I only recall playing two disease tossups, Grave's and Wilson's diseases.I was surprised at the preponderance of disease and disease-related questions that showed up in the submissions to this tournament; yeah, it might not have been smart to have two autoimmune disease tossups in the same tournament, but given how many disease-related questions were making it in anyway (because I felt better editing those than writing entirely new ones from scratch), I wouldn't have found it too egregious.
ACF Nationals question thanks/discussion
- Not That Kind of Christian!!
- Yuna
- Posts: 847
- Joined: Mon Feb 26, 2007 10:36 pm
- Location: Manhattan
Re: ACF Nationals question thanks/discussion
Hannah Kirsch
Brandeis University 2010
NYU School of Medicine 2014
"Wow, those Scandinavians completely thorbjorned my hard-earned political capital."
Brandeis University 2010
NYU School of Medicine 2014
"Wow, those Scandinavians completely thorbjorned my hard-earned political capital."
Re: ACF Nationals question thanks/discussion
You didn't get chlamydia?
Mike Cheyne
Formerly U of Minnesota
"You killed HSAPQ"--Matt Bollinger
Formerly U of Minnesota
"You killed HSAPQ"--Matt Bollinger
Re: ACF Nationals question thanks/discussion
OWNEDCheynem wrote:You didn't get chlamydia?
Gautam - ACF
Currently tending to the 'quizbowl hobo' persuasion.
Currently tending to the 'quizbowl hobo' persuasion.
Re: ACF Nationals question thanks/discussion
You're right; I ended up counting immunology-related questions (e.g. interferons, CD antigens) in "disease-related." There were some bonus parts I considered as "disease-related" as well (e.g. ricin, botulism).HKirsch wrote:I only recall playing two disease tossups, Grave's and Wilson's diseases.
Dwight Wynne
socalquizbowl.org
UC Irvine 2008-2013; UCLA 2004-2007; Capistrano Valley High School 2000-2003
"It's a competition, but it's not a sport. On a scale, if football is a 10, then rowing would be a two. One would be Quiz Bowl." --Matt Birk on rowing, SI On Campus, 10/21/03
"If you were my teammate, I would have tossed your ass out the door so fast you'd be emitting Cerenkov radiation, but I'm not classy like Dwight." --Jerry
socalquizbowl.org
UC Irvine 2008-2013; UCLA 2004-2007; Capistrano Valley High School 2000-2003
"It's a competition, but it's not a sport. On a scale, if football is a 10, then rowing would be a two. One would be Quiz Bowl." --Matt Birk on rowing, SI On Campus, 10/21/03
"If you were my teammate, I would have tossed your ass out the door so fast you'd be emitting Cerenkov radiation, but I'm not classy like Dwight." --Jerry
- Not That Kind of Christian!!
- Yuna
- Posts: 847
- Joined: Mon Feb 26, 2007 10:36 pm
- Location: Manhattan
Re: ACF Nationals question thanks/discussion
No, I didn't, because I always have safe quizbowl.gkandlikar wrote:OWNEDCheynem wrote:You didn't get chlamydia?
Forgot about that one, though. Still, Dwight's explanation of "disease" questions makes sense.
Hannah Kirsch
Brandeis University 2010
NYU School of Medicine 2014
"Wow, those Scandinavians completely thorbjorned my hard-earned political capital."
Brandeis University 2010
NYU School of Medicine 2014
"Wow, those Scandinavians completely thorbjorned my hard-earned political capital."
Re: ACF Nationals question thanks/discussion
I suppose disease questions are easy to write if you don't have anything better; to be honest I think as much of them as "name this paleozoic period" questions. But if one wanted to keep the disease questions, one'd have some molecular clues to make them relevant, of which I believe there were at this tournament.
Ray Luo, UCLA.
- grapesmoker
- Sin
- Posts: 6345
- Joined: Sat Oct 25, 2003 5:23 pm
- Location: NYC
- Contact:
Re: ACF Nationals question thanks/discussion
I don't get it; do biologists not study diseases? There's a certain snottiness I detect among the MCB crowd to the tune of "we're real biologists and those other people are just hacks." If you don't know diseases I guess you won't be getting the tossup, but that's just like me not getting a tossup on condensed matter physics because that's not what I study.recfreq wrote:I suppose disease questions are easy to write if you don't have anything better; to be honest I think as much of them as "name this paleozoic period" questions. But if one wanted to keep the disease questions, one'd have some molecular clues to make them relevant, of which I believe there were at this tournament.
Jerry Vinokurov
ex-LJHS, ex-Berkeley, ex-Brown, sorta-ex-CMU
presently: John Jay College Economics
code ape, loud voice, general nuissance
ex-LJHS, ex-Berkeley, ex-Brown, sorta-ex-CMU
presently: John Jay College Economics
code ape, loud voice, general nuissance
- Sima Guang Hater
- Auron
- Posts: 1957
- Joined: Mon Feb 05, 2007 1:43 pm
- Location: Nashville, TN
Re: ACF Nationals question thanks/discussion
Yeah. I don't see any problem with asking a tossup on Lupus, there's important molecular things going on there (to use a really broad term). Most diseases fall under this category, so I don't see any problems with having to know them. Wilson's disease tossups are a much worse idea; the only reason I can think of writing one is there was a House episode on it.grapesmoker wrote: I don't get it; do biologists not study diseases?
That's going on T-shirts. And F-shirts for our friends with two arms on the same side!grapesmoker wrote:"we're real biologists and those other people are just hacks."
Eric Mukherjee, MD PhD
Brown 2009, Penn Med 2018
Instructor/Attending Physician/Postdoctoral Fellow, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Coach, University School of Nashville
“The next generation will always surpass the previous one. It’s one of the never-ending cycles in life.”
Support the Stevens-Johnson Syndrome Foundation
Brown 2009, Penn Med 2018
Instructor/Attending Physician/Postdoctoral Fellow, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Coach, University School of Nashville
“The next generation will always surpass the previous one. It’s one of the never-ending cycles in life.”
Support the Stevens-Johnson Syndrome Foundation
Re: ACF Nationals question thanks/discussion
I was under the impression that most disease questions these days do have a lot of clues about molecular mechanisms and things like that. Maybe Ray's been hearing some old-timey-style questions that I haven't been hearing, but the complaint about disease questions seems more relevant to the disease questions of an older era.grapesmoker wrote:I don't get it; do biologists not study diseases? There's a certain snottiness I detect among the MCB crowd to the tune of "we're real biologists and those other people are just hacks." If you don't know diseases I guess you won't be getting the tossup, but that's just like me not getting a tossup on condensed matter physics because that's not what I study.recfreq wrote:I suppose disease questions are easy to write if you don't have anything better; to be honest I think as much of them as "name this paleozoic period" questions. But if one wanted to keep the disease questions, one'd have some molecular clues to make them relevant, of which I believe there were at this tournament.
Also, while many biologists do, in some sense, work on disease (or at least claim some sort of disease relevance to get $$$), sometimes it's in an awfully loose sense, and in a typical day, you don't conceptualize your work as being about breast cancer to the extent that you consider yourself to be studying Rad51-EVL interactions, to take one example. Unless you're in the process of writing about your work (grants, papers, theses) it can be easy to not think about it in the context of disease.
Susan
UChicago alum (AB 2003, PhD 2009)
Member emerita, ACF
UChicago alum (AB 2003, PhD 2009)
Member emerita, ACF
- Not That Kind of Christian!!
- Yuna
- Posts: 847
- Joined: Mon Feb 26, 2007 10:36 pm
- Location: Manhattan
Re: ACF Nationals question thanks/discussion
This is definitely true. I'm not quite sure what you mean by "name these Paleozoic period" questions, but I think disease questions are in general less opaque and easier on the giveaway for non-science players than those pesky period tossups.myamphigory wrote: I was under the impression that most disease questions these days do have a lot of clues about molecular mechanisms and things like that.
Hannah Kirsch
Brandeis University 2010
NYU School of Medicine 2014
"Wow, those Scandinavians completely thorbjorned my hard-earned political capital."
Brandeis University 2010
NYU School of Medicine 2014
"Wow, those Scandinavians completely thorbjorned my hard-earned political capital."
- naturalistic phallacy
- Auron
- Posts: 1490
- Joined: Tue May 01, 2007 12:03 am
- Location: Minneapolis, MN
- Contact:
Re: ACF Nationals question thanks/discussion
This is true. It's a lot easier to learn about Barret's Esophagus than it is about amines. That said, writing on diseases must be done to reward science knowledge before "hey this was on House" knowledge.HKirsch wrote:This is definitely true. I'm not quite sure what you mean by "name these Paleozoic period" questions, but I think disease questions are in general less opaque and easier on the giveaway for non-science players than those pesky period tossups.myamphigory wrote: I was under the impression that most disease questions these days do have a lot of clues about molecular mechanisms and things like that.
Bernadette Spencer
University of Minnesota, MCTC
Member, NAQT
Member, ACF
Member Emeritus, PACE
University of Minnesota, MCTC
Member, NAQT
Member, ACF
Member Emeritus, PACE
Re: ACF Nationals question thanks/discussion
I think the question on Boltzmann's constant contained an error. I believe it said that the Stokes-Einstein relation involves the chemical potential, which it does not. In said relation, mu stands for the mobility, not the chemical potential.
- Mechanical Beasts
- Banned Cheater
- Posts: 5673
- Joined: Thu Jun 08, 2006 10:50 pm
Re: ACF Nationals question thanks/discussion
Yeah, I remember this happening; it was a little confusing but thankfully immaterial.wturner wrote:I think the question on Boltzmann's constant contained an error. I believe it said that the Stokes-Einstein relation involves the chemical potential, which it does not. In said relation, mu stands for the mobility, not the chemical potential.
Andrew Watkins
- minor_character
- Lulu
- Posts: 54
- Joined: Mon Apr 28, 2008 2:52 pm
Re: ACF Nationals question thanks/discussion
You're right in that the Stoke-Einstein relation does not involve the chemical potential. However, the relation is apparently identical to the force arising from a chemical potential gradient, which is what I misread when writing the question. Sorry.wturner wrote:I think the question on Boltzmann's constant contained an error. I believe it said that the Stokes-Einstein relation involves the chemical potential, which it does not. In said relation, mu stands for the mobility, not the chemical potential.
http://books.google.com/books?id=zJzJvs ... t&resnum=6
Last edited by minor_character on Thu Apr 30, 2009 3:30 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Andrew Alexander
VCU Quizbowl
VCU Quizbowl
Re: ACF Nationals question thanks/discussion
edited version:
According to the Stokes-Einstein relation, the Brownian diffusion of a particle under the influence of a chemical potential gradient is directly proportional to both temperature and this other value. The Kelvin scale is derived by multiplying the fundamental temperature by this value, and in the Eyring equation, it is divided by Planck’s constant. The average kinetic energy of a gas is equal to 3/2 times temperature times this value. It multiplies the natural log of the microcanonical partition function to yield the entropy in an equation inscribed on its namesake’s tombstone. For 10 points, name this constant that equals the gas constant divided by Avogadro’s constant, often symbolized k.
ANSWER: Boltzmann’s constant
According to the Stokes-Einstein relation, the Brownian diffusion of a particle under the influence of a chemical potential gradient is directly proportional to both temperature and this other value. The Kelvin scale is derived by multiplying the fundamental temperature by this value, and in the Eyring equation, it is divided by Planck’s constant. The average kinetic energy of a gas is equal to 3/2 times temperature times this value. It multiplies the natural log of the microcanonical partition function to yield the entropy in an equation inscribed on its namesake’s tombstone. For 10 points, name this constant that equals the gas constant divided by Avogadro’s constant, often symbolized k.
ANSWER: Boltzmann’s constant
Matt Lafer
Plymouth Salem 1997-2001
University of Michigan 2001-2005
Plymouth Salem 1997-2001
University of Michigan 2001-2005
- grapesmoker
- Sin
- Posts: 6345
- Joined: Sat Oct 25, 2003 5:23 pm
- Location: NYC
- Contact:
Re: ACF Nationals question thanks/discussion
This isn't a good questions because k_b multiplies temperature essentially everywhere that it appears.MLafer wrote:edited version:
According to the Stokes-Einstein relation, the Brownian diffusion of a particle under the influence of a chemical potential gradient is directly proportional to both temperature and this other value. The Kelvin scale is derived by multiplying the fundamental temperature by this value, and in the Eyring equation, it is divided by Planck’s constant. The average kinetic energy of a gas is equal to 3/2 times temperature times this value. It multiplies the natural log of the microcanonical partition function to yield the entropy in an equation inscribed on its namesake’s tombstone. For 10 points, name this constant that equals the gas constant divided by Avogadro’s constant, often symbolized k.
ANSWER: Boltzmann’s constant
Jerry Vinokurov
ex-LJHS, ex-Berkeley, ex-Brown, sorta-ex-CMU
presently: John Jay College Economics
code ape, loud voice, general nuissance
ex-LJHS, ex-Berkeley, ex-Brown, sorta-ex-CMU
presently: John Jay College Economics
code ape, loud voice, general nuissance
- Mechanical Beasts
- Banned Cheater
- Posts: 5673
- Joined: Thu Jun 08, 2006 10:50 pm
Re: ACF Nationals question thanks/discussion
It's also a constant, right? So saying that something's directly proportional to it and temperature... well, I thought the question had to be going for some other quantity, with the constant of proportionality either being Boltzmann's or Boltzmann's and some other stuff. Maybe my terminology's bad because I never learned this stuff formally, but I'd not have said "directly proportional to" the product of a constant and something, since it's also true that it's directly proportional to half that constant, or (very much so) to R, or...
Andrew Watkins
Re: ACF Nationals question thanks/discussion
Looking at it, it is a pretty bad question. I agree with Andrew that saying something is directly proportional to a constant is pretty nonsensical and the Kelvin clue is too early.
Full disclosure: I did not do any editing on this question, and probably should have because the clues are clearly more physics-oriented than chemistry, but I skipped over it because a) there was already a physics question in the packet (perturbation theory) and b) Dwight had written a comment on the content of the question, which he didn't do for any other physics question in the entire set, as far as i know, so i subconsciously skipped over it. In the end I'm not sure if Dwight considered this a chemistry question or not but obviously somebody got to it.
Full disclosure: I did not do any editing on this question, and probably should have because the clues are clearly more physics-oriented than chemistry, but I skipped over it because a) there was already a physics question in the packet (perturbation theory) and b) Dwight had written a comment on the content of the question, which he didn't do for any other physics question in the entire set, as far as i know, so i subconsciously skipped over it. In the end I'm not sure if Dwight considered this a chemistry question or not but obviously somebody got to it.
Matt Lafer
Plymouth Salem 1997-2001
University of Michigan 2001-2005
Plymouth Salem 1997-2001
University of Michigan 2001-2005
- grapesmoker
- Sin
- Posts: 6345
- Joined: Sat Oct 25, 2003 5:23 pm
- Location: NYC
- Contact:
Re: ACF Nationals question thanks/discussion
It would be great if the questions were posted somewhere. I have some comments I wanted to make about the questions and would like to be able to cite specifics.
Jerry Vinokurov
ex-LJHS, ex-Berkeley, ex-Brown, sorta-ex-CMU
presently: John Jay College Economics
code ape, loud voice, general nuissance
ex-LJHS, ex-Berkeley, ex-Brown, sorta-ex-CMU
presently: John Jay College Economics
code ape, loud voice, general nuissance
Re: ACF Nationals question thanks/discussion
Yeah, I did edit it as chem, although I'm not sure whether I should have. In any case, the Ostwald question was superior to it as chem and I think the perturbation theory question was probably superior as physics. Again, this was an issue of someone (in this case me) letting in a weaker question at the expense of a superior question in that category.MLafer wrote:Full disclosure: I did not do any editing on this question, and probably should have because the clues are clearly more physics-oriented than chemistry, but I skipped over it because a) there was already a physics question in the packet (perturbation theory) and b) Dwight had written a comment on the content of the question, which he didn't do for any other physics question in the entire set, as far as i know, so i subconsciously skipped over it. In the end I'm not sure if Dwight considered this a chemistry question or not but obviously somebody got to it.
Dwight Wynne
socalquizbowl.org
UC Irvine 2008-2013; UCLA 2004-2007; Capistrano Valley High School 2000-2003
"It's a competition, but it's not a sport. On a scale, if football is a 10, then rowing would be a two. One would be Quiz Bowl." --Matt Birk on rowing, SI On Campus, 10/21/03
"If you were my teammate, I would have tossed your ass out the door so fast you'd be emitting Cerenkov radiation, but I'm not classy like Dwight." --Jerry
socalquizbowl.org
UC Irvine 2008-2013; UCLA 2004-2007; Capistrano Valley High School 2000-2003
"It's a competition, but it's not a sport. On a scale, if football is a 10, then rowing would be a two. One would be Quiz Bowl." --Matt Birk on rowing, SI On Campus, 10/21/03
"If you were my teammate, I would have tossed your ass out the door so fast you'd be emitting Cerenkov radiation, but I'm not classy like Dwight." --Jerry
- Matt Weiner
- Sin
- Posts: 8145
- Joined: Fri Apr 11, 2003 8:34 pm
- Location: Richmond, VA
Re: ACF Nationals question thanks/discussion
Questions as used are up at http://www.hsquizbowl.org/acfn09.zip. There's probably a small handful of mechanical things I'd like to fix there, so if you see anything that really bugs you let me know and I'll clean it up before I send it to the archive.
Matt Weiner
Advisor to Quizbowl at Virginia Commonwealth University / Founder of hsquizbowl.org
Advisor to Quizbowl at Virginia Commonwealth University / Founder of hsquizbowl.org
- grapesmoker
- Sin
- Posts: 6345
- Joined: Sat Oct 25, 2003 5:23 pm
- Location: NYC
- Contact:
Re: ACF Nationals question thanks/discussion
The set is now also posted on QBDB
Jerry Vinokurov
ex-LJHS, ex-Berkeley, ex-Brown, sorta-ex-CMU
presently: John Jay College Economics
code ape, loud voice, general nuissance
ex-LJHS, ex-Berkeley, ex-Brown, sorta-ex-CMU
presently: John Jay College Economics
code ape, loud voice, general nuissance
Re: ACF Nationals question thanks/discussion
Looking back at the question on the Halting Problem, I believe Chaitin's constant was name-dropped far too early. I recognize that computer science has far, far from a fleshed out canon, but to me Chaitin's constant comes second only to "undecidable" and "something stopping" for the definition of the Halting Problem. I buzzed off that, and I don't think there's anything else I could have buzzed off (maybe "undecidability," or just guessing based on "this is a popular problem associated with Turing Machines") before the giveaway.
SteveJon
Unaffiliated
Unaffiliated
- The Toad to Wigan Pier
- Tidus
- Posts: 528
- Joined: Mon Oct 10, 2005 6:58 pm
- Location: Seattle
Re: ACF Nationals question thanks/discussion
Looking at that tossup, I agree with you that Chaitin's constant is way to early in the question, but what is actually worse is that the clue directly before it is Rice's Theorem which is even more important that Chaitin's constant.Batsteve wrote:Looking back at the question on the Halting Problem, I believe Chaitin's constant was name-dropped far too early. I recognize that computer science has far, far from a fleshed out canon, but to me Chaitin's constant comes second only to "undecidable" and "something stopping" for the definition of the Halting Problem. I buzzed off that, and I don't think there's anything else I could have buzzed off (maybe "undecidability," or just guessing based on "this is a popular problem associated with Turing Machines") before the giveaway.
William Butler
UVA '11
Georgia Tech 13
UVA '11
Georgia Tech 13
- Auks Ran Ova
- Forums Staff: Chief Administrator
- Posts: 4295
- Joined: Sun Apr 30, 2006 10:28 pm
- Location: Minneapolis
- Contact:
Re: ACF Nationals question thanks/discussion
Yeah, Rice's Theorem was the out-of-place clue that really surprised me.The Toad to Wigan Pier wrote:Looking at that tossup, I agree with you that Chaitin's constant is way to early in the question, but what is actually worse is that the clue directly before it is Rice's Theorem which is even more important that Chaitin's constant.Batsteve wrote:Looking back at the question on the Halting Problem, I believe Chaitin's constant was name-dropped far too early. I recognize that computer science has far, far from a fleshed out canon, but to me Chaitin's constant comes second only to "undecidable" and "something stopping" for the definition of the Halting Problem. I buzzed off that, and I don't think there's anything else I could have buzzed off (maybe "undecidability," or just guessing based on "this is a popular problem associated with Turing Machines") before the giveaway.
Rob Carson
University of Minnesota '11, MCTC '??, BHSU forever
Member, ACF
Member emeritus, PACE
Writer and Editor, NAQT
University of Minnesota '11, MCTC '??, BHSU forever
Member, ACF
Member emeritus, PACE
Writer and Editor, NAQT
-
- Tidus
- Posts: 612
- Joined: Wed Jun 13, 2007 7:05 pm
- Location: Houston, Texas
Re: ACF Nationals question thanks/discussion
I know this is a bit late, but the tossup on "The Glass-Bead Game" in the Illinois/Maryland packet is incorrect-- it is Fritz Tegularius, not Thomas van der Trave, who is the Nietzche analogue. Van der Trave is actually analogous to Mann.
Henry Gorman, Wilmington Charter '09, Rice '13, PhD History Vanderbilt '1X