2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by Duncan Idaho »

Could the text to the Dijkstra algorithm question in round 10 be posted? I wrote down in my notes that it didn't state "this ___" until the end.

Also, about the bonus on sailing (Master/Purser/Bosun) in round 5 (Division II)... In our room it was zeroed. I'd be interested to hear where this was not the case. Bosun/boatswain/bo's'n is the only one of the three that I'd ever even heard of, and therefore the only that we had even a remote chance of converting, but we couldn't get it. While I think this is kind of an interesting idea for a question, all parts of the bonus seemed to be of nearly even difficulty- a person who knows things about sailing or the navy would probably thirty it, while the rest of the field would probably get zero or ten. If its purpose was to teach, well I'm never going to forget what any of those mean now.
Last edited by Duncan Idaho on Tue Apr 12, 2011 10:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by Important Bird Area »

DII ICT round 10 wrote:Assign each element of ~V~ except the initial one, ~x~, a value of infinity and mark it as unvisited. Look at each member of ~E~ that touches ~x~ and an unvisited node and update the latter's value if it's larger than ~x~'s value plus the edge's (*) weight. Mark ~x~ visited, replace ~x~ with the node of smallest value, and repeat until none remains. For 10 points--name this algorithm for finding single-source shortest paths in a graph.
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by Irreligion in Bangladesh »

Yeah, the Djikstra's TU had an old-timey, list TU feel to it that really could have been spruced up with minor re-wording or, better yet, scrapped entirely and written like a real math tossup is written nowadays.

The sailors bonus was just terrible. That's the sort of bonus formula that miscellaneous and pop culture still seem to engender, while the academic categories have left it behind. Like Ben said, all three parts are of roughly equal difficulty, and the entry level knowledge needed to get 10 on that is ridiculously high. I listen to the Decemberists, and I couldn't even pull 10 on that bonus! The Doonesbury bonus was also guilty of this, albeit to a lesser degree - it went "Name these Doonesbury characters FTPE," and if you don't read that comic you're automatically given 0 points (assuming you also didn't know that Doonesbury was a title character and then rode that pony; but even then, they already said Doonesbury, so why would that be an answer? ARRGH). That bonus could easily have gone some Doonesbury character/Doonesbury (the comic)/something else, making the easy part noticeably easier and making the bonus flow with the rest of the bonuses that have left that leadin style and bonus formula behind.
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by InspectorHound »

Can you post the David Foster Wallace tossup from round 6?
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by Important Bird Area »

DII ICT round 6 wrote:A biography of this author by D. T. Max and this author's unfinished novel ~The Pale King~ will appear in 2011. His career as a junior tennis player inspired the essay "Roger Federer as Religious Experience" as well as the setting of his magnum opus, the (*) Enfield Tennis Academy; that novel was titled by a two-word description of Yorick. ~The Broom of the System~ is by--for 10 points--what author of ~Infinite Jest~?
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by Rufous-capped Thornbill »

I wish I had the set in front of me to go through specifics, but the DII tournament was really up and down for me. There were a lot of good questions, but there were a lot of throwbacks to what NAQT was when I first started playing. Computational science, 5 point bonuses on the muses and their symbols, a sailing bonus. Just a lot of strange, wonky things that go beyond what we've come to expect from NAQT in the past year or two.

In addition, there were a few issues with transparency. The tossups on "It Gets Better," "Unions" and "Principia Mathematica" come to mind (especially Principia Mathematica, which was pretty much "This work about math" the whole way through).

In no authority on visual art, but it really seemed to be lacking in presence in DII. When it did show up, it was on things like "Girl With a Watering Can."

That being said, I had fun and thought it was for the most part a decent set, but there were some really disappointing aspects.

EDIT: Clarity
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by Duncan Idaho »

InspectorHound wrote:Can you post the David Foster Wallace tossup from round 6?
This isn't relevant to the question at all, but coincidentally enough, there was a newspaper, possibly from that day, with an article about him lying around our playoff room.
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by jonah »

Inkana7 wrote:In addition, there were a few issues with transparency...especially Principia Mathematica, which was pretty much "This work about math" the whole way through
Can you expand on this? For reference, here's that tossup:
In packet 10, I wrote:This work gives six corollaries to its best-known claims, including a description of decomposing {vectors} into components. It was amended by a work that declared "Hypotheses non fingo," ~General Scholium~, and includes sections "On the system of the world" and "On the (*) motion of bodies." For 10 points--name this text that derived {Kepler's laws} and explained both {gravitation} and {classical mechanics}, the masterwork of Isaac Newton.

answer: (Philosophiae Naturalis) _Principia_ Mathematica or _Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy_
Newton's Principia, though it makes heavy use of math and develops some important mathematical techniques, isn't primarily about math, and only one clue in the tossup was directly math-related.
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by Rufous-capped Thornbill »

jonah wrote:
Inkana7 wrote:In addition, there were a few issues with transparency...especially Principia Mathematica, which was pretty much "This work about math" the whole way through
Can you expand on this? For reference, here's that tossup:
In packet 10, I wrote:This work gives six corollaries to its best-known claims, including a description of decomposing {vectors} into components. It was amended by a work that declared "Hypotheses non fingo," ~General Scholium~, and includes sections "On the system of the world" and "On the (*) motion of bodies." For 10 points--name this text that derived {Kepler's laws} and explained both {gravitation} and {classical mechanics}, the masterwork of Isaac Newton.

answer: (Philosophiae Naturalis) _Principia_ Mathematica or _Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy_
Newton's Principia, though it makes heavy use of math and develops some important mathematical techniques, isn't primarily about math, and only one clue in the tossup was directly math-related.
I suppose I should have worded that better instead of just saying math, but the tossup very quickly points to the fact that it is a work about Newton-y things. I am by far no authority on these things (I answered a grand total of 0 science or math tossups the entire tournament) but I've played a lot of quizbowl, and I immediately was thinking "Principia Mathematica" within the first line, but was afraid to buzz because it seemed so obvious.
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by jonah »

Inkana7 wrote:
jonah wrote:
Inkana7 wrote:In addition, there were a few issues with transparency...especially Principia Mathematica, which was pretty much "This work about math" the whole way through
Can you expand on this? For reference, here's that tossup:
In packet 10, I wrote:This work gives six corollaries to its best-known claims, including a description of decomposing {vectors} into components. It was amended by a work that declared "Hypotheses non fingo," ~General Scholium~, and includes sections "On the system of the world" and "On the (*) motion of bodies." For 10 points--name this text that derived {Kepler's laws} and explained both {gravitation} and {classical mechanics}, the masterwork of Isaac Newton.

answer: (Philosophiae Naturalis) _Principia_ Mathematica or _Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy_
Newton's Principia, though it makes heavy use of math and develops some important mathematical techniques, isn't primarily about math, and only one clue in the tossup was directly math-related.
I suppose I should have worded that better instead of just saying math, but the tossup very quickly points to the fact that it is a work about Newton-y things. I am by far no authority on these things (I answered a grand total of 0 science or math tossups the entire tournament) but I've played a lot of quizbowl, and I immediately was thinking "Principia Mathematica" within the first line, but was afraid to buzz because it seemed so obvious.
That's fair, though it could also have been things like De motu, Astronomia Nova or Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems...now I'm thinking I should've written a bonus on some of those. Oh well...sorry to anyone bothered by this.
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by Excelsior (smack) »

I am inclined to agree with Jarret about this. The set of scientific texts (that don't meander into philosophy) that are tossupable at this level is probably Principia Mathematica and Elements (correct me if I'm wrong), and this clearly wasn't Elements.

EDIT:
That's fair, though it could also have been things like De motu, Astronomia Nova or Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems
I'm kind of doubtful that either of the first two would be sufficiently convertible, though I guess that Dialogue could also have been the answer.
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by Duncan Idaho »

Anarch wrote:I am inclined to agree with Jarret about this. The set of scientific texts (that don't meander into philosophy) that are tossupable at this level is probably Principia Mathematica and Elements (correct me if I'm wrong), and this clearly wasn't Elements.

EDIT:
That's fair, though it could also have been things like De motu, Astronomia Nova or Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems
I'm kind of doubtful that either of the first two would be sufficiently convertible, though I guess that Dialogue could also have been the answer.
Perhaps On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres.
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by Irreligion in Bangladesh »

That one was negged with Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems in my room, so now we've got a growing contingent of people who think that's OK for Div2.
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by Tees-Exe Line »

...the Tonypandy Riots come up by name a lot in the context of Churchill, if not in the context of labor history. There was, one time in practice, an American tossup on Churchill that used Tonypandy as the lead-in. You should have seen the buzzer race!
That's an excellent reason to exile the Tonypandy Riot, or at most use it as a clue for the Rhondda Valley Coal Strike (or South Wales more generally). The issue is that something with a funny name like the Tonypandy Riot becomes something every quizbowler has to know at the expense of actually learning about pre-war British labor history. Churchill sending in the army as Home Secretary is important. The fact that Tonypandy is one town where they went isn't.

If you want to write a bonus on the (relatively) obscure parts of Winston Churchill's political career, do that--but please don't use up a valuable pre-WWI British history slot to ask Churchill-specific questions.
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by Kyle »

First of all, "British history" is a single category. Why would it be all that offensive if I wanted to mix something from, say, 1945 in with something from earlier, so long as it tied into the theme of the bonus? Second, that isn't what happened here. This was a bonus about pre-war British labor history in which all three parts really were about pre-war British labor history. Third, the Tonypandy Riots, funny name or not, really were an important event with lasting consequences in British politics. Yes, they are particularly famous because of their association with Churchill, but that's also why they had lasting political consequences. I really don't understand what's so wrong with that.
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by setht »

Magister Ludi wrote:NAQT must start giving aria titles in the original language, especially for tossups on lyric opera. I mentioned this to R. during the 2009 ICT and apparently it hasn't been fixed.
Is this the community standard? My impression was that people switch freely between giving aria titles in English or in the original language depending on whether they want to withhold the original language or signal it as a clue--for instance, there are tossups on Eugene Onegin and Jenufa in the Harvard International 2010 set (packet 11, tossup 10 and packet 14, tossup 19, respectively) that give translated aria titles.

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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by Auroni »

For Italian, German, and French language operas, mentioning an aria title in Italian, German, or French is barely going to give away anything at this difficulty level. I might argue that Russian language arias are okay as well, but Czech language operas are far more limited so you can narrow it down to four or five (probably more, but that was just a rough estimate)
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by Magister Ludi »

Auroni is basically right. Aside from the transparency issues that listing Russian or Czech arias in the original would have caused, generally in the English speaking opera community these Slavic arias are referred to with English monikers such as "The Letter Scene" or "Lensky's Aria". Conversely, everyone across the global opera community refers to "Casta Diva" as "Casta Diva", so it's necessary to list the aria in the original language because that is how it is almost universally encountered. For lyric operas in French, Italian, and German the arias are almost always referred to in their original language in the English language opera community (and in quizbowl questions). However, this classification isn't something that Seth should have to worry about, but the opera editor (who is hopefully Shantanu) should easily be able to determine.
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by Matt Weiner »

I don't really care about what language the one or two aria titles that the NAQT length cap permits are listed in, but I renew my objection to any sort of general "arias should not be translated" principle on the basis of the horrors of seven consecutive blocks of Italian in a longer question. This is impossible to read, parse, or learn anything from, and I'm not convinced it rewards any more real knowledge--if you don't know what the aria titles mean and you lose out on a tossup to someone who both understands languages better and has the requisite opera knowledge to leverage that into actual buzzing, well, tough.
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by Auroni »

That's a pretty strange ground of objections to make. My position on aria titles is that questions that overload on them (looking at your mACF questions, Shantanu Jha) at the expense of other aspects of the opera are, well, bad. On the other hand, it's a bad idea to refer to things as clues by names by which they are not even remotely commonly known.
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by OctagonJoe »

As a person who has been to a good number of operas but doesn't really get into memorizing aria names from operas I've seen, I also think it's important to try and ground arias in the scenes in which they appear (which can maybe alleviate translation troubles in some cases?). Some number of opera tossups seem content to just list arias as opposed to saying why they are being sung as part of the plot.
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by Magister Ludi »

OctagonJoe wrote:As a person who has been to a good number of operas but doesn't really get into memorizing aria names from operas I've seen, I also think it's important to try and ground arias in the scenes in which they appear (which can maybe alleviate translation troubles in some cases?). Some number of opera tossups seem content to just list arias as opposed to saying why they are being sung as part of the plot.
I think Carsten is right here. When I write opera questions I always try to integrate aria or duet clues with plot details or character clues. It's annoying when tossups on obscure operas--that don't even have a single moderately well-known aria--devote most of the tossup to listing arias. In this sense I agree with part of what Matt says, but he is simply wrong when he says it doesn't matter what language the arias are listed in. The aria title must be listed in the original language or it shouldn't be included as a clue at all. I often describe an aria's content in English, but then I will always give the real aria title. I do appreciate the fact that NAQT opera tossups use a lot of plot clues, but if they want to use aria clues (which they don't necessarily have to) they should be listed in the original language if it's a lyric opera or it's wasted space.
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by bmcke »

The following tossups made my day:
- The Gambler
- AVClub
- Michael Lewis
- Giacometti with clues about "Palace"
- Nicholas Kristof
- David Cross with Ghost World record collector lead-in

I am sort of just listing the stuff I was good at, but those are all fun things to have tossups about. Whenever I get a CE or semi-academic question, it's from stuff I actually follow instead of stuff I just know for/from quizbowl. This might just amount to being semi-trash, but I find those questions make NAQT a really satisfying format.

I think in my room of five people, three people buzzer-raced on determinants after our moderator said "Wronksian." Part of me still thinks I could have gotten that one if he'd said it right.
Long as I'm complaining about the minutae from a really good set, the Ivory Coast bonus seemed like a 30 for anyone who reads newspaper headlines.
One tossup that felt like playing chicken was the one on "fire," where candles got mentioned before the end.

It was a nice tournament. Thanks for the tournament!
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by Mike Bentley »

Could someone post that "Sexual Revolution" tossup from the DII final? That didn't seem like a very good idea for a tossup (although probably would have made a decent bonus).

To me, the history bonuses in the DI final seemed a bit on the easy side compared to the other topics. One that especially comes to mind was the California bonus on Hiram Johnson, Upton Sinclair and Earl Warren. I'm not very convinced that Hiram Johnson is a hard part at this level, and Upton Sinclair and Hughes both seemed to be pretty close to easy parts for DI ICT. I believe the second history bonus in this packet was also pretty easy, but it doesn't immediately come to mind.

This tournament seemed better than previous tournaments in not having "name these three things" bonuses, but it still had one I thought was pretty egregious, namely, "name these three characters from Vanity Fair, none of whom is Becky Sharp". I haven't read this work, but it seems like this bonus could have better rewarded different levels of knowledge by making at least one of the parts Vanity Fair or something.
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by setht »

Bentley Like Beckham wrote:Could someone post that "Sexual Revolution" tossup from the DII final? That didn't seem like a very good idea for a tossup (although probably would have made a decent bonus).
Here it is:
ICT DII Packet 16 wrote:This phrase appears in the title of a 1936 Wilhelm Reich book about the "socialist restructuring of humans." It labels a period partly resulting from the science of Gregory Pincus, a manual by Alex Comfort, and a question-and-answer book by David (*) Reuben. The films ~I Am Curious~ and the book ~Tropic of Cancer~ also contributed to--for 10 points--what behavioral change of the '60s and '70s sometimes associated with "free love"?

answer: _sexual revolution_ [Gregory Pincus co-invented the {birth control pill}, Alex Comfort wrote ~The Joy of Sex~, and David Reuben wrote ~Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask)~.]
Bentley Like Beckham wrote:To me, the history bonuses in the DI final seemed a bit on the easy side compared to the other topics. One that especially comes to mind was the California bonus on Hiram Johnson, Upton Sinclair and Earl Warren. I'm not very convinced that Hiram Johnson is a hard part at this level, and Upton Sinclair and Hughes both seemed to be pretty close to easy parts for DI ICT. I believe the second history bonus in this packet was also pretty easy, but it doesn't immediately come to mind.
Here are the first two history bonuses:
ICT DI Packet 16 wrote:A series of progressives attempted to govern California in the early 20th century. For 10 points each--

A. He won in 1910 as a member of the anti-Southern Pacific Lincoln-Roosevelt League, introduced the {recall} and {referendum} sections to the state constitution, and was Theodore Roosevelt's vice presidential pick in 1912.

answer: Hiram (Warren) _Johnson_

B. In 1934 Frank Merriam defeated this {Pulitzer Prize}-winning writer running on the "End Poverty in California" platform.

answer: Upton (Beall) _Sinclair_

C. He raised gas taxes to pay for an expansion of the state highway system and later resigned to become Chief Justice of the United States.

answer: Earl _Warren_


The climax of the ~Risorgimento~ was the 1870 {Capture of Rome}. For 10 points each--

A. That annexation was greatly simplified when this European monarch recalled troops that had been garrisoned in Rome.

answer: _Napoleon III_

B. The {Swiss Guard} tried to protect the Vatican, as did members of this volunteer infantry force.

answer: (Papal) _Zouaves_ (or _Zuavi_ Pontifici)

C. Several years before the Capture of Rome, this pontiff discreetly inquired about taking asylum in Britain. In 1864 he issued the Syllabus of Errors.

answer: _Pius IX_ (or Giovanni Maria _Mastai-Ferretti_; prompt on "Pius")
Bentley Like Beckham wrote:This tournament seemed better than previous tournaments in not having "name these three things" bonuses, but it still had one I thought was pretty egregious, namely, "name these three characters from Vanity Fair, none of whom is Becky Sharp". I haven't read this work, but it seems like this bonus could have better rewarded different levels of knowledge by making at least one of the parts Vanity Fair or something.
Here it is:
ICT DI Packet 12 wrote:For 10 points each--name these characters from William Makepeace Thackeray's ~Vanity Fair~:

A. The pride of Miss Pinkerton's School for Girls, this sweet, innocent woman is contrasted with Becky Sharp throughout the novel.

answer: _Amelia_ Sedley

B. This man is the original husband of Amelia Sedley.

answer: _George_ _Osborne_ (accept either name)

C. After George's death, Amelia marries this military officer.

answer: Captain (or Major or Lieutenant Colonel) William _Dobbin_
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by ValenciaQBowl »

This phrase appears in the title of a 1936 Wilhelm Reich book about the "socialist restructuring of humans." It labels a period partly resulting from the science of Gregory Pincus, a manual by Alex Comfort, and a question-and-answer book by David (*) Reuben. The films ~I Am Curious~ and the book ~Tropic of Cancer~ also contributed to--for 10 points--what behavioral change of the '60s and '70s sometimes associated with "free love"?

answer: _sexual revolution_ [Gregory Pincus co-invented the {birth control pill}, Alex Comfort wrote ~The Joy of Sex~, and David Reuben wrote ~Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid to Ask)~.]
I certainly would've negged with "Joy of Sex" on the Comfort clue if I were playing, but presumably that answer is rendered wrong by the previous clue on Reich. Still, it's a pretty ambiguous answer line; the "sexual revolution" isn't exactly a named period or anything, and saying that it "partly result[ed] from" that list of items isn't very helpful.

What if someone had answered something like "the change in sexual mores in American after WWII"? Again, the Reich title precludes that, but I don't reckon many DII (or even DI) players would know the specific Reich title being dropped.
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by Duncan Idaho »

Bentley Like Beckham wrote:Could someone post that "Sexual Revolution" tossup from the DII final? That didn't seem like a very good idea for a tossup (although probably would have made a decent bonus).

To me, the history bonuses in the DI final seemed a bit on the easy side compared to the other topics. One that especially comes to mind was the California bonus on Hiram Johnson, Upton Sinclair and Earl Warren. I'm not very convinced that Hiram Johnson is a hard part at this level, and Upton Sinclair and Hughes both seemed to be pretty close to easy parts for DI ICT. I believe the second history bonus in this packet was also pretty easy, but it doesn't immediately come to mind.
I agree very much with Mike here: these bonuses both seemed far too easy to be in the final (or near-final) packets of Division I. His opinion on the California bonus sums up mine pretty well, and I agree that the structure of the sexual revolution tossup probably would have made for a better bonus.
ICT DI Packet 16 wrote:The climax of the ~Risorgimento~ was the 1870 {Capture of Rome}. For 10 points each--

A. That annexation was greatly simplified when this European monarch recalled troops that had been garrisoned in Rome.

answer: _Napoleon III_

B. The {Swiss Guard} tried to protect the Vatican, as did members of this volunteer infantry force.

answer: (Papal) _Zouaves_ (or _Zuavi_ Pontifici)

C. Several years before the Capture of Rome, this pontiff discreetly inquired about taking asylum in Britain. In 1864 he issued the Syllabus of Errors.

answer: _Pius IX_ (or Giovanni Maria _Mastai-Ferretti_; prompt on "Pius")
As for this question... even by withholding better-known clues for Napoleon III and Pius IX, those two still easily qualify as two easy parts. Pius IX is one of the best-known popes in quizbowl, and get-able here even if one doesn't know about the Syllabus of Errors (as I hadn't) based on time-period knowledge alone.
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by theMoMA »

I don't like questions that try to lock you in on an answer by telling you that it's part of a title that you probably don't know if you haven't buzzed on it. NAQT seems to do this quite a bit on common-link type tossups in lieu of writing more inclusive or exhaustive answer lines.
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by setht »

Ben Cole wrote:I agree very much with Mike here: these bonuses both seemed far too easy to be in the final (or near-final) packets of Division I.
I just wanted to note that (as far as I know) NAQT does not differentiate the late rounds of the ICT set from the early rounds--everything is meant to be at the same level, rather than having harder packets at the end. It's very possible that these bonuses would have been egregiously easy in the first packet of the set, but the fact that they showed up in what turned out to be the finals packet is not supposed to make a difference in how they're written or edited.

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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by setht »

theMoMA wrote:I don't like questions that try to lock you in on an answer by telling you that it's part of a title that you probably don't know if you haven't buzzed on it. NAQT seems to do this quite a bit on common-link type tossups in lieu of writing more inclusive or exhaustive answer lines.
I don't know how these questions looked in the DII set, but I did make an effort in working through the DI set to be generous within reason regarding alternate answers on common-link questions. I'm sure I didn't catch everything; if anyone has an example (or several examples) of questions that they feel did not give sufficient leeway for alternate answers I'd be interested in hearing about it.

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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by Duncan Idaho »

setht wrote:
Ben Cole wrote:I agree very much with Mike here: these bonuses both seemed far too easy to be in the final (or near-final) packets of Division I.
I just wanted to note that (as far as I know) NAQT does not differentiate the late rounds of the ICT set from the early rounds--everything is meant to be at the same level, rather than having harder packets at the end. It's very possible that these bonuses would have been egregiously easy in the first packet of the set, but the fact that they showed up in what turned out to be the finals packet is not supposed to make a difference in how they're written or edited.

-Seth
Noted. More generally, then, I think these bonuses seem far too easy for Division I ICT, because they each contain two rather easy parts.
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by Cheynem »

I will point out that the speed of play in ICT occasionally makes "easy" parts harder than it appears on paper. I can't speak to the Napoleon bonus, but in regards to the California one, I thought it would have been okay if slightly harder clues had been given for Upton Sinclair or Earl Warren. I think Hiram Johnson is fine as a hard part, or at least my brain thought so anyway.
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by MLafer »

I think both the Sinclair part and especially the Napoleon III could be acceptable medium parts. It's not like they say 'this author of The Jungle' or any of the 10+ most famous things about Napoleon III. I definitely think Sinclair is on the 'easy side of medium' and the hard part of that bonus probably should have accordingly been made more difficult. The Napoleon bonus seems perfectly fine to me, though.
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by theMoMA »

setht wrote:
theMoMA wrote:I don't like questions that try to lock you in on an answer by telling you that it's part of a title that you probably don't know if you haven't buzzed on it. NAQT seems to do this quite a bit on common-link type tossups in lieu of writing more inclusive or exhaustive answer lines.
I don't know how these questions looked in the DII set, but I did make an effort in working through the DI set to be generous within reason regarding alternate answers on common-link questions. I'm sure I didn't catch everything; if anyone has an example (or several examples) of questions that they feel did not give sufficient leeway for alternate answers I'd be interested in hearing about it.

-Seth
I didn't notice it as much this year. I do remember several instances of buzzing with almost-right answers at ICT and finding out that the answer I gave didn't match up with the exact title of an earlier clue I didn't know, which is frustrating.
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by crimsonscholar »

It was funny that in Round 1 over in Division I there was a tossup on TV shows in New Orleans, which was the answer, and then in a later round, there was a bonus on those same shows set in New Orleans
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by setht »

theMoMA wrote:
setht wrote:
theMoMA wrote:I don't like questions that try to lock you in on an answer by telling you that it's part of a title that you probably don't know if you haven't buzzed on it. NAQT seems to do this quite a bit on common-link type tossups in lieu of writing more inclusive or exhaustive answer lines.
I don't know how these questions looked in the DII set, but I did make an effort in working through the DI set to be generous within reason regarding alternate answers on common-link questions. I'm sure I didn't catch everything; if anyone has an example (or several examples) of questions that they feel did not give sufficient leeway for alternate answers I'd be interested in hearing about it.

-Seth
I didn't notice it as much this year. I do remember several instances of buzzing with almost-right answers at ICT and finding out that the answer I gave didn't match up with the exact title of an earlier clue I didn't know, which is frustrating.
Examples? I doubt next year's sets will have 0 opportunities for frustrating nearly-correct buzzes, but getting more specific feedback will help with reducing that further.

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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by setht »

crimsonscholar wrote:It was funny that in Round 1 over in Division I there was a tossup on TV shows in New Orleans, which was the answer, and then in a later round, there was a bonus on those same shows set in New Orleans
Here are the questions:
ICT DI packet 1 wrote:A professor from Brown University moved to this city to run a restaurant in a TV series starring Tim Reid as the title character, Frank Parrish. Cole Hauser played Trevor Cobb, while his partner Marlin was played by Anthony Anderson, in a police procedural set in this city. In addition to (*) ~K-Ville~, it is home to a show that stars John Goodman as a professor and Wendell Pierce as a musician. For 10 points--name this southern city that is the setting of the recent David Simon series ~Treme~ [tre-MAY].

answer: _New Orleans_ (accept _Frank's Place_ before "Trevor Cobb" is mentioned)
and
ICT DII packet 8 wrote:For 10 points each--name these TV series set at least partly in New Orleans:

A. Sophie-Anne Leclerq, the vampire queen of Louisiana, lives in New Orleans on this Southern Gothic vampire HBO series starring Anna Paquin.

answer: _True Blood_

B. Khandi Alexander and John Goodman star in this 2010 HBO series about people trying to get on with life in New Orleans starting three months after Hurricane Katrina.

answer: _Treme_ [truh-MAY]

C. Anthony Anderson and Cole Hauser were New Orleans police officers who partnered on this short-lived 2007 Fox series.

answer: _K-Ville_
It looks like the tossup was not converted for use in DII and the bonus is a separate question by a different writer. This kind of thing does happen and, at least at the moment, there's no mechanism in place to force similar but not genetically related questions in both divisions to appear in the same packets. I'm not sure this is a problem that needs fixing.

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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by women, fire and dangerous things »

The second clue of the pragmatics tossup mentioned that it deals with presuppositions, which is true, but it's also true of semantics. I negged the tossup at that point, which is my fault, not the question's, since I should have realized that there is no way the first clue could refer to semantics. Anyway, perhaps deictics should have been mentioned first to avoid the ambiguity.

We didn't hear the other linguistics tossup (bilingualism), but if we had I might have negged it with diglossia on the first clue. Fishman is known for his writings on diglossia, which he indeed characterizes in terms of domains.

Both of these tossups have non-uniquely-identifying clues - in the latter case, diglossia seems like the more reasonable answer, while in the former case, pragmatics is the more reasonable answer, so it's not as big an issue.
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by Tom007 »

I certainly had fun, fun, fun, fun powering the "Friday" tossup in DII.

But more seriously, I'm curious as to how the DII James Bond bonus was classified. The questions were based on the novels, but a familiarity with the movies could get you at least 20 points. And as much as I enjoy the writings of Ian Fleming, I'm not sure I'd consider his works academic literature. So was this question considered trash, lit, or some sort of mix?
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by Important Bird Area »

women, fire and dangerous things wrote:We didn't hear the other linguistics tossup (bilingualism), but if we had I might have negged it with diglossia on the first clue. Fishman is known for his writings on diglossia, which he indeed characterizes in terms of domains.
Not possible; this tossup had an "accept diglossia early" clause for precisely this reason.
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by Important Bird Area »

The Bond bonus was literature (popular genres).
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by Sir Thopas »

bt_green_warbler wrote:
women, fire and dangerous things wrote:We didn't hear the other linguistics tossup (bilingualism), but if we had I might have negged it with diglossia on the first clue. Fishman is known for his writings on diglossia, which he indeed characterizes in terms of domains.
Not possible; this tossup had an "accept diglossia early" clause for precisely this reason.
Damn, I missed this tossup. Can I see it please?
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by Important Bird Area »

DI ICT round 13 wrote:Joshua Fishman described this type of community in terms of domains, with the allocations in different domains affecting whether an L1 is maintained. Individuals of this type can exhibit convergence, codeswitching, and (*) lexical borrowing in their speech; they can also exhibit parallel or antagonistic recovery from aphasia. For 10 points--name this phenomenon that can occur in communities as diglossia, exemplified by individuals known as polyglots.

answer: _bilingual_ or _multilingual_ or _plurilingual_ (accept _polyglot_ before it is mentioned; accept _diglossia_ or _diglossic_ before "Individuals")
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by women, fire and dangerous things »

bt_green_warbler wrote:
women, fire and dangerous things wrote:We didn't hear the other linguistics tossup (bilingualism), but if we had I might have negged it with diglossia on the first clue. Fishman is known for his writings on diglossia, which he indeed characterizes in terms of domains.
Not possible; this tossup had an "accept diglossia early" clause for precisely this reason.
My bad; I must have just missed that.
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by Edmund »

I wonder if I could just flag up what I consider to be an error in the Hideki Tojo tossup. The opening sentence mentioned him describing his starting something as "a leap from the verandah of Kiyomizu" - I don't have the exact wording to hand. The question writer obviously didn't know that this is not a quotation but a well-known idiomatic phrase in Japanese which means "to set out [on a task/project/etc]". So the whole first sentence is completely useless because it narrows the answer down to "any Japanese person".
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by Important Bird Area »

Indeed I did not know that; my apologies.
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by Edmund »

I had figured that you just didn't know that; it would have been a great clue if it actually were a quotation. I think some of the rest of my team had some equally minor criticisms. I'll ask around.
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I agree. I very much enjoyed the science - as a 'real' scientist, I felt that a lot of it seemed to reflect stuff that people actually do and use. Real, practical computer science with clues such as Romberg integration, deflate-and-polish, etc, was nice. I was surprised that "dynamic" was not underlined for the malloc question since that is one significant difference between heap and stack memory, at least in terms of how these memory structures are practically used. Usually, stack memory is still "allocated" but it's done inline at the point of variable declaration because the compiler knows exactly how much memory is needed. I really liked the "German terms in physics" bonuses, largely I because I knew the answers.

I thought the "ligands" question was rather stock-clueish, or at least the word "macrocyclic" came up surprisingly early. I don't have the question to hand but I'll flesh this out when I do.
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by setht »

Edmund wrote:I thought the "ligands" question was rather stock-clueish, or at least the word "macrocyclic" came up surprisingly early. I don't have the question to hand but I'll flesh this out when I do.
Here it is:
I wrote:These species' sizes are described by Tolman's cone angle. Some of them are picked out of mixtures by the thermodynamic template effect, while the kinetic template effect can form macrocyclic ones in the presence of metal ions. One of these forms a bridge in the intermediate of an inner sphere (*) redox reaction. The bite angle is measured between two bonds formed by a polydentate one. For 10 points--name these electron donors that surround metals in coordination complexes.

answer: _ligand_s
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by Edmund »

Ok - I would say that macrocyclic comes in too early there. I've never even heard of a bite angle. Maybe that just reflects my background as a chemist, though.

Good to include the template effect but I think the first part of the clue is confusing, because while a cation can direct the synthesis of a specific ligand by templating, a macrocycle like a crown ether can equally specifically ligate one cation - it's not clear which is being asked about.
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Re: 2011 ICT Question-specific discussion

Post by Ondes Martenot »

I'm not sure how the first clue affects things, but it seems like crown ethers could have been accepted after template effect.
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