MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

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MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by Cheynem »

There are obviously many more mirrors, so hopefully a private forum will be set up for specific discussion, but I wanted to get some general feedback and provide an opportunity for people to relay things that should be fixed for following mirrors (we are obviously aware of the randomization errors and missing questions). If there are any really bad questions or errors, please e-mail me (my address is available in my profile).

I'm quite happy with the answer selection in this set--I think we were trying to do a variety of interesting things and avoid answers that it seems unlikely most people, especially newish type players (as MUT appeals to), would know. Due to a variety of reasons (grad/law school, work, spring break, other tournaments), I'd agree it wasn't quite as polished as other sets at times, although I don't think the quality of the questions themselves dipped as much.

The writing team was:

Me (pretty much all of the history, some social science, edited about half of the lit)
Eliza Grames (many, many questions in a number of categories)
Los Dos G. Kandlikars (lots of science, lit, fine arts, econ)
Bernadette Spencer (most of the religion and philosophy, some social science)
Rob Carson (myth, edited lit)
Andrew Hart (a number of questions, mostly in the arts)
Lauren Johnson (a few lit, myth, trash questions, some tiebreakers)
Michael McLaughlin (some science questions)

I believe some non-Minnesotans may have contributed questions, but I'm not entirely sure on the breakdown.

Players on our two house teams contributed questions to packets eleven and twelve respectively.

Again, when the private forum is set up, specific feedback will be appreciated. I'll take general feedback either in the thread or specific points through PM/email.
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by naturalistic phallacy »

I would like to thank Ted and Trygve for contributing some last minute philosophy to MUT when I was too sick to write it all. They're the best.
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by Strongside »

Last year I was in charge of approving people for the 2010 Minnesota Undergraduate Tournament private discussion forum. A few people have requested to join last year's group, and presumably thought they were requesting access to the private discussion forum for the 2011 Minnesota Undergraduate Tournament.

I changed the title and description of last year's group (the title and description did not have a year in it) in the user control panel to avoid confusion. The discussion of the 2010 Minnesota Undergraduate Tournament is also in the archives if anyone wants to look at that.

It appears that a private discussion forum for the 2011 Minnesota Undergraduate Tournament has not been set up yet, so if you requested access and did not see any discussion for this year's tournament, that is why that is the case.
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by Cheynem »

Is there a way for me to set up a private discussion group? I'm genuinely unsure of how to do that by myself.
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by tiwonge »

Out of curiosity, is there any way to make these private forums public after the last mirror has played so that everybody can view the discussion without having to request membership? (And, possibly, to move them all to a single place/forum/subforum/whatever just to clean it up a bit?)
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by Edward Elric »

Just as a general comment, I really enjoyed this set but the only things that I saw that might be issues were grammatical issues and a few repeats. Besides that it was an enjoyable set and I thank everyone who contributed to it, for writing it.
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by Strongside »

I should be able to make some changes to last year's MUT Discussion group to change it to a private discussion for this year's tournament. I can do this by tonight, unless someone else wants to set up a private forum before then.

EDIT: Disregard the above. A moderator/administrator is going to have to create a new private forum for discussion of 2011 MUT.
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by eliza.grames »

As far as I am aware all errors have been taken care of, including adding the occasional missing verb (I think I inserted the word "is" at least ten times). The few repeats we let slide because they were in different categories and off completely different clues (with the exception of one repeat bonus part that has been taken care of).

I heard some complaints from players that bonus difficulty seemed to be one obvious part and two impossible parts, but this may have just been due to experience level and claiming that medium parts were hard. Granted, most bonuses did have one extremely easy part, but there were a few that I noticed, primarily in philosophy/social science/religion that didn't have a clear easy part for less-experienced players. For example, asking for a specific philosophical work, even if it is the most famous work by that philosopher, does not count as "easy" in the minds of most novice players and it's usually better to ask for the writer. I don't recall if this was a problem in MUT, but I know that there were similar problems in some of the bonuses.

Another thing I saw that could potentially be a problem was the difficulty level of some tossup answer lines - many teams could not get them even after the giveaway or had never heard of some of them. I know that MUT is supposed to be novice/regular difficulty, but this should be done by making the clues more difficult, not by picking answer lines that don't normally come up in novice tournaments and using easy clues for them. This encourages people to study answer lines that they are familiar with and learn more difficult clues, rather than get frustrated that they've never heard of the answer line. Granted, coming up with 294 distinct tossups makes it difficult not to make some of them more difficult, but I thought a few were excessively hard for MUT at least.

Also, I'm a little disappointed with myself - the "number of categories" that I wrote in missed out on World History. To be more specific, I primarily wrote lit, physics, and "other science". Another note on the "writing team" is that Mike, Rob, and Gautam edited almost everything (i.e. fixed my terrible clue placements, so thanks for that).
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by Gautam »

eliza.grames wrote: Another thing I saw that could potentially be a problem was the difficulty level of some tossup answer lines - many teams could not get them even after the giveaway or had never heard of some of them. I know that MUT is supposed to be novice/regular difficulty, but this should be done by making the clues more difficult, not by picking answer lines that don't normally come up in novice tournaments and using easy clues for them. This encourages people to study answer lines that they are familiar with and learn more difficult clues, rather than get frustrated that they've never heard of the answer line. Granted, coming up with 294 distinct tossups makes it difficult not to make some of them more difficult, but I thought a few were excessively hard for MUT at least.
Well, I guess I'll say that we've had slightly different ideas of what MUT should be, so there have been a few difficulty differences here and there. Mostly, it comes from the idea that the "undergraduate" tournament can ask about some harder things for the tossups and some harder things for the bonuses, though such deviations should be reasonable and limited in number. I tend to make hard parts just a teeny bit harder than I would for ACF Fall, but overall, there shouldn't huge differential in scoring (i.e. teams putting up 15 ppb at Fall should probably be putting up 15 ppb at MUT, if not more, given than they'll have had a few months to learn some new things, etc.)
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by Cheynem »

I will agree with this on the bonuses. In my attempt at writing MUT, there are times when I occasionally overshoot the difficulty for a bonus or ask about something too hard for ACF Fall, but decide it's okay because I want to ask about something interesting or think it's kind of cool. This occasionally results in failures as things prove too hard for the field as hard parts (or tragically middle parts), but since I don't regard MUT as a straight up novice tournament, I'm okay with these little quirks.

For tossups, I don't recall there being a whole lot of difficult answers. We probably could have eased up on the world lit a bit (most of the answers seem pretty canonical to me, but world lit can be tough on new players), and there are certain categories that are always very difficult for new players to convert outside of basic concepts (such as philosophy and social science). I took great pains in the history to ask the tossups on easy things, even changing the answer lines at times to boost conversion.
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by CaptainSwing »

I agree with Mike - its important to give an event like MUT some quirks and to let it step out of the purely canonical information somewhat, not only because its interesting for better players but because it broadens the canon itself.
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by eliza.grames »

All mirrors have concluded; packets will be archived soon. This discussion can now open up into a specific discussion of questions (or a new topic can be established for this if people prefer).

Although good feedback is nice, I'd really like to know what people did not like (e.g. bad ideas for questions, terrible clue placement, overall difficulty, certain questions that were too hard or too easy for this tournament, the easy/medium/hard bonus structure, and what we can do to make MUT 2012 a better tournament than MUT 2011). Any thoughts you have are appreciated and will be taken into account on future tournaments put out by the University of Minnesota.
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by Urech hydantoin synthesis »

I felt that, as a whole, this was a pretty good set. The only thing I would say about the bonuses is the use of "You are X. Let's see how much you know about your life" as a leadin, and some other useless ones mentioning the names of various quizbowl players.
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by Cheynem »

I'm sympathetic to the idea that these lead-ins weren't particularly helpful per se, but I also don't subscribe to the theory that all lead-ins have to feature a concrete clue for the first part. I think, although I'm not sure, that all the meta lead-ins were referring to Minnesota players.
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by Ondes Martenot »

The only thing I would say about the bonuses is the use of "You are X. Let's see how much you know about your life" as a leadin, and some other useless ones mentioning the names of various quizbowl players.

The only bonus I remember of the first type was the assassinations bonus, which I had no issue with. I will agree that bringing up various quizbowlers is probably a bad idea for a tournament which will be played by a lot of less experienced players who aren't familiar with such matters.

Some other issues
-Some of the tossups were on fairly difficult stuff (Cnut the Great) comes to stuff. I'm not sure if this was done to keep the buzzes "honest" or for other reasons.
-A couple of chemistry comments (hopefully I don't become part of the chemistry mafia). The tossup on NMR went from somewhat detailed clues on magic angle spinning to dropping TMS, which seems like a huge cliff. Also, tossing up volatility seemed like a bizarre idea
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by Mike Bentley »

Reading the set it seemed pretty good. Teams were converting tossups for the most part, and consistently getting the easy parts of bonuses at least. My one high-level feedback was that the early clues in tossups were often quite difficult for a tournament of this target difficulty. There were several tossups on subjects I know a decent amount of stuff about and would have had a lot of trouble buzzing until the clue before the giveaway. For a tournament like MUT I don't think this should really be the case.
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by Edmund »

For what it's worth, the Canute tossup was buzzer-raced on the first clue in our room in the UK and I imagine it was in the two other matches.

By and large I enjoyed the set very much indeed. The openings of a couple of the hard science questions were slightly ambiguous but then as a late-stage doctoral student I am by no means the sort of person who was supposed to be playing said science questions. As one particular case that I thought was ill-conceived, I would cite "Maxwell's demon" on which I negged with "entropy" after hearing "this concept", "Shannon" and "information" in very close succession.

Our readers generally remarked that some more proof-reading would have been nice. For instance, the two main characters of "On the Road" had their names spoonerised in the bonus part on "Kerouac" which only caused hilarity to our team but might have caused confusion to someone less familiar with the work.

A few of the easy parts seemed a little on the ludicrous side. I can't bring a particular example to mind right now.
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by Cheynem »

The Kerouac error is on me and was sloppy.

I was trying to keep the tossups within reasonable difficulty--I think Canute is hard, but not crazy hard, so I would be okay with him as a hardish tossup in a packet. There were a few examples where I was okay with this. I was also okay with some lead-ins being somewhat difficult or not as well known to allow people chances to learn, to provide opportunities for deep knowledge to come through, or admittedly, just because I found them entertaining. I tried to avoid, however, giant cliffs until the giveaway, and if there are such critiques to be had, please let me know.

I agree that too much meta is bad, but I don't think this tournament had a lot. Off the top of my head, I can remember one such bonus that mentioned my name. In this case, I was the writer/editor of the tournament, and the bonus identified me as such.
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by Charbroil »

Edmund wrote:
A few of the easy parts seemed a little on the ludicrous side. I can't bring a particular example to mind right now.
I think you're referring to bonus parts on answers like "Troy" based on a description of "This city was sacked by a Greek expedition" after naming some famous Trojan figures. Personally, I don't have any problems with using bonus parts like that in order to improve conversion.

Edit: Or are you saying some of the easy parts were too hard?
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by eliza.grames »

Ondes Martenot wrote:Some other issues
-Some of the tossups were on fairly difficult stuff (Cnut the Great) comes to stuff. I'm not sure if this was done to keep the buzzes "honest" or for other reasons.
-A couple of chemistry comments (hopefully I don't become part of the chemistry mafia). The tossup on NMR went from somewhat detailed clues on magic angle spinning to dropping TMS, which seems like a huge cliff. Also, tossing up volatility seemed like a bizarre idea
My bad on Cnut. Do other people also think that he was too hard for MUT? I learned about him in my strange third grade history class, so I kinda figured he was notable enough that quizbowl would know him. It definitely wasn't done to "keep the buzzes honest" but rather because I honestly thought people knew about him and expected it to be answered before the giveaway (hence why the giveaway was just an invitation for people to guess kings of England). At least the players in the UK got to have a buzzer race on him.
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by Mewto55555 »

It went dead in our finals, but that's mostly because we were all high schoolers who don't care about English rulers.
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by Flutist Wren »

Edmund wrote: As one particular case that I thought was ill-conceived, I would cite "Maxwell's demon" on which I negged with "entropy" after hearing "this concept",
This happened to one of my teammates as well, but I don't know the subject well enough to judge whether it was a reasonable buzz.
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by Edmund »

Charbroil wrote:
Edmund wrote:
A few of the easy parts seemed a little on the ludicrous side. I can't bring a particular example to mind right now.
I think you're referring to bonus parts on answers like "Troy" based on a description of "This city was sacked by a Greek expedition" after naming some famous Trojan figures. Personally, I don't have any problems with using bonus parts like that in order to improve conversion.
Yes, that was one such. I'm not familiar with past dialogue concerning setting such easy parts, but it did seem that that really didn't warrant 10 points compared to a majority of well-set bonuses.

Since 'Maxwell's demon' is a thought experiment which boils down to "how do we formalise the description of entropy", it was an accident waiting to happen. I can't remember the exact wording so I don't know if it was in fact my mistake in simply not listening to the sentence correctly.
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by grapesmoker »

Edmund wrote:By and large I enjoyed the set very much indeed. The openings of a couple of the hard science questions were slightly ambiguous but then as a late-stage doctoral student I am by no means the sort of person who was supposed to be playing said science questions. As one particular case that I thought was ill-conceived, I would cite "Maxwell's demon" on which I negged with "entropy" after hearing "this concept", "Shannon" and "information" in very close succession.
There's a good way to write that question that wouldn't be confusing; not having seen the text I can't say if this question was confusing or not, but just hearing a few words in succession is not a great reason to buzz.
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by Kyle »

Charbroil wrote:
Edmund wrote:
A few of the easy parts seemed a little on the ludicrous side. I can't bring a particular example to mind right now.
I think you're referring to bonus parts on answers like "Troy" based on a description of "This city was sacked by a Greek expedition" after naming some famous Trojan figures. Personally, I don't have any problems with using bonus parts like that in order to improve conversion.
I haven't seen the set and am also well aware that I have already gotten yelled at for expressing this opinion in the aftermath of ACF Fall, but allow me to say that it seems like arbitrarily improving the aesthetics of the statistics is not a reasonable justification for having different bonuses be of wildly differing difficulty. Surely we can make more of an effort to have all of our easy parts be easy in a more equal way, no?
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by Cheynem »

I am not a good myth writer, but I wrote the bonus with Troy as an easy part. The other parts were Priam (obviously without Troy) and Neoptolemus. Looking at the other myth bonuses, it may seem a little easier of an easy part, but I also generally subscribe to the idea that easy parts at tournaments like this should be pretty easy. The point perhaps about varying bonus difficulties is taken.
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by tiwonge »

For what it's worth, I don't think that easy part was significantly easier than, say, asking for the element with the atomic symbol Zn. They seem to be at about the same level. (Also, the question about Zn had that in the first part, meaning people might not have even paid attention to the rest of the clue. Maybe if there is such a giveaway, put it after a more significant clue so that people who hadn't known the other stuff might hear it and learn something?)

I enjoyed the tournament. I thought the questions were well-edited, with very few grammatical mistakes or typos, which made it really nice to read. I particularly enjoyed the tossup on Alice (of Wonderland fame), since that's something I don't hear often. And Mother Cabrini, the hard part of a bonus on New World Catholicism was good to hear, too. And Maimonides. Overall, I was pleased with the religion questions and distribution.

I can't remember, in the first 10 packets, any physical geography questions. Were there any? Was this an intentional effort to exclude or minimize it? There also weren't many math questions. I think I remember 2-3, total (again, in the first 10 packets we heard), and at least 2 of those were mixed math/science (LaGrange and Fibonacci).
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by Cheynem »

There was not a lot of geography. This is a subject a number of us have trouble writing and editing, especially for an easy tournament, so I think we decided to concentrate on subjects we knew better.
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by naturalistic phallacy »

tiwonge wrote:I enjoyed the tournament. I thought the questions were well-edited, with very few grammatical mistakes or typos, which made it really nice to read. I particularly enjoyed the tossup on Alice (of Wonderland fame), since that's something I don't hear often. And Mother Cabrini, the hard part of a bonus on New World Catholicism was good to hear, too. And Maimonides. Overall, I was pleased with the religion questions and distribution.

I can't remember, in the first 10 packets, any physical geography questions. Were there any? Was this an intentional effort to exclude or minimize it? There also weren't many math questions. I think I remember 2-3, total (again, in the first 10 packets we heard), and at least 2 of those were mixed math/science (LaGrange and Fibonacci).
I'm glad you enjoyed the religion questions, especially the part on Mother Cabrini! Non-Hispanic missionaries to the Americas are an under-explored area. (N.B. This does NOT mean that she or others related to her should be popping up at every goddamn tournament for the next six months. Be creative, people.)

Regarding the lack of physical geography, Mike's comments are pretty accurate. Nobody significantly involved in writing or editing this tournament is particularly enamored with that aspect of geography, and we'd rather include enjoyable, well-written questions than poor ones that please few and upset many. We did, however, attempt to include questions on political or cultural geography, both in the area designated for geography and in other categories when appropriate.
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by T.Whyman »

Is it wrong of me to find it kind of amusing that American quizzers couldn't get Canute? This must be like how I feel playing American packets when I hear things like "name this former governor of Pennsylvania" or "Name these painters from Ohio, for 10 points each."
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by Whiter Hydra »

T.Whyman wrote:Is it wrong of me to find it kind of amusing that American quizzers couldn't get Canute? This must be like how I feel playing American packets when I hear things like "name this former governor of Pennsylvania" or "Name these painters from Ohio, for 10 points each."
I think it's more a case of it not coming up that much in Quizbowl. I've heard tossups on Æthelred the Unready and Harold Godwinson at that level, but never anything about Cnut. (Though IMO he should be asked more, considering that he was one of the most powerful rulers of his time.)
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by Mewto55555 »

Oh yeah, I just remembered the Maimonides TU struck me as quite transparent.
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by Skepticism and Animal Feed »

A Barehanded Telethon Mirth Gun wrote:
T.Whyman wrote:Is it wrong of me to find it kind of amusing that American quizzers couldn't get Canute? This must be like how I feel playing American packets when I hear things like "name this former governor of Pennsylvania" or "Name these painters from Ohio, for 10 points each."
I think it's more a case of it not coming up that much in Quizbowl. I've heard tossups on Æthelred the Unready and Harold Godwinson at that level, but never anything about Cnut. (Though IMO he should be asked more, considering that he was one of the most powerful rulers of his time.)
I have to imagine that just like most US students take at least one class on "US History" before entering college, most British students take at least one class on "British History". Presumably, this is where they learn about Canute the Great.

Most US students don't take a British history class; they take a European history class where they learn about people like Charlemagne and Frederick the Great, but Canute the Great almost never comes up in that class. So for an American to know about Canute the Great, they are going to have to read British history in their spare time, and few novices will have done that.
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by T.Whyman »

Morraine Man wrote:I have to imagine that just like most US students take at least one class on "US History" before entering college, most British students take at least one class on "British History". Presumably, this is where they learn about Canute the Great.
Interestingly, British schools are notoriously terrible at teaching a 'broad sweep' of history, and the only British history most British (state) high school students learn about is Romans in Britain, Tudors and sometimes WWII (but most WWII classes tend to focus on Germany). The story of Canute ordering back the waves is something people tell little children, I think (or at least, I was told that story and the one about King Alfred burning the cakes repeatedly, and these both got buzzed on the first line at the tournament on Saturday).
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by Maxwell Sniffingwell »

T.Whyman wrote:
Morraine Man wrote:I have to imagine that just like most US students take at least one class on "US History" before entering college, most British students take at least one class on "British History". Presumably, this is where they learn about Canute the Great.
Interestingly, British schools are notoriously terrible at teaching a 'broad sweep' of history, and the only British history most British (state) high school students learn about is Romans in Britain, Tudors and sometimes WWII (but most WWII classes tend to focus on Germany). The story of Canute ordering back the waves is something people tell little children, I think (or at least, I was told that story and the one about King Alfred burning the cakes repeatedly, and these both got buzzed on the first line at the tournament on Saturday).
I first-clued the Canute tossup based on something I learned when I was little - I doubt I would've known the later clues nearly as well. That clue may have been too early.
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by Cheynem »

I edited the Canute and Alfred tossups and am willing to believe the clues were too early, as that period of time is not my forte.
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by The King's Flight to the Scots »

Cheynem wrote:I edited the Canute and Alfred tossups and am willing to believe the clues were too early, as that period of time is not my forte.
It's MUT...those clues were fine where they were. Lamentably, thanks to this topic, they will not be in the future.
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by Mechanical Beasts »

Cernel Joson wrote:
Cheynem wrote:I edited the Canute and Alfred tossups and am willing to believe the clues were too early, as that period of time is not my forte.
It's MUT...those clues were fine where they were. Lamentably, thanks to this topic, they will not be in the future.
The target audience of MUT is probably not people who read prior tournaments' discussion threads to figure out what's "stock."
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by The King's Flight to the Scots »

Yeah, for clarity's sake, that was a joke and not serious advice.
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by Mechanical Beasts »

Cernel Joson wrote:Yeah, for clarity's sake, that was a joke and not serious advice.
Humor? On the internet?
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by dxdtdemon »

I was curious about whether or not the painters from Ohio was an actual example of a bonus because outside of the Henri dude from the Ashcan School, there doesn't seem to be any real significant painter that would be within MUT difficulty.
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by T.Whyman »

quantumfootball wrote:I was curious about whether or not the painters from Ohio was an actual example of a bonus because outside of the Henri dude from the Ashcan School, there doesn't seem to be any real significant painter that would be within MUT difficulty.
That wasn't something from the MUTs. That was a caricature of a number of bonuses I've read from American packets where they ask for (what are to my mind) a series of hopelessly insignificant American painters. There was at least one set of these from the MUTs, but as far as I remember they weren't from Ohio: I think there was a pretty odd bonus set about an ostensibly famous family of American painters I would have paid good money to see a British person know the first thing about though. I should have replaced them with questions about the 'Glasgow Boys' or something when I Briticised the packets. But I didn't because I hate the Glasgow Boys.
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by eldermaas »

Morraine Man wrote:So for an American to know about Canute the Great, they are going to have to read British history in their spare time, and few novices will have done that.
Or watch Jeopardy. He has come up at least eight times there (according to the Jeopardy Archive). That's how I knew about him.
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by gaurav.kandlikar »

T.Whyman wrote: That wasn't something from the MUTs. That was a caricature of a number of bonuses I've read from American packets where they ask for (what are to my mind) a series of hopelessly insignificant American painters. There was at least one set of these from the MUTs, but as far as I remember they weren't from Ohio: I think there was a pretty odd bonus set about an ostensibly famous family of American painters I would have paid good money to see a British person know the first thing about though. I should have replaced them with questions about the 'Glasgow Boys' or something when I Briticised the packets. But I didn't because I hate the Glasgow Boys.
I wrote a bonus on the Peale family that went CW Peale/Raphaelle/Rembrandt and another on Pennsylvanian artists that went Cassat/Eakins/Wyeth, which are probably what you are talking about. For reference, here's the text:
Packet 1 wrote:This artist depicted himself and his family holding up an enormous and accurate depiction of a dinosaur bone as several shirtless men can be seen digging in the central pit in one work. For 10 points:
[10] Name this 18th century American artist of Exhumation of the Mastodon who named four of his sons after prominent European artists.
ANSWER: Charles Wilson Peale
[10] This son of CW Peale was depicted alongside his brother Titian in The Staircase Group. He is named after the artist who painted The School of Athens.
ANSWER: Raphaelle Peale [or Raphael Peale; prompt on Peale]
[10] This other son of CW Peale made extremely detailed and accurate portraits of figures such as George Washington. His namesake artist depicted a robed Aristotle observing a statue of Homer in one work.
ANSWER: Rembrandt Peale [Prompt on Peale again]
and
Packet 3 wrote:Identify some artists from Pennsylvania, for 10 points each.
[10] Though she was born in Pennsylvania, this impressionist painted works that usually centered on mothers with their kids after moving to Paris.
ANSWER: Mary Cassatt
[10] This Philadelphian artist depicted Dr. Gross holding a bloody scalpel in his right hand as medical students observe the procedure in his most famous work. He also painted himself rowing in Max Schmitt in a Single Scull.
ANSWER: Thomas Eakins
[10] This dude loved painting his fellow Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania residents such as his neighbor Helga, of whom he made 247 paintings.
ANSWER: Andrew Wyeth
I wouldn't describe any of these as "hopelessly insignificant," but I guess I don't know what people care about in Britain.
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by Cheynem »

The "famous family" bonus was just a way to ask about Peale, then Rembrandt and Raphael. I could see British people not knowing who the Peale family was, but surely they've heard of Rembrandt and Raphael.
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by T.Whyman »

gaurav.kandlikar wrote:I wrote a bonus on the Peale family that went CW Peale/Raphaelle/Rembrandt and another on Pennsylvanian artists that went Cassat/Eakins/Wyeth, which are probably what you are talking about. I wouldn't describe any of these as "hopelessly insignificant," but I guess I don't know what people care about in Britain.
Yeah, those are the ones. Sorry, wasn't having a go at you or anything. Just pointing out some cultural differences.
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by Kyle »

Oh, man, it's great that we're having this discussion because nobody can do obsession with one's own country's unremarkable painters like the British. My personal favorite was the UC bonus on Ford Madox Brown. The part about it that I liked was that it came right after a bonus about mythological rainbows whose answers were Iris / Incan / Norse. There's nothing quite like asserting that "Heimdall guards Bifrost, the bridge between Midgard and Asgard, in this type of mythology" and "this pre-Raphaelite painted The Last of England" are of equivalent difficulty.
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by gaurav.kandlikar »

T.Whyman wrote:
gaurav.kandlikar wrote:I wrote a bonus on the Peale family that went CW Peale/Raphaelle/Rembrandt and another on Pennsylvanian artists that went Cassat/Eakins/Wyeth, which are probably what you are talking about. I wouldn't describe any of these as "hopelessly insignificant," but I guess I don't know what people care about in Britain.
Yeah, those are the ones. Sorry, wasn't having a go at you or anything. Just pointing out some cultural differences.
Err yeah I never actually read what I was posting before submitting it, and I realize now that my post sounded snappy. This was certainly not my intention.

In any case, I wrote a bunch of bio, chem, painting and other art and a handful of questions in other categories for this thing, and I'd be glad to hear any feedback on those subjects.

Thanks!
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by Mike Bentley »

Kyle wrote:Oh, man, it's great that we're having this discussion because nobody can do obsession with one's own country's unremarkable painters like the British. My personal favorite was the UC bonus on Ford Madox Brown. The part about it that I liked was that it came right after a bonus about mythological rainbows whose answers were Iris / Incan / Norse. There's nothing quite like asserting that "Heimdall guards Bifrost, the bridge between Midgard and Asgard, in this type of mythology" and "this pre-Raphaelite painted The Last of England" are of equivalent difficulty.
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Re: MUT 2011 (Non-Specific) Discussion

Post by Tees-Exe Line »

As one who built my collegiate quizbowl career (such as it was) on being able to answer the bonus part on Peale in a room full of scornful Brits, I'm all for making them learn our artists so long as we're the ones writing the tournaments.
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