The Quizbowl Resource Center

We had a thread called Bad Negs, so why not Best Powers? If you guys already had one of these and it got boring, feel free to delete it.

Ill start it off.
"the hardest decision the captain has to make in this"
I buzzed, said cricket, and got weird looks from the other team
Circa Siesta Bowl 05.

"They are the only mammals with no hydrochloric acid in their digestive tracts, as the formic acid in their diets" *buzz*

Anteaters. (From 2005 HSNCT)

"It applied to adults over the age of 21..."

Me: BUZZ
Crap. Homestead Act

Although I think there may have been something mentioning the year in there before I buzzed.

"He spent New Years Eve..."
Buzz: Norriega

Oh IS sets. You're so amusing to practice on.

From some UTC trash Tournament long ago...

"This BBC show starred Wendy Richard-"

Are you Being Served?

Granted UTC doesnt do powers, only insanely early buzzes, that stands out.


From an NAQT packet:

"Built by Harland and Wolff-"

Titanic

If you know me very well, this wouldnt suprise you at all. And this was BEFORE the film came out.

umm..searching my memories...
"The name is the same. Point guard Damon" BUZZ
Answer: Stoudamire
"He is sent by his Aunt Lucy" BUZZ
Answer: Paddington Bear
"The title character enters the temple of Osiris (or something like that)" BUZZ
Answer: Aida

Those three were all in a row at an NAQT Tournament

"In Maycomb County" BUZZ
Answer: To Kill a Mockingbird
"Confirmed by William Gibbs" BUZZ
Answer: SHIT....Lechatelier's Principle?
"The story ends with the title character deciding he had never slept in a better bed" BUZZ
Answer: The Most Dangerous Game
"Located at (some number) Grimmauld Place" BUZZ
Answer: (long pause) The Order of the Phoenix

That is all I can think of for now

AirJay wrote:umm..searching my memories...
"The name is the same. Point guard Damon" BUZZ
Answer: Stoudamire
"He is sent by his Aunt Lucy" BUZZ
Answer: Paddington Bear
"Located at (some number) Grimmauld Place" BUZZ
Answer: (long pause) The Order of the Phoenix
That is all I can think of for now

i think we might have been reading those packets a few weeks ago. i powere stoudemire and OOTP as well, but not paddington. nice one

From NAQT Nationals a few years back..

Developed at a 1961 conference in Green Bank, W. Va.. [buzz]

(Drake Equation)

older NAQT Nats packets

"This language's 'idaafah' str-[buzz]

(Arabic, referring to the possessive structure between two nouns)

At Blake this year (so not technically power, just early buzzes), though these 2 were due to my own foolish premature buzzing:

Moderator: With two dice, this is the probability or rolling a <buzz>.
Me: one sixth.

Moderator: Choice: sin of negative x is equal to <buzz>
Me: negative sin x.

And from RM:

Moderator: It is a degenerate form of Brahmagupta <buzz>
Me: Heron's Formula

this isnt that great of a power, but it went something like this
"The language in her most famous novel was criticized by other authors of her race" BUZZ
zora neale hurston for Their Eyes Were Watching God

"A star at UMASS...<buzz>" (Julius Erving)
"Born on September 11, 1913 ...<buzz>" (Paul "Bear" Bryant)
"He lost to John Patterson...<buzz>" (George C. Wallace)

Against DCC last year in the semis at Great Lakes, a question started something like this (and I believe Steinhice might have written it)...

This Civil War battle saw 160,000 union troops <BUZZ>

Jim: Chancellorsville

I was just in the back of the room like... WOW!
I made sure to tell him what a dork he was for knowing the battle on the number of troops alone...

I'm sure there are a few more of you out there that knew it on that too... but still...

At practice:

"Name the proper adjective. When preceding comma" BUZZ
Pythagorean.

"After becoming completely blind, he died in St. Petersburg" BUZZ
Euler.

"His sculptures, using wood -"
<Constantin Brancusi>

"The main character of this book worries that his hat gives--"
(Crime and Punishment, UIUC Earlybird)

"Name 2 of the 3 books by Melville. A: (Something I can't remember). B: A crewman of a ship is killed--" "B, Billy Budd, C, Moby Dick" Panasonic Format

Q:Tivoli <buzz>
A: Copenhagen, Denmark
(Final toss-up to clinch a Regional semifinal the other team accused us of cheating since "no one could possibly know that on one word")

Q:(Category is music), Once called the king of musical <buzz>
A: organ

Q:(Category is music), Tomorrow <buzz>
A: Annie (admittadly, pretty simple to deduce, but not bad on a single word)

Speaking of "cheating," once my freshman year of high school, it was the final question in the final match. Both teams had a chance to win, and the question comes up:

"He -" *BUZZ*
Girl on opposing team, without hesitation: "Merlin"

It was right. Needless to say, we were slightly upset, and they were allowed to keep the points, and subsequently, won.

From an "all-stars vs. moderators" tournament back when Southern California HS Tournaments actually used extra packets for them:

"She was a beautiful maiden with long golden hair" BUZZ
Answer: Medusa

Winner of the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Drama *buzz*
me: Rent

He killed himself in Ketch*buzz*
me: Hemingway

Winner of the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Drama *buzz*
me: Rent

I'm not sure if list-memorization stuff counts as a really good power. . .

And so I'm not just being a dick and Dageneral bashing,

"Akbar used his" BUZZ
"Elephants"

Today at practice

Question:

On the television show, American Dad, he was depicted [BUZZ!]

Answer (with enthusiasm): Carl Rove

Our team gets almost every cartoon question...no surprise if anyone knows the people on my team.

Q: "Formerly known as the territories of the Afars..." <buzz>

Answer: Djibouti

I even had to agree with the opposing coach that there is no way my guy could know that. When I questioned him, he shrugged and said "I read it in a book". It became the team catchphrase for the rest of the year. Whenever an opponent blitzed correctly, someone would say "(S)he must have read it in a book!"

hmmm...
best powers I have seen/had:

When foreign diplomats refused to take off their hats in his presence he had the hats nailed to their heads....BUZZ

Answer: Vlad the Impaler
That was just cool because it spawned a long conversation about whether he or Genghis Khan was more vicious

First Stilson, then Bonzo...BUZZ

Answer: Ender's Game

Born from the tears of Izanagi....BUZZ

Answer: Ameratsu

Coined by John L O'Sullivan...BUZZ

Answer: Manifest Destiny

Tegan wrote:I even had to agree with the opposing coach that there is no way my guy could know that.

Is the "you got the question right, ergo you were cheating" protest common/acceptable in Illinois? It seems to be coming up a lot in this thread.

Matt Weiner wrote:

Tegan wrote:I even had to agree with the opposing coach that there is no way my guy could know that.

Is the "you got the question right, ergo you were cheating" protest common/acceptable in Illinois? It seems to be coming up a lot in this thread.

I'd say that the "you got the question right before you knew what they were asking, ergo cheating" protest is more common than it probably should be, but gratefully, I've never seen or heard of it working, though it definitely fits in our stereotype :) I know I've wanted to use it against a team before; once against Byron:

Sports. Give the number of games needed to win a match of - buzz

Player nearest to moderator, within eyesight of packet, sitting flat on desk, who honestly and self-professedly had it out for me after we beat him 6/7 games the year before, and had never answered a sports tossup before in his life, (not that I'm holding a grudge for this tossup): 3.

I asked what the sport was, and the two of them (player and moderator) said volleyball in unison, though no one else in the room knew what it was.

To be honest, we didn't protest it because A: our coach doesn't call timeouts - ever - and B: students can't call timeout or protest under IHSA rules.

Anyway, to make an addition to the thread:
"His works include dozens of novels and thousands of short stories, though it mostly appears as filler in porn-"
(Kilgore Trout [from Vonnegut], UIUC Earlybird)

Matt Weiner wrote: Is the "you got the question right, ergo you were cheating" protest common/acceptable in Illinois? It seems to be coming up a lot in this thread.

Gratefully, it is far less common than it used to be....mostly because the players keep getting better, and coaches are aware that it really is possible for players to pull the impossible answer out of the aether. About the only coaches that do this are coaches with minimal experience (who think their team is the best team on Earth), and then run into one of the several others who are much better.

edit: and to clarify, it would only be acceptable if there was concrete proof for the moderator (as in the moderator actually saw someone actually cheating).

The only time a coach called me for cheating was on the "Tivoli (Garden)" question. Since Illinois has strict category requirements (6 Social Studies out of 30), I knew the last question was social studies. I also knew that there had not been one geography question. I called a time out, told the team "Here comes social studies", and turned to my geography wunderkid and said "And there hasn't been a geography question yet...be ready." One of the opposing players overheard me, and told his coach immediately after we won. We got it straightened out, and that team goes to a lot more tournaments now. As in all things: education defeats ignorance.

Tegan wrote:

Matt Weiner wrote: Is the "you got the question right, ergo you were cheating" protest common/acceptable in Illinois? It seems to be coming up a lot in this thread.

Gratefully, it is far less common than it used to be....mostly because the players keep getting better, and coaches are aware that it really is possible for players to pull the impossible answer out of the aether. About the only coaches that do this are coaches with minimal experience (who think their team is the best team on Earth), and then run into one of the several others who are much better.

edit: and to clarify, it would only be acceptable if there was concrete proof for the moderator (as in the moderator actually saw someone actually cheating).

The only time a coach called me for cheating was on the "Tivoli (Garden)" question. Since Illinois has strict category requirements (6 Social Studies out of 30), I knew the last question was social studies. I also knew that there had not been one geography question. I called a time out, told the team "Here comes social studies", and turned to my geography wunderkid and said "And there hasn't been a geography question yet...be ready." One of the opposing players overheard me, and told his coach immediately after we won. We got it straightened out, and that team goes to a lot more tournaments now. As in all things: education defeats ignorance.

I used to do that at tournaments that actually followed a decent guideline. As for being accused of cheating, I have been accused by some idiot coach after getting a Beaumarchais pretty early. I think it may have been because the coach had never heard of Beaumarchais.

She defeated Democrat Erskine *buzz*

answer: Liddy Dole

"The Oldest salt..." *buzz*

answer: Halstatt

Even though you knew that geography was probably the last category, you were still lucky on that Tivoli question, since the answer could just as easily have had something to do with Rome (Tivoli's an ancient resort on the outskirts of Rome, site of Hadrian's villa, etc.) Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen (and all the other Tivolis) takes its name from that.

Mike

Q: This country was opened for trade by...

BUZZ
Me: Japan

Q: A rash of recent ammonia thefts...

BUZZ
Me: crystal methamphetamine.
(weird looks from other team, moderator, and own teammates)

easiest power ever...why was it power?
Benzene's is the same as BUZZ (he cant stop himself from starting to say acetylene)

Of course the answer was Empirical formula. this was in practice and it wasnt an A level packet. Does NAQT always throw in an incredibly easy, first clue powerable question like this?

We recently played a match with the easiest, most powerable math questions ever.
Things like "What is sin(90)?" or "What is the derivative of cos(x)?"

Not kidding. And this is VARSITY.

Another insanely easy power...
It made slave trade in the district *Buzz*
compromise of 1850. again, a normal level packet (IS?)

airmale007 wrote:We recently played a match with the easiest, most powerable math questions ever.
Things like "What is sin(90)?" or "What is the derivative of cos(x)?"

Not kidding. And this is VARSITY.

Welcome to our complaints. Help us out in the quest for decent questions. And don't feel bad about these, they go away after awhile. Pretty soon it'll be sixth derivative of cos(x), and tan(-45).

And, like so many of my posts in this thread, I'll turn a response into a post of a power

"Vice President Hobart--" McKinley, because it came up thrice in the same tournament. Dos Passos came up twice in the same match, so I guess this one isn't terrible.

MikeWormdog wrote:...you were still lucky on that Tivoli question, since the answer could just as easily have had something to do with Rome

Mike, you're right about that. We have a big problem (and we're not alone I can see from the postings here) of seeing a wide range of questions covering all ability levels (from really bad, up through NAQT and NAQT inspired questions). Our state series question writers break questions down, with the best and toughest questions being used in the state finals, and the easier, more obvious questions used in the Regional. I prepare my kids for this by telling them not to overthink too much at the Regional level. Had this been a match later in the series, I would have cautioned against it. In this case, I had to stop them from thinking too much, and tell them to have the courage to "think obvious"......of course, the Roman Tivoli still cuold have been somewhat obvious as well.

Considered the king of instrumen...<buzz>
A: organ (not the most earth shattering power in history, but I liked it)

It was a question that mentioned Transcendentalism, and our guy buzzed in and guessed "Oversoul." He got it right, much to the shock of everyone in the room. He also guessed "Bool" correctly in a math history question.

dsfquizbowl wrote:He also guessed "Bool" correctly in a math history question.

I certainly hope they didn't ask him to spell it ;)

"This city has a lot of people"
Houston

I dont remember the wording at all, but today in one round, i powered punxatawney phil (im sure I spelled that wrong....) and swiffer...

From last year's Dunbar tournament on the deciding question versus Solon:
"His journey began and ended at the Reform Club.." Buzz: "Fogg"
Not exactly mind-blowing, but good given the situation.

This was from Brookwood Scholar's Bowl of 2003:

"Born Jean Baptiste..."

Me: Moliere

Not really that impressive, but it's definitely the quickest I've gotten a question.

I forget who we were playing, but the other team got it and i gotta say i was impressed.
Cancelled by CBS in 19?? after-*buzz
"The Muppet Show"

I think the power on paddington bear takes the cake....mmm...marmalade!

My teamate during practice:

He worked as a lew clerk for Robert H. Jackson *buzz*
Renquist

"Tossup: *buzz*"
Answer: Birmingham

All the moderator said was the word "tossup"

Granted this was in ohio format at a tourney where the category questions were all related. (the answers to the other two questions were Selma and Montgomery)

" He was the lawyer for the defense-"
BUZZ
Clarence Darrow

This was from states:

"Spell the word that means the ringing -" *buzz*
Me:"t-i-n-t-i-n-n-a-b-u-l-a-t-i-o-n"

Imperial Germany responded to the killing of two mission...*buzz*

Me: Boxer Rebellion

airmale007 wrote:" He was the lawyer for the defense-"
BUZZ
Clarence Darrow

just curious what you guys thought of this answer. First, all credit to you airmale007 for the power. Darrow is the first name that came to my mind too..but at what point do you hesitate on a lead-in like that? Do you consider the format (i.e. the difficulty of the questions)? For example, that seems like a give-away lead-in for an NAQT IS packet...but when you get to the national level won't blitzing on something like that hurt you?

^ Yeah, I know what you mean....
as soon as I buzzed, a hundred other names of famous defense lawyers started running through my brain.

...Im just glad I didn't say William Jennings Bryan. Then this would be in the "negs" thread.