2018 Division I SCT: specific question discussion

[Important Bird Area]

This is your discussion thread for specific questions from the 2018 Division I SCT.

[RexSueciae]

Could I see the two tossups on South Carolina? I remember the first one clued slave rebellions and the second one clued Revolutionary War battles, but it still threw me off a little to hear a tossup with the same answerline on similar categories (colonial American history, unless my memory's mistaken).

[Important Bird Area]

In this state, Union troops built the Penn School and the town of Mitchelville for freed slaves as part of the Port Royal Experiment, which centered on such islands as St. Helena. A literate slave in this state who was known as (*) "Cato" led a group of 20 fellow slaves from the Kingdom of Kongo in a 1739 rebellion near its Stono River. Thousands of slaves in this state were allegedly involved in a planned 1822 revolt by Denmark Vesey. For 10 points—what state contains the port of Charleston?

During a battle in this state, Andrew Pickens's militiamen intentionally retreated so that the opposing side would unexpectedly charge into a hidden line of experienced veterans. Near this state's northern border, the "Overmountain Men" encircled and killed (*) Patrick Ferguson at the Battle of Kings Mountain. Banastre Tarleton committed a massacre at Waxhaws in this state before losing at the Battle of Cowpens. For 10 points—name this southern state where Horatio Gates lost the Battle of Camden.

[CPiGuy]

It felt like a disproportionate amount of the math in D1 was complex analysis; did other mathematically-inclined quizbowlers also feel this way?

In terms of actual errors, the only one I noticed that hasn't been mentioned is that the Blue Lagoon is not in fact in Reykjavík. I also think that an answer of "electrophiles" should at least have been prompted on for the bonus part on Lewis acids.

[Corry]

In terms of actual errors, the only one I noticed that hasn't been mentioned is that the Blue Lagoon is not in fact in Reykjavík.

I wrote the question on Reykjavik - and admittedly this is technically true! I visited Iceland last year, and yes, the Blue Lagoon is like a 30 minute drive west of Reykjavik, between the city and its international airport. All things considered, however, I didn't think it as much of an issue.

[CPiGuy]

In terms of actual errors, the only one I noticed that hasn't been mentioned is that the Blue Lagoon is not in fact in Reykjavík.

I wrote the question on Reykjavik - and admittedly this is technically true! I visited Iceland last year, and yes, the Blue Lagoon is like a 30 minute drive west of Reykjavik, between the city and its international airport. All things considered, however, I didn't think it as much of an issue.

What? There's nothing "technical" about it -- it's just factually wrong, and just for the record the international airport in question is actually called the Keflavik Airport, because it's in Keflavik, not Reykjavik. The Blue Lagoon isn't even in the Reykjavik metro area -- it's 50km away through uninhabited lava fields (I've been there too!). That's like saying "the University of Michigan and the Ford headquarters are in this city" in a tossup on Detroit! This clue is false and bad, and it should not be in the question.

[theMoMA]

For what it's worth, I meant to change the clue to clarify that the Blue Lagoon was "outside" of the city, but I must have accidentally written that over when I added the clue about Keflavik.

[Corry]

What? There's nothing "technical" about it -- it's just factually wrong, and just for the record the international airport in question is actually called the Keflavik Airport, because it's in Keflavik, not Reykjavik. The Blue Lagoon isn't even in the Reykjavik metro area -- it's 50km away through uninhabited lava fields (I've been there too!). That's like saying "the University of Michigan and the Ford headquarters are in this city" in a tossup on Detroit! This clue is false and bad, and it should not be in the question.

Honestly, I don't see what the big problem is here?

1. While Blue Lagoon is technically outside of Reykjavik, it's commonly thought of as an attraction of the Reykjavik area, it's generally marketed as a Reykjavik thing, etc... in other words, nobody is going to buzz on that clue and not think the answer is Reykjavik. Would it have been more optimal to say the Blue Lagoon is "outside" the city? Sure, but the ultimate impact is frankly small.

2. Saying the University of Michigan is in Detroit would be more problematic because it is conceivable that somebody would buzz with "Ann Arbor." In contrast... as mentioned, nobody is going to buzz with anything except Reykjavik on a clue about the Blue Lagoon, because it's intuitively part of Reykjavik. This probably speaks to a broader notion when writing quiz bowl questions: it is more important for a clue to be substantively correct than technically correct. In fact, there may even be cases where a "technically" correct clue can actually be misleading! (Read on to see what I'm getting at)

3. On a related note, just because Keflavik International Airport is in "Keflavik" doesn't mean it's not substantively Reykjavik's international airport. For instance, London-Gatwick Airport is in...I guess Crawley? But nobody disputes that it's an international airport for London - if I wrote a tossup saying that "Gatwick is this city's airport," the technically correct answer would be Crawley, but that would be substantively incorrect.

[Cheynem]

While it's true that sometimes a more substantive clue outweighs technical concerns, in this case, you would maintain all of the substance AND the technical accuracy by just saying the Blue Lagoon was outside the city.

[Corry]

While it's true that sometimes a more substantive clue outweighs technical concerns, in this case, you would maintain all of the substance AND the technical accuracy by just saying the Blue Lagoon was outside the city.

Yep if I had to do this over again, I'd have changed "in" to "outside"... but I also felt it was necessary to make a point along these lines of, "Dude, this doesn't really matter."

[Vinjance]

Hi, I wanted to point out an issue I had with a mythology tossup on rain: the third sentence basically asks "Zeus visited Danae in the form of what substance?" but treats the "golden shower" as gold-colored rainwater instead of actual gold, making the answer of "gold" incorrect. However, the quotations from sources on this site seem to suggest otherwise. In particular:

...Zeus had sex with her by changing himself into gold that streamed in through the ceiling and down into her womb.

He [Zeus] courted lovely Danae luring her as a gleaming shower of gold.

I don't see any account stating that the substance was water in any form. Even if there is an account suggesting the golden shower was rainwater, it probably would have been better to identify the answer as a phenomenon rather than a "substance" to prevent confusion in the first place.

[Sigurd]

Hi, I wanted to point out an issue I had with a mythology tossup on rain: the third sentence basically asks "Zeus visited Danae in the form of what substance?" but treats the "golden shower" as gold-colored rainwater instead of actual gold, making the answer of "gold" incorrect. However, the quotations from sources on this site seem to suggest otherwise. In particular:

...Zeus had sex with her by changing himself into gold that streamed in through the ceiling and down into her womb.

He [Zeus] courted lovely Danae luring her as a gleaming shower of gold.

I don't see any account stating that the substance was water in any form. Even if there is an account suggesting the golden shower was rainwater, it probably would have been better to identify the answer as a phenomenon rather than a "substance" to prevent confusion in the first place.

Just to piggyback on this, the "(rain)water" tossup also led to two very skilled myth players negging with "Gold", in both rooms of the Canadian site.

[Ciorwrong]

It felt like a disproportionate amount of the math in D1 was complex analysis; did other mathematically-inclined quizbowlers also feel this way?

In terms of actual errors, the only one I noticed that hasn't been mentioned is that the Blue Lagoon is not in fact in Reykjavík. I also think that an answer of "electrophiles" should at least have been prompted on for the bonus part on Lewis acids.

I felt like the the plurality of math I heard was complex analysis. I was literally only going to post in this thread to point out this little subdistributional quirk. Is a tossup on "Riemann Sphere" really worth it over a more interesting topic in mathmatics? I heard maybe one algebra/topology topic and a ton of complex analysis--which is a class that only junior or senior math majors take! The tossup on "binomial" was also really strange when it said a distribution based off this word. I was going to buzz first line with "Bernoulli" like "Bernoulli random variable" but then I froze up because that's a name and the other team powered. Writing math tossups on "this adjective" or "this word" seems to delay buzzes and the rewarding of real knowledge.

On the topic of distributional oddities, I heard only one sports tossup through 10 rounds in D1 despite their being tons of sports bonuses, etc. (only heard one of those due to happen-stance). Was there a ton of sports in packets 11-15?

[Nabonidus]

Can we see the Saint Jerome tossup? Daniel negged it as the second clue seemed to be describing John the Baptist in the Parmagianino painting, rather than Jerome himself.

[aseem.keyal]

It felt like a disproportionate amount of the math in D1 was complex analysis; did other mathematically-inclined quizbowlers also feel this way?

In terms of actual errors, the only one I noticed that hasn't been mentioned is that the Blue Lagoon is not in fact in Reykjavík. I also think that an answer of "electrophiles" should at least have been prompted on for the bonus part on Lewis acids.

The tossup on "binomial" was also really strange when it said a distribution based off this word. I was going to buzz first line with "Bernoulli" like "Bernoulli random variable" but then I froze up because that's a name and the other team powered. Writing math tossups on "this adjective" or "this word" seems to delay buzzes and the rewarding of real knowledge.

Justin on Berkeley A was able to buzz on the first clue through knowledge he learned in class. Your overall point may be right, but the leadin to this tossup seems fine anecdotally. It does seem like a difficult question to power though, since this is the only complete clue in power.

[Amizda Calyx]

I wonder if literally any bio player got the tossup on "invasive species". Why would anyone think to give any answer besides mosquitoes to a clue about "gene drive using CRISPR to sterilize "these organisms""? This wasn't even prompted!!! Tossups on invasive species (or parasites, or any other life strategy) really shouldn't start out with *examples* of invasive species, especially when a pronoun as broad as "these organisms" is used. Find an ecology study explicitly on invasive species as the sole concentration and make that the leadin, and then use something like "this type of organism" as the identifier. And at the *very* least include prompts for every single example you clue.

I would also like to see the tossup on fatty acid synthesis. I buzzed at "this process" on the PPAR clue with inflammation but don't remember if there was any other information given to distinguish the fatty acid synth function from the dozens of other functions of PPAR.

I liked most other bio questions in the tournament, although I was pretty disappointed that not all rounds seemed to have a bio tossup. Did editors not ensure that the core subjects were contained in the first 22 questions, or is bio not considered core? I was SO excited after the first round when two good bio tossups came up, and then... :(

I'll note that I was also tripped up by the Reykjavik tossup, which I negged with "Iceland...'s Reykjavik". This was mostly because my executive processing disorders aren't conducive to tracking pronouns or answering quickly, but it was also definitely confounded by my having been there on the 17th and exposed to travel itineraries from Keflavik to Blue Lagoon. WOW magazine also has a page explicitly distinguishing Keflavik from Reykjavik and saying it is NOT comparable to London-Gatwick. I think this question would be better served just being a tossup on Iceland.

Oh, and I can't wait to see how "deduplication" fared considering my accidental, completely uninformed neg somewhere in the middle of the question with "memory...consolidation?" and then subsequent interrogation of the CS-degreed people I know, none of whom had heard of this thing.

[naan/steak-holding toll]

"this type of organism" as the identifier.

(for the record I did not write the question being discussed, nor do I know anything about the subject)

I'm not sure this is the best solution, as "this type" seems pretty vague. What if someone buzzes with "insects" knowing that the clue can refer to mosquitoes? Perhaps not an issue for a leadin from a study focusing exclusively on invasive species - and indeed, writing the whole question that way should obviate issues - but potentially problematic for some of the clues you discussed?

[vinteuil]

The tossup on "binomial" was also really strange when it said a distribution based off this word. I was going to buzz first line with "Bernoulli" like "Bernoulli random variable" but then I froze up because that's a name and the other team powered.

I don't understand what you mean? The first line specifically identifies the negative binomial distribution, not the Bernoulli distribution (the Banach matchbox problem is all about repeated trials, after all.)

I am also struggling to understand the perception that the set was mostly complex analysis. Here's the breakdown of math answerlines:

TU: W.V.O. Quine, binomial, inverse matrix, Riemann sphere, singularities, tan(x), intermediate value theorem, Poincaré.
Bonus: compactness/maximum modulus/Peano, curvature/Gauss/Frenet-Serret, integral equations/limits of integration/existence, orthogonal matrix/determinant/spectral theorem, squeeze theorem/1/gamma function, direct product/finitely generated abelian groups/4, modular arithmetic/(p-1)/2/Fermat little

I have bolded everything that was even vaguely complex analysis. (Which is a core subject and one of the relatively few advanced math classes that, e.g. physicists can be expected to have taken, so I think it's worth emphasizing.) To be fair, I originally wrote Riemann sphere as "spheres" with mostly topology clues, but I think that 2/almost 1 out of 8/7 is actually about right.

[vinteuil]

I would also like to see the tossup on fatty acid synthesis. I buzzed at "this process" on the PPAR clue with inflammation but don't remember if there was any other information given to distinguish the fatty acid synth function from the dozens of other functions of PPAR.

The products of this process are used as natural {ligands} [LIG-undz] to activate PPARs ["P-P-A-Rs"]. Intermediates in this process link to the {thiol} ["THIGH-all"] group of {phosphopantetheine} ["phospho"-PAN-tuh-THEE-een], which binds to ACP ["A-C-P"]. This process involves a "{condensation}-{reduction}- (*) -{dehydration}-reduction" cycle, each turn of which adds two {carbon}s to a growing {chain}. {Beta-oxidation} is conceptually the reverse of this process, whose products include {palmitate} [PALM-ih-tate]. For 10 points--name this {biochemical pathway} whose products are packaged into {triglycerides}.

There was.

[vinteuil]

Can we see the Saint Jerome tossup? Daniel negged it as the second clue seemed to be describing John the Baptist in the Parmagianino painting, rather than Jerome himself.

Oof, that's completely my fault, and Daniel was correct. Sorry!!

[1.82]

I wonder if literally any bio player got the tossup on "invasive species". Why would anyone think to give any answer besides mosquitoes to a clue about "gene drive using CRISPR to sterilize "these organisms""? This wasn't even prompted!!!

Delaware did in fact buzz with "mosquitoes" and successfully protested being negged.

[Important Bird Area]

Can we see the Saint Jerome tossup? Daniel negged it as the second clue seemed to be describing John the Baptist in the Parmagianino painting, rather than Jerome himself.

This title man is framed by an arch above a ledge holding a bowl, partridge, and peacock in a painting by Antonello da Messina. This man crooks a finger toward the Madonna and Child in a Parmigianino painting of his (*) Vision. This man looks tiny next to some unfinished columns at the bottom right of Parmigianino's Madonna of the Long Neck. An Albrecht D\"urer print shows this saint with the lion whose paw he healed. For 10 points—what saint, often shown "in his study," created the Vulgate?

[theMoMA]

Circling back to the Reykjavik tossup, I think the part about Keflavik shouldn't be confusing; it said that people often visit the city on stopovers from Keflavik, which is true. (It's actually almost entirely analogous to Gatwick, which the airport I flew into from Keflavik; Gatwick is in Crawley, although it serves London. The only real difference between them is that, because Iceland is so sparsely populated, there's lots of scrubland between Keflavik and Reykjavik.) I've also recently been through Keflavik (though sadly I did not have a stopover and did not see Reykjavik), and I added the mention of the IcelandAir stopovers because I assume that's how a lot of people in quizbowl have visited Iceland, if they've done so. In any event, I apologize for not cleaning up the Blue Lagoon imprecision (or cleaning it up, then accidentally editing the revision out, as I suspect happened) when I tweaked this clue.

[shmno]

I wonder if literally any bio player got the tossup on "invasive species". Why would anyone think to give any answer besides mosquitoes to a clue about "gene drive using CRISPR to sterilize "these organisms""? This wasn't even prompted!!!

Delaware did in fact buzz with "mosquitoes" and successfully protested being negged.

The same thing happened to Michigan, with an answer of "mosquitoes" after "these organisms."

I also thought "chromosomes" should be promptable for "telomeres."

I'm pretty sure the Lewis acids bonus part mentioned "electron pair acceptors," which is the definition of Lewis acids, not electrophiles.

I think the impression that complex analysis showed up more often is that the complex analysis questions were on the harder side of the math if you haven't taken it, and so may have been more memorable. This is speaking as someone who has taken complex analysis, and buzzed on the first line of both tossups - although I did neg "singularities" with "poles." Penn Bowl, which I think was generally a bit harder than this tournament, had tossups on the relatively easier answerlines of "complex analysis" and "Riemann" with Riemann surface clues followed by the Riemann hypothesis.

"Deduplication" also stood out to me as harder than other science TUs, but I think it's acceptable for a tournament to have a few hard/canon-expanding answerlines.
Edit: this may also be because data compression isn't often learned directly by CS majors; none of my CS friends have heard of it.

[Nabonidus]

Besides the "these organisms" wording, I buzzed on the first line with mosquitoes because I was under the impression that the invasive species proposals were just in the preliminary research stages whereas the question seemed (but my memory is iffy on the specific wording) to imply that the tech had already been developed.

[Cheynem]

I'm not going to turn this into a "comment on my questions thing," but I didn't realize until yesterday that almost all of my questions in this set were on U.S. current events, a topic I haven't done a lot of before, so if anyone has any thoughts on those questions let me know.

[a bird]

Besides the "these organisms" wording, I buzzed on the first line with mosquitoes because I was under the impression that the invasive species proposals were just in the preliminary research stages whereas the question seemed (but my memory is iffy on the specific wording) to imply that the tech had already been developed.

I think this buzz was ruled correct after a protest at the Georgetown site.

[Amizda Calyx]

The products of this process are used as natural {ligands} [LIG-undz] to activate PPARs ["P-P-A-Rs"]. Intermediates in this process link to the {thiol} ["THIGH-all"] group of {phosphopantetheine} ["phospho"-PAN-tuh-THEE-een], which binds to ACP ["A-C-P"]. This process involves a "{condensation}-{reduction}- (*) -{dehydration}-reduction" cycle, each turn of which adds two {carbon}s to a growing {chain}. {Beta-oxidation} is conceptually the reverse of this process, whose products include {palmitate} [PALM-ih-tate]. For 10 points--name this {biochemical pathway} whose products are packaged into {triglycerides}.

There was.

Prostanoids, products of the inflammatory process, also activate PPARs. You could argue that they aren't THE products of inflammation, but the function of several PPAR pathways is to respond to inflammatory products (eicosanoids such as leukotrienes and prostaglandins) that are produced through the action of inflammatory mediators (such as COX and lipoxygenase).

And while prostanoids include several fatty acids, it is also not clear at this point in the question that the answer is a biochemical process versus a physiological one.

[touchpack]

The products of this process are used as natural {ligands} [LIG-undz] to activate PPARs ["P-P-A-Rs"]. Intermediates in this process link to the {thiol} ["THIGH-all"] group of {phosphopantetheine} ["phospho"-PAN-tuh-THEE-een], which binds to ACP ["A-C-P"]. This process involves a "{condensation}-{reduction}- (*) -{dehydration}-reduction" cycle, each turn of which adds two {carbon}s to a growing {chain}. {Beta-oxidation} is conceptually the reverse of this process, whose products include {palmitate} [PALM-ih-tate]. For 10 points--name this {biochemical pathway} whose products are packaged into {triglycerides}.

There was.

Prostanoids, products of the inflammatory process, also activate PPARs. You could argue that they aren't THE products of inflammation, but the function of several PPAR pathways is to respond to inflammatory products (eicosanoids such as leukotrienes and prostaglandins) that are produced through the action of inflammatory mediators (such as COX and lipoxygenase).

And while prostanoids include several fatty acids, it is also not clear at this point in the question that the answer is a biochemical process versus a physiological one.

Yeah, this is mea culpa. I should have used the pronoun "metabolic pathway", not "process" in the leadin--I didn't anticipate a buzz of "inflammation" but I think it's a very reasonable one based on the question text and would have received points on a protest (NAQT rule J.13.d.ii).

I liked most other bio questions in the tournament, although I was pretty disappointed that not all rounds seemed to have a bio tossup. Did editors not ensure that the core subjects were contained in the first 22 questions, or is bio not considered core? I was SO excited after the first round when two good bio tossups came up, and then... :(

I wasn't a set editor for this set, but to the best of my knowledge, the SCT timing change has not changed the way editors and Ginseng packetize questions--that is, the biology tossup has an equal probability of being any number in the packet, including 23 or 24. In addition, biology (and chemistry and physics) all have 15 tossups across 16 packets according to the distribution, so one packet just didn't have a biology tossup. (Although some packets had 2 biology tossups, because some of the "miscellaneous science" category was biology)

[Important Bird Area]

the SCT timing change has not changed the way editors and Ginseng packetize questions--that is, the biology tossup has an equal probability of being any number in the packet, including 23 or 24. In addition, biology (and chemistry and physics) all have 15 tossups across 16 packets according to the distribution, so one packet just didn't have a biology tossup. (Although some packets had 2 biology tossups, because some of the "miscellaneous science" category was biology)

This is correct.

[Important Bird Area]

Here's the deduplication tossup:

On a wide area network, this subset of the optimization process can be done by an "RE device." When this process is "target-based," as opposed to "source-based," it can be done "in-line" or "post-process." This process, which can operate by "chunking" and then (*) comparing hash codes, is often used in conjunction with single-instance storage to reduce the size of backups. The term "intelligent compression" is sometimes synonymous with—for 10 points—what process of removing redundant copies of repeated data?

answer: (data) deduplication (accept answers that mention forms of the word deduplicate such as deduplicating or dedup; accept answers describing removing duplicates or removing duplicate entries from data; accept answers describing removing redundancy or redundancy elimination before "redundant"; prompt on "(data) compression" or "intelligent (data) compression" before "compression"; prompt on "single-instancing" or "single-instance (storage)" before "instance"; do not accept or prompt on "normalization" or "canonicalization")

[Sima Guang Hater]

-Cafe au lait spots are more commonly associated with neurofibromatosis than Fanconi's anemia.
-The malonic ester synthesis starts with deprotonating the alpha carbon between the two ester groups; should carbanions be acceptable?
-The leadin to the primer question is pretty obscure, and the next clue could apply to methylation-specific restriction enzymes.
-Chromosomes should be acceptable for telomeres on the ALT clue; also ALT shouldn't be the first word. There's a similar no-pronoun-first issue in the tossup on hyphae.
-I see this invasive species tossup has already been mentioned.

[A Dim-Witted Saboteur]

What was with all the tossups on American rivers? I recall at least Pecos, Wabash, and Mississippi but there may have been more.

[CPiGuy]

Something I just remembered: can we not lead in tossups on Turkmenistan with Door to Hell? It's probably the most notable physical feature in the country.

[A Dim-Witted Saboteur]

Something I just remembered: can we not lead in tossups on Turkmenistan with Door to Hell? It's probably the most notable physical feature in the country.

That's debatable. The Karabogazkol and Amu Darya rivers are probably more notable than that at least from a geographical standpoint. But yeah, I agree it's a bad leadin

[Bosa of York]

Something I just remembered: can we not lead in tossups on Turkmenistan with Door to Hell? It's probably the most notable physical feature in the country.

That's debatable. The Karabogazkol and Amu Darya rivers are probably more notable than that at least from a geographical standpoint. But yeah, I agree it's a bad leadin

For what it's worth, I've ever heard of exactly one of these three things.