2018 Division II SCT: specific question discussion

[Important Bird Area]

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

[nsb2]

Could I see the tossup on Mercury, please?

[Emperor Pupienus]

I thought that the DII tossup on _Marcus Aurelius_ mentioned something in the first line about the "Mother of the Camps" which I believe is best known to be a title given to Julia Domna, wife of Septimius Severus. Could you please post that tossup?

[Important Bird Area]

This object has almost no axial tilt, and its high orbital eccentricity gives it a stable 3-to-2 spin-orbit resonance with an orbital period of 88 days. Urbain Le Verrier noticed the anomalous precession of this body's (*) perihelion, which was explained in Albert Einstein's first general relativity paper. The Mariner 10 and MESSENGER probes visited—for 10 points—what closest planet to the Sun?

While campaigning in Pannonia, this emperor gave the title Mater Castrorum, or "Mother of the Camp," to his wife Faustina the Younger, who accompanied him during his war against Germanic tribes such as the Marcomanni. This emperor compared men to rocky cliffs unmoved by the waves in a (*) 12-book series of writings. Commodus succeeded this author of the Meditations. For 10 points—who was the last of the Five Good Emperors?

[Emperor Pupienus]

While campaigning in Pannonia, this emperor gave the title Mater Castrorum, or "Mother of the Camp," to his wife Faustina the Younger, who accompanied him during his war against Germanic tribes such as the Marcomanni. This emperor compared men to rocky cliffs unmoved by the waves in a (*) 12-book series of writings. Commodus succeeded this author of the Meditations. For 10 points—who was the last of the Five Good Emperors?

So it appears that "Mater Castrorum" was given to both Faustina the Younger and Julia Domna (searching "Mater Castrorum" in google scholar mainly yields hits on those two). Marcus Aurelius is probably the best answer buzzing on the clue, since Faustina the Younger was the first Empress to receive the title, according to this article, and Marcus Aurelius is better known for campaigning in Pannonia.

But, while this clue is probably unique (I haven't tracked down where Severus gave Julia Domna the title), it seems like unnecessary neg-bait. That clue should probably just be removed or moved to after Faustina the Younger, which would be less pyramidal but decrease the likelihood of negs.

[afriesacher]

Could I see the tossup on Cassatt, the tossup on monads, and the bonus on Cynicism?

Also there was a bonus that had parts on Francis Bacon, Diego Velasquez, and John Everett Millais, all of which I felt were easy parts. Each clue gave the title of the artist's most famous work.

[Fado Alexandrino]

The Mozart string quartet bonus had an error - D minor has a key signature of one flat, not two.

The tossup on Uranus refers to it as a “gos” more than once.

The bonus part on Oliver Twist lacked an easy part and felt like a zero or thirty bonus.

[AGoodMan]

Also there was a bonus that had parts on Francis Bacon, Diego Velasquez, and John Everett Millais, all of which I felt were easy parts. Each clue gave the title of the artist's most famous work.

I'm not sure Francis Bacon the painter is an easy part for SCT D2?

[Important Bird Area]

Could I see the tossup on Cassatt, the tossup on monads, and the bonus on Cynicism?

Also there was a bonus that had parts on Francis Bacon, Diego Velasquez, and John Everett Millais, all of which I felt were easy parts. Each clue gave the title of the artist's most famous work.

This artist depicted a woman using binoculars in a theater, as another audience member uses binoculars to watch her, in a painting titled In the Loge. The mural Modern Woman was created by this artist for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. A man in blue rows with a woman and (*) baby in this artist's painting The Boating Party. For 10 points—name this American-born Impressionist who often painted mothers and children.

These things have action to the extent that they have "distinct perceptions," and passion to the extent that they have "confused perceptions." The apparent interaction of these entities was explained by the doctrine of pre-established harmony. These mind-like entities are described as being (*) "windowless" in a 1714 book. For 10 points—name these simple substances that were postulated by Gottfried Leibniz.

Legendarily, this philosopher destroyed his sole possession—a bowl—after realizing that he could drink water using his cupped hands. For 10 points each—

A. Name this philosopher who reputedly wandered Athens during the daytime with a lamp in search of an honest man.

answer: Diogenes (of Sinope)

B. Diogenes was an adherent of this philosophical movement founded by Antisthenes. Its name derives from the Greek word for "dog."

answer: Cynicism or Cynics

C. According to another tale, Diogenes presented one of these things as an example of a man in response to Plato's definition of a man as a "featherless biped."

answer: plucked chicken (accept any answer indicating a chicken with no feathers or that had been plucked; prompt on "chicken")

This man painted several portraits of fellow artist Lucian Freud, including one showing Freud with this man's lover, George Dyer. For 10 points each—

A. Name this 20th-century artist who created numerous works showing screaming popes.

answer: Francis Bacon

B. Bacon was inspired by this artist's Portrait of Pope Innocent X. This artist also painted Las Meninas.

answer: Diego Vel\'azquez (or Diego Rodr\'iguez de Silva y Vel\'azquez)

C. Bacon lived for a time in a house that once belonged to this Pre-Raphaelite [pree-RAF-uh-"light"] artist of Mariana and Christ in the House of His Parents.

answer: John Everett Millais

Velazquez was intended to be the easy part here.

[afriesacher]

For the third part of the Cynicism bonus I answered "chicken" and got prompted, which really confused me because the clue says "featherless" so I assumed that was implicit.

The second clue in the monad tossup isn't a unique identifier and I think is confusable with something like "mind and body". Wikipedia says that pre-established harmony "is best known as a solution to the mind-body problem of how mind can interact with the body" and SEP largely treats it that way. In Leibniz's "A New System of Nature" he proposes his theory of pre-established harmony as solution to the interaction of body and soul and, in "Postscript of a letter to Basnage", he introduces the analogy of two clocks for the interaction of souls and bodies and explicitly calls his solution "the theory of pre-established harmony".

[Crazy Khan Tech]

This is a relatively minor comment that occurred to me but I believe the Comey tossup used a nearly identical first clue as the Comey tossup in IS-164 (clue referred to blaming Poles for the Holocaust). I suppose there's relatively few recent actions of Comey that haven't been publicized to death in recent months, but it was still a little strange to me.

[Cheynem]

They had the same lead-in, but that was about all--the IS question was written way back in January, before Comey even got fired.

[theMoMA]

I'll add that, as a matter of policy, we don't check SCT against IS sets in terms of repeated content, although we do try to avoid clues that have come up a lot recently and are thus stale.

[Aaron's Rod]

Can I see the "deduplication" tossup? I know there's already been some gnashing of teeth about it in DI.

[Important Bird Area]

Posted in the DI thread.

[Muriel Axon]

The second clue in the monad tossup isn't a unique identifier and I think is confusable with something like "mind and body". Wikipedia says that pre-established harmony "is best known as a solution to the mind-body problem of how mind can interact with the body" and SEP largely treats it that way. In Leibniz's "A New System of Nature" he proposes his theory of pre-established harmony as solution to the interaction of body and soul and, in "Postscript of a letter to Basnage", he introduces the analogy of two clocks for the interaction of souls and bodies and explicitly calls his solution "the theory of pre-established harmony".

I agree with this reasoning, having also been negged for my answer of "body and soul" on the same clue.

[Valefor]

The Mozart string quartet bonus had an error - D minor has a key signature of one flat, not two.

It does indeed, a fact I know quite well but which apparently just slipped past me when I was converting that. Sincere apologies if that misled anyone.

[nsb2]

A few more things I remembered from after the tournament:

-I understand that the other clues in the Mercury tossup refer exclusively to Mercury, but Urbain Le Verrier is commonly associated with the discovery of Neptune (independently along with John Adams) so it might be misleading to hear his name as the first part of that sentence.
-There were no music tossups at all over two consecutive rounds (rounds 4 and 5, if I'm not mistaken). I know that the FA distribution is approximately 2/2 in NAQT sets, but having two rounds without a tossup on a major subcategory felt more than a little weird.

[Important Bird Area]

-There were no music tossups at all over two consecutive rounds (rounds 4 and 5, if I'm not mistaken). I know that the FA distribution is approximately 2/2 in NAQT sets, but having two rounds without a tossup on a major subcategory felt more than a little weird.

There are 12 music tossups in the Division II SCT, so some rounds won't have one (and the music tossup in round 4 was tossup 23).

[Zealots of Stockholm]

Some questions I thought dropped things too early:
Vargas Llosa (I think already mentioned elsewhere)
Drowning Girl description in the second line of the Lichtenstein TU
Harmonium still being power in the Stevens TU
"Asphodel, That Greeny Flower" in the first line of the WIlliams TU
"nine-tails" still being in power for the foxes in mythology TU

That being said, I enjoyed playing this set even though I generally don't enjoy NAQT's distribution compared to ACF. I thought the painting especially did a good job of including clues other than descriptions of paintings early in questions. I really liked the Copley tossup mentioning Henry Pelham and the Cassatt tossup beginning with a description of In the Loge, both things that we spent a good amount of time on in my US art history course.

Could I see the Cubism bonus?

[Important Bird Area]

For 10 points each—answer the following about depictions of guitars by Cubist painters:

A. Man with a Guitar is a painting by this early Cubist, whose scene Houses at l'Estaque inspired the name of the Cubist movement.

B. This other co-founder of Cubism painted The Old Guitarist during his "Blue period."

C. This Spanish artist, who painted a Cubist portrait of Picasso, also produced the paintings Harlequin with Guitar and Guitar and Pipe.

[Dirty Water]

Could I see the tossup on greatest common factor?

Also it feels like Honshu came up twice pretty close to each other, and possibly both as geo bonuses.

[Important Bird Area]

Could I see the tossup on greatest common factor?

Also it feels like Honshu came up twice pretty close to each other, and possibly both as geo bonuses.

This value appears on one side of Bezout's identity, which says that given integers a and b, there are other integers x and y such that a x plus b y equals this value. This value can be computed by a "binary method" involving only subtraction and division by 2, or using (*) Euclid's [YOO-klid'z] method. If this value is 1 for two numbers, they are called coprime. For 10 points—give this term for the largest factor shared by two numbers.

answer: greatest common divisor(s) or GCD(s) (or greatest common factors or GCFs; accept highest or largest in place of greatest; do not accept or prompt on "greatest common denominator(s)")

I only found one reference to Honshu in the set:

To the north of Shikoku lies this most populous of Japan's four main islands. This island is the site of Mount Fuji and Tokyo.

[cwasims]

If I recall, one of the bonuses implied that the European Central Bank is the central bank of the European Union, which is only partially true as it's really only the central bank of the Eurozone but is still one of the seven core EU institutions (a fact that some people probably aren't aware of). I think the wording could probably have been changed to avoid the ambiguity.

Not that it's a huge issue, but there was one extremely easy bonus on Hungary/Budapest/Slovenia, where none of the clues were particularly difficult and all the answerlines extremely straightforward.

Overall, I enjoyed the tournament! I was particularly happy to see Blackadder, one of my favourite TV shows, come up.