2019 PIANO/MO Errata

[vinteuil]

Comment away on errors, packetization weirdness, anything!

[Nabonidus]

We were notified that there was too much poetry in the early rounds. Including stuff like the Beowulf manuscript, there were 18 poetry tossups across the 15 rounds of this tournament. Unfortunately, there were three packets with multiple poetry tossups in the first six rounds. I've moved two of those tossups to later positions.

[Judson Laipply]

The “negative index of refraction” tossup showed up in two packets. This was the reason for my complaint about not getting a physics replacement since we never had our first clean shot at a physics tossup.

While I believe that my complaint is valid for all situations, I understand it is not always possible. However in this case, I’m pretty sure it’s SOP to replace with the correct subject.

[vinteuil]

The “negative index of refraction” tossup showed up in two packets. This was the reason for my complaint about not getting a physics replacement since we never had our first clean shot at a physics tossup.

I sincerely apologize for this dumb mistake, which we have since rectified. Hopefully this didn't swing any games, and I'm sorry for any delays it caused!

[Carlos Be]

I think the bonus on Chinese poetry said that ghazals have four lines, which does not make any sense.

[jsingh]

I think there was a bonus that mentioned the 1897's World Fair and the answer was Chicago; clearly, that should be 1893. Also, this is a more subjective take, but I felt that the bonus with Neruda had no real easy part.

User was warned to enable a signature -- mod team

[Sima Guang Hater]

I told Adam about this one already, but

Vestibular schwannomas (also known as acoustic neuromas, acoustic schwannomas, acoustic neurinomas, or vestibular neurilemomas)

(cf here: https://www.uptodate.com/contents/vesti ... ic-neuroma)

I've also heard that the top quark TU will be modified to better rule out B mesons, which is great.

[vinteuil]

I think the bonus on Chinese poetry said that ghazals have four lines, which does not make any sense.

This is my own wild nonsense (presumably meant "ruba'i") and will be corrected.

[vinteuil]

I think there was a bonus that mentioned the 1897's World Fair and the answer was Chicago; clearly, that should be 1893.

Yet again my mistake! (It is fixed.)

[wcheng]

There was a bonus part with the answerline “yajna” that I answered with “homa,” which I think is roughly equivalent but was not in the answerline.

[Bhagwan Shammbhagwan]

This may not be that much of a concern, but none of the tiebreaker/replacement tossups are history tossups (I think the grey wolves one is ecology?)

[Abdon Ubidia]

The bonus part on Oscar and Lucinda said that it was written by Miles Franklin instead of Peter Carey, which caused us to get it wrong.

[vinteuil]

The bonus part on Oscar and Lucinda said that it was written by Miles Franklin instead of Peter Carey, which caused us to get it wrong.

This was an (egregious!) error introduced in proofreading on Saturday night, and has now been corrected.

[Muriel Axon]

There was a bonus part with the answerline “yajna” that I answered with “homa,” which I think is roughly equivalent but was not in the answerline.

I can see why you would say that. I had the impression that there was a stricter distinction, with yajna as a much more formal and public ritual. I'll review the way the terms are used and either add yajna to the answer-line or rule out homa more clearly. Thanks for pointing this out -- my apologies!

[Duckk]

I drew a neg on the "debugging" tossup with an answer of "profiling" based on the Valgrind clue. While it is certainly true that Valgrind can be used for debugging, its other major use case is profiling, and indeed this is the use case I am most familiar with (so presumably other people are familiar with Valgrind only/mainly as a profiling tool). A cursory search online confirms that Valgrind is commonly used for both tasks. Perhaps a "it's not profiling, but ..." clause at the start of the relevant sentence would be appropriate to make sure the clue is uniquely identifying.

[A Dim-Witted Saboteur]

I found it a bit iffy that a history tossup on holy Roman emperors named Otto and an art tossup on Charlemagne were in the same packet.

The Castiglione clue in the Qianlong tossup was non-specific; Castiglione served as a court painter to three different Chinese emperors, including the one I negged with (Kangxi).
More things to come when I have time.

[vinteuil]

I found it a bit iffy that a history tossup on holy Roman emperors named Otto and an art tossup on Charlemagne were in the same packet.

Yikes!

The Castiglione clue in the Qianlong tossup was non-specific; Castiglione served as a court painter to three different Chinese emperors, including the one I negged with (Kangxi).

We were hoping to head this off by wording it "This ruler was the most frequent subject of portraits by (*) Giuseppe Castiglione." I'll swap in a chronological modifier ("last of three" as opposed to "most frequent").

[Carlos Be]

The Castiglione clue in the Qianlong tossup was non-specific; Castiglione served as a court painter to three different Chinese emperors, including the one I negged with (Kangxi).

glad I'm not the only one to make that neg

[Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN)]

The question on Orthodox Jews didn't accept our team's answer of "Haredi." Unless we misunderstood the clues, I think our answer, or the phrase "ultra Orthodox" are in fact the only correct answers - most religious Jews in Israel are what we would call Orthodox, and they still get drafted into the IDF.

[vinteuil]

The question on Orthodox Jews didn't accept our team's answer of "Haredi." Unless we misunderstood the clues, I think our answer, or the phrase "ultra Orthodox" are in fact the only correct answers - most religious Jews in Israel are what we would call Orthodox, and they still get drafted into the IDF.

Good catch—we'll add that to the answerline. However, the rest of the question clearly points to more than just Haredim:

[10] A school linking the Torah to derekh eretz, or “the way of the land,” is part of this strict branch of Judaism. It includes the Hasidic and Lubavitcher movements and “ultras” exempted from Israeli military service.

[Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN)]

No surprise then, Rafael and I didn't hear the word "ultra" in the game.

[Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Dreams]

I told Adam about this one already, but

Vestibular schwannomas (also known as acoustic neuromas, acoustic schwannomas, acoustic neurinomas, or vestibular neurilemomas)

(cf here: https://www.uptodate.com/contents/vesti ... ic-neuroma)

I've also heard that the top quark TU will be modified to better rule out B mesons, which is great.

Was this changed? Perhaps I'm really dumb, but I ended up negging it with B mesons anyway.

[vinteuil]

I told Adam about this one already, but

Vestibular schwannomas (also known as acoustic neuromas, acoustic schwannomas, acoustic neurinomas, or vestibular neurilemomas)

(cf here: https://www.uptodate.com/contents/vesti ... ic-neuroma)

I've also heard that the top quark TU will be modified to better rule out B mesons, which is great.

Was this changed? Perhaps I'm really dumb, but I ended up negging it with B mesons anyway.

In true doofus-like fashion, I somehow never added this to our to-do list—it'll be fixed in the posted version of the set...

[armitage]

I told Adam about this one already, but

Vestibular schwannomas (also known as acoustic neuromas, acoustic schwannomas, acoustic neurinomas, or vestibular neurilemomas)

(cf here: https://www.uptodate.com/contents/vesti ... ic-neuroma)

Anything happen with this?

[adamsil]

I told Adam about this one already, but

Vestibular schwannomas (also known as acoustic neuromas, acoustic schwannomas, acoustic neurinomas, or vestibular neurilemomas)

(cf here: https://www.uptodate.com/contents/vesti ... ic-neuroma)

Anything happen with this?

With an assist from Jason's dad, I aimed to edit the text of this tossup to be clearer that we weren't looking for people to say _acoustic_ neuroma on the leadin since, contrary the link, as far as I can tell, what people call acoustic schwannomas really are neuromas, not schwannomas.

Re: top quark: I did edit the leadin to discuss axigluons to totally invalidate B mesons as being acceptable for that clue (I had initially thought that "asymmetry in producing matter vs. antimatter" was different enough from "oscillating between matter and antimatter" to deter buzzes, but perhaps that is insufficient to distinguish at game speed?)

[vinteuil]

Re: top quark: I did edit the leadin to discuss axigluons to totally invalidate B mesons as being acceptable for that clue (I had initially thought that "asymmetry in producing matter vs. antimatter" was different enough from "oscillating between matter and antimatter" to deter buzzes, but perhaps that is insufficient to distinguish at game speed?)

(I somehow missed this change; regardless, the posted version will have a straight "it's not the B meson, but..." tag.)

[Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Dreams]

I buzzed in with equilibrioception on the balance tossup and got negged.


I said "surfactant production" for the part on breathing in the breathing/alveoli/acini bonus.
I'm fairly sure both of these answers should have been accepted.

[warum]

I said "surfactant production" for the part on breathing in the breathing/alveoli/acini bonus.

We also said this. I have no idea whether it should be acceptable, but Bryce Hwang (our biology player and current medical student) seemed to think so.

[ryanrosenberg]

I said "surfactant production" for the part on breathing in the breathing/alveoli/acini bonus.

Richard Yu said "lung development". I'm guessing that different parts of the clues pointed to different issues with breathing?

The other question we protested was an answer of "arts center" for "sculpture garden", which should probably be added as a prompt.

[adamsil]

I buzzed in with equilibrioception on the balance tossup and got negged.


I said "surfactant production" for the part on breathing in the breathing/alveoli/acini bonus.
I'm fairly sure both of these answers should have been accepted.

Yeah, these are all my fault for not anticipating acceptable alternatives. I should have seen _breathing_ being a problematic answerline and just made it on "lungs" or something more concrete. (That's why the prompt asked for "general process"--but in retrospect, that's an utterly meaningless phrase). Sorry--these would all have held up under protest, so I hope they didn't matter to the outcome of a match.

(but seriously though--did you actually buzz in and say the word equilibrioception? I had to look that word up just now...! )

[Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Dreams]

(but seriously though--did you actually buzz in and say the word equilibrioception? I had to look that word up just now...! )

I have no idea why I said it instead of just "balance," but yes I did.

[touchpack]

FWIW I don't think Geoff's answer is that ridiculous--equilibrioception is a common vocab word seen in MCAT prep material (and it's of course a well-known term in medicine).

The breathing question really confused me, because IIRC, all the clues were talking about things that happen in utero.... and the fetus does not breathe in utero! I'd have to see the exact wording to be sure, but I'm not sure the clues actually point to the correct answer.

[adamsil]

The breathing question really confused me, because IIRC, all the clues were talking about things that happen in utero.... and the fetus does not breathe in utero! I'd have to see the exact wording to be sure, but I'm not sure the clues actually point to the correct answer.

The intent was to be specifically about things that are detected in utero that would lead to postnatal breathing problems. Perhaps the wording didn't make that clear enough though?

Defects in this general process are assessed prenatally by the ratio of lecithin to sphingo·myelin in the amniotic fluid. For 10 points each:
[10] Name this natural process that depends heavily upon the availability of di·palmitoyl·phosphatidyl·choline. In infants, defects in this general process are diagnosed postmortem by the accumulation of a hyaline membrane.
ANSWER: breathing [or respiration]
[10] Absence of pulmonary surfactant in preterm infants is usually due to insufficient development of Type II cells in these small cavities in the lungs where gas exchange occurs. Smoking destroys them.
ANSWER: alveoli [or alveolus]
[10] Alveoli are located at the distal end of these functional units of the lungs, which consists of a bronchiole and the alveoli clustered together in a rounded sac. In anatomy generally, this term describes exocrine glands whose secretory sections have a narrow lumen, unlike alveolar glands.
ANSWER: acinus [or acini; or acinar glands]

I think the first part of this bonus failed in a "you have to be able to read my mind" way, sorry about that.

[touchpack]

The breathing question really confused me, because IIRC, all the clues were talking about things that happen in utero.... and the fetus does not breathe in utero! I'd have to see the exact wording to be sure, but I'm not sure the clues actually point to the correct answer.

The intent was to be specifically about things that are detected in utero that would lead to postnatal breathing problems. Perhaps the wording didn't make that clear enough though?

Defects in this general process are assessed prenatally by the ratio of lecithin to sphingo·myelin in the amniotic fluid. For 10 points each:
[10] Name this natural process that depends heavily upon the availability of di·palmitoyl·phosphatidyl·choline. In infants, defects in this general process are diagnosed postmortem by the accumulation of a hyaline membrane.
ANSWER: breathing [or respiration]
[10] Absence of pulmonary surfactant in preterm infants is usually due to insufficient development of Type II cells in these small cavities in the lungs where gas exchange occurs. Smoking destroys them.
ANSWER: alveoli [or alveolus]
[10] Alveoli are located at the distal end of these functional units of the lungs, which consists of a bronchiole and the alveoli clustered together in a rounded sac. In anatomy generally, this term describes exocrine glands whose secretory sections have a narrow lumen, unlike alveolar glands.
ANSWER: acinus [or acini; or acinar glands]

I think the first part of this bonus failed in a "you have to be able to read my mind" way, sorry about that.

Ah, this is better than I remembered. (admittedly, the other team was controlling the bonus, so I was not 100% focused, and Auroni figured it out with very little difficulty) I think the fact that this is the first part of a bonus (and thus you have a lot of time to think about it) helps too--this type of question would be a nightmare to try to parse at tossup-speed.

[Maxwell Sniffingwell]

I finally tracked down the clue in the Russian (linguistics) tossup that felt weird: the vocative case in Russian was described as only appearing in diminuitive nicknames. In reality, it also shows up in churchy stuff - most notably, the phrase bozhe moy, "my God," which uses the vocative form bozhe of the word Bog.

[jmarvin_]

I finally tracked down the clue in the Russian (linguistics) tossup that felt weird: the vocative case in Russian was described as only appearing in diminuitive nicknames. In reality, it also shows up in churchy stuff - most notably, the phrase bozhe moy, "my God," which uses the vocative form bozhe of the word Bog.

I take full responsibility for this mistake. When I wrote this, and I was thinking back if there were other instances of the vocative being preserved, all that came to mind were nicknames and so I let the "only" sneak in where it shouldn't have. I had cordoned off the churchy stuff into the "still Church Slavonic" category of my mind (since liturgical language still is) when it's true that the Slavonic constructions (via liturgy) have maintained a stubborn place in modern, conversational Russian too.

This error is easily corrected by deleting the "only."