TIT Discussion

Old college threads.
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Frater Taciturnus
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Re: TIT Discussion

Post by Frater Taciturnus »

mpellegrini wrote:
There was also a TU on the Anglo-Boer where I negged with Battle of Rorke's Drift. I'd have to see that question to know if it was my fault or the editor's.
WAIT NO LONGER

packets: http://collegiate.quizbowlpackets.com/a ... 1Terrapin/
.zip file: http://collegiate.quizbowlpackets.com/a ... rrapin.zip
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Re: TIT Discussion

Post by DumbJaques »

There was also a TU on the Anglo-Boer where I negged with Battle of Rorke's Drift. I'd have to see that question to know if it was my fault or the editor's.
I'm pretty sure you mean this tossup:

At one engagement during this conflict, groups of defenders repeatedly had to escape into adjoining rooms by hacking through walls with a pick-axe and greatly benefited from the attacker's inability to fire accurately from a position known either as “the Eyebrow” or the Oscarberg. Bromhead and John Chard commanded the victors at that battle, which saw a hosptial at a river ford defended from behind stacked mealie bags and (*) biscuit boxes. This war coincided with the final year of the Midlothian campaign, which vaulted Gladstone to power, and saw Garnet Wolseley replace Lord Chelmsford, who forced the eventual winners to make a heroic stand at Rorke's Drift against the reserves, or “loins,” of the losing side; that side employed the assegai and the “Buffalo Horns” formation at battles like Ulundi and Isandhlwana, but Cetshwayo was unable to force terms with the British. Seeing an end to the dynasty begun by Shaka, for 10 points, name this 1879 conflict between Britain and the namesake Southern African tribe.
ANSWER: Anglo-Zulu War
I personally would have anti-prompted you, and I think that kind of thing should be somewhat standard practice, but the question seems consistent to me. I know some questions choose to call individual battles "conflicts," but in my opinion that's a horrible misuse of the term. Rorke's Drift wasn't really a battle with multiple engagements or anything, so I don't think it's worded incorrectly, but apologies if it confused anyone.
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Re: TIT Discussion

Post by Windows ME »

every time i refresh i have a new name wrote:
The Quest for the Historical Mukherjesus wrote:
every time i refresh i have a new name wrote:What was wrong with the part on Bisphenol-A?
I thought it was hard. Am I wrong?
It came up in coursework and didn't seem to be a random thing. Isn't it important to understanding estrogen structure/breast cancer? I guess it might have been a stretch for a third part like Altranstadt.
I'm a biologist (now in med school) and I think Bisphenol-A is wayyyyy harder than supersymmetry.

Having played through the set just now, I think the tossups were probably similar in difficulty to last year, especially with respect to the power markers (the one sole exception for me was the ASU-B/RPI pack, which, for some reason, I thought was disproportionately easy to power). I felt that the bonuses had more or less uniform difficulty from packet to packet (barring specific questions which have already been mentioned ie. virial, Henry Hunt, etc.).
every time i refresh i have a new name wrote: something about Robertson Davies being too hard
Just want to take this moment to throw a wacky theory out there and get people's thoughts:
I think Canadian content is a lot like Indian myth --> if it was part of your everyday experience growing up, you are going to find most questions on it incredibly easy but, if it wasn't, the moment something isn't firmly firmly entrenched in the canon it might startle you a bit. Robertson Davies I would put in the second tier with Alice Munro, just below Margaret Atwood's top tier in the "askability" category. To extend the analogy: Shiva/Ganesh might be first tier, while Parvati/Lakshmi the second. Nobody would possibly argue to their (Par/Lak) inclusion in a tournament like this --> I think the difference is that Canadian content is asked about considerably less than Indian myth, and it seems disproportionately harder as a result. (My point? Well, is Robertson Davies too hard for you because you haven't run into him? or because you haven't bothered to study Can Lit yet? I'm arguing it's the second. I'm not very good at questions on French films, but it doesn't mean I will stare wide-eyed when someone other than Truffaut, Godard or Renoir comes up)
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Re: TIT Discussion

Post by mpellegrini »

DumbJaques wrote:I personally would have anti-prompted you
What's an anti-prompt?
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Re: TIT Discussion

Post by Frater Taciturnus »

mpellegrini wrote:
DumbJaques wrote:I personally would have anti-prompted you
What's an anti-prompt?
"Can you be LESS Specific?"
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Re: TIT Discussion

Post by Auroni »

fourplustwo wrote: Just want to take this moment to throw a wacky theory out there and get people's thoughts:
I think Canadian content is a lot like Indian myth --> if it was part of your everyday experience growing up, you are going to find most questions on it incredibly easy but, if it wasn't, the moment something isn't firmly firmly entrenched in the canon it might startle you a bit. Robertson Davies I would put in the second tier with Alice Munro, just below Margaret Atwood's top tier in the "askability" category. To extend the analogy: Shiva/Ganesh might be first tier, while Parvati/Lakshmi the second. Nobody would possibly argue to their (Par/Lak) inclusion in a tournament like this --> I think the difference is that Canadian content is asked about considerably less than Indian myth, and it seems disproportionately harder as a result. (My point? Well, is Robertson Davies too hard for you because you haven't run into him? or because you haven't bothered to study Can Lit yet? I'm arguing it's the second. I'm not very good at questions on French films, but it doesn't mean I will stare wide-eyed when someone other than Truffaut, Godard or Renoir comes up)
Well, I didn't think that Robertson Davies was too hard for me personally (I would have 15'd it), but that it was not a tossup that I would see being converted in many rooms that played this tournament. On the other hand, the figures in Indian myth are more entrenched and would probably see greater conversion.

I think your formulation of the tiers is a bit misleading. If I were to write a tossup on Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, get called out for it being too hard, and then try to defend it by saying that he's just in the second tier of Bengali authors and try to mount a defense by saying that we toss up second-tier Japanese authors all the time, then that defense would be quite fledgling to say the least. The target audience for this level knows several gods in Hindu myth, exactly one Bengali author, and maybe one or two Canadian authors. Some categories are just harder than others in that sense.
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Re: TIT Discussion

Post by Windows ME »

every time i refresh i have a new name wrote: I think your formulation of the tiers is a bit misleading. If I were to write a tossup on Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, get called out for it being too hard, and then try to defend it by saying that he's just in the second tier of Bengali authors and try to mount a defense by saying that we toss up second-tier Japanese authors all the time, then that defense would be quite fledgling to say the least. The target audience for this level knows several gods in Hindu myth, exactly one Bengali author, and maybe one or two Canadian authors. Some categories are just harder than others in that sense.
I don't think those authors are quite on the same level (Davies has come up a dozen times already while your author is absent when I do a packet search) but I see your point.

What I was originally worried about was the lack of answer selection in Canadian lit meaning that someone would look at your post, generalize and say "hmm this Davies character is way too hard" and not write a tossup on him for regular dificulty, thus decreasing the potential answer selection in that category at that difficulty, despite the fact that anyone with actual Canadian lit knowledge (you, me, whoever) would be able to convert him by the end (and seriously, I do mean anyone, he's prob top 5 for well-known Can authors).

I suppose the key factor here (to contrast wtih your Bengali argument) is that Davies has come up before numerous times, and so I guess I'm advocating a push for him into the regular difficulty canon, and trying to make sure others aren't shy about tossing him up based on a post in this thread.
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Re: TIT Discussion

Post by grapesmoker »

Robertson Davies strikes me as fine for this tournament. Supersymmetry, on the other hand, is one of those things that everyone knows how to say but no one knows what it is; I'd be very happy with fewer questions on it, personally.
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