The Quizbowl Resource Center

IS 85, packet 7. wrote:8. Sometimes when two or more words are joined they form a third word unrelated to the other two. For instance,
“his” plus “Tory” combine to form “history.” For 10 points each—
A. What word is formed by joining a “title for a Spanish nobleman” to “a locking or unlocking device”?
answer: donkey

B. What word is formed by joining a synonym for “damage or spoil” to a word naming a “version of the card game
rummy for two players”?
answer: margin

C. What word is formed by joining “the line marking the division between two measures of music” to a word that
can refer to “the bottom of a river”?
answer: barbed

Anti-Climacus wrote:Since I have no notes on NAQT sets I played, the first issue that comes to mind is the Orwell tossup from IS-80whatever that has Shooting an Elephant in the leadin. Am I the only person who thinks that's not a good leadin?

IS-79 Round 1 Tossup 11 wrote:Though the full title of this work limits its scope to 1660 to 1783, its introduction refers to common histories of Scipio and Wellington that fail to mention the main factor leading to their victories. This work advocates building coaling stations at choke points and prompted (*) Theodore Roosevelt to dispatch the Great White Fleet. For ten points -- name this Alfred Mahan work on the effect of naval might upon world events.
answer: The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783

IS-79, Packet 1 wrote:22. The Battle of Lepanto was fought off the coast of this country whose soil absorbed the blood spilt during the battles of Pharsalus and Philippi. The Battle of Actium was fought near its Ambracian Gulf, but it is better known as the site of the slaughter of the (*) Sacred Band at the Battle of Chaeronea. For 10 points—name this country wherein invading Persians came to grief at Plataea and Marathon.

The Battle of Lepanto was fought off the coast of this nation which saw the battles of Pharsalus and Philippi. The Battle of Actium was fought near its Ambracian Gulf, and it is the site of the slaughter of the (*) Sacred Band at the Battle of Chaeronea. For 10 points—name this nation where invading Persians were defeated at Plataea and Marathon.

IS-79, Round 2 wrote:24. Pencil and paper ready. Nate's fruit stand has 123 apples, 456 oranges, and 789 pears. The total number of fruits is just the sum of those numbers, an exercise in addition that requires carrying the 1 into both the tens place and the hundreds place. Alternatively, one could multiply 456 by three, since there are on average 456 of each type. (*) For 10 points—Nate has how many total fruits?
Answer: 1,368 pieces of fruit

IS-79, Round 3 wrote:6. Pencil and paper ready. Six investors make a $411,000 profit and decide to split it equally. One way to solve for each investor's share is to divide 411,000 by six; as it happens, a cleaner way is to divide by three, then divide the quotient by two. Each of the six investors receives (*) —for 10 points—how much profit?
Answer: $68,500

JackGlerum wrote:Influence of Sea Power Upon History ... an IS set is probably not the place for a tossup like this.

soaringeagle22 wrote:We talked about Influence of Sea Power Upon History in my AP US History class. While I probably wouldn't have powered it, I would have definitely gotten this TU on either Great White Fleet or Mahan. But I agree it's probably a tad bit too tough for an IS set, although a question on Mahan referencing the book would probably be more acceptable.

Sir Thopas wrote:

soaringeagle22 wrote:We talked about Influence of Sea Power Upon History in my AP US History class. While I probably wouldn't have powered it, I would have definitely gotten this TU on either Great White Fleet or Mahan. But I agree it's probably a tad bit too tough for an IS set, although a question on Mahan referencing the book would probably be more acceptable.

A tossup on Mahan would have been equally absurdly hard, especially because he's not really famous for anything else, as far as I know.

master15625 wrote:Does anyone remember the tossup in IS-83 that Ike said had a bad leadin, and sent it to NAQT?

theMoMA wrote:This question is also written in a way that doesn't really reward consequential knowledge. If you have knowledge of the work's title, either you're buzzing off of trivial information, the subtitle, or you're lateralling or strongly considering lateralling it when it talks about famous naval dudes. If I recall correctly, a recent SCT featured a very similar question that I 15'd because it did the exact same thing.

2008 SCT wrote:This man's books included 1897's The Life of Nelson and an earlier biography of David Farragut. His best known work inspired an arms race between Britain and Germany that was chronicled in Robert Massie's (*) Dreadnought; it also inspired Theodore Roosevelt to send sixteen white-painted squadrons on a circumnavigation in 1907. For 10 points--name this author of The Influence of Sea Power Upon History.

OctagonJoe wrote:In IS 82A, I believe there is a tossup on Philo Farnsworth.

IS #82A wrote:This man followed in the footsteps of the part-mechanical creation of John Logie Baird and the proof-of-concept device using cathode ray tubes of Vladimir Zworykin; he is now recognized as the father of electronic (*) television. For 10 points--identify this namesake of Futurama's professor.

Bird Sonata wrote:

master15625 wrote:Does anyone remember the tossup in IS-83 that Ike said had a bad leadin, and sent it to NAQT?

Which round was it from? I can look for it.

Cheynem wrote:For the record, that same A-set had giveaways for "Lord Palmerston" that referenced the Simpsons

Matt Weiner wrote:This might as well also extend to the "mystery person" who wrote five (5) questions on Detroit sports teams for the 2009 HSNCT. Trash is no different than any other category in terms of your obligation to write diverse questions that don't bias towards any part of the audience, not to mention the greater satisfaction you, the writer, will get out of writing on something that you don't already know everything about. I wish NAQT would get this message out to all of its trash writers.

theMoMA wrote:Maybe I'm in the minority, but Mahan was a topic that came up in multiple school classes that I took, even a non-AP course. I think Mahan is someone important that is taught in high school who people know about, but for whatever reason, doesn't really come up in high school quizbowl. I'm fine with rewarding Mahan knowledge, but that same knowledge could be tested in a question on Mahan without requiring perfect knowledge of the difficult and long title. I disagree with Guy that he couldn't be a tossup because he's famous for just one thing, because you can just write all the clues on that work, essentially creating a tossup on the work without requiring the knowledge of the title; or if that's just too hard, a tossup on "navies," even, though that can get tricky.

This question is also written in a way that doesn't really reward consequential knowledge. If you have knowledge of the work's title, either you're buzzing off of trivial information, the subtitle, or you're lateralling or strongly considering lateralling it when it talks about famous naval dudes. If I recall correctly, a recent SCT featured a very similar question that I 15'd because it did the exact same thing.

everyday847 wrote:

theMoMA wrote:Maybe I'm in the minority, but Mahan was a topic that came up in multiple school classes that I took, even a non-AP course. I think Mahan is someone important that is taught in high school who people know about, but for whatever reason, doesn't really come up in high school quizbowl. I'm fine with rewarding Mahan knowledge, but that same knowledge could be tested in a question on Mahan without requiring perfect knowledge of the difficult and long title. I disagree with Guy that he couldn't be a tossup because he's famous for just one thing, because you can just write all the clues on that work, essentially creating a tossup on the work without requiring the knowledge of the title; or if that's just too hard, a tossup on "navies," even, though that can get tricky.

This question is also written in a way that doesn't really reward consequential knowledge. If you have knowledge of the work's title, either you're buzzing off of trivial information, the subtitle, or you're lateralling or strongly considering lateralling it when it talks about famous naval dudes. If I recall correctly, a recent SCT featured a very similar question that I 15'd because it did the exact same thing.

You're at least in a two-person minority; while even I wouldn't dare write a tossup on that work for high school, I learned about it in seventh grade and didn't stop hearing about it for a while. It took a bit of a double-take for me to realize that the high school reaction was a chuckle of dismay at the difficulty, not at dismay over the fact that one of the least knowledge-rewarding tossups possible had been written on it.

Prof.Whoopie wrote:

everyday847 wrote:

theMoMA wrote:Maybe I'm in the minority, but Mahan was a topic that came up in multiple school classes that I took, even a non-AP course. I think Mahan is someone important that is taught in high school who people know about, but for whatever reason, doesn't really come up in high school quizbowl. I'm fine with rewarding Mahan knowledge, but that same knowledge could be tested in a question on Mahan without requiring perfect knowledge of the difficult and long title. I disagree with Guy that he couldn't be a tossup because he's famous for just one thing, because you can just write all the clues on that work, essentially creating a tossup on the work without requiring the knowledge of the title; or if that's just too hard, a tossup on "navies," even, though that can get tricky.

This question is also written in a way that doesn't really reward consequential knowledge. If you have knowledge of the work's title, either you're buzzing off of trivial information, the subtitle, or you're lateralling or strongly considering lateralling it when it talks about famous naval dudes. If I recall correctly, a recent SCT featured a very similar question that I 15'd because it did the exact same thing.

You're at least in a two-person minority; while even I wouldn't dare write a tossup on that work for high school, I learned about it in seventh grade and didn't stop hearing about it for a while. It took a bit of a double-take for me to realize that the high school reaction was a chuckle of dismay at the difficulty, not at dismay over the fact that one of the least knowledge-rewarding tossups possible had been written on it.

Me three! In seventh grade, as well.

Sir Thopas wrote:I thought packet 5, bonus 12, was utterly inappropriate. It was entirely intentional, and rewarded teams for having a certain political or religious ideology (a stronger form, by the way, of NAQT's propensity for including specific Catholic rites and prayers, without analogous versions in any other language. I don't want to necessarily call NAQT discriminatory, but this is unfair for non-Catholics who won't have necessarily even heard of these, as opposed to others who work with them every day). Our moderator had only ever heard of one of the answers; everyone on our team, none of them. I submit that this was by far the hardest bonus in the entire set, and its apparent rationale for inclusion is repugnant to quizbowl as I know it. It was not about rewarding knowledge accumulated through the ways encouraged by quizbowl. Clearly I'm being opaque here, but for those who have the packets, my point should become rather clear.

IS #80A wrote:For 10 points each--name these Christian groups:

A. The ex-gay ministry Love Won Out is a part of this group led by James Dobson; it is known for its radio programs and child-oriented message.

answer: _Focus on the Family_

B. In 1993 the Southern Baptist Convention started this group that stresses virginity pledges and waiting until marriage.

answer: _True Love Waits_

C. This men's group founded by former Colorado football coach Bill McCartney met in football stadiums and supported strong family leadership by husbands.

answer: _Promise Keepers_

The man for whom this law is usually named was not the first to discover it; it was known to Arab physicists ibn Sahl and Alhazen in the 10th and 11th centuries. He was also not the man who proved it; René Descartes [day-kart] did that in 1637. It generally holds true only for isotropic [“eye”-soh-TROHpik] media, and gives the angle at which total internal reflection occurs. For 10 points—name this law that governs refraction.

Does anyone remember the tossup in IS-83 that Ike said had a bad leadin, and sent it to NAQT?

Ike wrote:

Does anyone remember the tossup in IS-83 that Ike said had a bad leadin, and sent it to NAQT?

It was a tossup on Torricelli that began by mentioning his work De Motu.

Berkeley wrote a work called De Motu.

p7tu19 wrote: His work De Motu brought him to the attention of Galileo, whom he served as assistant for three months. His law describing the speed of fluid coming from a hole in the(*) bottom of a tank resulted from work begun when Galileo suggested he invert a tube of mercury in a bowl, creating at the top of the tube the first vacuum. For 10 points-identify this Italian inventer of the barometer and namesake of a unit of pressure.
Answer: Evangelista Torricelli

IS #83 wrote:This man's work on gravity, ~De Motu Gravium~, brought him to the attention of Galileo, whom he served as assistant for three months. His law describing the speed of fluid coming from a hole in a (*) tank resulted from work begun when Galileo suggested he invert a tube of mercury in a bowl, thereby creating the first vacuum. For 10 points--identify this Italian inventor of the barometer and namesake of a unit of pressure.

ihavenoidea wrote:this is ignorance speaking

all the Visigothic stuff that the mods moved over here while I was posting

Jeremy Gibbs Free Energy wrote:Randomly mixing the two writing styles like A-sets currently are is a very bad idea, and I would strongly suggest abandoning the reasoning you have given for defending those leadins that are so much wildly harder than many others in A-sets on the grounds that they make illogically written, highly inconsistent sets that end up appealing fully to neither the new teams that the shorter questions are geared towards nor the talented teams that the hard clues are for.

bt_green_warbler wrote:I thought about trying to find some data

bt_green_warbler wrote: I think the right policy solution for NAQT is to have our writers and editors crack down on overly difficult material in next year's A-series leadins.

bt_green_warbler wrote:

IS #80A wrote:For 10 points each--name these Christian groups:

A. The ex-gay ministry Love Won Out is a part of this group led by James Dobson; it is known for its radio programs and child-oriented message.

answer: _Focus on the Family_

B. In 1993 the Southern Baptist Convention started this group that stresses virginity pledges and waiting until marriage.

answer: _True Love Waits_

C. This men's group founded by former Colorado football coach Bill McCartney met in football stadiums and supported strong family leadership by husbands.

answer: _Promise Keepers_

Now, there are several problems one can identify with this bonus:

1. Only part A. is actually current events; C. is already history (because the subject was prominent in national politics in the late 1990s) and B., while hard to classify, is probably best off in "pop culture/other."

2. This is almost certainly too hard for an A-series packet, perhaps by about 10 ppb.

However: it does not indicate any intention on the part of NAQT's writers or editors to reward players for supporting the ideology espoused by these groups; it is quite possible for a player to thirty this question by reading coverage of these groups in, eg, the New York Times without subscribing to any of their beliefs.

master15625 wrote:Can you post the Strindberg tossup please?

IS #82A, round 7 wrote:He wrote about a woman named Alice and her husband Edgar, who live in a fortress on an island, in 1901's ~The Dance of Death~. This author of ~The Ghost Sonata~ wrote about a woman who kills herself in (*) ~Miss Julie~. For 10 points--name this pessimistic Swedish playwright.