Question Specific Discussion
Posted: Sun Jan 26, 2014 9:33 am
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I am totally fine if people know Kaohsiung is the second largest city in Taiwan and can get power from putting two and two together. I am also OK if you can go, "wait, that's a vaguely Chinese sounding name. I'll buzz and say KMT." That strategy may not always work out for you.gamegeek2 wrote:The KMT question said a Chinese word in the second clue, which seems like a bad idea because it radically condenses the answerspace. According to Matt Jackson and Jacob Reed, the particular Chinese word was an important place in Taiwan, which makes this even more ill-conceived.
Okay. I wasn't familiar with it so I trusted the internet telling me that it has a name, but I do hate when math questions pretend things have names. It probably should have asked for a thing from that theorem that required knowing the theorem.Excelsior (smack) wrote: There was also a bonus in the Illinois B / Penn B packet that was on complex analysis and whose third part was something that sounded like "Rouche's theorem". This theorem is very much a thing, but I don't think it is given a name very often.
Do you mean the Yale A packet? I can't find many questions with powers ending at the end of sentences.Excelsior (smack) wrote: Also: In the one packet I read (ours, on our bye round), the power-marking was rather lazy, with a number of powermarks at the end of a sentence rather than immediately before a substantive word. This is perhaps related to Will's second minor nitpick.
This was one of the plethora of entertaining comments that I read, including a discussion among three or four people agreeing that a bonus was too hard and should be changed (it wasn't), and a comment pointing out an inaccuracy in the lead-in to a music question that ended with "source: I play this piece".Brian McPeak wrote: By the way, I liked:
[I have made a deliberate effort to write this question with no reference to any of that vilest of the "sciences," astrogeography. -AS]
on Venus
I do, yes. My memory might be off, though - it is entirely possible I saw one such question and then erroneously extrapolated to "you all suck at power-marking"; if so, sorry, my mistake.Do you mean the Yale A packet? I can't find many questions with powers ending at the end of sentences.
Are you really that okay with easy geography-based (or hell, language-based) fraud? This seems like a really, really low standard of knowledge in order to get power at a regular difficulty tournament. Egregiously misplaced clues like this remove a lot of the advantages that people who've studied Taiwanese history have over people who've looked at maps or even heard Chinese words before, since even people with lots of knowledge won't always know lead-ins.Gonzagapuma1 wrote:I am totally fine if people know Kaohsiung is the second largest city in Taiwan and can get power from putting two and two together. I am also OK if you can go, "wait, that's a vaguely Chinese sounding name. I'll buzz and say KMT." That strategy may not always work out for you.gamegeek2 wrote:The KMT question said a Chinese word in the second clue, which seems like a bad idea because it radically condenses the answerspace. According to Matt Jackson and Jacob Reed, the particular Chinese word was an important place in Taiwan, which makes this even more ill-conceived.
I assumed that this was the reason for "Volta" being just after power in the Nkrumah tossup, fwiw.gamegeek2 wrote:Are you really that okay with easy geography-based (or hell, language-based) fraud? This seems like a really, really low standard of knowledge in order to get power at a regular difficulty tournament. Egregiously misplaced clues like this remove a lot of the advantages that people who've studied Taiwanese history have over people who've looked at maps or even heard Chinese words before, since even people with lots of knowledge won't always know lead-ins.Gonzagapuma1 wrote:I am totally fine if people know Kaohsiung is the second largest city in Taiwan and can get power from putting two and two together. I am also OK if you can go, "wait, that's a vaguely Chinese sounding name. I'll buzz and say KMT." That strategy may not always work out for you.gamegeek2 wrote:The KMT question said a Chinese word in the second clue, which seems like a bad idea because it radically condenses the answerspace. According to Matt Jackson and Jacob Reed, the particular Chinese word was an important place in Taiwan, which makes this even more ill-conceived.
Oh, God.gamegeek2 wrote:Are you really that okay with easy geography-based (or hell, language-based) fraud? This seems like a really, really low standard of knowledge in order to get power at a regular difficulty tournament. Egregiously misplaced clues like this remove a lot of the advantages that people who've studied Taiwanese history have over people who've looked at maps or even heard Chinese words before, since even people with lots of knowledge won't always know lead-ins.
Many players may not be totally fine if a question by intentional design rewards knowledge of the quizbowl meta (aka. what difficulty is this tournament and what answers could be conceivably tossed up at the difficulty level I know this tournament is being run at) over actual knowledge of the subject. A player with a glancing familiarity with the Chinese language, very little knowledge about Taiwanese history, and familiarity with quizbowl meta will very easily beat someone with much much more knowledge on Taiwanese history. As such, it is a flawed history question and it's somewhat worrying if the history distribution was edited with that philosophy.Gonzagapuma1 wrote:I am totally fine if people know Kaohsiung is the second largest city in Taiwan and can get power from putting two and two together. I am also OK if you can go, "wait, that's a vaguely Chinese sounding name. I'll buzz and say KMT." That strategy may not always work out for you.gamegeek2 wrote:The KMT question said a Chinese word in the second clue, which seems like a bad idea because it radically condenses the answerspace. According to Matt Jackson and Jacob Reed, the particular Chinese word was an important place in Taiwan, which makes this even more ill-conceived.
You played the set. Did you think the history was edited with this philosophy?kroeajueluo wrote:Many players may not be totally fine if a question by intentional design rewards knowledge of the quizbowl meta (aka. what difficulty is this tournament and what answers could be conceivably tossed up at the difficulty level I know this tournament is being run at) over actual knowledge of the subject. A player with a glancing familiarity with the Chinese language, very little knowledge about Taiwanese history, and familiarity with quizbowl meta will very easily beat someone with much much more knowledge on Taiwanese history. As such, it is a flawed history question and it's somewhat worrying if the history distribution was edited with that philosophy.
I initially suspected that it was a mere misplaced clue, but Dan's defense/justification of the reasons that I judged the clue to be misplaced seems to suggest otherwise.Cheynem wrote:This may not be the best question ever, I haven't seen it. But discussing "quizbowl meta" seems particularly ill conceived--if anything, it may or may not be a misplaced clue.
MY GOD. It's one question. You played the set. Was the history just geography bowl? I concede the question wasn't the greatest.kroeajueluo wrote:I initially suspected that it was a mere misplaced clue, but Dan's defense/justification of the reasons that I judged the clue to be misplaced seems to suggest otherwise.Cheynem wrote:This may not be the best question ever, I haven't seen it. But discussing "quizbowl meta" seems particularly ill conceived--if anything, it may or may not be a misplaced clue.
Oh no, not at all! I wrote in the other thread that I think this set generally did a good job rewarding deep knowledge, albeit with some subdistributional issues in the world history department. I thought the relatively stingy powers that Stephen mentioned in the other thread were a reflection of this. I was pleased and satisfied with my powers when I got them (partly because I didn't end up getting this question), especially on history and was fine when I got 10 points, though I was surprised to only get 10 points for a middle buzz on Ayyuthaya.gonzagapuma wrote:You played the set. Did you think the history was edited with this philosophy?
This thread is for discussion of individual questions, and I think this particular question should be edited. I've made an effort not to make enormous obnoxious metaposts with only brief criticisms and instead provide reasonably substantive critiques of a somewhat smaller number of questions, and I think this was particularly egregious (and it was the most aggravating question to play on all day).gonzagapuma wrote:MY GOD. It's one question
If that's so, I don't see why the question flaw in mind needed to be defended as an intentional design choice instead fixed for future mirrors (the vast majority of places these questions will be read at). It's not like it's a personal slight to point out such a flaw, since an editor can't reasonably expected to be very familiar with every single language and subject area that is being used. It wasn't the question itself that I found particularly disappointing (errors are truly unavoidable and don't detract from the vast amount of work that the well-done majority of questions took), but the defense of that flaw as not a flaw at all.Gonzagapuma1 wrote:MY GOD. It's one question. You played the set. Was the history just geography bowl? I concede the question wasn't the greatest.
I'm pretty sure the point is that the clue you object to is not nearly as egregious of a "flaw" as you think.kroeajueluo wrote:If that's so, I don't see why the question flaw in mind needed to be defended as an intentional design choice instead fixed for future mirrors (the vast majority of places these questions will be read at). It's not like it's a personal slight to point out such a flaw, since an editor can't reasonably expected to be very familiar with every single language and subject area that is being used. It wasn't the question itself that I found particularly disappointing (errors are truly unavoidable and don't detract from the vast amount of work that the well-done majority of questions took), but the defense of that flaw as not a flaw at all.Gonzagapuma1 wrote:MY GOD. It's one question. You played the set. Was the history just geography bowl? I concede the question wasn't the greatest.
Rather than try to make an easy part in a bonus entirely on John Barth by dropping an obvious history clue at the end, it seems preferable to not write an entire bonus on John Barth. I feel like this happened several times in the set - perhaps not noticeably more than in most other sets, but it still seems like a poor idea to me.[10] Jacob is a professor at the fictional Wicomico State Teacher’s College in this state. Many of Barth’s novels are set in this state, including The Sot-weed Factor, in which the poet Ebenezer Cooke is named Poet Laureate of this state by Charles Calvert, 3rd Baron Baltimore.
Isn't this true of most of the occasionalists, too? Although they wouldn't need the qualifier "ultimate."This philosopher posited that the ultimate cause of the motion of all bodies is the mind of God
Just for the record, we definitely learned this as being a named theorem in our class and I believe it's used in the Sergei Lang textbook. I wouldn't be surprised if people learned it without learning the name, but I don't think this is a case of Wikipedia or wherever labeling something for the sake of labeling.Brian McPeak wrote:Okay. I wasn't familiar with it so I trusted the internet telling me that it has a name, but I do hate when math questions pretend things have names. It probably should have asked for a thing from that theorem that required knowing the theorem.Excelsior (smack) wrote: There was also a bonus in the Illinois B / Penn B packet that was on complex analysis and whose third part was something that sounded like "Rouche's theorem". This theorem is very much a thing, but I don't think it is given a name very often.
True, but there was the delightful bonus about Chris Ray and Arun Chonai using an Edgeworth box to determine how to split up candy.RyuAqua wrote:As far as I can tell, this set was free of meta, as all sets should be.
I'm glad you enjoyed it.gamegeek2 wrote:True, but there was the delightful bonus about Chris Ray and Arun Chonai using an Edgeworth box to determine how to split up candy.RyuAqua wrote:As far as I can tell, this set was free of meta, as all sets should be.
Oh, we didn't reach that one. It's pretty lame, though.Gonzagapuma1 wrote:I'm glad you enjoyed it.gamegeek2 wrote:True, but there was the delightful bonus about Chris Ray and Arun Chonai using an Edgeworth box to determine how to split up candy.RyuAqua wrote:As far as I can tell, this set was free of meta, as all sets should be.
In this novel, one character deals with the pain of “pissing ground glass” after contracting blennorrhea in the army. In this novel’s first chapter, the protagonist grabs a maid’s crotch while telling her that it is time for her to be tamed. The widower Xius dies in this novel after one character tries to buy his house, and that character wins a music-box for his love interest by buying all the tickets at a raffle. This book begins with the main character dreaming of (*) birds shitting on him from a tree. The main events of this novel occur while a bishop is greeting the townspeople via steamboat and are precipitated by Bayardo San Roman returning Angela to her mother. For 10 points, name this novella in which the Vicario twins murder Santiago Nasar for deflowering their sister, a work of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi wrote:Would one of the editors post the Zinoviev/NKVD/Molotov bonus and the TU on Chronicle of a Death Foretold? I think the wording for the NKVD part was slightly weird, but that just might have been exhaustion.
This theorem's name is noted in most complex analysis texts that I've used.Sam wrote:Just for the record, we definitely learned this as being a named theorem in our class and I believe it's used in the Sergei Lang textbook. I wouldn't be surprised if people learned it without learning the name, but I don't think this is a case of Wikipedia or wherever labeling something for the sake of labeling.Brian McPeak wrote:Okay. I wasn't familiar with it so I trusted the internet telling me that it has a name, but I do hate when math questions pretend things have names. It probably should have asked for a thing from that theorem that required knowing the theorem.Excelsior (smack) wrote: There was also a bonus in the Illinois B / Penn B packet that was on complex analysis and whose third part was something that sounded like "Rouche's theorem". This theorem is very much a thing, but I don't think it is given a name very often.
Okay, I guess that was just a case of me not knowing a thing. My mistake!The Ununtiable Twine wrote:This theorem's name is noted in most complex analysis texts that I've used.Sam wrote:Just for the record, we definitely learned this as being a named theorem in our class and I believe it's used in the Sergei Lang textbook. I wouldn't be surprised if people learned it without learning the name, but I don't think this is a case of Wikipedia or wherever labeling something for the sake of labeling.Brian McPeak wrote:Okay. I wasn't familiar with it so I trusted the internet telling me that it has a name, but I do hate when math questions pretend things have names. It probably should have asked for a thing from that theorem that required knowing the theorem.Excelsior (smack) wrote: There was also a bonus in the Illinois B / Penn B packet that was on complex analysis and whose third part was something that sounded like "Rouche's theorem". This theorem is very much a thing, but I don't think it is given a name very often.
I wrote that! Cubane is awesome; I'm glad it met with your approval.The Quest for the Historical Mukherjesus wrote:-Cubane is an excellent hard part
Seemed hard. I used process of elimination on the Bowen's reaction series.Martha Dreyer wrote:How did that tossup on Pyroxene play out elsewhere?
I think these clues were meant to be conflated? In any case “contrasting directions” as opposed to “opposite” is confusing, as is “passages”—that happens precisely once. Also, what are they playing in opposite directions? Saying “diminished seventh chords arpeggios” or something is much more evocative.Two of these instruments played in contrasting directions are used to symbolize the wind The “Waltz of the Snowflakes” from The Nutcracker is interrupted by two of these instruments playing passages in opposite directions.
of the Glazunov concerto is awfully vague, as is the descriptionThe sections of a work of this type are played unimpeded, with a cadenza leading into its Andante sostenuto second section.
—this is true of many Romantic orchestral works (the most useful clue to me seems to be “F major”). I have also never heard anybody make the assertion that Brahms used actual Gypsy tunes in the Concerto (not just the “Gypsy style”), nor heard anybody say that the Brahms is actually the last violin concerto to “leave a cadenza to be improvised,” but that could be true.the F major Adagio second movement of that work of this type begins by introducing a theme with a solo oboe
refers to the first symphony? Then some extramusical clues (which are fine) from the eighth (I can’t even find the scherzo’s theme in the E Minor mass, so if whoever wrote this could tell me where they got that from, I would be delighted—and why couldn’t you at least say that it appears in the scherzo)? Then a not-very-famous/widely adopted nickname for the second? I was pretty frustrated by this question. Why not drop more memorable clues from the symphonies of his that people actually listen to most (e.g. 4/7/8)? Just as an example: in both the fourth and seventh symphonies, the opening has low tremolo strings and a horn playing the melody (doubled by cello in 7)—or even just the fact that like four of his most famous symphonies (4, 7, 8, and 9) begin with strings playing a quiet tremolo and then the melody entering.trumpet triplets close the first movement.
this opening line is just not right, if we claim “characterize” to have any more meaning than “are present in”—and if we claim that meaning for it (or if we use it however this question is using it), this is not exactly unique. Also, I only find a very small number of “chains of falling fifths” (two?), but I could be very wrong.Chains of falling fifths and arpeggios in muted pianissimo characterize the last movement of a string quartet by this composer
So, aside from the fact that the powermark is placed before the quotation from the Dehmel poem (???)…is there an edition of this with “vocalists” actually singing? If so, it’s neither of the two versions that I know about, and maybe not even by Schoenberg?A vocalist asks another to (*) “look, how brightly the universe shines” in a work by this man which contains a controversial inverted ninth chord.
—funny how Beethoven’s first piano sonata just begins with an arpeggio, no crescendo until m. 31. I’m just wondering why this clue was included, because it doesn’t even sound like a Mannheim Rocket—who was this supposed to help? Where did this come from? Looking at Wikipedia:this device, found at the beginning of Beethoven’s first piano sonata, which consists of a crescendoing arpeggio
I’ll dispute the fact that the Beethoven is influenced by anything but the notes of K. 550 in this particular piece, but that’s a separate issue from the fact that this sentence states influence, not presence.Its influence can be found at the beginning of the 4th movement of Mozart's Symphony No. 40 as well as the very start of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 1 in F minor, Op. 2, No. 1.
—I’m sure this is just a typo. Also, only the orchestral version is called “The Dance in the Village Inn.”An imitation of a violin tuning up represents the ensuing fervor of a Liszt work of this type
—maybe this is the great definitive example of “non-unique” I’ve been looking for.A series of arpeggios and arabesques occupy the pianist in a composition
I hope it doesn’t need clarification why this is unbuzzable (or even wrong? I have no idea what it’s even saying).One interpretation of this piece clarifies its seemingly illogical structure in terms of the opposite traits of its movements.
I take back my comment about “the great definitive example of non-unique.”The shortest movement of this work is in 6/8 and features sections in both simple and compound time.
First off, neither of the leadin clues are unique, but I guess that's fine. I don’t hear ternary form at all in this minuet, although the phrase structure is kinda cool. Wait, I forgot, this was written in 1789 and Haydn’s 104th symphony was written in 1795, making it very much not Haydn’s last completed symphony.The Count d’Ogny commissioned the creation of this symphony, which opens in tonic G major and modulates through to the parallel minor and dominant. For 10 points each:
[10] Name this last completed symphony by its composer, whose third movement is a minuet and trio that is unusually in ternary form.
I’m wondering how I got this bonus part. My guess: this was a Chopin Étude, given the Godowsky clue in the leadin. There is a dominant seventh chord at the beginning of Op. 10/12, yes. Does it “build up to” the main theme? No, but it sort of almost does! The left hand also plays sixteenth notes for almost all of that piece, yes. Does it play harmonic minor scales ever? No, but it sort of outlines them! Perhaps, then, this question could be reworded asName this piece, in which a dominant seventh chord builds up to the main theme. This piece requires the left hand to constantly play sixteenth notes, as well as numerous difficult harmonic minor scales.
Again, no actual clues about the music (who the fuck memorizes the number of measures in a piece??? It’s not like that helps us get to “it’s short”—138 is a big number!).This 138-measure-long D-flat major piece by the same composer as the Revolutionary Étude is sometimes named after a “little dog” that supposedly inspired its composer.
Proofreading is a thing.A setting of one of these pieces
Maybe “Oboes are doubled by flutes” which is like the least unique clue ever. Also, “chorus”≠“chorale”Oboes are paired with double flutes…chorale Herr, unser Herrscher.
OK, for starters, Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta is way too early.This composer of Music for Strings, Percussion, and (*) Celesta used the “intermezzo interrotto” fourth movement of one piece to parody the “invasion theme” from the Leningrad Symphony
take it from one who knows, I guess!vinteuil wrote:badnesses of wording.
...is the sort of nitpicky "music mafia" stuff that annoys people far more than it helps them. The clues may be slightly suboptimal, but they're not untrue or useless, and acting like this is a great crime isn't particularly productive.Again, no actual clues about the music (who the fuck memorizes the number of measures in a piece??? It’s not like that helps us get to “it’s short”—138 is a big number!).This 138-measure-long D-flat major piece by the same composer as the Revolutionary Étude is sometimes named after a “little dog” that supposedly inspired its composer.
That was true for me at least; a fair number of these were just "this question was really hard to understand" not "this question was rendered unanswerable altogether."Ukonvasara wrote:I don't think the errors were such that anyone was made unable to convert the bonus parts.
Hmm, I guess I meant that this question was in fact totally useless to anyone who hasn't heard the "little dog" thing (I asked a few pianists, and some had no clue). Sorry, this did in fact come off as a nitpick the way I wrote it—I should have been more clear.Ukonvasara wrote: EDIT3: On the other hand, stuff like:...is the sort of nitpicky "music mafia" stuff that annoys people far more than it helps them. The clues may be slightly suboptimal, but they're not untrue or useless, and acting like this is a great crime isn't particularly productive.Again, no actual clues about the music (who the fuck memorizes the number of measures in a piece??? It’s not like that helps us get to “it’s short”—138 is a big number!).This 138-measure-long D-flat major piece by the same composer as the Revolutionary Étude is sometimes named after a “little dog” that supposedly inspired its composer.