WAO II Specific Question Discussion

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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

Post by 1992 in spaceflight »

Amizda Calyx wrote:I am curious to see the tossup on the mitochondrial inner membrane, since I don't think my submitted evo-bio tossup on mitochondria contained explicit membrane stuff.

I really liked the DSCAM clue for Down syndrome and the Jablonski clue for PS2. Overall I thought the bio was quite good, although the answerline for lysogeny needs to be expanded to include a prompt for "viral latency". I also got a bit tripped up by the combination of hearing what sounded like "tenocytes" (I think this was actually "tanycytes") and then later hypogonadism + anosmia for the hypothalamus tossup and answered with cilia, although I'm sure the clues made it obvious that the structure was much larger.

The answerline for the Southern ocean needs to include Antarctic ocean -- that was a really frustrating neg that I'm surprised didn't affect the earlier mirror.
Our apologies for the Antarctic ocean oversight-this came up at the Mizzou mirror and was a simple oversight. It's been added to the line for future mirrors.

The Mitochindrial inner membrane tossup:
Rutgers A wrote:Mohr-Tranebjaerg Syndrome, or deafness-dystonia syndrome, is caused by a mutation in a protein embedded in this structure. Carboxyatractyloside and bongkrekic acid are toxins that inhibit a protein in this structure. In humans, the SLC25 family of genes code for proteins in this structure, which includes the citrin protein and three AAC [A-A-C] proteins. Glutamate and alpha-ketoglutarate are respectively antiported with (*) aspartate and malate through this structure, because this structure is impermeable to NADH [N-A-D-H] and NAD+ [N-A-D-plus]. Cyanide poisoning affects a protein in this structure that converts diatomic oxygen into water. Complexes one through four aid in pumping protons across this structure, which contains folds called cristae. For 10 points, proteins used in oxidative phosphorylation are found along what organellar phospholipid bilayer?
ANSWER: inner mitochondrial membrane [accept word forms do not accept “cell membrane”, prompt on partial answer of “mitochondrial membrane” or “membrane” with “Which one?”, prompt on “inner membrane” with “inner membrane of what?”, prompt on just “mitochondria” or “mitochondrion” with “Where?”] <Ed. JS>
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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

Post by UlyssesInvictus »

otsasonr wrote:
Periplus of the Erythraean Sea wrote: The first of these is the tossup on control systems theory. I understand that this is a Reified Thing and have heard of it discussed as such by knowledgeable people, but the issue is that it is (to my understanding) multidisciplinary and incorporates a lot of techniques that can be used elsewhere. So from a player's perspective, it's not as easy to see the conceit of the tossup, because players typically only know the clue they're buzzing on and not the ones before - and if there's not an exclusionary clue, then they may not know what to say.
It's certainly a multidisciplinary field, and it's certainly used in many different ways, but I don't see anyone who is somewhat knowledgeable about the field buzzing in and saying anything but "control systems" for any of the clues in this tossup. All of the clues in the tossup are specifically techniques and tools in use in control theory, and the fact that control theory is itself used in many other fields doesn't change what field those techniques belong to. Moreover, I don't think that anyone familiar with the more difficult clues in this tossup would ever be led astray by them, since control theory is treated as a separate, contained body of knowledge in all of the other fields that use it. For example, basically every student in electrical, mechanical, or chemical engineering is going to take a dedicated class in control systems, and not just be exposed to these techniques out of context.
Well, Ophir buzzed with signal processing, so...
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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

Post by sbraunfeld »

otsasonr wrote:
Periplus of the Erythraean Sea wrote: The first of these is the tossup on control systems theory. I understand that this is a Reified Thing and have heard of it discussed as such by knowledgeable people, but the issue is that it is (to my understanding) multidisciplinary and incorporates a lot of techniques that can be used elsewhere. So from a player's perspective, it's not as easy to see the conceit of the tossup, because players typically only know the clue they're buzzing on and not the ones before - and if there's not an exclusionary clue, then they may not know what to say.
It's certainly a multidisciplinary field, and it's certainly used in many different ways, but I don't see anyone who is somewhat knowledgeable about the field buzzing in and saying anything but "control systems" for any of the clues in this tossup. All of the clues in the tossup are specifically techniques and tools in use in control theory, and the fact that control theory is itself used in many other fields doesn't change what field those techniques belong to. Moreover, I don't think that anyone familiar with the more difficult clues in this tossup would ever be led astray by them, since control theory is treated as a separate, contained body of knowledge in all of the other fields that use it. For example, basically every student in electrical, mechanical, or chemical engineering is going to take a dedicated class in control systems, and not just be exposed to these techniques out of context.
On the one hand, I felt confident buzzing on the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman clue once I heard "optimal". This means I didn't hear much of the tossup, but I could easily imagine it causing problems for the reasons mentioned. The one signal processing course I took discussed a fair amount of control theory, particularly stability, without the phrase "control theory" ever being mentioned. I would imagine there are plenty of people who come into contact with control theory concepts without ever taking a course in the subject, or perhaps even realizing that such a subject exists.
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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

Post by naan/steak-holding toll »

otsasonr wrote:
Periplus of the Erythraean Sea wrote: The first of these is the tossup on control systems theory. I understand that this is a Reified Thing and have heard of it discussed as such by knowledgeable people, but the issue is that it is (to my understanding) multidisciplinary and incorporates a lot of techniques that can be used elsewhere. So from a player's perspective, it's not as easy to see the conceit of the tossup, because players typically only know the clue they're buzzing on and not the ones before - and if there's not an exclusionary clue, then they may not know what to say.
It's certainly a multidisciplinary field, and it's certainly used in many different ways, but I don't see anyone who is somewhat knowledgeable about the field buzzing in and saying anything but "control systems" for any of the clues in this tossup. All of the clues in the tossup are specifically techniques and tools in use in control theory, and the fact that control theory is itself used in many other fields doesn't change what field those techniques belong to. Moreover, I don't think that anyone familiar with the more difficult clues in this tossup would ever be led astray by them, since control theory is treated as a separate, contained body of knowledge in all of the other fields that use it. For example, basically every student in electrical, mechanical, or chemical engineering is going to take a dedicated class in control systems, and not just be exposed to these techniques out of context.
Without trying to sound condescending, I think this post illustrates something of the problem here. Quizbowl is a game played, for the most part, by amateurs who like learning things. It's meant to test knowledge, including the kind that you would gain academically and professionally, but it also has to operate within constraints to be playable by amateurs (and in general) - one of these being that the clues in a tossup need to be able to pick out a unique answer, without necessarily being able to know what the previous clues were talking about (aka why exclusionary / specifying clues are used). Such an amateur could very well have learned about some of these things without learning about control theory as a whole - or that they all map to this one specific field, to the exclusion of any others.

I suspect Ophir does know something about control theory but even if he doesn't, tossups like this are frustrating to play because they prompt the "what do you want" kinds of questions to go off in a player's head. More problematically, it's not clear that even specific prompts (i.e. Spain, "prompt with ruled by who?" for an answer of Muslim Spain or al-Andalus) will get players to the right answer here.

EDIT: Ignore what I am saying, other people with better / more knowledge have made better explanation / diagnoses of the ambiguity problem here.
Last edited by naan/steak-holding toll on Sun Nov 19, 2017 6:56 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

Post by touchpack »

The problem with the control theory tossup is NOT the answerline, which is an excellent idea, but one of the clues: there is a "Nyquist criterion" in both control theory and signal processing, and the tossup gives no description alongside the namedrop, so a player has no way of knowing which Nyquist criterion you want. Looking back I think this tossup could have benefitted from less barrage of names and more descriptive/conceptual clues in the 2nd half.
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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

Post by Evan Lynch »

I haven't seen a copy of the set yet, but here are a few things I remember:

Writing a tossup on the "inner mitochondrial membrane" was probably not the best choice of answerline. I buzzed with "mitochondria", was prompted and said "cristae" then "mitochondrial membrane", and I can't help but feel that the TU would have played a lot better if the answerline had been "inner mitochondrial membrane".

Stop putting the Drude model into the second line of tossups on the electron, especially don't call it the Drude-Sommerfeld model, and don't then follow that up with a clue about the "free" type of these particles. What difficulty is this supposed to be?

The bonuses on art clued from Szymborska poems were fun.

The flagellation TU mentioned "mortification" within power.

The square planar TU mentioned everyone's favourite CFT clue about square planar geometries in the first line, as has every tossup on square planar geometries lately.

The carbonyl tossup was clued stupidly from the outset.

I'd need to see the question text again, but I'm pretty sure the tossup on imines had no fewer than two factually incorrect clues. The clue that said its reaction with a Grignard produced a nitrile is definitely wrong, and the Schmidt reaction clue also seemed incorrect as I heard it.

contra to what I've read above, reduction/Latimer/Frost seemed fine as a difficulty curve for e/h/m. Frost diagrams and circles are both important things that people will encounter in class.

The contracts TU was all kinds of transparent - I believe "promissory estoppel" was in power? Huh what do people make promises in?

The Oceania geography bonus where not all the parts seemed to be in Oceania also seemed to play quite easy.

Looking back, vacuum pumps/activated charcoal/Langmuir doesn't really seem to have a proper easy part, but also it's a fairly straightforward 20, so who knows. I got confused about the charcoal part, but on reflection that seems fine.

The tossup on transition states was, as ever, super transparent. It also mentioned activation energy by like the second line because somebody didn't clue BEP properly.

I'd need to see the clue about volcano plots in the rate constant TU again, but that felt wrong at the time.

The Chabon/Hornby/Ginsberg bonuses were fine, contra to other opinions. Same with the Huxley titles bonus, though I did laugh because I wrote on the same theme for Fall. :)

I thought the physics tossups on "efficiency" and "coherence" were lots of fun, and ditto to the bonus set on spontaneous symmetry breaking. However, that does remind me that half the science felt like it was written by someone studying for Nats and writing questions about stuff that came up in Nats a few years ago. Whether that's a problem or not is up for debate.

Someone commented they misheard "Bill Lawton" as "Bin Laden" in the 9/11 TU - I actually misheard it as "Bill Gorton", which led to an amusing moment of cognitive dissonance. The rest of that question seemed fine, although Bleeding Edge clues might have been a fraction early.

We had someone buzz with "crow" midway through the "raven" tossup. The answerline should probably make it clear whether this is acceptable to a point or not.

I can probably find more stuff when I get a copy of the set, but I should make it clear that I really enjoyed playing this set, and whilst it felt like there were mis-steps in basically every category at different points during the day, that doesn't make the set a bad tournament, and I think myself and my team had a lot of fun.
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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

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Evan Lynch wrote:Someone commented they misheard "Bill Lawton" as "Bin Laden" in the 9/11 TU - I actually misheard it as "Bill Gorton", which led to an amusing moment of cognitive dissonance. The rest of that question seemed fine, although Bleeding Edge clues might have been a fraction early.
Pretty sure that mishearing "Bill Lawton" as "Bin Laden", or vice versa, is an actual plot point in the book being clued, so it's not a problem at all.

Incidentally, I didn't comment on this because that question didn't get this far, but now that I've seen the full tossup, it was really cool to see Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close get clued.
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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

Post by Gemistus Pletho »

May I see the tossups on square planar, Cassandra, milk, ravens in myth and Andrew Jackson? May I also see the bonuses on DNA Binding and Greco - Roman Geographers?
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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

Post by naan/steak-holding toll »

That question on ravens in myth didn't strike me as great, either - it sort of went from a really hard leadin to "this bird that appears in a lot of Native American myth" really quickly.
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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

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piecake31 wrote:May I see the tossups on square planar, Cassandra, milk, ravens in myth and Andrew Jackson? May I also see the bonuses on DNA Binding and Greco - Roman Geographers?
Editor's 2 wrote:Do you like geography in your history bonuses? Of course you do! Answer the following about various classical Greek and Roman geographers. For 10 points each,
[10] This author of the Almagest created an early Mappa Mundi. He studied at the Library of Alexandria and shares his name with an earlier ruling dynasty of Egypt
ANSWER: Claudius Ptolemy
[10] This work of Tacitus describes groups such as the Cherusci, Bastarnae, and Peucini, who all lived in its namesake region.
ANSWER: Germania
[10] This Pontic author of the Geographica traveled down the Nile as far as Ethiopia and originated the European mapping convention of drawing Europe, Asia, and Africa as roughly triangular thirds of a landmass surrounded by a world ocean.
ANSWER: Strabo <JM>
Editor's 1 wrote:A policy carried out by this president was opposed by Jeremiah Evarts, who circulated essays written under the pseudonym “William Penn” to lobby against it. An attempted assassin of this man, who tried to kill him at the funeral of Warren Evans, was a house painter who believed himself to be a former king of England. This politician beat his attempted assassin, Richard Lawrence, with his cane. Other than postmaster general Amos (*) Kendall, this president mostly ignored the advice of his kitchen cabinet. This man fought with Nicholas Biddle over the renewal of the Second Bank of the United States’ charter, and he removed many Indian tribes to the west of the Mississippi. For 10 points, name this seventh president of the United States, who was nicknamed “Old Hickory.”
ANSWER: Andrew Jackson <JO>
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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

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I am surprised to hear there was a tossup on control theory, and would be interested in seeing the tossup.
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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

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Editors 2 wrote:8. One technique in the nonlinear branch of this field uses a so-called sliding-mode. Solving the algebraic Riccati equation is tantamount to solving the infinite horizon LQR problem in this field. That solution arises from solving the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation with linear dynamics, and arises in the “optimal” type of this field. Classical techniques of performance analysis in this field include the (*) Nyquist criterion, and the Ziegler-Nichols tuning rules can choose gains for the proportion-integral-derivative feedback devices used in this field. For 10 points, name this field which designs systems to make plants achieve a desired output.
ANSWER: control theory [or control systems]
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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

Post by Nabonidus »

piecake31 wrote:May I see the tossups on square planar, Cassandra, milk, ravens in myth and Andrew Jackson? May I also see the bonuses on DNA Binding and Greco - Roman Geographers?
In Anne Carson’s translation of the work in which this character appears, this character defines words from that work’s original language, such as “thermonous means hot soul” and “schismos means a cleaving”. This character describes a deity as “Leader of journeys, my destroyer” in an invocation to Apollo. This character describes the setting of the play in which she appears as “a house God (*) hates” where the “floor drips red”. While speaking to a chorus of old men, this character breaks her staff, removes her garland and tears off her priestess’ robe. This character is killed by a queen avenging the death of Iphigenia after this character is brought to Mycenae as a concubine of her play’s title character. For 10 points, identify this character from Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, a Trojan princess cursed to predict the future but not to be believed.
ANSWER: Cassandra
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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

Post by Victor Prieto »

packet 1

tossup 8: The BRCA clue should probably say "it's not the ovaries, but..."

bonus 4: "short term memory" should be acceptable.

___

packet 2

tossup 3:
ANSWER: lysine [prompt on K before it is read] <Ed. JS>
should be
ANSWER: lysine or Lys, or K before mention] <Ed. JS>
bonus 16:
otsasonr wrote:
CPiGuy wrote:the bonus on vacuum pumps / activated charcoal / Langmuir seems hard; maybe not, though.
I edited that bonus to be harder, and if anything I still thought it was easy. It was submitted as vacuum pumps/activated charcoal/adsorption, which seemed to me like a free 30 to anyone with basic lab experience. That might just be me though, I'm curious how other people feel about that material (as I am for all the questions, really).
I think this was the right call. I think I would reword the first part to be more blunt, something along the lines of "Name these laboratory devices that suck in gas to create a near-zero pressure environment." You can then elaborate on the mechanism of momentum transfer vacuum pumps if you want.

___

packet 3


tossup 2: why not just outright accept specific forms of RNA, instead of antiprompting?

tossup 12: that's a "threo-betaine" intermediate, not a threo-bentaine.

bonus 19: I think the easy part could stand to be a little easier. I missed this, but it was because I didn't realize the question said a namesake halogen.

___

packet 5


bonus 9: electrospinning and surface tension are two hard parts.

More to come later, possibly.
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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

Post by Cody »

Aaron Manby (ironmaster) wrote:
Editors 2 wrote:8. One technique in the nonlinear branch of this field uses a so-called sliding-mode. Solving the algebraic Riccati equation is tantamount to solving the infinite horizon LQR problem in this field. That solution arises from solving the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation with linear dynamics, and arises in the “optimal” type of this field. Classical techniques of performance analysis in this field include the (*) Nyquist criterion, and the Ziegler-Nichols tuning rules can choose gains for the proportion-integral-derivative feedback devices used in this field. For 10 points, name this field which designs systems to make plants achieve a desired output.
ANSWER: control theory [or control systems]
I concur with Billy. The problem arises specifically from the use of "performance analysis" instead of "stability analysis" (or a similar, more specific construction) when talking about the Nyquist criterion.
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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

Post by touchpack »

Cody wrote:
Aaron Manby (ironmaster) wrote:
Editors 2 wrote:8. One technique in the nonlinear branch of this field uses a so-called sliding-mode. Solving the algebraic Riccati equation is tantamount to solving the infinite horizon LQR problem in this field. That solution arises from solving the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation with linear dynamics, and arises in the “optimal” type of this field. Classical techniques of performance analysis in this field include the (*) Nyquist criterion, and the Ziegler-Nichols tuning rules can choose gains for the proportion-integral-derivative feedback devices used in this field. For 10 points, name this field which designs systems to make plants achieve a desired output.
ANSWER: control theory [or control systems]
I concur with Billy. The problem arises specifically from the use of "performance analysis" instead of "stability analysis" (or a similar, more specific construction) when talking about the Nyquist criterion.
Yeah. You could also expand the sentence to reward conceptual knowledge of control theory like this:

Stability in this field can be determined graphically using the Nyquist criterion, or determined analytically by calculating the poles of the closed-loop transfer function.

It's the second half of the tossup, you don't need to be so coy--people that have taken control theory classes deserve to get buzzes here (and as is, my UG control theory class wouldn't get me a buzz until PID, I only buzzed earlier because I've read stuff on the internet)
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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

Post by The Story of a Head That Fell Off »

CPiGuy wrote:
The Sartre tossup seemed to have a difficulty cliff on "Estelle" -- I recall a six-way buzzer race on that word.
Rutgers A wrote:8. One of this author’s characters claims that his ancestor “cleared a whole forest” and “killed seventeen
indians with his bare hands” while reciting the history of his family; that speech ends with him asking “Do
you dare to shoot all of America?” to the woman pointing a gun at him. One of this author’s characters says
he must “claim my crime and declare myself Raskolnikov” after assassinating the Illyrian socialist (*)
Hoederer. A third character created by this playwright tries to convince a lesbian woman that his army desertion was
not cowardice, but she says “one always dies too soon — or too late.” This author of The Respectful Prostitute and
Dirty Hands created a character who says he cannot make love to Estelle while Inez is watching, after which he
exclaims “hell is — other people.” For 10 points, name this French playwright who wrote No Exit.
ANSWER: Jean-Paul Sartre
Since this came from our packet, as you can see, a major plot point of No Exit was mentioned the line before Estelle was mentioned - the "lesbian woman" earlier is Inez shitting on Garcin for being a coward. The two other plays might be obscure, but it's not the first mention of a No Exit plot point. I assume some people who actually read No Exit but no other Sartre plays either already buzzed or is sitting on it to wait for more ("cannot make love" is also a major plot point though).
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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

Post by $5 Bits of Broken Chair Trophy »

Editors 1 wrote:) A law allowing members of one of these ethnic groups to be killed on sight by the
other was repealed in September 2017. A lexicon including phrases such as “fuck you” and “if Christ and
Mary give me a whale, I will give you the tail” was compiled for a pidgin formed between these two ethnic
groups. That lexicon was written by Jon Olafsson. Members of one of these ethnic groups killed 32
shipwrecked members of the other in the so-called (*) “slaying of the Spaniards”. Members of one of these ethnic
groups may have reached the North American continent while fishing for cod on the Grand Banks, a feat
accomplished by Leif Ericsson, a member of the other ethnic group, in the 11th Century.. For ten points, name these
two ethnic groups, one a Spanish group speaking a non-Indo-European language and the other the natives of an
island with capital Reykjavik.
ANSWER: Basques and Icelanders (or ics, other demonyms that reasonably approximate Iceland) (prompt on any
permutation that includes Spaniards or Vikings or Norse instead of one of the groups) <JM>
This tossup really sucks a lot- the only thing these two groups have in common is that pidgin, and it's mentioned in the second line! Even better, if you haven't buzzed here yet, there's an obvious Icelandic name in the next clue! Within three lines, anyone who has ever heard of this has buzzed in and collected their 15 points. This has also come up so many times and should probably be retired as a clue for a while, if not forever- it's really not even that important; if you want to use linguistics clues I think it would be much better to just make this tossup about _Basque_s, since there are plenty of cool clues about the Basque language you could use that would reward actual engagement with interesting academic material, rather than giving power to people who are aware of this pidgin's existence and/or can use Wikipedia (which I can see contains two of the phrases that you used in this question!).
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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

Post by naan/steak-holding toll »

DuPhos wrote:
Editors 1 wrote:) A law allowing members of one of these ethnic groups to be killed on sight by the
other was repealed in September 2017. A lexicon including phrases such as “fuck you” and “if Christ and
Mary give me a whale, I will give you the tail” was compiled for a pidgin formed between these two ethnic
groups. That lexicon was written by Jon Olafsson. Members of one of these ethnic groups killed 32
shipwrecked members of the other in the so-called (*) “slaying of the Spaniards”. Members of one of these ethnic
groups may have reached the North American continent while fishing for cod on the Grand Banks, a feat
accomplished by Leif Ericsson, a member of the other ethnic group, in the 11th Century.. For ten points, name these
two ethnic groups, one a Spanish group speaking a non-Indo-European language and the other the natives of an
island with capital Reykjavik.
ANSWER: Basques and Icelanders (or ics, other demonyms that reasonably approximate Iceland) (prompt on any
permutation that includes Spaniards or Vikings or Norse instead of one of the groups) <JM>
This tossup really sucks a lot- the only thing these two groups have in common is that pidgin, and it's mentioned in the second line! Even better, if you haven't buzzed here yet, there's an obvious Icelandic name in the next clue! Within three lines, anyone who has ever heard of this has buzzed in and collected their 15 points. This has also come up so many times and should probably be retired as a clue for a while, if not forever- it's really not even that important; if you want to use linguistics clues I think it would be much better to just make this tossup about _Basque_s, since there are plenty of cool clues about the Basque language you could use that would reward actual engagement with interesting academic material, rather than giving power to people who are aware of this pidgin's existence and/or can use Wikipedia (which I can see contains two of the phrases that you used in this question!).
Yeah, after some reflection this tossup really seemed to be a test of one of two things:

1) Did you read the Wiki article on this?
2) Have you seen the couple quizbowl questions that mention this relationship before?

If you did, you collected your 15 and if not this tossup probably sounded like WTF (as it did to pretty much everyone else in the room when I played it).

I would replace this with a tossup on Basques cluing things like their involvement in South American trade and maritime stuff, or on Iceland.

Also just noticed this:
Cpiguy wrote:Our history player was confused by the tossup on the "Northern Crusades", since all the clues were about the Livonian Crusade. It might have been advisable to say "description acceptable" so that people who know what was going on but didn't know if you wanted a Named Thing would know that you did not in fact want a Named Thing. the content of the tossup was pretty cool though.
I'm pretty sure this isn't correct as there's a clue from the Battle of Lyndanisse, which is from the Danish invasion of modern-day Estonia. In any case, the answerline seemed generous enough to me - I buzzed with "Denmark going and conquering a bunch of Estonians" and got anti-prompted to "Baltic Crusades." These generally are considered a group of related conflicts, and I thought it was a reasonably well-implemented execution of such a question.
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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

Post by A Dim-Witted Saboteur »

DuPhos wrote: This tossup really sucks a lot- the only thing these two groups have in common is that pidgin, and it's mentioned in the second line! Even better, if you haven't buzzed here yet, there's an obvious Icelandic name in the next clue! Within three lines, anyone who has ever heard of this has buzzed in and collected their 15 points. This has also come up so many times and should probably be retired as a clue for a while, if not forever- it's really not even that important; if you want to use linguistics clues I think it would be much better to just make this tossup about _Basque_s, since there are plenty of cool clues about the Basque language you could use that would reward actual engagement with interesting academic material, rather than giving power to people who are aware of this pidgin's existence and/or can use Wikipedia (which I can see contains two of the phrases that you used in this question!).
Fair enough. I changed this (although I'll note that the Slaying of the Spaniards is also a thing). Olafsson is the only clue in that tossup I sourced from Wikipedia (since, on looking again, I can't see it backed up anywhere, I deleted that. I'll be more careful in sourcing stuff like this in the future).
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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

Post by naan/steak-holding toll »

Sit Room Guy wrote:
DuPhos wrote: This tossup really sucks a lot- the only thing these two groups have in common is that pidgin, and it's mentioned in the second line! Even better, if you haven't buzzed here yet, there's an obvious Icelandic name in the next clue! Within three lines, anyone who has ever heard of this has buzzed in and collected their 15 points. This has also come up so many times and should probably be retired as a clue for a while, if not forever- it's really not even that important; if you want to use linguistics clues I think it would be much better to just make this tossup about _Basque_s, since there are plenty of cool clues about the Basque language you could use that would reward actual engagement with interesting academic material, rather than giving power to people who are aware of this pidgin's existence and/or can use Wikipedia (which I can see contains two of the phrases that you used in this question!).
Fair enough. I changed this (although I'll note that the Slaying of the Spaniards is also a thing). Olafsson is the only clue in that tossup I sourced from Wikipedia (since, on looking again, I can't see it backed up anywhere, I deleted that. I'll be more careful in sourcing stuff like this in the future).
Not to pick on Jakob too much, since I think this tournament's history was overall pretty good and interesting, but I think this attitude is a bit of a problem - something being "a thing" doesn't mean it's important or worth repeating many times as a question topic, as Evan Adams demonstrated with his hypothetical Ruby Laffoon example some time ago. "The Slaying of the Spaniards" - well, what if we actually look this up? Even Wikipedia seems to imply that it's not that important - no real discussion of major socio-political consequences. It seems to be a chestnut that would be pretty cool to ask about in a question once or twice - however, this has been done, and putting it into questions again and again because it's "A Thing" is just not great. I'm willing to grant that Jakob hadn't seen those questions before, since he hasn't been around quite as long - so this isn't a big deal - but I think this can safely be buried as a topic for a question for a few years.
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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

Post by Off To See The Lizard »

Can i see the bojack bonus being talked about in the other thread?
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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

Post by A Dim-Witted Saboteur »

Off To See The Lizard wrote:Can i see the bojack bonus being talked about in the other thread?
Minarik et al. + Nguyen et al. wrote:Critic Seth Simons’s review of this show’s fourth season was structured as a poem, beginning “I do not like the sad horse show.” For 10 points each:
[10] Name this animated Netflix show set in Hollywoo and centering on a depressive equine former sitcom star.
ANSWER: BoJack Horseman
[10] The voice of BoJack’s publisher Pinky Penguin is provided by Patton Oswalt. Oswalt’s only credited voice role in a film was as Remy, the protagonist of this Pixar film.
ANSWER: Ratatouille
[10] BoJack’s entirely post-production-added performance in Secretariat earns him a Best Actor nomination, but not a win. Give the first and last name of any one of the four actors who are also nominated against BoJack for the award. One of them eventually won for his performance in The Nazi who played Yahtzee.
ANSWER: Mitt Dermon; Bread Poot; Lernernerner DiCarpricorn; or Jurj Clooners [real names not acceptable] <Ed. JM>
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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

Post by nsb2 »

Can I see the Angolan Civil War tossup? I was surprised that Cuito Canavale (where I buzzed) was still in power, as I'm not sure how many clues one could use after that.
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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

Post by naan/steak-holding toll »

nsb2 wrote:Can I see the Angolan Civil War tossup? I was surprised that Cuito Canavale (where I buzzed) was still in power, as I'm not sure how many clues one could use after that.
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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

Post by A Dim-Witted Saboteur »

Packet 5: Florida A wrote: John Stockwell wrote In Search of Enemies regarding the CIA’s actions in this conflict. The first battle of this war was lost partially due to French-speaking soldiers being unable to read the Korean script that was on their weapons; that was this the Battle of Quifangondo. This war’s Battle of Cuito Cuanavale was the largest on African soil since WWII. This war included the Halloween Massacre, which targeted supporters of Jonas Savimbi’s (*) UNITA. Operation Carlota marked the beginning of Cuban intervention in this war, which supported Jose Eduardo Dos Santos’ MPLA. For 10 points, name this proxy theatre of the Cold War, where 26 years of infighting between independence organizations occurred in a former Portuguese colony with capital at Luanda.
ANSWER: Angolan Civil War [prompt on Angolan War, prompt on Cold War, do not accept or prompt on “Angolan War of Independence”] <Ed. JM>
There are plenty more things that are more famous than the battle of Cuito Cuanavale to clue, as you can see.
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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

Post by nsb2 »

That makes a lot of sense -- I completely forgot about all the other things one could ask about. Thanks!
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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

Post by vengefulsweatermensch »

CPiGuy wrote:"Witness for the Prosecution"
Oh boy! Did this tossup get cut, or folded into the Agatha Christie TU? (As a Billy Wilder fanboy, I'd love to see the original version, if anyone wants to post it/PM it to me).
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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

Post by 1992 in spaceflight »

vengefulsweatermensch wrote:
CPiGuy wrote:"Witness for the Prosecution"
Oh boy! Did this tossup get cut, or folded into the Agatha Christie TU? (As a Billy Wilder fanboy, I'd love to see the original version, if anyone wants to post it/PM it to me).
I believe Derek folded it into the Agatha Christie tossup.
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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

Post by Nabonidus »

1992 in spaceflight wrote:
vengefulsweatermensch wrote:
CPiGuy wrote:"Witness for the Prosecution"
Oh boy! Did this tossup get cut, or folded into the Agatha Christie TU? (As a Billy Wilder fanboy, I'd love to see the original version, if anyone wants to post it/PM it to me).
I believe Derek folded it into the Agatha Christie tossup.
Original tossup:

One character in this story recalls how an old woman with eight cats barely escaped being hit by a bus after dropping some packages in the middle of the road. A character in this story gives twenty pounds to Mrs. Mogson in exchange for a parcel of love letters. This story’s author adapted it into a play which concludes with the villain being stabbed to death, and that play was turned into a Billy Wilder film starring (*) Marlene Dietrich. In this story, Mr. Mayherne is hired by Leonard to defend him against charges of murdering Emily French with a crowbar. The title character of this story, Romaine Heilger, gives outrageously false evidence against her husband in order to get the jury on his side. For 10 points, name this mystery short story by Agatha Christie.
ANSWER: “Witness for the Prosecution”
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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

Post by RexSueciae »

Whoever wrote the bonus part on the Na Nachs: you are perfect and I love you.
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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

Post by A Dim-Witted Saboteur »

RexSueciae wrote:Whoever wrote the bonus part on the Na Nachs: you are perfect and I love you.
That was me! Glad you enjoyed it.
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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

Post by RexSueciae »

:grin:

I don't remember many other specific questions (I suppose I could check my notebook sometime) but I remember that this question set, despite occasionally erratic difficulty, had quite a few answerlines and clues that were Cool Things to hear in a tournament. (On a related note, could I see the tossup on Lord Byron? Using W. H. Auden's "Letter to Lord Byron" as an early clue was a choice of which I approve.)

The only quibble that I can think of off the top of my head is not accepting "Agent Garbo" for the bonus part on Juan Pujol García, but this is, again, a minor thing which didn't impact my enjoyment of this set. 's good. I'll say more things if I remember them.
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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

Post by dnlwng »

The tossup on “KD’s alternate twitter accounts” was the best thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life.
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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

Post by Ciorwrong »

dnlwng wrote:The tossup on “KD’s alternate twitter accounts” was the best thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life.
Thanks. I'm glad you enjoyed it. If I were to rewrite the tossup, I would have just written on Kevin _Durant_ (accept snake) to allow for more clues. I read through both of the Reddit threads and some Deadspin articles and couldn't find as much material as I thought existed.
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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

Post by Mike Bentley »

Progcon wrote:
dnlwng wrote:The tossup on “KD’s alternate twitter accounts” was the best thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life.
Thanks. I'm glad you enjoyed it. If I were to rewrite the tossup, I would have just written on Kevin _Durant_ (accept snake) to allow for more clues. I read through both of the Reddit threads and some Deadspin articles and couldn't find as much material as I thought existed.
On the contrary, I thought that this tossup didn't play very well. The pronouns in it were very confusing. My basketball knowledge is also pretty non-existent but I had heard about this and was also to see right through the question early on (but didn't end up buzzing because I couldn't remember who the dude with the fake Twitter accounts were). In general if you really need to have a tortured pronoun to make the question work, it's a good idea to step back and consider whether a simpler version of the answer line will be able to use most of your same clues but result in a better playing experience.

Overall though I enjoyed the tournament. It seemed to play better than the initial (public) discussion which I imagine is due to the editors going back and improving the set. This is great and I encourage more editors to do this type of thing.
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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

Post by Ciorwrong »

Mike Bentley wrote:
Progcon wrote:
dnlwng wrote:The tossup on “KD’s alternate twitter accounts” was the best thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life.
Thanks. I'm glad you enjoyed it. If I were to rewrite the tossup, I would have just written on Kevin _Durant_ (accept snake) to allow for more clues. I read through both of the Reddit threads and some Deadspin articles and couldn't find as much material as I thought existed.
On the contrary, I thought that this tossup didn't play very well. The pronouns in it were very confusing. My basketball knowledge is also pretty non-existent but I had heard about this and was also to see right through the question early on (but didn't end up buzzing because I couldn't remember who the dude with the fake Twitter accounts were). In general if you really need to have a tortured pronoun to make the question work, it's a good idea to step back and consider whether a simpler version of the answer line will be able to use most of your same clues but result in a better playing experience.

Overall though I enjoyed the tournament. It seemed to play better than the initial (public) discussion which I imagine is due to the editors going back and improving the set. This is great and I encourage more editors to do this type of thing.
Again, I would have decided to write on just Durant if I was going to rewrite the tossup. On the other hand, I've written dozens of sports questions on just "this player", so having alternative answerlines is selfishly more interesting for me. I also wrote the tossup right around the time the story blew up so I was kind of subject to being a "prisoner of the moment" in some sense. I do think the answerline was at least more interesting than the various "this action" sports tossups which have been en-vogue for a while and are usually painfully transparent such as "an onside kick", "stealing home", etc.
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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

Post by Protean »

Progcon wrote:
Mike Bentley wrote:
Progcon wrote:
dnlwng wrote:The tossup on “KD’s alternate twitter accounts” was the best thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life.
Thanks. I'm glad you enjoyed it. If I were to rewrite the tossup, I would have just written on Kevin _Durant_ (accept snake) to allow for more clues. I read through both of the Reddit threads and some Deadspin articles and couldn't find as much material as I thought existed.
On the contrary, I thought that this tossup didn't play very well. The pronouns in it were very confusing. My basketball knowledge is also pretty non-existent but I had heard about this and was also to see right through the question early on (but didn't end up buzzing because I couldn't remember who the dude with the fake Twitter accounts were). In general if you really need to have a tortured pronoun to make the question work, it's a good idea to step back and consider whether a simpler version of the answer line will be able to use most of your same clues but result in a better playing experience.

Overall though I enjoyed the tournament. It seemed to play better than the initial (public) discussion which I imagine is due to the editors going back and improving the set. This is great and I encourage more editors to do this type of thing.
Again, I would have decided to write on just Durant if I was going to rewrite the tossup. On the other hand, I've written dozens of sports of questions on just "this player", so having alternative answerlines is selfishly more interesting for me. I also wrote the tossup right around the time the story blew up so I was kind of subject to being a "prisoner of the moment" in some sense. I do think the answerline was a lot better than the various "this action" sports tossups which have been en-vogue for a while and are usually painfully transparent such as "an onside kick", "stealing home", etc.
I still enjoyed the tossup quite a bit and definitely understand why it was written (speaking as someone who wrote a terrible vanity tossup on "NBA players being flat-earthers" around the last all-star break) but I agree that the pronouns made it very confusing at game speed. I think, as you said, having the answerline as just Kevin Durant with most of the clues being about his fake accounts would have been ideal.
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Re: WAO II Specific Question Discussion

Post by Nabonidus »

RexSueciae wrote:I don't remember many other specific questions (I suppose I could check my notebook sometime) but I remember that this question set, despite occasionally erratic difficulty, had quite a few answerlines and clues that were Cool Things to hear in a tournament. (On a related note, could I see the tossup on Lord Byron? Using W. H. Auden's "Letter to Lord Byron" as an early clue was a choice of which I approve.)
WH Auden imagines this author leading Nazi stormtroopers in his poem “Letter to [this author].” In JM Coetzee’s novel Disgrace, David Lurie works on an opera about this author’s romance with Countess Teresa Guiccioli. One of this author’s protagonists also has an affair with a Countess named Teresa, resulting in him being strapped to a wild horse and set loose. This author of Mazeppa wrote about the place where he would soon die in “January 22, (*) Missolonghi.” This author wrote a poem which states “though the heart still be as loving / And the moon still be as bright . . . we’ll no more go a roving”. Another poem by this author describes a woman who does the title action “like the night / Of cloudless climes and starry skies.” For 10 points, name this English poet who wrote “She Walks in Beauty.”
ANSWER: Lord Byron [or George Gordon]
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