
bonus 13: “Sonny’s Blues” seems a bit tough for a medium part
bonus 16: Should this accept The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things?
bonus 17: I’d have to guess that “hair” is the medium part here. This seems pretty tough, especially considering “this object” is a fairly misleading referent. I was also pretty frustrated by the last part, as I could only remember “All art is useless.” To me, it seems a bit pedantic to require the exact wording of the phrase and does a poor job rewarding knowledgeable players.

[vinteuil]

a gold mine of useful feedback

This is a really fantastic post and we're taking it all into account. Thanks!

[Amiable Vitriol]

_Hurston_: Though I think this is on the tougher end of the difficulty spectrum, I really liked the angle taken on this question.
_Mars_: Fun idea! I think the Martian Chronicles clues could be improved by making it clear that the events are occurring in short stories. Additionally, I think Jonson should be attributed in the clue about “Ylla” to not confuse players.
_frogs_: I think the second sentence of this tossup could end with “in a story by Haruki Murakami” to make it clear what the clue is referring to and pin it down a bit more, and I don’t think it would be significantly easier. Fun idea!
bonus 12: “computer-generated poetry” was a fascinating hard part

You can thank Caroline for all of the above, and Richard Zhang for the writing TU. Harlem was supposed to be in the NYC in lit answerline, I think I accidentally deleted somewhere in the editing process; sorry that you got negged for what was a correct and impressive buzz. Regarding the rest of your feedback: thank you so much for your specificity, these recommendations will be reflected in future mirrors! :)

EDIT: Caroline wrote the Hurston bonus, not the social science tossup, which was Ganon's.

[Here Comes Rusev Day]

Round 7:
_diving_: This tossup seemed very interesting and fun to me.

Thank you! This was by far my favorite question I wrote for the entire set and was glad that Will included it. The philosophy behind it was definitely more along the lines of asking about a sporting activity from a different angle (You may not have gotten to it because it's in the late rounds, but I also did a racing bonus from this approach as well).

[Ciorwrong]

Hi. I played this set over the weekend and I was told I should post here. I might make a general discussion post tomorrow but I thought there was some stuff I should note here. Overall, set felt harder than anticipated but we also played super short handed and I'm a pretty medicore player. Apologies in advance for the terse comments. Feel free to ask me to expand on anything but I have a lot of notes.

Round 1:
-6th scale degree seems like a bit of a hard tossup answerline for Round 1 if it was all music theory. This is just me, but I think more straighforward tossups shoudl be Round 1.
-Hayek tossup was very transparent but the description of Fatal Conceit/emergent order in power didn't seem unique so I didn't buzz until I heard "emergent order." I'm usually pretty conservative on econ tossups but one thing that saddened me about this tournament is that all the econ I heard was not technical and tended to be based on like "great works and thinkers" rather than what economists actually work on today. Personally, I don't see the point in having both Hayek and Wealth of Nations in the set when there was literally no micro or econometrics I remember.
-monotheism felt very transparent
-We got confused on Sor Juana bonus part. We knew who she was but we were either confused by poor grammar or moderator error.

Round 2:
-Is this Bacon frontispiece notable?
-I have a note that says two African history mentions: Malawi and DRC bonus
-bonus on pilgrims seemed hard

Round 3:
-Rare earth metals was kind of a lame idea. I don't remember the category here but it felt silly because an acceptable answer was "rare earths" where you could buzz off of Chinese mining knowledge. My dislike of this idea is more aesthetic.
-Bonus that started with "youths" seemed difficult and confusing
-Orishas was kind of transparent and felt somewhat ling-fraudable
-Dubois bonus was very good

Round 4:
-Free radical was confusing to several players because of the pronoun choice. Can this please be posted?
-Italy tossup seemed good but I got it on a description of Accidental Death. What else was clued? A tossup mostly on Fo seems rather hard for this level.
-Optimization tossup was good.

Round 5:
-Are these other Grimké family members knowable? It felt like a lot was clued on other members of the family but maybe I'm bad.
-We really disliked Carboniferous tossup. A lot of people dislike tossups on "this geologic time period" and this one felt especially transparent when it was talking about massive growth of plants early.
-This round had two math things show up: rationals and the homeomorphism bonus. Was there a reason that all the math felt like it was abstract algebra + topology? I didn't remember any real or complex analysis and the only probability and statistics was in the finals. At the very least, this was not good packetization in my opinion.
-A lot of people are gonna neg with "integers" off a description of Diophantine approximation. This is more number theory which added to the packetization issue in the math.
-Does Schumpeter really need to come up twice?
-TFP growth is a pretty soft hard part for this tournament given you could just say "technological growth." Somehow, the other team heard all three econ bonuses this round which was disappointing.
-The third part for the Frege bonus seemed hard. I didn't know you wanted a numbered proposition.

Round 6:
-Trump tariff clue on planes seemed a bit ambiguous. Can I see this tossup? He's also imposed tariffs on other notable Canadian products like milk and lumber which is what I negged with.
-More number theory in this packet which felt odd.
-Hindu funeral tossup feels flat in difficulty after "Yama" is read.
-Arbus tossup was good
-Pre-ftp description of Wealth of Nations resembled arguments from Ricardo's The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. I asked another player and he also said this so I think some gradation here can be improved. Personally, I'd rather a tossup written on more modern topics like health economics, decision theory, general equilibrium, modern macro, etc. be written rather than another Great Books of Econ tossup.

Round 7:
-Hero Twins felt very guessable.
-Tango was sort of game of chicken but I also don't really know things about dance.
-I had an unfortunate neg of "snorkeling" for diving which kind of sucked.
-Drug dealers tossup is an interesting idea but seemed hard to get early. Can this please be posted?
-Mysteries of Udolfo felt like a harder lit tossup for this tournament but again I'm bad.
-We thought we heard a "she" on the bonus part that asked for Bundren which confused us.
-States tossup was good.

Round 8:
-The tossup on soul kept switching between "this object" and "these objects." I knew it was "soul" but changed it my answer when I heard a "hierarchy of these objects" which caused a stupid neg of "angels." I think this pronoun should be consistently "this object."
-People were surprised that slaves was a sufficient answer for that tossup given that the tossup gave a description of a slave market. People thought a more detailed answer like "Roman slaves" was required.
-The tossup on aging was very confusing. I didn't understand the Freud clue at all and was thinking "like children vs adults" but couldn't come up with what you wanted.
-Jesus in Islam tossup felt kind of silly when you gave an acronym that started with I (i.e. Isa) in the question. Maybe I'm just tired of the "Christian figure in Islam conceit.
-Do we really need two bonuses on Platonic dialogues?
-Using "these people" for Gag and Magog was very confusing because I thought it was group such as "Philistines" instead of a set of two people.
-There was two instances of South American history in this round: Paraguay and Mapuche bonus.
-I screwed up Heisenberg bonus part but converted "virtual." I might be bad but I was very confused even though I definitely know what Heisenberg Uncertainty principle is.
-Two classical history also appeared.

Round 9:
-Utah tossup was very boring. I buzzed on "Ogden" because it's a city I know there but nothing about this felt super cool I have to say.
-Gramsci felt hard until a description of cultural hegemony.
-Hermeneutics probably didn't need a "description acceptable" when there is a refied term for it. This also created a situation where there felt like there were two philosophy tossups in this round.
-Music tossup and music bonus were both alligned and ended up being #6.
-A description of the Skokie KKK march seemed a tad early for how hard this tournament felt at times.

Round Finals: (don't know what round this was)
-Did the "contraction" tossup also clue things like "contraction mapping theorem?" No one knew what was going on until a description of length contraction.
-Postal service felt very silly honestly. We were not fans and it got converted very late. It felt like a strange NAQT tossup but much longer.
-"God exists" was very very easy to power. I was surprised I wasn't prompted for a specific argument when I buzzed in.
-Schools felt a bit easy when it started talking about the Prussian model but maybe I just know things here.
-We missed "illusion" on the Tversky bonus because it said "cognitive" and we immediately said "bias." We are dumb but this felt a bit confusing.

Apologies again for the short comments. The main issue we had was that some tossups felt very hard to power compared to a tournament like Penn Bowl and that some questions felt needlessly confusing which caused us to miss some gettable bonus parts. I hope SoCal can continue to run regular difficulty events but this definitely felt too hard for the field we ended up having unfortunately. Most content was okay to fine. Unfortunately, some fields like ours had literally 14 players and my team was short handed. I'm not good enough to play a set like this short handed which probably contributed to our frustration.

[vinteuil]

-Rare earth metals was kind of a lame idea. I don't remember the category here but it felt silly because an acceptable answer was "rare earths" where you could buzz off of Chinese mining knowledge. My dislike of this idea is more aesthetic.

This was a current events/geography question, so the point was precisely to test Chinese mining knowledge. Is part of your aesthetic an idea that current events/geography questions shouldn't test knowledge of how commodities are produced?

[Daedalus]

Round 4:
-Free radical was confusing to several players because of the pronoun choice. Can this please be posted?

5. Indirect measurement of atmospheric concentration of one of these compounds using methylchloroform showed that its concentration was, surprisingly, nearly constant. These compounds are responsible for the troposphere’s ability to rapidly cleanse itself of pollutants. These compounds catalyze the “recombination” step of a (*) cycle involving the rapid creation and destruction of monatomic oxygen. Most atmospheric examples of these compounds are produced via radiation-induced homolytic bond cleavage. Photodissociation of CFCs produces one of these compounds containing chlorine, which was largely responsible for the depletion of atmospheric ozone. For 10 points each, name these highly reactive species containing an unpaired electron.
ANSWER: free radicals <AF>

This was my bad, "molecules" seems to be a more common pronoun in past questions on radicals (though "these compounds" does appear, e.g. CO 2015, ACF Fall 2015). I'll change the pronoun to molecules for future sites.

Round 5:
-This round had two math things show up: rationals and the homeomorphism bonus. Was there a reason that all the math felt like it was abstract algebra + topology? I didn't remember any real or complex analysis and the only probability and statistics was in the finals. At the very least, this was not good packetization in my opinion.

The math/stats in the set was variance, curvature, rationals; p value/null hypothesis/false discovery, L-functions/Dirichlet/primes, kernel/exactness/commutativity, homeomorphism/Euler/Riemann. I would classify these as, respectively, stats, differential geometry, number theory/algebra, stats, number theory/analysis, linear algebra/group theory, topology. It does seem like analysis is a bit under-represented but I don't think algebra or topology are over-represented. I can't speak about packetization.

-A lot of people are gonna neg with "integers" off a description of Diophantine approximation.

Clue has been changed to "Single elements of this set are used to approximate other numbers in (*) Diophantine approximation." to better rule out integers. Thanks.

Round 8:
-I screwed up Heisenberg bonus part but converted "virtual." I might be bad but I was very confused even though I definitely know what Heisenberg Uncertainty principle is.

Here's the bonus part:

11. Although this idea’s formulator originally explained it using a gamma-ray microscope, it actually has nothing to do with the observer effect; an analogous result to this idea holds in Fourier analysis. For 10 points each:
[10] Name this principle that for certain pairs of observables, like position and momentum, puts a positive constant lower bound on the product of their standard deviations.
ANSWER: (Heisenberg) uncertainty principle [or uncertainty relation]

I think this is ok personally but let me know what you found confusing and I'll try to improve it.

Round Finals: (don't know what round this was)
-Did the "contraction" tossup also clue things like "contraction mapping theorem?" No one knew what was going on until a description of length contraction.

Here's the tossup:

2. Operators known by this term can be used to define “defect operators” that induce an inner product on a Hilbert space. Given the existence of electrodynamics, a phenomenon with this name is responsible for the production of a magnetic field by moving charges. In Einstein notation, the operation with this name corresponds to (*) repeating an upper and lower index. This name is given to a rank-reducing tensor operation that generalizes the trace. A phenomenon with this name allows a fast-moving ladder to fit into a barn shorter than it by a factor of gamma. Paradoxes in special relativity rely on time dilation and—for 10 points—what phenomenon in which moving objects have their lengths shortened?
ANSWER: length contraction [accept contraction preceded by any word; prompt on descriptions indicating special relativity, relativistic effects, or relativistic motion with “what specific consequence of relativistic motion causes these effects?”; prompt on trace with “what operation generalizes the concept of trace to tensors?”; do not accept or prompt on answers mentioning “general relativity”] <GH>

things clued were contraction operators, length contraction, and tensor contraction.

[Santa Claus]

Round 3:
-Rare earth metals was kind of a lame idea. I don't remember the category here but it felt silly because an acceptable answer was "rare earths" where you could buzz off of Chinese mining knowledge. My dislike of this idea is more aesthetic.

Tailings from a refinery for these resources were given to farmers in the town of Bukit Merah in the 1980s, leading to a massive settlement against Mitsubishi and protests against the Australian Lynas Corporation. Being close to the Bayan Obo region makes the city of Bāotóu in Inner Mongolia a global center for processing these resources. Since the closure of the Mountain Pass Mine in California, (*) China has produced more than 95% of these resources. The chemist Johan Gadolin discovered several of these elements in a mine at the Swedish town of Ytterby, which is the namesake of four of them. For 10 points, name this group of elements important in producing magnetic components for electronics, which includes cerium, neodymium, and praseodymium.
ANSWER: rare-earth elements [or lanthanides or lanthanoids; or REEs]

I will second Jacob in saying that this tossup was explicitly meant to see whether players know where the elements that comprise large amounts of modern electronics are sourced from - buzzing off of Chinese mining knowledge is the desired outcome.

Round 4:
-Optimization tossup was good.

Glad you enjoyed the optimization tossup - it was a very high quality tossup written by Jonathen Settle.

Round 5:
-We really disliked Carboniferous tossup. A lot of people dislike tossups on "this geologic time period" and this one felt especially transparent when it was talking about massive growth of plants early.
-A lot of people are gonna neg with "integers" off a description of Diophantine approximation. This is more number theory which added to the packetization issue in the math.

A group of plants that arose during this geological period had a unifacial cambium and bore leaves on their trunks to compensate for a lack of secondary phloem. Fossil records of those “scale trees” transition to tree ferns during the habitat fragmentation caused by this period’s rainforest collapse, which drove the replacement of land-based amphibians by amniotes. Megafauna like Arthropleura and (*) Meganeura were supported by the elevated atmospheric oxygen levels of this period. An inability to decompose newly evolved lignin during this period caused increased carbon sequestration in the form of large amounts of wood. For 10 points, name this heavily forested geological period named for its extensive coal beds.
ANSWER: Carboniferous period [anti-prompt on Pennsylvanian or Missisippian]

I tried very hard to make this tossup on a geological period have interesting content, as I would generally count myself among the people who do not like geological period tossups. I don't see any explicit discussion of massive growth of plants though - the first half focuses on the plants that defined its fossil record, yes, but without context I don't see why this indicates the Carboniferous any more than, say, the Permian or something.

I didn't edit the question on rationals and don't know too much on the subject so I can't speak to the quality of the clue, but I don't think there's anything that can be done to prevent people from negging instantly on hearing the words "Diophantine approximation" short of saying "They're not integers". Perhaps Adam could provide a more nuanced approach.

Round 7:
-Hero Twins felt very guessable.

Round 8:
-Using "these people" for Gag and Magog was very confusing because I thought it was group such as "Philistines" instead of a set of two people.

???

Round Finals: (don't know what round this was)
-Postal service felt very silly honestly. We were not fans and it got converted very late. It felt like a strange NAQT tossup but much longer.

This largest nonmilitary federal agency

[rdc20]

I definitely enjoyed the set overall. I especially enjoyed the tossups on oil, water, and frogs. The biggest problems I saw were packetization and some editing problems.

With packetization, the concentration of Indian history, Indian geography, and Hinduism material seemed very high in the first two rounds compared to the rest of the set I heard (Packets 1-10, excluding 4).

There were a couple of questions that felt too easy and flat in difficulty (basalt, Manchu, and existence of God). I'd like to see these questions, since I may be misremembering.

There are also some questions I'd like to see to know where power ended: monotheism, Maupassant, Waugh, Tao Te Ching, Fugard, and variance.

Our moderator in round 9 noted that the math bonus was difficult to read due to editing/phrasing. I don't remember the issue exactly, but I think the question should get looked at.

The only question that I really didn't like was the opera bonus with the "1920s" answer. This seemed like the kind of detail that quizbowl, especially at this level, avoids for triviality reasons.

Thank you.

[Daedalus]

There are also some questions I'd like to see... variance.

20. This quantity contributes a factor proportional to “1 over: the sample size times the bandwidth” to the risk of a KDE. The EV of the quantity: “an estimator minus a function” squared can be decomposed into the square of the EV of “the estimator minus the function” and a term corresponding to this quantity. Any estimator’s mean-squared error has a tradeoff between (*) bias and this quantity; for example, bias increases and this quantity decreases as a histogram’s bin width goes to infinity. Oddly, the mathematically correct formula for this quantity is a biased estimator of it; hence, for finite sample of size n, this quantity is estimated as one over n minus 1 times the sum of “each sample minus the mean squared.” For 10 points, name this measure of a random variable’s spread, often symbolized sigma-squared.
ANSWER: variance [prompt on V or sigma-squared; do not accept or prompt on “sigma”] <AF>

Note that for future mirrors the histogram clue and the bias-variance tradeoff clue will be switched, but I still intend for the first word out of power to be "bias".

Our moderator in round 9 noted that the math bonus was difficult to read due to editing/phrasing. I don't remember the issue exactly, but I think the question should get looked at.

There's no math bonus in round 9 - here's the other sci bonus from the round:

8. In 1971, the Cook-Levin theorem showed this problem was the first in a new class. For 10 points each:
[10] Give this problem of whether variables can be assigned such that an expression evaluates to true. The central expression of this problem is typically written in conjunctive normal form with clauses of at most three terms.
ANSWER: 3-SAT [or boolean satisfiability; accept k-SAT, where k is any whole number]
[10] Cook and Levin both realized that all problems in this complexity class were equivalent to SAT, a concept later called “[this class]-complete”. This class may or may not be the same as P.
ANSWER: NP [or non-deterministic polynomial time; accept NP-complete; do not accept “P”, “NP-Hard”, or “polynomial”]
[10] Reducing 3-SAT to this graph problem can be done by linking variables to their converse, creating gadgets from each clause, and then drawing edges between the nodes shared in those two components. Reducing the clique problem to this one yields solutions of size n minus k from cliques of size k.
ANSWER: minimum vertex cover problem [or minimum node cover problem] <VF>

Is this the correct bonus? It seems reasonably phrased to me.

[vinteuil]

The only question that I really didn't like was the opera bonus with the "1920s" answer. This seemed like the kind of detail that quizbowl, especially at this level, avoids for triviality reasons.

In what sense do you think that knowing this particular piece of historical context (Wozzeck being written in the wake of WWI, Italian opera completely collapsing after the death of Puccini) is “trivia”?

EDIT: thanks for the catch on the heavy concentration of Indian stuff in the first few packets—we’ll move some things around.

[Ciorwrong]

Oddly, the mathematically correct formula for this quantity is a biased estimator of it; hence, for finite sample of size n, this quantity is estimated as one over n minus 1 times the sum of “each sample minus the mean squared.”

This doesn't seem to be worded very well. Is this trying to say that there is no unbiased MLE for the variance under normality? I don't understand what it means by "mathematically correct" because that seems ambiguous. If you have an accurate PDF of some variable, you can calculate an unbiased variance by using the second moment minus first moment squared. I think this would be better off by saying a correction factor of "1 over n minus the number of parameters being estimated" is being used for the unbiased variance estimator. (In regression, the n-k is important as you lose a degree of freedom for each parameter you are estimation. This fact is important in like the finite sample distribution of F statistics and the like.) Casella and Berger's Statistical Inference should be the default reference here.

[vinteuil]

Oddly, the mathematically correct formula for this quantity is a biased estimator of it; hence, for finite sample of size n, this quantity is estimated as one over n minus 1 times the sum of “each sample minus the mean squared.”

This doesn't seem to be worded very well. Is this trying to say that there is no unbiased MLE for the variance under normality? I don't understand what it means by "mathematically correct" because that seems ambiguous. If you have an accurate PDF of some variable, you can calculate an unbiased variance by using the second moment minus first moment squared. I think this would be better off by saying a correction factor of "1 over n minus the number of parameters being estimated" is being used for the unbiased variance estimator. (In regression, the n-k is important as you lose a degree of freedom for each parameter you are estimation. This fact is important in like the finite sample distribution of F statistics and the like.) Casella and Berger's Statistical Inference should be the default reference here.

This is the page of Casella and Berger that I consulted to check this question:


I agree that we should at the very least add a comma to clarify the parentheses.

[Zealots of Stockholm]

I hope to give comprehensive, packet by packet feedback on this set next week during Spring Break, but I'm a bit pressed for time right now (also will packets be made available for this purpose?). I would like to see the tossup on "writing" in literature, because I found the clues from A Room of One's Own hard to parse at game speed, despite having read it.

Also, Globalization and its Discontents probably shouldn't be in power for globalization, and Bye Plot probably shouldn't be in power for James I since its pretty stock (as bad as that term is, definitely a clue I learned in hs).

[csa2125]

The only question that I really didn't like was the opera bonus with the "1920s" answer. This seemed like the kind of detail that quizbowl, especially at this level, avoids for triviality reasons.

In what sense do you think that knowing this particular piece of historical context (Wozzeck being written in the wake of WWI, Italian opera completely collapsing after the death of Puccini) is “trivia”?

I think it may be better to say this played harder than intended due to quizbowl's general aversion to dates and decades in non-history categories for better or for worse. Would be helpful to view the question again and whether it was supposed to be medium as I'm thinking.

I'd also like to see the tossup on the sixth scale degree, to see where it went towards the end.

Other than that, I enjoyed the music and arts pretty well throughout, among which one of my favorites was the Elgar cello concerto question.

[vinteuil]

Here you go!

In major keys, you can get the chord on this scale-degree by applying the Neo-Riemannian transformation R to the tonic. In Fux·ian counterpoint, lines can only ascend by this interval’s minor form. This interval names three chords that contain either the supertonic, the flat mediant, or neither. Those chords named for this interval are called “Italian,” “French,” and “German.” The Dorian mode differs from the (*) natural minor scale only on this scale degree. In figured bass, this number denotes a triad in first inversion. This many half-steps make up a tritone. This scale degree is not raised in a harmonic minor scale, but it is raised going up the melodic minor scale. This scale degree is called the submediant since it’s a third below the tonic. For 10 points, what scale degree is the note “A” in C major?
ANSWER: six [accept augmented sixth; prompt on submediant before mention] <EL>

In William Kentridge’s 2019 production of this opera for the Met, the title character’s child is “played” by a puppet wearing a gas mask. For 10 points each:
[10] Name this opera that’s constructed as a series of classical forms like Fantasy and Fugue, sonata-allegro, and “invention.”
ANSWER: Wozzeck
[10] Wozzeck was completed and first performed in this decade. The last major Italian opera in the repertoire, Puccini’s Turandot, was also written and premiered in this decade.
ANSWER: 1920s
[10] The role of Wozzeck is for this male voice type, which is lower than a tenor and higher than a bass.
ANSWER: baritones <MJ>

(I was hoping that the hint of "gas mask" in the bonus leadin would help guide players who have a more vague acquaintance with Puccini's dates or Wozzeck's history.)

[Santa Claus]

There were a couple of questions that felt too easy and flat in difficulty (basalt ... ). I'd like to see these questions, since I may be misremembering.

The majority of this substance is derived from a reservoir modeled by Workman as the product of a primitive source losing LREEs [“L R E Es”]. Samples gathered by the Alvin during Project FAMOUS provided early evidence that incompatible elements had been depleted from examples of this substance called MORB. This mineral is the primary component of guyots [GHEE-“oats”], which can be formed along the (*) tracks left as this mineral is carried up by mantle plumes. The majority of this mineral is produced along mid-ocean ridges, which are the sites of seafloor spreading, and it covers over seventy percent of the Earth in the form of oceanic crust. For 10 points, name this low-viscosity rock that is produced from shield volcanoes like those of Hawaii.
ANSWER: oceanic basalt [accept mid-ocean ridge basalt or oceanic island basalt; accept MORB before mentioned; prompt on igneous rocks; prompt on oceanic crust or the ocean floor with “What substance is that made of?”]

I don't know how much I would consider this to be too easy, since the lead-in is novel and I don't believe any previous questions have discussed Project FAMOUS in much detail. I do provide MORB in power and I think it is fair to say that the difficulty does flatten outside of power, but I don't think there's too much of a cliff and I attempted to keep it pyramidal based off of previous questions and what I think people know about oceanic basalt (i.e. not a lot). Hopefully you enjoyed the question and its original take on a well-trodden answerline.

[VSCOelasticity]

There were a couple of questions that felt too easy and flat in difficulty (basalt ... ). I'd like to see these questions, since I may be misremembering.

The majority of this substance is derived from a reservoir modeled by Workman as the product of a primitive source losing LREEs [“L R E Es”]. Samples gathered by the Alvin during Project FAMOUS provided early evidence that incompatible elements had been depleted from examples of this substance called MORB. This mineral is the primary component of guyots [GHEE-“oats”], which can be formed along the (*) tracks left as this mineral is carried up by mantle plumes. The majority of this mineral is produced along mid-ocean ridges, which are the sites of seafloor spreading, and it covers over seventy percent of the Earth in the form of oceanic crust. For 10 points, name this low-viscosity rock that is produced from shield volcanoes like those of Hawaii.
ANSWER: oceanic basalt [accept mid-ocean ridge basalt or oceanic island basalt; accept MORB before mentioned; prompt on igneous rocks; prompt on oceanic crust or the ocean floor with “What substance is that made of?”]

I don't know how much I would consider this to be too easy, since the lead-in is novel and I don't believe any previous questions have discussed Project FAMOUS in much detail. I do provide MORB in power and I think it is fair to say that the difficulty does flatten outside of power, but I don't think there's too much of a cliff and I attempted to keep it pyramidal based off of previous questions and what I think people know about oceanic basalt (i.e. not a lot). Hopefully you enjoyed the question and its original take on a well-trodden answerline.

I don't believe basalt is considered a mineral (in fact the FTP calls it a rock), so that pronoun/referrant seems misleading.

[Santa Claus]

I don't believe basalt is considered a mineral (in fact the FTP calls it a rock), so that pronoun/referrant seems misleading.

Whoops - fortunately no one knows the difference!

[Smuttynose Island]

8. In 1971, the Cook-Levin theorem showed this problem was the first in a new class. For 10 points each:
[10] Give this problem of whether variables can be assigned such that an expression evaluates to true. The central expression of this problem is typically written in conjunctive normal form with clauses of at most three terms.
ANSWER: 3-SAT [or boolean satisfiability; accept k-SAT, where k is any whole number]
[10] Cook and Levin both realized that all problems in this complexity class were equivalent to SAT, a concept later called “[this class]-complete”. This class may or may not be the same as P.
ANSWER: NP [or non-deterministic polynomial time; accept NP-complete; do not accept “P”, “NP-Hard”, or “polynomial”]
[10] Reducing 3-SAT to this graph problem can be done by linking variables to their converse, creating gadgets from each clause, and then drawing edges between the nodes shared in those two components. Reducing the clique problem to this one yields solutions of size n minus k from cliques of size k.
ANSWER: minimum vertex cover problem [or minimum node cover problem] <VF>

The 2-SAT problem (and trivially the 1-SAT problem), as opposed to the k-SAT problem for integers larger than 2, is in P. It's pretty minor, but neither should be accepted for the first part.

And it doesn't make sense to say that "all NP problems are equivalent to 3-SAT". Any NP problem can be reduced to 3-SAT, but reducibility isn't symmetric so "equivalent" doesn't make sense. NP-Complete problems are all equivalent to each other though, because they are all NP-Hard and in NP.

[Santa Claus]

The 2-SAT problem (and trivially the 1-SAT problem), as opposed to the k-SAT problem for integers larger than 2, is in P. It's pretty minor, but neither should be accepted for the first part.

And it doesn't make sense to say that "all NP problems are equivalent to 3-SAT". Any NP problem can be reduced to 3-SAT, but reducibility isn't symmetric so "equivalent" doesn't make sense. NP-Complete problems are all equivalent to each other though, because they are all NP-Hard and in NP.

Ah yes, these were definitely oversights on my part - thanks for catching them :)

[Zealots of Stockholm]

I would like to see the tossup on "writing" in literature, because I found the clues from A Room of One's Own hard to parse at game speed, despite having read it.

Can I bump my request (since several other qs have been posted since)?

[Amiable Vitriol]

Can I bump my request (since several other qs have been posted since)?

Sorry for the delay!

In one novel, Bernard recalls a woman performing this action “between two long windows” at Elvedon. An essay notes the failure to “consume all impediments and become incandescent” when Lady Winchilsea performed this action. That essay claims that “the indifference of the world” to this action was in the woman’s case “not indifference but hostility.” It’s not (*) painting, but Charles Tansley tells Lily Briscoe that women can’t perform this action. An essay claims that women began to perform this action openly in the eighteenth century by following the example of Aphra Behn. For 10 points, Virginia Woolf wrote that “a woman must have money and a room of one’s own” in order to perform what action?
ANSWER: writing [accept word forms; accept specific forms of writing, like writing fiction or writing poetry] (The novel in the first clue is The Waves.) <RZ>

[The Story of a Head That Fell Off]

I think the Chinese myth bonus about the Milky Way mentioned that the Queen Mother of the West is married to the Jade Emperor - I'm not sure if that's actually a widely accepted position?

Really appreciated the Eileen Chang content, though the title drops might be a bit too early. The film was fun - I really loved seeing Cronenberg come up, and the Kurosawa and Mapplethorpe bonuses felt pretty fresh despite being a topic that has come up a lot. Rosemary's Baby came out of the left field but I'm glad for its inclusion, even though that means both the film tossups fall in sort of a thriller/horror corner.

Other than the "six" tossup, I really enjoyed the music in the set.

[Carlos Be]

4. The finale of a piece in this genre begins with this melody, which is doubled a third below: “F-sharp [pause] G, G, A, F-sharp.” The original slow movement of one of these pieces was reused in the piece Souvenir d’un lieu [soo-ve-NEER dun lyuh shehr] cher. Two attempts at slow movements for a piece in this genre were published as Romances in F and G. The “Adagio” of one of these pieces is in the flat mediant of F and begins with a long oboe melody. A D-major piece in this genre transitions directly into the finale from its G-minor (*) “Canzonetta.” Johannes Brahms’s piece in this genre was written for Joseph Joachim [YAW-khim] . Beethoven’s piece in this genre begins with soft quarter notes played by the timpani alone. For 10 points, what orchestral works are played by soloists like Hilary Hahn and Itzhak Perlman?
ANSWER: violin concertos [or violin concerti; prompt on partial answer] <EF>

Perhaps you shouldn't say "this melody" in the lead-in if you're not looking for a melody? You could say "the following melody." Also, why doesn't this just say "this genre" throughout? It was pretty disorienting to think we're looking for a melody, then a group of pieces, then a genre, then back to a group of pieces.

Can I see the Romeo and Juliet bonus? I seem to recall the first part saying "palmers" in the question when the answer was "pilgrims." I registered this as having already said pilgrims, so I would have been pretty confused if it were our bonus.

The tossup on "The Bells" seemed to clue an English quote as a translation? I might have parsed that incorrectly, but our room was quite surprised when the answer was an English-language poem. I think you can just give the language of the translation; even it were Baudelaire's translation, a bunch of other poems have been translated into French, so I doubt that it would be transparent.

-Using "these people" for Gag and Magog was very confusing because I thought it was group such as "Philistines" instead of a set of two people.

A cursory search suggests that Gog and Magog might have been peoples, and not just individuals; either way, the bonus suggested that they were definitely peoples, which seems misleading.

things clued were contraction operators, length contraction, and tensor contraction.

I'm not a huge fan of common links on words, but I guess maybe some people are?

The orishas tossup and existence of god tossup were very transparent. I buzzed very early on both of them and got points even though I knew almost nothing. Daodejing felt transparent as well, but it might just have been easy— I don't think "virtue" should be named in power.

[vinteuil]

4. The finale of a piece in this genre begins with this melody, which is doubled a third below: “F-sharp [pause] G, G, A, F-sharp.” The original slow movement of one of these pieces was reused in the piece Souvenir d’un lieu [soo-ve-NEER dun lyuh shehr] cher. Two attempts at slow movements for a piece in this genre were published as Romances in F and G. The “Adagio” of one of these pieces is in the flat mediant of F and begins with a long oboe melody. A D-major piece in this genre transitions directly into the finale from its G-minor (*) “Canzonetta.” Johannes Brahms’s piece in this genre was written for Joseph Joachim [YAW-khim] . Beethoven’s piece in this genre begins with soft quarter notes played by the timpani alone. For 10 points, what orchestral works are played by soloists like Hilary Hahn and Itzhak Perlman?
ANSWER: violin concertos [or violin concerti; prompt on partial answer] <EF>

Perhaps you shouldn't say "this melody" in the lead-in if you're not looking for a melody? You could say "the following melody." Also, why doesn't this just say "this genre" throughout? It was pretty disorienting to think we're looking for a melody, then a group of pieces, then a genre, then back to a group of pieces.

Made the first change, which I should have already made (indeed, I thought I had).

As for Gog and Magog, the question indeed says "these peoples," and is written exclusively from the Islamic perspective, in which that is the case.

[Wartortullian]

Could I see the neutrino tossup and the LCAO/MO/perturbation bonus?

[Daedalus]

13. One effect involving these particles is derived by defining a quadratic form on pairs of Weyl [v”eye”l] spinors and taking the determinant of the associated matrix. Smirnov and Mikheyev predicted that decreasing the density of matter along the paths of these particles can resonantly enhance their coherent forward scattering. A similar behavior of these particles in free space is described by an entity that is defined by a phase difference and three (*) mixing angles, the PMNS matrix. The seesaw mechanism predicts the existence of heavy “sterile” varieties of these particles. The differences of the squares of these particles’ masses are known from measuring their oscillations, but the masses themselves are not. For 10 points, name these almost massless neutral leptons that vary between tau, muon, and electron flavors.
ANSWER: neutrinos [accept antineutrinos] (The unnamed phenomenon in matter is the MSW effect.) <GH>

3. A general-purpose quantum chemistry suite developed by John Pople performs this technique more efficiently by using the properties of a namesake type of function. For 10 points each:
[10] Name this technique that produces a result centered at the centroid when using a Gaussian basis set. This technique can use functions named for Slater, and the Hartree–Fock method can be used to find its weights.
ANSWER: LCAO [or linear combination of atomic orbitals; prompt on Hartree–Fock method before read]
[10] These constructs result from performing a linear combination of atomic orbitals. They are categorized as either bonding or antibonding based on whether their energy is higher or lower than their constituents.
ANSWER: molecular orbitals [or MO theory; prompt on orbitals]
[10] The Gaussian suite uses MOs in this type of ab initio method, which calculates correlation explicitly. Moving to higher tiers of these methods takes progressively longer, but is more accurate than DFT for simple molecules.
ANSWER: perturbation theory [accept Møller–Plesset or Rayleigh–Schrödinger perturbation theory; prompt on MP2, MP3, MP4, or Møller–Plesset with “What type of method is that?”] <VF>

[Asterias Wrathbunny]

Could I see the Ben Webster bonus and Coltrane Tossup?

[vinteuil]

Could I see the Ben Webster bonus and Coltrane Tossup?

This musician’s sharp, raspy tone is exemplified by his solo on “Cotton Tail.” For 10 points each:
[10] Name this musician nicknamed “Frog,” who was one of the big three “swing tenors” along with Coleman Hawkins and Lester Young. He played in Duke Ellington’s orchestra alongside Johnny Hodges.
ANSWER: Ben Webster [or Benjamin Francis Webster]
[10] Ben Webster and Johnny Hodges both played this instrument in Duke Ellington’s orchestra. This instrument was also played by Charlie Parker.
ANSWER: tenor saxophone [accept alto saxophone; prompt on just tenor or alto]
[10] A warmer side of Webster’s playing can be heard on “Chelsea Bridge,” a song by this longtime collaborator of Ellington’s. Although he wrote songs like “Take the ‘A’ Train,” this pianist often didn’t receive credit for his work with Ellington, possibly because he was openly gay.
ANSWER: Billy Strayhorn [or William Thomas Strayhorn] <VD>

This musician played with a big band featuring a French horn and euphonium on an album that includes the tune “Blues Minor.” This instrumentalist covered “My One and Only Love”, “Lush Life”, and other jazz ballads on an album this man recorded with singer Johnny Hartman two years after the album Africa/Brass. This musician used a timpani roll to open the closing track (*) “Psalm” on a four-track album whose title is chanted on its opening track, “Acknowledgment.” This musician’s “classic” quartet included Elvin Jones on drums and McCoy Tyner on piano, and he played tenor on Kind of Blue. In 1965, this man married pianist and harpist Alice McLeod. For 10 points, what jazz saxophonist created A Love Supreme?
ANSWER: John (William) Coltrane <VD>

[Mike Bentley]

A few thoughts on some questions mentioned in this thread:

Contrary to an opinion stated above, I, and everyone else playing the question, hated the use of the pronoun "this resource" for randomness. I'm not sure that anyone would ever use that pronoun in normal speech and seemed a clear instance of trying to hide potential transparency in an answer line by obscuring the pronoun. Some of the clues were also confusing, especially the Putty one. But I'd have to see the question to confirm.

I liked the rare earth question. I thought this was a good topic to write about and was characteristic of the generally high quality current events / modern world content in this set. I do agree that the airplanes question seemed a bit hard to buzz on based on other Canadian things that Trump has tried to put tariffs on. I too was stuck on answers like "lumber" and "milk."

Discord issues prevented me from hearing more than about 5% of the USPS question but that also seemed like a worthy thing to ask about.

I didn't take notes during the tournament so don't have a lot of specific feedback. There were a few too many tossups that were quite easy to suss out from context / being the only plausible answer line (existence of god and souls come to mind) but also lots of very interesting clues and answer lines.

[warum]

Quick notes from the Closed Shop online mirror

Questions that I especially enjoyed: jazz fusion bonus, TUs on Chinese Malaysians, cloud condensation nuclei, expected value in physics, USPS, and diving

Packetization issues: if I remember correctly, packet 2 had 2 computational chemistry questions, and packet 12 had 2 E&M physics questions

"Hindu funerals" tossup seemed transparent because it was clearly describing an event/holiday that doesn't take place on a particular day of the year (although now that I think back on it, weddings also fit that criterion)

I think gang member or gang leader should be accepted outright for "drug dealer," or provide a directed prompt like "what commercial activity are the gang members participating in?" Both teams in my room buzzed on the Sudhir Venkatesh clue with that sort of answer since it's in the title of the book, and we could not figure out what was wanted from the prompt.

In the "Mysteries of Udolpho" tossup, Villefort seemed like neg bait for "Count of Monte Cristo" given how early it was in the question before many other clues had been given.

The leadin for "gramatical cases" is only distinguishable from a similar theory about color terms if you know the name of the linguist who developed it. This was frustrating.

The animal rights philosophy bonus played as easy/easy/very hard.

Other answers that struck me as hard relative to the rest of the set, and that I'd be curious to see conversion stats for: Masoretes, Ben Webster, Maine literature

[Santa Claus]

Contrary to an opinion stated above, I, and everyone else playing the question, hated the use of the pronoun "this resource" for randomness. I'm not sure that anyone would ever use that pronoun in normal speech and seemed a clear instance of trying to hide potential transparency in an answer line by obscuring the pronoun. Some of the clues were also confusing, especially the Putty one. But I'd have to see the question to confirm.

7. The NIST [“nisst”] standard for this resource was updated to 800-90A after finding out that the NSA put a backdoor in the Dual_EC algorithm for producing it. One of the two files used to access this resource in Unix systems is prefixed with a “u” and connects hardware like drivers to the /dev [“slash DEV”] directory. This resource is exchanged during a TLS handshake to generate the master secret. The (*) key-gen program that comes with PuTTY can generate this resource from user input like mouse movement, though it is more typically created by converting thermal noise or quantum fluctuations into bits of entropy. For 10 points, bits that are unpredictably zero or one constitute what resource, which is used to simulate chance?
ANSWER: random numbers [or randomness; accept true random numbers, pseudorandom numbers, or cryptographic seed values; accept entropy before mentioned; prompt on cryptographic keys or encrypted data before mentioned with “What resource is required to use that?”] <GH>

As the editor responsible for the current state of this question, I can try to explain my reasoning for choosing this pronoun rather than something like "values" or "entities", or having it a question on "this process" with answerline "(psuedo)random number generation" or "this property" for "(pseudo)randomness". A lot of older questions on this topic focus on what I feel are fairly uninteresting minutia of the random number generation process without really discussing what random numbers would be used for or what practical purpose they have in computer science. Most people using random numbers aren't trying to roll a dice, and even those that are can only do it so many times before the difference between "pseudorandom" and "random" starts to become relevant. Consequently, I thought it made sense to use "this resource" to emphasize how randomness is something that is accumulated and spent, just as more common resources like memory or time are, and the clues I chose were intended to emphasize this finite aspect of random numbers. I get that this approach was orthogonal to how one normally thinks about these sorts of things, but hopefully it wasn't too wild of an idea.

[34 + P.J. Dozier]

In the "Mysteries of Udolpho" tossup, Villefort seemed like neg bait for "Count of Monte Cristo" given how early it was in the question before many other clues had been given.

Chiming in to say that I made the same neg for those reasons, but obviously buzzing on that clue alone is suboptimal play and I'm not defending that. Additional context on that clue might have ameliorated this issue, though.

[king_crimson]

In the "Mysteries of Udolpho" tossup, Villefort seemed like neg bait for "Count of Monte Cristo" given how early it was in the question before many other clues had been given.

Chiming in to say that I made the same neg for those reasons, but obviously buzzing on that clue alone is suboptimal play and I'm not defending that. Additional context on that clue might have ameliorated this issue, though.

I did this too, haha. I'm pretty sure I zoned out during that tossup and only heard villefort and buzzed. Looking back, if I heard the context I probably would have gotten it. Overall, the tossup seems a bit hard, considering ludovico's abduction by pirates was in power at Penn bowl. Chekhov and wolves tossup was good. Felt like frogs was a little on the hard part but still an interesting tossup. I enjoyed playing the lit overall.

[DavidB256]

This was the most I've ever enjoyed the science questions in a set! I'd love to see the tossup on electrons and holes, please.

[Daedalus]

Packetization issues: if I remember correctly, packet 2 had 2 computational chemistry questions, and packet 12 had 2 E&M physics questions

the chem in packet 2 was lone pairs/MO theory stuff, but I think lone pairs had enough non-purely-comp chem clues that I'm fine leaving it where it is. Packet 12 did just have 2 straight up E+M though - thanks! I swapped the bonus with packet 13.

This was the most I've ever enjoyed the science questions in a set! I'd love to see the tossup on electrons and holes, please.

<3

15. Note: two answers required. Trapping these two particles in separate wells can form long-lived, “spatially indirect” quasiparticles. The product of these two particles’ densities does not depend on chemical potential, even though both of their densities individually do. For these two particles, the energy at a wavevector k is given by E-naught plus h-bar squared k squared over twice their (*) effective mass; the sign of the effective mass determines which of these two particles an object is. Excitons are bound states of these two particles. Which of these two particles’ densities is higher determines whether a semiconductor is n- or p- type, since these two particles are the main charge carriers in semiconductors. For 10 points, name these two particles, a negatively charged particle and the quasiparticle corresponding to its absence.
ANSWER: electrons AND electron holes [do NOT accept or prompt on partial answers] <AF>

[Duckk]

Small question/clarification on the Abramović bonus: we answered "Rhythms" for the first(?) part, which asked for the series of pieces that includes Rhythm 0, and our answer was ruled incorrect. The series is attested (https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/5177) to be called Rhythms, so perhaps the answer line can be updated to include that as an acceptable answer?

Could you also post the text of that question? I recall the phrasing being something like "these pieces", which made us think that Rhythms ("they're all called Rhythm [X], so what are they collectively called?") was an acceptable substitute for "the Rhythm series" or an even more verbose answer.

Great bonus, just a little disappointed we didn't get the points

[vinteuil]

Small question/clarification on the Abramović bonus: we answered "Rhythms" for the first(?) part, which asked for the series of pieces that includes Rhythm 0, and our answer was ruled incorrect. The series is attested (https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/5177) to be called Rhythms, so perhaps the answer line can be updated to include that as an acceptable answer?

Could you also post the text of that question? I recall the phrasing being something like "these pieces", which made us think that Rhythms ("they're all called Rhythm [X], so what are they collectively called?") was an acceptable substitute for "the Rhythm series" or an even more verbose answer.

Great bonus, just a little disappointed we didn't get the points

Here's the bonus part in question:

8. In this series’s first piece, a woman plays five-finger fillet and grabs a larger knife each time she stabs herself. For 10 points each:
[10] Name this series of numbered performances. For its entry number “0,” the performer placed objects like a scalpel and a loaded gun on a table, stood still, and let the audience do whatever they wanted to her for six hours.
ANSWER: Rhythm

My fault for not checking for the alternate plural title! I'll add that to the answerline.

[AGoodMan]

I am kind of late to this because I forgot discussion forums were a thing, but I have a few thoughts about some of the questions.

I mentioned this to Jacob already, but I really enjoyed the water and peace religion tossups. Early clues of both asked about very popular hymns that I don't think quiz bowl has really asked about much recently. I would love to see the two questions in their entirety, and would generally like to see more hymn content in religion questions in general!

I would also like to see the Tree of Life tossup, as one part of the question mentioned something along the lines of "this thing prefigures the Cross" and I had to think for a moment to narrow down from a list of (quite many) options (bronze snake, for example). Of course, as I've already privately conveyed to Jacob, that clue was not the leadin to the TU so overall I think it was fine.

I converted the Gog and Magog bonus part but remember being slightly confused, but I have no grievance against the wording of the question, especially if the angle was to ask from an Islamic perspective (I don't quite recall the details of the bonus).