2014 SCT: specific questions

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2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by Important Bird Area »

This is your thread for discussion of individual questions in the 2014 SCT.
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by Bartleby »

I'm going to get this in before I forget: the reference (or possibly references) to the Confederacy as a "country" was really regrettable, as this is an assertion that is:

a) not really true to the best of my knowledge (if I remember correctly, no nation gave official diplomatic recognition)
b) not settled in the historiography (in fact, I'm willing to bet that most historians would not refer to the Confederacy as a "country")

I thought this was a pretty good tournament overall, but this was an irksome question.

Edited to clarify: this was in the tossup on the Confederacy, which appeared in, I believe, DI, round 13.
Last edited by Bartleby on Sun Feb 09, 2014 2:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by Euler's Constant »

For the bonus part on aspiration in DII (round 14 I think) would rough breathing been acceptable? This went into protest (and was being researched) in our game versus Harvard A, but we never got final ruling due to the results of the tiebreakers.
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by ThisIsMyUsername »

As I said in my other post, I thought this was a very good tournament. Two question-specific gripes:

I thought the Vanderbilt mansion tossup was a terrible idea for a common-link. It played badly in our room. I've heard reports that it played badly in other rooms. There are three ways to attempt to write this question properly: 1. Make the answer-line "mansions", and clue it only from Vanderbilt mansions. 2. Make the answer-line "Vanderbilt", and use "one building designed for this family" (the weakest of the three options because it risks fraud) 3. Keep the answer-line as Vanderbilt mansions, but explicitly say "One building of this type for these people" or something like that. I sat there wondering what you could possibly want. And I know that in multiple rooms, people said mansions, were prompted, had no idea what the question wanted, and were negged.

The other gripe is that the score clues in the music tossups were pretty systematically terrible. I'd like to talk about these, to make sure there's an understanding of why clues written as these were should be immediate red flags for anyone editing this set, whether at the subject-editor level or the set-editor level. It's important to me that these sorts of problems do not re-occur at ICT. So, could you please post the tossups on the 1812 Overture, Pomp and Circumstance Marches, and Leonard Bernstein? Thanks.
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by madviking »

There was a bonus in round 13 (I think) that went Dead Sea/Turkmenistan/Xinjiang except they flipped the clues for Turkmenistan (talking about the Tarim Depression here) and Xinjiang (talking about some Turkmeni thing here). I feel like that was definitely a weird oversight.

I think a few people were ticked off by the prevalence of soccer-related questions. I was able to power Monaco, get US-Mexico MNTs, and 30 the BPL/Bale/Glasgow bonus based on soccer knowledge. Perhaps levelling the distribution of sports-related questions would be appreciated since, afaik, there was 1 NFL bonus, 1 college football tossup, 1 hockey tossup, and 1 NBA tossup.

There were also some bonuses late in the day that lacked easy parts but I feel like this happens at every qb event.

Otherwise, I did generally like playing the set which was one of the better sets I've played.

EDIT: I played D1.
Last edited by madviking on Sun Feb 09, 2014 1:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by Beast Mode »

ThisIsMyUsername wrote: The other gripe is that the score clues in the music tossups were pretty systematically terrible.
In the interest of full disclosure: most of the D1 music tossups were written by me (including the three you mentioned). It wasn't my goal to monopolize the music distro, just to fill needs that were there. Still, that's sub-optimal to begin with, and obviously far worse if I did a bad job. So: I'm sorry. Criticism will do me good.
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by setht »

Hey all,

I'll post some of the requested questions in just a moment. Before I start in on that, I just wanted to ask that people make sure to include in their posts which division they played in.

Thanks,
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by setht »

Bartleby wrote:I'm going to get this in before I forget: the reference (or possibly references) to the Confederacy as a "country" was really regrettable, as this is an assertion that is:

a) not really true to the best of my knowledge (if I remember correctly, no nation gave official diplomatic recognition)
b) not settled in the historiography (in fact, I'm willing to bet that most historians would not refer to the Confederacy as a "country")

I thought this was a pretty good tournament overall, but this was an irksome question.

Edited to clarify: this was in the tossup on the Confederacy, which appeared in, I believe, DI, round 13.
Here it is:
DI SCT round 13 wrote:This country sparked a diplomatic incident when it ordered the Laird Rams from a British shipmaker. This country, whose blockade brought about a "famine" in Lancashire, had three capitals, the last of which lasted for eight days. Two ambassadors from this country were imprisoned at Fort Warren after Charles (*) Wilkes ordered the USS ~San Jacinto~ [juh-SIN-toh] to impound the RMS ~Trent~. For 10 points--name this country that practiced "King Cotton" diplomacy with Great Britain under its president, Jefferson Davis.

answer: _Confederacy_ or _Confederate States_ of America (accept _CS_ or _CSA_)
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by setht »

Euler's Constant wrote:For the bonus part on aspiration in DII (round 14 I think) would rough breathing been acceptable? This went into protest (and was being researched) in our game versus Harvard A, but we never got final ruling due to the results of the tiebreakers.
Here's the bonus part:
SCT DII round 14 wrote:B. Grassmann's law describes the disappearance of this characteristic of a {consonant} when the next syllable contains a consonant that possesses it; it involves a puff of air.

answer: _aspiration_ (accept _aspirated_ or other word forms)
I'm not an expert, but "rough breathing" doesn't seem like it should be accepted here.

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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by setht »

ThisIsMyUsername wrote:So, could you please post the tossups on the 1812 Overture, Pomp and Circumstance Marches, and Leonard Bernstein? Thanks.
Here they are:
SCT DI round 8 wrote:In this piece, a tambourine ostinato accompanies a violin dance melody that then passes through the strings. Its time signature changes from 4/4 ["four-four"] to 3/4 ["three-four"] while the winds play unison descending eighth notes. That section is followed by the return of a melody played at the start of this piece by two violas and four cellos. This piece that quotes both "La (*) Marseillaise" [lah mar-say-yez] and "God Save the Tsar" calls for cannon. For 10 points--identify this Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky overture named for a year.

answer: _1812 Overture_, Op. 49 (or Festival Overture, "The _Year 1812_"; accept _1812_ after "overture")
SCT DI round 10 wrote:In the third of these pieces, a "Vivace" [vee-VAH-chay] section begins with the brass playing three unison sixteenth notes. In the fourth, the first violins play a low C major melody on the G string to start a "Nobilmente" [noh-beel-MEN-tay] section. The first of these pieces features a two-bar melody consisting of two accented beats and a bar of rising sixteenth notes, and a trio that uses the tune of (*) "Land of Hope and Glory." For 10 points--name this set of marches by Edward Elgar, the first of which is popular at graduations.

answer: _Pomp and Circumstance_ (Military) Marches, Op. 39
SCT DI round 12 wrote:The overture to one of this man's operettas features timpani glissandos from A-flat to B-flat, and a theme subdivided into measures of 2/2 [two-two], 2/2, and 3/2 [three-two]. His Third Symphony, whose second movement begins with seemingly random percussion sounds preceding a humming chorus, was written in honor of John F. Kennedy and named for the (*) Hebrew prayer for the dead. The ~Kaddish~ [KAH-dish] Symphony is by--for 10 points--what American composer of the operetta ~Candide~ [kan-deed] and the musical ~West Side Story~?

answer: Leonard _Bernstein_ [BURN-styne] (or Louis _Bernstein_)
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by Important Bird Area »

madviking wrote:There was a bonus in round 13 (I think) that went Dead Sea/Turkmenistan/Xinjiang except they flipped the clues for Turkmenistan (talking about the Tarim Depression here) and Xinjiang (talking about some Turkmeni thing here). I feel like that was definitely a weird oversight.
This is in the correct order as far as I can tell:
DI SCT round 10 wrote:B. The Karakum Desert, which lies in the Turan Basin, occupies a majority of the area of what country east of the Caspian Sea and north of Iran?

answer: _Turkmenistan_

C. The Turfan Depression, which reaches more than 500 feet below sea level, is in what autonomous region that includes the northwesternmost point of China?

answer: _Xinjiang_ (Uyghur Autonomous Region) (or _Sinkiang_ or _Shinjang_)
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by madviking »

bt_green_warbler wrote:
madviking wrote:There was a bonus in round 13 (I think) that went Dead Sea/Turkmenistan/Xinjiang except they flipped the clues for Turkmenistan (talking about the Tarim Depression here) and Xinjiang (talking about some Turkmeni thing here). I feel like that was definitely a weird oversight.
This is in the correct order as far as I can tell:
DI SCT round 10 wrote:B. The Karakum Desert, which lies in the Turan Basin, occupies a majority of the area of what country east of the Caspian Sea and north of Iran?

answer: _Turkmenistan_

C. The Turfan Depression, which reaches more than 500 feet below sea level, is in what autonomous region that includes the northwesternmost point of China?

answer: _Xinjiang_ (Uyghur Autonomous Region) (or _Sinkiang_ or _Shinjang_)
Ah I see. It was pretty late in the day and I was definitely hearing things I shouldn't have. Sorry to bother.
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by Corry »

Overall, I really liked the Division II set (although generally, I like pretty much every NAQT set).

Off the top of my head, here's a random list of questions that I thought were kind of weird:
  • Sargent Shriver - This seems like an unusually difficult answer line for tossup in a Division II set. I have actually never heard of this person before, and I doubt that many other players in Division II have either-- this seems like a more appropriate answer line for Division I.
  • Bartolome de las Casas/Black Legend/conquistadors - How many Division II players know about both the "Black Legend" and "Bartoleme de las Casas"? Either of them seems like an acceptable hard part, but it doesn't seem like this bonus has a real middle part.
  • Okefenokee Swamp - This seems like another unusually difficult answer line. In my game against Columbia B, I'm pretty sure both of us knew that the tossup was asking for something between Florida and Georgia, but nobody actually knew the name of the swamp itself. Writing a tossup on "Florida" or even "the Florida-Georgia border" would probably have worked better.
P.S. Could I see the Division II tossups on "Ramses" and "Jordan"?
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

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DII SCT round 8 wrote:The first ruler of this name succeeded the general Horemheb. During the 20th dynasty, the third ruler of this name defeated the Sea Peoples at the Battle of the Delta. This name suggests its bearer was born from the chief solar deity. Among the eleven rulers of this name was the (*) pharaoh in power at the time of the Passover story. For 10 points--give this name shared by a pharaoh also known as Ozymandias.
DII SCT round 9 wrote:This country, which is home to the Islamic Action Front, granted citizenship to a majority of its two million Palestinian refugees. The Black September civil war resulted in the expulsion of the PLO from this country in 1971, and it lost East Jerusalem and the (*) West Bank to Israel in the Six-Day War during the reign of King Hussein. King Abdullah II now rules--for 10 points--what "Hashemite Kingdom" whose capital is Amman?
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by vinteuil »

Could I see the Racine tossup (DI)?
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

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Bartleby wrote:I'm going to get this in before I forget: the reference (or possibly references) to the Confederacy as a "country" was really regrettable, as this is an assertion that is:

a) not really true to the best of my knowledge (if I remember correctly, no nation gave official diplomatic recognition)
b) not settled in the historiography (in fact, I'm willing to bet that most historians would not refer to the Confederacy as a "country")
I bet most historians refer to the Confederacy as "the Confederacy," since they don't usually have to use demonstrative phrases such as "this country" every other sentence, like we do. Given the circumstances of a 500-character quizbowl question, "country" seemed unintrusive and fine, though "government" or "power" might have worked just as well.
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by Bartleby »

RyuAqua wrote:
Bartleby wrote:I'm going to get this in before I forget: the reference (or possibly references) to the Confederacy as a "country" was really regrettable, as this is an assertion that is:

a) not really true to the best of my knowledge (if I remember correctly, no nation gave official diplomatic recognition)
b) not settled in the historiography (in fact, I'm willing to bet that most historians would not refer to the Confederacy as a "country")
I bet most historians refer to the Confederacy as "the Confederacy," since they don't usually have to use demonstrative phrases such as "this country" every other sentence, like we do. Given the circumstances of a 500-character quizbowl question, "country" seemed unintrusive and fine, though "government" or "power" might have worked just as well.
Well, sure, but that wasn't exactly the point I was trying to make. More like, if you asked historians "would you call the Confederacy a country?" I'm willing to bet a great many would say "no". Considering that the Confederacy never gained diplomatic recognition and that the Union consistently took the line that it was a group of states in rebellion (despite some actions like POW trades that would suggest the Union viewed it as a sovereign nation, but which could also be chalked up to pragmatism) I have a hard time with it being called a country.

Admittedly, this question came at the end of a very long day, but the use of the word "country" was quite confusing for me during the question, and it seems like another word choice like "government" would have been better and less confusing.
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

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Corry wrote:Writing a tossup on "Florida" or even "the Florida-Georgia border" would probably have worked better.
Would have been suboptimal because of the music bonus in round 3:
DII SCT round 3 wrote:A. Name that country duo whose other singles include "Get Your Shine On" and "Round Here."

answer: _Florida Georgia Line_
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by Lightinfa »

The leadin to the DI tossup on Socrates seemed to mischaracterize his role in the Trial of the Generals. Also- could we have a discussion about the answerline for the Expedition of 1000 tossup? I feel that answers like "Garibaldi's invasion of the Two Sicilies" should be completely acceptable (at least until they are mentioned).
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by Lightinfa »

Bartleby wrote:
RyuAqua wrote:
Bartleby wrote:I'm going to get this in before I forget: the reference (or possibly references) to the Confederacy as a "country" was really regrettable, as this is an assertion that is:

a) not really true to the best of my knowledge (if I remember correctly, no nation gave official diplomatic recognition)
b) not settled in the historiography (in fact, I'm willing to bet that most historians would not refer to the Confederacy as a "country")
I bet most historians refer to the Confederacy as "the Confederacy," since they don't usually have to use demonstrative phrases such as "this country" every other sentence, like we do. Given the circumstances of a 500-character quizbowl question, "country" seemed unintrusive and fine, though "government" or "power" might have worked just as well.
Well, sure, but that wasn't exactly the point I was trying to make. More like, if you asked historians "would you call the Confederacy a country?" I'm willing to bet a great many would say "no". Considering that the Confederacy never gained diplomatic recognition and that the Union consistently took the line that it was a group of states in rebellion (despite some actions like POW trades that would suggest the Union viewed it as a sovereign nation, but which could also be chalked up to pragmatism) I have a hard time with it being called a country.

Admittedly, this question came at the end of a very long day, but the use of the word "country" was quite confusing for me during the question, and it seems like another word choice like "government" would have been better and less confusing.
For what it's worth I didn't find this confusing at all, and by this logic in a TU on Taiwan we couldn't call it a country.
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

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DI SCT round 1 wrote:As president of the Assembly, this man tried and unwittingly executed Pericles the Younger and seven other admirals after the Battle of Arginusae. Under Phormio at Potidaea, this man defended the wounded Alcibiades. While he was imprisoned and awaiting the return of the sacred ship ~Delias~ to Athens, he prevented his friend (*) Crito from bribing the guards to allow him to escape. For 10 points--name this corrupter of the youth of Athens, whose trial was recorded in the ~Apology~ by Plato.
an answer line in DI SCT round 1 wrote:_Expedition_ of the _Thousand_ (or _Spedizione_ dei _Mille_; accept reasonable translations that indicate an invasion of _thousand_ people or partial translations such as (I) _Mille expedition_; prompt on "Risorgimento" or "Italian unification" or "invasion of Sicily" or answers giving "Redshirts" or "Garibaldi" without a number of participants)
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by Lightinfa »

bt_green_warbler wrote:
DI SCT round 1 wrote:As president of the Assembly, this man tried and unwittingly executed Pericles the Younger and seven other admirals after the Battle of Arginusae. Under Phormio at Potidaea, this man defended the wounded Alcibiades. While he was imprisoned and awaiting the return of the sacred ship ~Delias~ to Athens, he prevented his friend (*) Crito from bribing the guards to allow him to escape. For 10 points--name this corrupter of the youth of Athens, whose trial was recorded in the ~Apology~ by Plato.
Thank you - so in fact Socrates was the only one of the prytanies who objected and regarded the entire procedure as illegal and the trial went ahead over his objection.
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by Corry »

bt_green_warbler wrote:
Corry wrote:Writing a tossup on "Florida" or even "the Florida-Georgia border" would probably have worked better.
Would have been suboptimal because of the music bonus in round 3:
DII SCT round 3 wrote:A. Name that country duo whose other singles include "Get Your Shine On" and "Round Here."

answer: _Florida Georgia Line_
Well darn it. Still, I think a tossup on just "Florida" or "Georgia" would have been a lot more fitting for Div II SCT.

By the way, can I see the Division II tossups on "David Mamet" and "Tom Sawyer"?
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

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DII SCT round 2 wrote:In one of this man's plays, three lawyers--two black and one white--are hired by a white man charged with rape. In another, Bobby Gould sleeps with a secretary who wants a book on radiation made into a film. In addition to ~Race~ and (*) ~Speed-the-Plow~, he created Ricky Roma and Shelly Levene, the latter of whom stole sales leads from their Chicago real-estate office. For 10 points--name this author of ~Glengarry Glen Ross~.
DII SCT round 8 wrote:This novel depicts a sermon by Reverend Sprague that is interrupted by the release of a "pinchbug"; the sermon is attended by lawyer Riverson, the "Model Boy" Willie Mufferson, and a 40-year-old widow who lives in a "hill mansion" in St. (*) Petersburg. This novel's protagonist witnesses Dr. Robinson's murder while hiding in a graveyard, and loves his classmate Becky Thatcher. For 10 points--name this novel by Mark Twain.
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by ThisIsMyUsername »

Beast Mode wrote:
ThisIsMyUsername wrote: The other gripe is that the score clues in the music tossups were pretty systematically terrible.
In the interest of full disclosure: most of the D1 music tossups were written by me (including the three you mentioned). It wasn't my goal to monopolize the music distro, just to fill needs that were there. Still, that's sub-optimal to begin with, and obviously far worse if I did a bad job. So: I'm sorry. Criticism will do me good.
First, a basic philosophical point (I'm not sure if I've articulated this point clearly elsewhere on these forums, so perhaps I should do so at some juncture, in some non-private portion of the website):

The fact that we use the term "score clue" is itself slightly misleading, because it suggests that these clues should be about the score itself. In fact, this is rarely the case. In general the point is not test whether we've looked at the score; the point is to test whether we've listened to / played the piece with some awareness of what's going on. The score is just your (the question writer's) bridge between the auditory phenomena we (the players) have experienced and the words you are going to use to make us recollect those experiences (I shouldn't need to say this, but just in case: obviously, I'm not coming from this form a position of attacking score-reading; I'm a music theorist; I'm planning on reading scores for a living!) In other words, the "score" in "score clue" refers to the source the question writer is using to help him write, rather than the object about which he's asking.

The two qualities you are going for are uniqueness and what I have called "evocativeness": you need to pick a passage that, when translated into English, will result in a sentence that could not describe any other passage, and which will be capable of evoking a memory. Some musical features are easier to capture in words than others. So, the worst way you can write a score clue is to leaf through the score, pick a measure, and describe it. This almost guarantees an unbuzzable clue.

Let's take a look at the score clues from the tossup Seth has posted.
SCT DI round 8 wrote:In this piece, a tambourine ostinato accompanies a violin dance melody that then passes through the strings.
There are probably two kinds of "evocativeness": there is that possessed by moments characterized by a genuinely unusual musical feature(s), where a description of the feature(s) can instantaneously summon the moment; and there is that possessed by most others, where it is the precise combination of normal features that creates the uniqueness. The latter kind, of course, need to be figured out, to some degree. This clue is clearly of the latter kind. And so, I tried to figure it out. Of course, I did this my using the tambourine as my foothold. I asked myself: what pieces have a tambourine? And then, I tried to think if any of them accompany a "violin dance melody". I failed to do this.

So, after the tournament, I flipped through the score to find out what moment you were expecting that sentence to evoke. Here's a YouTube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BbT0E990IQ. Apparently, I was supposed to hear that sentence and think of 11:10-11:30. How? What was supposed to bring me here? "Violin dance melody"? If you say violin in the singular, I'm going to assume you mean a single violin. But even once I expanded this into violins, it didn't help: I have no reason to think of this moment as a "violin dance melody" because this moment is a reprise of the dance melody, which originally was for woodwinds (8:10). Maybe if I had been told that this was a recapitulation of that dance melody, or if I new that this was a transition into the final section, I could buzz on this information, but you've given me no context. If I'm supposed to pluck out a moment eleven minutes into a fifteen minute piece, give me some way of finding my way there.

Lack of context plagues the next clue too:
Its time signature changes from 4/4 ["four-four"] to 3/4 ["three-four"] while the winds play unison descending eighth notes.
A time signature change could be helpful. But where is this change? How is it functioning? Is this a theme that changes time signatures? Or is this a transition between two sections in different time signatures? Could you give me something to orient me? Moment in the piece? Tonality? Thematic content? Something?

Well, apparently "the winds play unison descending notes". This is unique/evocative how? Descending notes just means going down. Going down how? Scales? Arpeggios? What should I be hearing? I assume that you are trying to describes the transition that happens in the middle of 12:19-12:58. But even now I can't be sure, because that passage is clearly not just for winds: it's for the whole orchestra except the brass (as you can hear). And of course, they're not playing in unison; they're playing octaves. If this is what you want, how do I get here from: winds change time signature as they go down, while all playing the same note? That's the question you need to ask when you write the clue.

Here's Pomp and Circumstance March No. 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRNyXgKevqs

I can't imagine listening to that piece, trying to decide which part to clue, and then choosing the sixteenth-note rhythm of the brass figure at 0:30. Especially when writing a NAQT question, where due to the small question space, each clue is especially valuable. But that's what this lead-in describes:
SCT DI round 10 wrote:In the third of these pieces, a "Vivace" [vee-VAH-chay] section begins with the brass playing three unison sixteenth notes.
This is really picking a moment out of thin air. Did you pick this because you saw the "Vivace" in the score and assumed that this must be significant because there was a tempo indication? As I said before, these can be misleading about the importance of moments. And listening to the clip should confirm this. (Also, it is almost impossible to buzz on any clue that's basically just describing playing sixteenth notes.)

By way of contrast, I asked for Seth to post the Bernstein question because here you chose good clues, though the first one could have been slightly better executed.
SCT DI round 12 wrote:The overture to one of this man's operettas features timpani glissandos from A-flat to B-flat, and a theme subdivided into measures of 2/2 [two-two], 2/2, and 3/2 [three-two].
Had I ever looked at the score to the Candide Overture (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=422-yb8TXj8), I would have buzzed. Timpani glissandos would stick in my mind well. And though I knew by ear that the "Oh Happy We" section (beginning 1:22) was in seven, I didn't realize that Bernstein had grouped it 2 + 2 + 3, so I didn't buzz there. But had I known that, I would have been able to buzz, specifically because rather than saying something vague like "features a section that alternates two bars of 2/2 with one of 3/2", you specifically told me that it was a theme subdivided like that. You see, that's helpful description: I know I'm not looking for some random transition, but rather a theme with a quirky time signature shift built-in.

The one odd thing about the timpani glissandos clue is that you chose to clue the A-flat to B-flat one at 0:18. Why? The opening fanfare has two opening glissandos (on E-flat to F). If you had clued those, you could have said something like "opens with a fanfare featuring two timpani glissandi". Something like that gives you context: you know where in the piece you are. That's always helpful. And in general, any time there's a theme or feature, you either want to clue it from the way it appears the first time, or mention that you are describing a varied/transposed/developed version, if you choose a later appearance.

None of this is to discourage you from continuing to write tons of music questions for NAQT, including music questions with score clues. (I've received and edited plenty of good music questions from you in my own editing for NAQT.) Nor is this to discourage anyone who's reading this from using score clues in their music questions. But you need to choose them carefully, and clue them with as much precision and detail as possible. Frankly, the length limits of NAQT questions mean that many clues that would fly in ACF-style will not fly here, because the amount of detail you'd need to give to make them buzzable would make the clue take up too much space, and thus throw off the balanced pyramid of the question. NAQT score clues require a particular density and succinctness to be successful, which makes them very difficult.
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by vinteuil »

ThisIsMyUsername wrote: There are probably two kinds of "evocativeness": there is that possessed by moments characterized by a genuinely unusual musical feature(s), where a description of the feature(s) can instantaneously summon the moment; and there is that possessed by most others, where it is the precise combination of normal features that creates the uniqueness. The latter kind, of course, need to be figured out, to some degree. This clue is clearly of the latter kind. And so, I tried to figure it out. Of course, I did this my using the tambourine as my foothold. I asked myself: what pieces have a tambourine? And then, I tried to think if any of them accompany a "violin dance melody". I failed to do this.

...If I'm supposed to pluck out a moment eleven minutes into a fifteen minute piece, give me some way of finding my way there.
This is pretty much what I said when I was talking to Saul at the New England site—similarly, the Water Music question didn't quite get me to the Air from that piece. I think the example I gave of one additional "normal feature" that might have brought me to that was adding something about the horns sustaining high Cs over the fourth repetition the movement.
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by Fado Alexandrino »

(DII)

Could I see the 1st Symphony tossup and the French Horn tossup from the earlier rounds?
Thanks
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by Important Bird Area »

DII SCT round 2 wrote:John Corigliano's work of this name and number is a memorial to AIDS victims. Gustav Mahler's includes a funeral march based on ~Frere Jacques~. Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky's, his first major work, has the nickname (*) ~Winter Dreams~, while Johannes Brahms' is sometimes called "Beethoven's Tenth." Mozart's was composed at the age of 8. For 10 points--name these initial works in an orchestral genre.
DII SCT round 3 wrote:This instrument's technical problems are parodied in Mozart's ~A Musical Joke~; Joseph Leutgeb premiered that composer's four concertos. Richard Strauss called for 20 of them in his ~Alpine Symphony~ and used this brass instrument and a clarinet to represent (*) Till Eulenspiegel. The Wolf in ~Peter and the Wolf~ is depicted by--for 10 points--what instrument with a large bell and a circular coil that isn't actually French?
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by Unicolored Jay »

Could I see the myth tossup on "eating flesh" or whatever the answerline for that was (DI)?
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by Important Bird Area »

DI SCT round 8 wrote:This act was repeatedly performed by a former Libyan princess who had the power of popping out her eyes. Zeus turned the sons of Lycaon into wolves in punishment for this act. Procne tricked Tereus into performing this act, and Thyestes was similarly duped by Atreus. The (*) Laestrygonians subjected several Ithacan sailors to this act, as did Scylla and Polyphemus, thereby whittling down Odysseus's crew. For 10 points--name this act performed by the flesh-eating mares of Diomedes.

answer: _eating people_ (accept _cannibalism_ or _anthropophagy_; accept _eating children_ before "sailors"; prompt on "murder" or "killing people" or similar answers before "Tereus")
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by Unicolored Jay »

bt_green_warbler wrote:
DI SCT round 8 wrote:This act was repeatedly performed by a former Libyan princess who had the power of popping out her eyes. Zeus turned the sons of Lycaon into wolves in punishment for this act. Procne tricked Tereus into performing this act, and Thyestes was similarly duped by Atreus. The (*) Laestrygonians subjected several Ithacan sailors to this act, as did Scylla and Polyphemus, thereby whittling down Odysseus's crew. For 10 points--name this act performed by the flesh-eating mares of Diomedes.

answer: _eating people_ (accept _cannibalism_ or _anthropophagy_; accept _eating children_ before "sailors"; prompt on "murder" or "killing people" or similar answers before "Tereus")
Ok, so I buzzed in on the clue about Lycaon and was really confused since, if my memory and cursory look-up to confirm this is right, Lycaon didn't actually eat the human flesh; he killed his son and tried and failed to make Zeus eat it, which leads to his punishment. I ended up saying something kinda silly to the likes of "feeding flesh" and getting negged for it, but I don't think the wording in that sentence is accurate in what it's describing.
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by Good Goblin Housekeeping »

This is some feedback on various questions.

Round 1.

-I don't know if tossing up the Four Books on Architecture is a good idea at this difficulty level because of the restricted answerspace on non-epic architecture texts. I spent the entire question trying to remember which book on architecture all the things being described were in.

I didn't like this Williams tossup because I buzzed on someone Deron Williams played with at Illinois and received 15 points. Anyone who went to UIUC early last decade would have known that.

Round 2.
Billy negged this critical point tossup. Billy negging science clearly means the tossup was not gud.

Billy has sperm and has shown interest in their competition, but he did not get the sperm tossup. This tossup was clearly flawed.

Round 4.
I did not like this pie tossup because I negged it because I couldn't remember if it was a cake or a pie

This Readymade tossup's power mark was too generous since Billy decided to power it.

Round 5.
The NAQT clearly rigs their rounds since we played the Quebec independence TU against Will Nediger

Round 8.
This boron tossup was bad because Billy did not get it over Austin.

The chemistry at this tournament was particularly difficult, hard to power (if Billy's only getting four powers at this tournament's chem you've probably done something wrong)

I felt that the Allman Brothers tossup was in bad faith based on NAQT's previous with Almans

Round 9.
I'm pretty sure this bird tossup can be powered by anyone who's ever heard of the pokemon Ho-Oh

Round 11
This NAQT is clearly rigged since Will Nediger was sitting 2 seats away from Peter Jiang who got this Yukon River TU against us

Thank you to whoever wrote the esophagus tossup for giving me 15 points for knowing what happens to things you swallow.
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by Auks Ran Ova »

Martha Dreyer wrote:This is some feedback on various questions.

Round 1.

-I don't know if tossing up the Four Books on Architecture is a good idea at this difficulty level because of the restricted answerspace on non-epic architecture texts. I spent the entire question trying to remember which book on architecture all the things being described were in.

I didn't like this Williams tossup because I buzzed on someone Deron Williams played with at Illinois and received 15 points. Anyone who went to UIUC early last decade would have known that.

Round 2.
Billy negged this critical point tossup. Billy negging science clearly means the tossup was not gud.

Billy has sperm and has shown interest in their competition, but he did not get the sperm tossup. This tossup was clearly flawed.

Round 4.
I did not like this pie tossup because I negged it because I couldn't remember if it was a cake or a pie

This Readymade tossup's power mark was too generous since Billy decided to power it.

Round 5.
The NAQT clearly rigs their rounds since we played the Quebec independence TU against Will Nediger

Round 8.
This boron tossup was bad because Billy did not get it over Austin.

The chemistry at this tournament was particularly difficult, hard to power (if Billy's only getting four powers at this tournament's chem you've probably done something wrong)

I felt that the Allman Brothers tossup was in bad faith based on NAQT's previous with Almans

Round 9.
I'm pretty sure this bird tossup can be powered by anyone who's ever heard of the pokemon Ho-Oh

Round 11
This NAQT is clearly rigged since Will Nediger was sitting 2 seats away from Peter Jiang who got this Yukon River TU against us

Thank you to whoever wrote the esophagus tossup for giving me 15 points for knowing what happens to things you swallow.
A puckish satire of contemporary mores. 10/10
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by touchpack »

Hey, so I may or may not post more about this tournament later but I'm just going to point this out for now. In division 2, there's a chemistry tossup on "P" that leads in like this:

"This letter denotes a 'coefficient' equal to the ratio of a substance's solubility in octanol and water"

So I recognized this as the partition coefficient, and buzzed in (someone read it to me) with K, which is the only letter I have ever seen used to represent the partition coefficient from any source anywhere. I had a suspicion/hypothesis about how this happened, and I used a quick google search to test it.

http://i.imgur.com/UU0kHFD.png
(the letter denotes the letter the source used to refer to the partition coefficient)

My suspicions were confirmed. I shouldn't have to say this, but using Wikipedia as your primary source is TERRIBLE and no one should ever do it. Furthermore, this is DOUBLY important when your clue is about something like notation, which is VERY OFTEN inconsistent between multiple sources. Use MULTIPLE sources when writing your questions, ALWAYS. I would be absolutely furious if something like this happened to me at an actual tournament.
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by naan/steak-holding toll »

Could I see the D1 tossups on Fujimori, the Peace of Augsburg, Agrippa, and the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, please?
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by setht »

Alliance in the Alps wrote:
bt_green_warbler wrote:
DI SCT round 8 wrote:This act was repeatedly performed by a former Libyan princess who had the power of popping out her eyes. Zeus turned the sons of Lycaon into wolves in punishment for this act. Procne tricked Tereus into performing this act, and Thyestes was similarly duped by Atreus. The (*) Laestrygonians subjected several Ithacan sailors to this act, as did Scylla and Polyphemus, thereby whittling down Odysseus's crew. For 10 points--name this act performed by the flesh-eating mares of Diomedes.

answer: _eating people_ (accept _cannibalism_ or _anthropophagy_; accept _eating children_ before "sailors"; prompt on "murder" or "killing people" or similar answers before "Tereus")
Ok, so I buzzed in on the clue about Lycaon and was really confused since, if my memory and cursory look-up to confirm this is right, Lycaon didn't actually eat the human flesh; he killed his son and tried and failed to make Zeus eat it, which leads to his punishment. I ended up saying something kinda silly to the likes of "feeding flesh" and getting negged for it, but I don't think the wording in that sentence is accurate in what it's describing.
There are a bunch of slight variants of the Lycaon & Sons story. I believe the one in which Lycaon's sons are turned into wolves (as opposed to being blasted by lightning) says that they ate Nyctimus (rather than putting him in a stew for Zeus). Having said that, the question would be improved by saying "In one variant" or something like that.

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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by sephirothrr »

Could someone please post the epsilon tossup from what I believe was round 2? I negged with lambda before it was mentioned, and I believe that it should be acceptable in the first line of the question.
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by jonah »

sephirothrr wrote:Could someone please post the epsilon tossup from what I believe was round 2? I negged with lambda before it was mentioned, and I believe that it should be acceptable in the first line of the question.
Division I epsilon tossup wrote:In the study of {automata}, this letter denotes transitions that do not consume an input symbol, since in the study of {formal languages} it--like {lambda}--denotes the {empty string}. It identifies a three-dimensional analogue of the {Kronecker delta function}, the (*) {Levi-Civita [LEH-vee CHEE-vee-tah] symbol}. Paul Erd\"os [AIR-dawsh] used this letter to describe children, based on its common use in {analysis} to denote a very small quantity. In the definition of a {limit}, {delta} is paired with--for 10 points--what fifth {Greek letter}?
Division II epsilon tossup wrote:In the study of {formal languages}, either this letter or {lambda} can denote the {empty string}. It identifies a three-dimensional analogue of the {Kronecker delta function}, the {Levi-Civita [LEH-vee CHEE-vee-tah] symbol}. Paul Erd\"os [AIR-dursh] used this letter to describe (*) children, based on its common use in {analysis} to denote a very small quantity. In the definition of a {limit}, {delta} is paired with--for 10 points--what fifth {Greek letter}?
There are about 10,000 google results for ["lambda transition" automaton], so you're probably right that that should be accepted. I'll adjust the question for future uses. Sorry about that.
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by vinteuil »

vinteuil wrote:Could I see the Racine tossup (DI)?
Sorry, it seems like multiple people had issues with this, so I really would like to see it.
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by theMoMA »

In one of this author's most-quoted lines, a woman states that she is the "daughter of Minos and Pasiphae." This author, who reworked Aristophanes's ~The Wasps~ into his comedy ~The Litigants~, wrote another play in which Oreste visits the court of King Pyrrhus. He wrote a play that ends with a sea monster causing the death of (*) Hippolytus, who is loved by the title woman. For 10 points--name this French dramatist of ~Andromaque~ [AHN-droh-MAHK] who wrote about the wife of Theseus in ~Ph\'edre~ [FED-ruh].
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by Important Bird Area »

gamegeek2 wrote:Could I see the D1 tossups on Fujimori, the Peace of Augsburg, Agrippa, and the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, please?
DI SCT round 10 wrote:One man with this surname, who founded the Vamos Vecino party, was spurred by the Tarata bombing to have the DIRCOTE agency crack down. The Grupo Colina committed the Barrios Altos and La Cantuta massacres under a leader of this surname, whose (*) daughter barely lost to Ollanta Humala in a 2011 election. The elder politician of this surname directed the capture of Abimael Guzman of the Shining Path. For 10 points--give this surname of Alberto and Keiko, two Peruvians of Japanese descent.
DI SCT round 8 wrote:This document was modified by the ~Declaratio Ferdinandei~, which exempted some cities in church lands, and by the ~Reservatum ecclesiasticum~, which was contested in the Cologne War. The revolt of Maurice of Saxony and negotiations at Passau preceded this treaty, which established the principle of (*) ~Cuius regio, eius religio~ during the reign of Charles V. The Holy Roman Empire was divided between Catholics and Protestants under--for 10 points--what 1555 "peace" named for a Bavarian city?
DI SCT round 8 wrote:This man founded a veterans' colony at Heliopolis during a late visit to Judea. He was the maternal grandfather of Caligula via his third wife, Julia the Elder. Hadrian rebuilt a building originally commissioned by this man, a temple to all the Roman gods possibly meant to commemorate his victory in a (*) 31 BC naval battle in which Cleopatra and Mark Antony abandoned their forces. The original Pantheon was built by--for 10 points--what son-in-law of Augustus who won the Battle of Actium?
DI SCT round 7 wrote:One account of this event's death toll was given by Maximilien, Duke of Sully, who supposedly escaped death by carrying a prayer book under his arm. Many targeted in this event were attendees of the marriage between Margaret of Valois and the future King (*) Henry IV. Gaspard de Coligny was one of thousands killed in this event, which occurred at the behest of Catherine de Medici. For 10 points--what 1572 action against French Protestants took place on an Apostle's feast day?
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by Tanay »

bt_green_warbler wrote:
DI SCT round 7 wrote:One account of this event's death toll was given by Maximilien, Duke of Sully, who supposedly escaped death by carrying a prayer book under his arm. Many targeted in this event were attendees of the marriage between Margaret of Valois and the future King (*) Henry IV. Gaspard de Coligny was one of thousands killed in this event, which occurred at the behest of Catherine de Medici. For 10 points--what 1572 action against French Protestants took place on an Apostle's feast day?
This was probably one of the easier tossups in the set, as the answer space narrows quickly with "French religious event in which people died after a marriage," with several words still in power afterward.
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by at your pleasure »

setht wrote:
Euler's Constant wrote:For the bonus part on aspiration in DII (round 14 I think) would rough breathing been acceptable? This went into protest (and was being researched) in our game versus Harvard A, but we never got final ruling due to the results of the tiebreakers.
Here's the bonus part:
SCT DII round 14 wrote:B. Grassmann's law describes the disappearance of this characteristic of a {consonant} when the next syllable contains a consonant that possesses it; it involves a puff of air.

answer: _aspiration_ (accept _aspirated_ or other word forms)
I'm not an expert, but "rough breathing" doesn't seem like it should be accepted here.

-Seth
Seth is correct, aspiration is a fairly specifically defined term in lingustics.
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by The Ununtiable Twine »

Can you post the question about necklaces? Also, I thought the Eustace necklace was made of diamonds but was negged when I buzzed there. Perhaps I am mistaken? Sources seem to indicate that it was a diamond necklace but nothing was written about that in the acceptable answers.
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by Important Bird Area »

DI SCT round 3 wrote:Count Kalliovski marks murder victims with "red" objects of this type in a 2007 novel. In Dorothy Sayers's ~The Nine Tailors~, Mrs. Wilbraham has an object of this type stolen. Lizzie Greystock's theft of one belonging to the Eustace family appears in a novel by Anthony Trollope, and Faust gives one to (*) Gretchen to complete her seduction. Madame Loisel is reduced to penury for ten years while replacing--for 10 points--what type of jewelry that turns out to be fake in a Guy de Maupassant story?

answer: _necklace_ (accept The _Red Necklace_ or _garnet necklace_ or _necklace of garnets_)
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by ThisIsMyUsername »

The Ununtiable Twine wrote:Can you post the question about necklaces? Also, I thought the Eustace necklace was made of diamonds but was negged when I buzzed there. Perhaps I am mistaken? Sources seem to indicate that it was a diamond necklace but nothing was written about that in the acceptable answers.
The Eustace necklace is indeed made of diamonds. I too was negged for saying "diamonds" there. And this happened to at least one other person at our site.
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Fado Alexandrino
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by Fado Alexandrino »

Could I please see the D2 bonus with Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and H-bar has two of the answers? The bonus part on h-bar does not prompt on "Planck's constant" even though the word "reduced" is in the question.
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by setht »

pandabear555 wrote:Could I please see the D2 bonus with Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and H-bar has two of the answers? The bonus part on h-bar does not prompt on "Planck's constant" even though the word "reduced" is in the question.
DII SCT round 9 wrote:It is impossible to simultaneously know both the position and momentum of a particle. For 10 points each--

A. That is a statement of this principle named for Werner Heisenberg.

answer: Heisenberg _uncertainty_ principle

B. Two observables are subject to an uncertainty principle if this value for their operators is nonzero; for operators ~A~ and ~B~, it equals ~AB~ \N- ~BA~ ["A-B minus B-A"].

answer: _commutator_ (accept _commutator bracket_)

C. In fact, the standard deviation of position times the standard deviation of momentum must be greater than or equal to this constant over two. It is the "reduced" form of another constant.

answer: _h bar_ (or _Dirac_'s constant or _reduced Planck_ constant; do not prompt on "Planck (constant)" or "h")
Not accepting/prompting on just Planck or h makes sense to me—the first sentence in C is specific to h-bar, not h; the second sentence lets you know that there is a different, related constant. I think at that point, if you don't know which one is correct, and you guess the wrong one, you shouldn't get a free shot at saying the other one. Does that seem overly harsh to people?

Actually, looking at this again, since the prompt does say "It is the 'reduced' form of another constant" maybe we should prompt on Planck on the theory that we generally don't require people to repeat parts of an answer revealed in a question. Hmm.. I still don't like the idea that people who mistakenly think the answer is Planck's (unreduced) constant get a second crack at the answer. I'll have to think about this one.

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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by fett0001 »

I think accepting Planck, Dirac, and hbar is the the way to go, there But not "h",obviously.
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Re: 2014 SCT: specific questions

Post by Cody »

Including "reduced" complicates the situation and you never know if what the player is saying is correct. Ideally, emove it and replace it with "it is equal to a similarly named constant divided by two pi" or whatever.
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