ACF Regionals 2012 Discussion

[Fond du lac operon]

Yeah, I worried a little about that when I put it in. You may be right, but I'd be curious to see how it actually played.

I mean, you still did a pretty good job with the crap you were given (a history question writer I am not, especially non-American history), so I wouldn't beat yourself up over it or anything.

[Auroni]

I'm going to take the unorthodox step here of criticizing my own question...

This entity was called “the biggest festival of [its] century” in a series of theses on it published by the Situationists. Claude Lecomte and Jacques Thomas were killed by sympathizers with this body. This government was set up in opposition to the Government of National Defense. Women supporters of this entity known as pétroleuses burned down buildings by throwing gasoline on them. This body abolished workers’ registration cards and night work for bakers. Its leaders toppled the Vendôme Column and were rebuffed in their efforts to exchange Archbishop George Darboy. Its nominal president, Louis Blanqui, was arrested on the orders of Adolphe Thiers, who later led the assault on it known as the “bloody week”. For 10 points, name this body which attempted to establish a socialist regime in the French capital in 1871.
ANSWER: Paris Commune [or Commune de Paris]

Okay, this is admittedly way better than what I originally submitted (in my defense, it was like the 10th question I'd written ever), but the lead-in seems to me to be a little transparent/fraudable. (I didn't write that clue, I wrote most of the stuff from "this body" on). If you know a little bit about the history of leftist thought, you'll know that the Situationists were a bunch of French Marxists in the mid-20th century. Combine that with the fact that Marx himself admired much of the structure of the Paris Commune when it was set up, and the Commune should be in mind for sure. It's possible that I know more about Marxism than I like to think, or that I was biased because I could guess that a Paris Commune question was in the packet, but from my perspective it's not a great lead-in.

I actually think that this is a fantastic leadin for exact reasons you cited for it being bad. First of all, let's break down the levels of association that you stated yourself to support the case for this question being fraudable. You have to know who the Situationists are, you have to know that they probably would like what Marx liked, you'd have to know that Marx admired the Paris Commune. The difficulty of these three associations is tough, tough, and tough. There's just no way that any more than one person in the entire field will fraud it off that clue without actually knowing that clue legitimately -- the question is rewarding you for knowing about something and any inference that you might make to get the answer requires your knowledge of that thing.

[Auks Ran Ova]

aaaaaaaagh, please stop using "wom{a,e}n" as an adjective

[Frater Taciturnus]

Does anyone know if this set is going to be posted to the archive soon?

I expect to be able to upload this as well as some others sometime this weekend.

[Steeve Ho You Fat]

I'm going to take the unorthodox step here of criticizing my own question...

This entity was called “the biggest festival of [its] century” in a series of theses on it published by the Situationists. Claude Lecomte and Jacques Thomas were killed by sympathizers with this body. This government was set up in opposition to the Government of National Defense. Women supporters of this entity known as pétroleuses burned down buildings by throwing gasoline on them. This body abolished workers’ registration cards and night work for bakers. Its leaders toppled the Vendôme Column and were rebuffed in their efforts to exchange Archbishop George Darboy. Its nominal president, Louis Blanqui, was arrested on the orders of Adolphe Thiers, who later led the assault on it known as the “bloody week”. For 10 points, name this body which attempted to establish a socialist regime in the French capital in 1871.
ANSWER: Paris Commune [or Commune de Paris]

Okay, this is admittedly way better than what I originally submitted (in my defense, it was like the 10th question I'd written ever), but the lead-in seems to me to be a little transparent/fraudable. (I didn't write that clue, I wrote most of the stuff from "this body" on). If you know a little bit about the history of leftist thought, you'll know that the Situationists were a bunch of French Marxists in the mid-20th century. Combine that with the fact that Marx himself admired much of the structure of the Paris Commune when it was set up, and the Commune should be in mind for sure. It's possible that I know more about Marxism than I like to think, or that I was biased because I could guess that a Paris Commune question was in the packet, but from my perspective it's not a great lead-in.

Yeah, this was confusing for multiple reasons. When we played it in practice this week, one of my teammates who actually knows things about this was really confused and almost negged with the May 1968 stuff on the Situationalists, and when we played it at the tournament me, Mark, and people on Michigan, I think, were really confused because (for me at least), the Government of National Defense and night work for bakers and stuff all sound really Commune-y, but we all thought that it had to be later because of the clue about the gasoline, which we didn't expect them to have had in the 1870s.

[Angry Babies in Love]

I liked the set, though I feel that the bonus difficulty was a bit all over the place (though this is to be expected). I found the Cotton/Anaconda Plan/New Orleans bonus way too easy for a regular college set.

[Sir Thopas]

aaaaaaaagh, please stop using "wom{a,e}n" as an adjective

The construction "women NOUNs" appears 1484 times in the British National Corpus, about 5% of all uses of the word "women". It's perfectly cromulent.

[Auks Ran Ova]

aaaaaaaagh, please stop using "wom{a,e}n" as an adjective

The construction "women NOUNs" appears 1484 times in the British National Corpus, about 5% of all uses of the word "women". It's perfectly cromulent.

Yes, but that doesn't make it not awkward-sounding, or not a thing that I really hate!

[Sir Thopas]

aaaaaaaagh, please stop using "wom{a,e}n" as an adjective

The construction "women NOUNs" appears 1484 times in the British National Corpus, about 5% of all uses of the word "women". It's perfectly cromulent.

Yes, but that doesn't make it not awkward-sounding, or not a thing that I really hate!

So don't use it.

[Auks Ran Ova]

aaaaaaaagh, please stop using "wom{a,e}n" as an adjective

The construction "women NOUNs" appears 1484 times in the British National Corpus, about 5% of all uses of the word "women". It's perfectly cromulent.

Yes, but that doesn't make it not awkward-sounding, or not a thing that I really hate!

So don't use it.

Not only will I not use it, I'll keep complaining about it!

[Fond du lac operon]

I actually think that this is a fantastic leadin for exact reasons you cited for it being bad. First of all, let's break down the levels of association that you stated yourself to support the case for this question being fraudable. You have to know who the Situationists are, you have to know that they probably would like what Marx liked, you'd have to know that Marx admired the Paris Commune. The difficulty of these three associations is tough, tough, and tough. There's just no way that any more than one person in the entire field will fraud it off that clue without actually knowing that clue legitimately -- the question is rewarding you for knowing about something and any inference that you might make to get the answer requires your knowledge of that thing.

You may be right, although I think there are really only two associations you have to make (if you know who the Situationists were, you know they were big fans of Marx), and I think it's relatively well-known that Marx admired the Paris Commune, although admittedly it's harder to go Marx -> Commune than Commune -> Marx. But in any case if you're looking for "something that French Marxists would like and talk about," the Commune is going to be high on that list. I'd be interested in hearing if anyone did manage to fraud it early based on that clue (other than myself, and I don't count since I knew there was a good chance of that answer line being in the packet.)

Anyway, I did manage to 20 the Critique of the Gotha Program/Marx/"from each according to his ability" bonus, so it's possible that I'm more knowledgeable about the history of Marxism than my Robert Nozick-reading self wants to admit.

[Sir Thopas]

aaaaaaaagh, please stop using "wom{a,e}n" as an adjective

The construction "women NOUNs" appears 1484 times in the British National Corpus, about 5% of all uses of the word "women". It's perfectly cromulent.

Yes, but that doesn't make it not awkward-sounding, or not a thing that I really hate!

So don't use it.

Not only will I not use it, I'll keep complaining about it!

Suit yourself, although it seems rather pointless to me for people to clog up the forums railing against their personal stylistic bugaboos that have no bearing on qualities that are actually important to the question.

[Bartleby]

I actually think that this is a fantastic leadin for exact reasons you cited for it being bad. First of all, let's break down the levels of association that you stated yourself to support the case for this question being fraudable. You have to know who the Situationists are, you have to know that they probably would like what Marx liked, you'd have to know that Marx admired the Paris Commune. The difficulty of these three associations is tough, tough, and tough. There's just no way that any more than one person in the entire field will fraud it off that clue without actually knowing that clue legitimately -- the question is rewarding you for knowing about something and any inference that you might make to get the answer requires your knowledge of that thing.

You may be right, although I think there are really only two associations you have to make (if you know who the Situationists were, you know they were big fans of Marx), and I think it's relatively well-known that Marx admired the Paris Commune, although admittedly it's harder to go Marx -> Commune than Commune -> Marx. But in any case if you're looking for "something that French Marxists would like and talk about," the Commune is going to be high on that list. I'd be interested in hearing if anyone did manage to fraud it early based on that clue (other than myself, and I don't count since I knew there was a good chance of that answer line being in the packet.)

Anyway, I did manage to 20 the Critique of the Gotha Program/Marx/"from each according to his ability" bonus, so it's possible that I'm more knowledgeable about the history of Marxism than my Robert Nozick-reading self wants to admit.

Sorry... are you saying that you played on a packet containing questions that you wrote?

[nadph]

I think he was listening to it (as a spectator) and mentally competing on it while it was being read for other teams (since not all the questions in the packet would have been Alabama's).

[Fond du lac operon]

Sorry... are you saying that you played on a packet containing questions that you wrote?

Practiced on it. Didn't play it at the tournament (actually, didn't hear it at the tournament either, since we had an even number of teams.)

[Frater Taciturnus]

The set is now available as http://collegiate.quizbowlpackets.com/a ... ionals.zip

[Unicolored Jay]

Two whole months late, but we've been playing through this set slowly in practice, and I wanted to note something:

5.The three movements of Glazunov’s only work in this genre are meant to be played without breaks in-between. That A minor work of this type was premiered by Leopold Auer. Auer made cuts to Tchaikovsky’s work of this type, which has a G minor Canzonetta as its middle movement. Beethoven’s work of this type opens with four strokes of the timpani on the tonic note of D before the woodwinds enter, and a timpani roll begins the Vorspiel first movement of a work in G minor, Max Bruch’s first work of this kind. Brahms’ work in this genre was premiered by Joseph Joachim and notably recorded with Jascha Heifetz as soloist. For 10 points, name these works for a certain stringed instrument and orchestra.
ANSWER: violin concerto [prompt on “concerto”]

The leadin isn't uniquely identifying since Glazunov also wrote a Saxophone Concerto whose three movements are continuous.

[ThisIsMyUsername]

I probably should have found a more descriptive lead-in for the Glazunov Violin Concerto clue (mentioning how the second movement is enfolded in the first movement), but you are certainly wrong about it also describing the Saxophone Concerto, and therefore about it being non-uniquely identifying. Though the Saxophone Concerto may be broken over multiple tracks on some CD's for convenience, it is not written in three movements; it is written in one movement.

[Unicolored Jay]

Eh, I could just be totally wrong about how it's structured (the tempo changes that make it seem as if it's written as three movements that go fast-slow-fast within it don't help). Maybe I'm just confused since I've somehow played the saxophone concerto twice. (For the record, I don't play saxophone, I play violin, and I haven't actually listened to this on a CD)

[Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN)]

It's definitely one movement - http://imslp.org/wiki/Saxophone_Concert ... Aleksandr)