2019 Penn Bowl - Specific Question Discussion Thread

[mtebbe]

This thread is for discussing specific questions from Penn Bowl 2019. Any commentary regarding answer choice, difficulty, clarity, etc. is welcome.

[CPiGuy]

Packet 4 (?) had *two* mentions of "rainbow serpents" in mythology, the second of which was a common link tossup, which discouraged several people (including me) from buzzing with their correct knowledge.

I will have more comments later when I've finished my algebra homework and can take the time to read through my notebook. I wanted to not forget about this, though, since it was one of the only specific-question issues that dramatically affected playability.

[Marcion of Sinope]

two small comments on a set I generally enjoyed:

In packet 1, question 8 (Marian apparitions), the August 5 feast day referenced in the second clue celebrates the dedication of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, not a Marian apparition. Although a (legendary) Marian apparition was indeed associated with that basilica and feast day for some time, to say the feast day celebrates the apparition isn't really accurate.

I'm not convinced I like the first clue of the belief question on wheels (packet 6, question 3), since the entirety of chapter 11 of the Tao Te Ching deals with different objects whose use depends on what is not there. But perhaps the reason that clue is in the first line is because it specifically asks for how the chapter begins.

[Muriel Axon]

Two small notes:

It sounded like the bonus on Henry James referred to Peter Quint as Peter Quilp.

Could I see the bonus part on "fugues"? I was concerned that it didn't disambiguate them very well from canons (except for the Hovhaness part, which I didn't know).

A bonus small note (EDIT):

Isn't the derivative of the Heaviside step function the Dirac delta, not the other way around?

[Lagotto Romagnolo]

Could I see the bonus part on "fugues"? I was concerned that it didn't disambiguate them very well from canons (except for the Hovhaness part, which I didn't know).

5. Alan Hovhannes wrote a “double” example of this form as the middle movement of his “Mysterious Mountain” Symphony. For 10 points each:
[10] Name this contrapuntal form in which each voice states a subject in turn. J.S. Bach paired a spooky toccata in D minor with a piece in this form.
ANSWER: fugue
[10] This Canadian pianist turned the rules of writing fugue into lyrics in his vocal piece So You Want to Write a Fugue? His career took off with a 1955 recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations.
ANSWER: Glenn Gould [or Glenn Herbert Gould]
[10] Gould warned that diminution combined with this technique, usually employed towards the end of a fugue, was an “obvious solution.” This Italian term refers to starting the answer in one voice before the previous voice has finished the subject, so they overlap.
ANSWER: stretto

Isn't the derivative of the Heaviside step function the Dirac delta, not the other way around?

Yes, apologies for that; I don't know how that slipped by. It has been fixed.

[The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island]

I believe the fact that aspirin is Acetylsalicylic acid is noted in both an earlier bonus and used as a clue in the acetate tossup in finals 1

[Theodore]

I felt the bonus that went Young's modulus/Poisson's ratio/engineering strain had 2 easy parts and a middle part; most STEM majors learn the first two answers together in freshman year.

At first I felt that the Dirac delta should not be referred to as "this function", but I feel I'm being too purist and recognize that it would be very hard to use some other phrase in place of it; I'd like to hear what others think about this.

[Muriel Axon]

Name this contrapuntal form in which each voice states a subject in turn. J.S. Bach paired a spooky toccata in D minor with a piece in this form.

Whoops! Shows how well we listened. This is, of course, fine.

I felt the bonus that went Young's modulus/Poisson's ratio/engineering strain had 2 easy parts and a middle part; most STEM majors learn the first two answers together in freshman year.

Consider that many STEM majors study things other than physics or engineering! More to the point, I think the advanced stats show that your claim isn't really true.

[Bosa of York]

The packet 12 question on Greece claims that noted person from Alexandria, Egypt, Constantine Cavafy, was from there.

Also, the tossup on acetate in Finals 1 says that it has a "conjugate pKa of -4.76." I'm not sure I've ever heard the term "conjugate pKa" used to refer to the pKa of the conjugate acid, but assuming that that's what that's supposed to mean that should be positive 4.76.

[naan/steak-holding toll]

The one question our team thought had a pretty badly misplaced clue was the tossup on gold, which says the word chrysiasis in the second clue; "chrys-" is the Greek root for "gold" (cf. "chryselephatine"). My teammates also thought the cyanide related leadin was quite well-known.

This is less important, but the leadin to the tossup on Sanskrit has come up in almost every question on Sanskrit plays and/or The Recognition of Shakuntala that I can recall from the past several years (to the point that it became a bit of a Columbia team joke). Obviously not every lead-in can be completely fresh, and this one in particular is a scene you'll definitely remember if you've read the play so it's far from an obscure chestnut, but I think a new leadin might be welcome in this particular instance.

There were many excellent questions in this tournament. The question on Ovid in painting was probably my favorite regular-difficulty art tossup ever, as an excellent way to draw connections between a bunch of important Italian Renaissance paintings that would be challenging to ask on their own and test knowledge of the mythological sources that inspired these artists.

[halle]

The question on Ovid in painting was probably my favorite regular-difficulty art tossup ever, as an excellent way to draw connections between a bunch of important Italian Renaissance paintings that would be challenging to ask on their own and test knowledge of the mythological sources that inspired these artists.

I actually quite strongly disagree with this, and distinctly disliked this question. I found it nearly impossible to buzz on in-game; upon rereading it, I find that, unless one knows that the Titian paintings mentioned are from a series of poesies inspired by Ovid, it is virtually impossible to buzz between the second sentence and the very last word of the tossup without making, at best, an educated guess. It is the very nature of myths that, in nearly every case, they do not derive from a single author's work. It is thus perfectly possible to recognize that the paintings being clued are depictions of the myths of Jupiter and Io, Diana and Acteon, and Bacchus and Ariadne without having the slightest idea what author's version of these myths the artist was referencing. In fact, some cursory reading up on Bacchus and Ariadne indicates that the painting was inspired by both Ovid and Catullus's versions of the myth! Perhaps it can be argued that the fact that the painters in question were referencing Ovid is essential to anyone's understanding of these paintings. For one thing, I don't buy that argument: when I want to learn about the significance of a mythological scene in a painting, I learn about the story itself, and the characters in it, and what current events or individuals the artist might be allegorically depicting. I generally do not bother learning which source of the myth the artist used, since that rarely has much to do with the painting. However, even if you disagree that it isn't worth learning which author's version of a myth inspired a given painting, it is still a problem that whether one can buzz on any of the out-of-power clues in the tossup hinges on a single piece of information: whether or not one knows that Titian's mythological paintings were specifically from a series of paintings inspired by Ovid. If one does not know this, no amount of detail about Diana and Acteon or Bacchus and Ariadne will help the player buzz, since they will simply sit there and wonder whose account of these myths the question is looking for. The same goes for two lines worth of power clues, as well, with the additional difficulty of knowing what author Correggio was referencing when his painting is not even part of a series of works from Ovid. Perhaps I have written more than is necessary about a single question, but this tossup proved polarizing at the site I attended, and I wanted to fully lay out my reasoning for why I disliked it despite the positive factors that Will and others have noted.

[a bird]

I felt the bonus that went Young's modulus/Poisson's ratio/engineering strain had 2 easy parts and a middle part; most STEM majors learn the first two answers together in freshman year.

At first I felt that the Dirac delta should not be referred to as "this function", but I feel I'm being too purist and recognize that it would be very hard to use some other phrase in place of it; I'd like to hear what others think about this.

I definitely agree with Shan here! In fact physics majors mostly don't learn about Poisson's ratio unless they take an engineering track course by mistake. I'm not really sure what you mean by STEM majors, but these seem like things that only engineering students learn in class.

While the delta function is not really a function, this is how practicing physicists, as well as most textbook lectures, etc. talk about the delta function."

[aseem.keyal]

The question on Ovid in painting was probably my favorite regular-difficulty art tossup ever, as an excellent way to draw connections between a bunch of important Italian Renaissance paintings that would be challenging to ask on their own and test knowledge of the mythological sources that inspired these artists.

I actually quite strongly disagree with this, and distinctly disliked this question. I found it nearly impossible to buzz on in-game; upon rereading it, I find that, unless one knows that the Titian paintings mentioned are from a series of poesies inspired by Ovid, it is virtually impossible to buzz between the second sentence and the very last word of the tossup without making, at best, an educated guess. It is the very nature of myths that, in nearly every case, they do not derive from a single author's work. It is thus perfectly possible to recognize that the paintings being clued are depictions of the myths of Jupiter and Io, Diana and Acteon, and Bacchus and Ariadne without having the slightest idea what author's version of these myths the artist was referencing. In fact, some cursory reading up on Bacchus and Ariadne indicates that the painting was inspired by both Ovid and Catullus's versions of the myth! Perhaps it can be argued that the fact that the painters in question were referencing Ovid is essential to anyone's understanding of these paintings. For one thing, I don't buy that argument: when I want to learn about the significance of a mythological scene in a painting, I learn about the story itself, and the characters in it, and what current events or individuals the artist might be allegorically depicting. I generally do not bother learning which source of the myth the artist used, since that rarely has much to do with the painting. However, even if you disagree that it isn't worth learning which author's version of a myth inspired a given painting, it is still a problem that whether one can buzz on any of the out-of-power clues in the tossup hinges on a single piece of information: whether or not one knows that Titian's mythological paintings were specifically from a series of paintings inspired by Ovid. If one does not know this, no amount of detail about Diana and Acteon or Bacchus and Ariadne will help the player buzz, since they will simply sit there and wonder whose account of these myths the question is looking for. The same goes for two lines worth of power clues, as well, with the additional difficulty of knowing what author Correggio was referencing when his painting is not even part of a series of works from Ovid. Perhaps I have written more than is necessary about a single question, but this tossup proved polarizing at the site I attended, and I wanted to fully lay out my reasoning for why I disliked it despite the positive factors that Will and others have noted.

Tossup for reference:

It’s not Federico Gonzaga, but a camarino in the Palazzo Te is named for this author, who also inspired an illusionistic Giulio Romano fresco there. Seven large canvases based on this author’s work were commissioned by Philip II. A sensuously reclining woman is enveloped by a cloud through which a face can be seen in a series by Correggio illustrating this author. A man reaches out in front of a large pink robe while a woman is protected by a dark skinned servant and a snarling lapdog in a (*) poesie illustrating this author’s work. A painting depicting this author’s work shows a man wrestling snakes as a god jumps from a chariot drawn by two cheetahs. That painting based on this author’s work is Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne. For 10 points, Italian Renaissance artists often painted mythological scenes based on what Roman author’s Metamorphoses?
ANSWER: Ovid [or Publius Ovidius Naso]

Hmm, I disagree with this criticism (besides the point about Catullus and Bacchus and Ariadne, which is reasonable and will be fixed). The way I see it, none of these paintings would exist without Ovid or the Metamorphoses. Educated viewers during the Renaissance would have been intimately familiar with the Metamorphoses and would immediately recognize the reference on viewing any of these paintings. You talk about not being able to buzz because you didn't know a 'single piece of information'; yes, that piece of information is what the tossup is testing! Titian's paintings were called poesies because of their literary character due to Ovid's influence, and I'm confused about the point about Correggio. His Loves of Jupiter series was directly inspired by the Metamorphoses, and was commissioned by Federico Gonzaga, possibly for the room mentioned in the lead in (the historical record isn't entirely clear). Basically, myths have sources, and those sources have variations essential to these paintings (or are myths exclusively described in Ovid's work).

Anyways, these points are secondary to the statistical fact that the tossup had 4 powers for the 36 rooms of the 10/19 sites (11 percent power rate). Could the tossup have been too hard? The stats do seem to show that, yes. Is it fundamentally flawed? I don't think so.

EDIT: I want to add that I am sympathetic to the experience of players who were frustrated that this question focuses too much on material outside of what is directly depicted in these paintings. I hope this tossup made a good case for why this information can be important and interesting.

[Theodore]

I felt the bonus that went Young's modulus/Poisson's ratio/engineering strain had 2 easy parts and a middle part; most STEM majors learn the first two answers together in freshman year.

At first I felt that the Dirac delta should not be referred to as "this function", but I feel I'm being too purist and recognize that it would be very hard to use some other phrase in place of it; I'd like to hear what others think about this.

I definitely agree with Shan here! In fact physics majors mostly don't learn about Poisson's ratio unless they take an engineering track course by mistake. I'm not really sure what you mean by STEM majors, but these seem like things that only engineering students learn in class.

I meant general first year physics that most STEM majors have to take, but I could be wrong as the evidence shows.

[naan/steak-holding toll]

I meant general first year physics that most STEM majors have to take, but I could be wrong as the evidence shows.

I definitely didn't learn the Poisson ratio and I took the advanced level track in general physics at my school, but more broadly, why is it bad to award 20 points for strong knowledge of general physics? This attitude is how questions get too hard - I for one welcome having more questions that don't require too much knowledge of advanced topics and felt that the physics bonuses generally did a decent job of this.

[BenWeiner27]

8. Upon opening the one door in the castle her husband had told her not to open, the protagonist of this story drops the key to the room and stains it with blood. For 10 points each:

[10] Name this story in which two daughters argue over who will marry a man they are afraid of because he possesses the title feature.

ANSWER: “Bluebeard”

[10] This author adapted “Bluebeard,” along with other fairy tales like “The Erl-King,” in her collection The Bloody Chamber.

ANSWER: Angela Carter

[10] “Bluebeard” and “The Bloody Chamber” are this type of story, which is exemplified by the stories collected by the Brothers Grimm.

ANSWER: fairy tale

It's a small critique, but one potential error is that fairy tale is the third part of this bonus despite being mentioned in the second point. I am fairly certain that this will lead to very few if any people getting the third part that wouldn't otherwise, but I still think it is worth fixing, since "fairy tales" in the second part could be changed to something as easy as "stories".
(Round 3 Bonus 8)

[Muriel Axon]

I'm a bit confused by the instruction "do not accept UAVs or unmanned aerial vehicles because hobbyist drones are not necessarily autonomous" in the question on quadcopters or drones. I've always taken the term "unmanned" to refer to the fact that no person is sitting on top of them, not the idea that they're not being piloted by somebody. Indeed, researchers who use drones often call them UAVs even when they're controlling them.

[Subotai the Valiant, Final Dog of War]

Small thing: I loved the Mughal emperors tossup in arts, but I think a "description acceptable" might be good. I was confused in game as to whether a specific "title" was needed.

[kitakule]

I had one question from my read-through of this set, from the tossup on "ribose" in Packet 5:

and its 5-phosphate is formed from 6-phosphogluconate in the final oxidative step of the (*) pentose phosphate pathway.

Doesn't this clue refer to ribulose, not ribose?

[naan/steak-holding toll]

After reading packet 11 in practice today, I wanted to comment that I thought the tossup on Korea (from mostly Buddhist clues) was both incredibly hard (not sure how widely known Jogye or a lot of these temples are outside of Korea) and very ling-fraudable in the early clues if you know some vocabulary, i.e. that hwa is a Korean word for flower (this is less of an issue, but it isn't really rewarding religion knowledge as it just rewards knowing Korean words). I think this tossup really needs some clues from the Unification Church or clues related to the recent growth of Christianity to smooth out the later half of the tossup.

[Limonana]

In packet 1, question 8 (Marian apparitions), the August 5 feast day referenced in the second clue celebrates the dedication of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, not a Marian apparition. Although a (legendary) Marian apparition was indeed associated with that basilica and feast day for some time, to say the feast day celebrates the apparition isn't really accurate.

I'm not convinced I like the first clue of the belief question on wheels (packet 6, question 3), since the entirety of chapter 11 of the Tao Te Ching deals with different objects whose use depends on what is not there. But perhaps the reason that clue is in the first line is because it specifically asks for how the chapter begins.

.

These issues have been fixed. For what it's worth, the question text says "Chapter 11 begins with...", given that the wheel is the first example cited in that chapter.

After reading packet 11 in practice today, I wanted to comment that I thought the tossup on Korea (from mostly Buddhist clues) was both incredibly hard (not sure how widely known Jogye or a lot of these temples are outside of Korea) and very ling-fraudable in the early clues if you know some vocabulary, i.e. that hwa is a Korean word for flower (this is less of an issue, but it isn't really rewarding religion knowledge as it just rewards knowing Korean words). I think this tossup really needs some clues from the Unification Church or clues related to the recent growth of Christianity to smooth out the later half of the tossup.

I've toned this question down; I was hoping that people might have some familiarity with the Jogye order, but I understand why this is certainly too difficult.

[Father of the Ragdoll]

From bonus 7 of packet 15

[10] While the Quran stresses that the crescent moon is not Allah, the term Allah may have referred to an older pre-Islamic moon deity. Muslims have also tried to disassociate Allah from this god, whose idol at the Ka’aba was used for divination.

This seems to be pretty problematic, as the current scholarship pretty much outright dismisses the idea that Allah was a moon god. Furthermore, the only people who seem to espouse this claim are Christian anti-Islamic propagandists like Jack Chick and Robert Morey. I would highly advise that this be reworded to reflect current scholarship and not repeat anti-Islam propaganda.

[Limonana]

This seems to be pretty problematic, as the current scholarship pretty much outright dismisses the idea that Allah was a moon god. Furthermore, the only people who seem to espouse this claim are Christian anti-Islamic propagandists like Jack Chick and Robert Morey. I would highly advise that this be reworded to reflect current scholarship and not repeat anti-Islam propaganda.

I've amended that bonus part to read "While the Quran stresses that the crescent moon is not Allah, the term Allah may have referred to an older pre-Islamic moon deity according to critics like Robert Morey. Muslims have also tried to disassociate Allah from this god, whose idol at the Ka’aba was used for divination with the aid of arrows."

When writing this bonus, I assumed people knew about the shaky foundations of "Allah=moon god" association; I wouldn't purposefully spread misinformation about Islam by giving credence to that idea.

EDIT: changed the word "scholars" to "critics" in the question text.

[Bhagwan Shammbhagwan]

Could I see the Jimmy Carter tossup? If I remember correctly, it clued Love Canal second line (in-power iirc) and "adultery in my heart" directly aftewards. Both of these are clues that come up in high school regs.

I was also wondering about the "decisive moment" clue in the walking tossup. I buzzed knowing that the clue was talking about Cartier-Bresson's photo of Giacometti, but I had absolutely no idea what the question was asking for. I'm not sure if the picture has a specific title, but I felt like it was a suboptimal clue nevertheless.

For the gold tossup, I think the first clue about the MacArthur-Forrest Process could also apply to silver.

[heterodyne]

I was also wondering about the "decisive moment" clue in the walking tossup. I buzzed knowing that the clue was talking about Cartier-Bresson's photo of Giacometti, but I had absolutely no idea what the question was asking for. I'm not sure if the picture has a specific title, but I felt like it was a suboptimal clue nevertheless.

I think to most looking at the picture, the most recognizable feature is that Giacometti is himself walking in parallel with two of his "Walking Man" sculptures. I'm not quite sure what other action would come to mind there.

[Bhagwan Shammbhagwan]

I was also wondering about the "decisive moment" clue in the walking tossup. I buzzed knowing that the clue was talking about Cartier-Bresson's photo of Giacometti, but I had absolutely no idea what the question was asking for. I'm not sure if the picture has a specific title, but I felt like it was a suboptimal clue nevertheless.

I think to most looking at the picture, the most recognizable feature is that Giacometti is himself walking in parallel with two of his "Walking Man" sculptures. I'm not quite sure what other action would come to mind there.

Yeah, the answer I gave to be fair was kind of ridiculous - seems like this was a more "me" thing

[Santa Claus]

Scattered notes and errata I took while reading the set at Harvard - as time went on I got tired and took fewer things down but that doesn't mean there was less to comment on in the latter half.

Rd1
B2: reword "American longest continuously running literary magazine" -> "longest continuously running American literary magazine"
two bonuses on North African ethnic groups
B11: "between between"
B20: maybe tune the difficulty of this bonus on authors named Braithwaite

Rd2
B1: accept expectimax
B2: first part reword
B10: wrong tense for third part second sentence

Rd3
TU3: this tossup on contemporary Zoroastrian practice is remarkably difficult
TU6: the choice of the pronoun "paradigm" really narrows down the answer space a lot
TU10: jesus christ Simmel
B8: leans very hard
B9: "between the operator between the operator"
TU15: was it really necessary to tossup Beychella and not just Beyonce
Russell is clue in round 1 and answerline in round 3
a lot of contemp African lit
a lot of short stories by authors known for novels - seems like theming that was taken too far

Rd4
B1: accept/prompt on finding/fixing bugs
B8: why is Brahmo's full name needed/why isn't Brahmo prompted on when Brahmoism is taken
B9: Dahomey came up twice
T15 : the quote from Skunk Hour is "I myself am [in] hell"
T17: repeat of rainbow from Dahomey
T18: why does this not accept just "Maupassant"

Rd5
B9: Rubaiyat and Omar Khayyam are not particularly different in difficulty
B10: why are you asking for the current name of the National Front

Rd 6:
B5: reword first part, italicize Ruined in second part, remove comma/accept saloon in third part
B8: accent on Gongora in third part
B11: ambiguous use of this
B12: spelled "obverse" wrong
B15: no easy part
B19: who uses rollback?
T20: line after power not worded right

Rd 9:
B3: repeat of lecithin

Rd 10:
1/1 Shinto
TU11: repeat of Peter

Rd 11:
another bonus part on Dreamtime/Aborigine myth
TU9: repeat of Hall effect in insulator
B7: maybe have more than one clue for Inspector General
B14: "members of this ethnic groups"

[Evan Lynch]

I enjoyed this tournament a lot and might get chance to feedback on a few more questions later, but I did want to point out that the leadin to the Picasso tossup made it abundantly clear that the answer was a) a notably sexist artist who b) painted a lot of warped faces - this seemed to turn the rest of the tossup into a large game of chicken.

Contra a few opinions expressed above, I don't really think there's anything wrong with TU answerlines like Simmel or Beychella here.

Looking at the discussion above I suspect a "description acceptable" warning was added to the Mughal emperor q in mid-week - the consensus at the UK site was that this addendum actually made things more confusing than if there hadn't been one, but I'm not sure there's a good way to solve this regardless.

This is a bit of a nitpick but we played 12 rounds and there were no tossups on any British literature published after 1944 - the tossups themselves were good, it would have just been nice to have a bit more temporal variance.

I thought the TU on cation exchange chromatography was a bit unnecessary/hard to convert, especially since it mentioned "elution" halfway through and turned into "how specific do you think they want this". The rest of the chemistry seemed to be on point (though I'll second the chrys- mention in the gold TU being suboptimal).

[Justice William Brennan]

Scattered notes and errata I took while reading the set at Harvard - as time went on I got tired and took fewer things down but that doesn't mean there was less to comment on in the latter half.

Rd1
B2: reword "American longest continuously running literary magazine" -> "longest continuously running American literary magazine"
two bonuses on North African ethnic groups
B11: "between between"
B20: maybe tune the difficulty of this bonus on authors named Braithwaite

Rd2
B1: accept expectimax
B2: first part reword
B10: wrong tense for third part second sentence

Rd3
TU3: this tossup on contemporary Zoroastrian practice is remarkably difficult
TU6: the choice of the pronoun "paradigm" really narrows down the answer space a lot
TU10: jesus christ Simmel
B8: leans very hard
B9: "between the operator between the operator"
TU15: was it really necessary to tossup Beychella and not just Beyonce
Russell is clue in round 1 and answerline in round 3
a lot of contemp African lit
a lot of short stories by authors known for novels - seems like theming that was taken too far

Rd4
B1: accept/prompt on finding/fixing bugs
B8: why is Brahmo's full name needed/why isn't Brahmo prompted on when Brahmoism is taken
B9: Dahomey came up twice
T15 : the quote from Skunk Hour is "I myself am [in] hell"
T17: repeat of rainbow from Dahomey
T18: why does this not accept just "Maupassant"

Rd5
B9: Rubaiyat and Omar Khayyam are not particularly different in difficulty
B10: why are you asking for the current name of the National Front

Rd 6:
B5: reword first part, italicize Ruined in second part, remove comma/accept saloon in third part
B8: accent on Gongora in third part
B11: ambiguous use of this
B12: spelled "obverse" wrong
B15: no easy part
B19: who uses rollback?
T20: line after power not worded right

Rd 9:
B3: repeat of lecithin

Rd 10:
1/1 Shinto
TU11: repeat of Peter

Rd 11:
another bonus part on Dreamtime/Aborigine myth
TU9: repeat of Hall effect in insulator
B7: maybe have more than one clue for Inspector General
B14: "members of this ethnic groups"

Thanks for this. Many of these were corrected between your 10/19 mirror and the recent 10/26 mirrors, but I'll take a look to see if any of these were not addressed.

[Justice William Brennan]

Could I see the Jimmy Carter tossup? If I remember correctly, it clued Love Canal second line (in-power iirc) and "adultery in my heart" directly aftewards. Both of these are clues that come up in high school regs.

I was also wondering about the "decisive moment" clue in the walking tossup. I buzzed knowing that the clue was talking about Cartier-Bresson's photo of Giacometti, but I had absolutely no idea what the question was asking for. I'm not sure if the picture has a specific title, but I felt like it was a suboptimal clue nevertheless.

For the gold tossup, I think the first clue about the MacArthur-Forrest Process could also apply to silver.

3. This nuclear submariner’s experience at the Chalk River NRX nuclear accident led him to cancel the neutron bomb project, though it was revived by his successor. This man demolished New York’s Love Canal neighborhood because it was built on a toxic landfill and signed the Superfund bill into law. This candidate controversially admitted to (*) committing “adultery in [his] heart” many times in an October Playboy interview. During an energy crisis, this president told the nation that they faced a “crisis of confidence” in his “malaise” speech. This president who arranged the Camp David Accords did not secure the release of the Iranian hostages until his last day in office. For 10 points, name this Georgia peanut farmer who lost his presidential re-election bid to Ronald Reagan.
ANSWER: Jimmy Carter [or James Earl Carter Jr.]
<Nitin Rao, American History>

This nuclear submariner’s experience at the Chalk River NRX nuclear accident led him to cancel the neutron bomb project, though it was revived by his successor. This man demolished New York’s Love Canal neighborhood because it was built on a toxic landfill and signed the Superfund bill into law. This candidate who faced the Three Mile Island disaster as President controversially admitted to committing (*) “adultery in [his] heart” many times in an October Playboy interview. During an energy crisis, this president told the nation that they faced a “crisis of confidence” in his “malaise” speech. This president who arranged the Camp David Accords did not secure the release of the Iranian hostages until his last day in office. For 10 points, name this Georgia peanut farmer who lost his presidential re-election bid to Ronald Reagan.
ANSWER: Jimmy Carter
<Nitin Rao, American History> Edited

Looking at the stats from the first round of mirrors (which is what I used to tweak this tossup), I count 8 powers on or immediately after the Superfund clue and 0 specifically after the words "Love Canal" but before "Superfund." Even if these buzzes on Superfund were in fact delayed reactions to Love Canal, 8 powers out of 31 gets is an acceptable rate for me, if perhaps slightly on the high side compared to the difficulty of some other categories in the tournament. I agree that it cliffs pretty hard into "adultery in my heart" (and even harder into Three Mile Island in the original version, which is where the absurdly high power rate in the initial version came from).

[jinah]

B10: why are you asking for the current name of the National Front

I will admit this is not the most inspired or interesting bonus part I have ever written. Generally speaking I feel like it's defensible to have the current name of one of the best-known European populist parties as an answer in a bonus about European populism, and that the rebrand is interesting, but you are fair to point out it's not that interesting.

[Justice William Brennan]

B8: why is Brahmo's full name needed/why isn't Brahmo prompted on when Brahmoism is taken

Brahmo refers to an adherent of the Brahmo Samaj movement. My thinking was that we wouldn't except "Christian" if the answer line demanded "Christianity" or "Muslim" if the answer line demanded "Islam," so likewise the entirety of Brahmo Samaj/Brahmoism is underlined.

[naan/steak-holding toll]

B8: why is Brahmo's full name needed/why isn't Brahmo prompted on when Brahmoism is taken

Brahmo refers to an adherent of the Brahmo Samaj movement. My thinking was that we wouldn't except "Christian" if the answer line demanded "Christianity" or "Muslim" if the answer line demanded "Islam," so likewise the entirety of Brahmo Samaj/Brahmoism is underlined.

For what it's worth, NAQT typically accepts "_Christian_ religion" which strikes me as the correct decision

[Wei la la. After this it gets deep.]

Some nitpicks:

Titledropping "I Cultivate a White Rose" in power for Marti seems quite generous.

I recognized that the "mourning the dead" bonus part was talking about Death and the King's Horseman, but I had no clue what the question was trying to get me to say. Mourning is very general and not intuitively a "process". Of course Ways of Dying knowledge would have been sufficient here, but having never heard of it this part was very confusing.

I hadn't read Ishiguro's Nobel Prize acceptance speech, but I did read this article, which also describes Ishiguro's inspiration from a Tom Waits song; this made the first clue of that tossup quite confusing to me.

Atwood's "My Last Duchess" seems like it has been a leadin in several My Last Duchess tossups at this point, which seems pretty disproportionate to its relative unimportance as a story.

Overall there seemed to be a significant amount of difficulty variation in the literature, but there was a lot of interesting content, and I enjoyed playing it.

[Santa Claus]

Flipped through some later packets.

sleep - the expression of c-Fos in the sleep-wakefulness flip-flop is not something intrinsic to what it does, it just means that there are action potentials, so that clue isn’t particularly helpful. Since most people aren’t memorizing specific point mutations, it would probably be worth saying qualifying the fatal familial insomnia clue with “it’s not a spongiform encephopathy” to catch the other, non-CJD conditions that can also be caused by mutations in PRNP.

options - perhaps my knowledge is not representative but I think the question is mentioning how to value options too soon. There’s maybe three financial assets that could feasible be talked about and, as the clueing of this question indicates, the Black-Scholes model for pricing is probably the best known clue for options outside for their literal definition. There’s really not a meaningful way to assign value to, say, a stock, that requires any sort of modeling or technique so it really narrows things down.

The Bath - felt this was hard; couldn’t it just be on Cassatt? The Art Institute of Chicago clue isn’t particularly helpful, as there are easily 10 other paintings from there that could be tossed up at this difficulty and probably get better end conversion (Paris Street? The Old Guitarist?? Sunday Afternoon???).

acetate - uranyl acetate is too easy. Also, people don’t memorize the pKa of, like, anything outside of general functional groups (maybe amino acid side chains, but really that’s the same).

Roger Bacon - I don’t think anyone I talked to converted this.

action - first line of this tossup is far too early to be naming Feynman’s path integral formalism; it might be too early to even be describing it.

Sherlock Holmes - this question played very hard - I don’t think people engage with things about Holmes outside of the books very much, and I think the first clue that it is even possible to buzz on using only knowledge of the original stories is “beekeeping”.

Barcelona - played incredibly hard. Why not just Spain?

metalworking - the term filigree might be easier than the description of the Sutton Hoo purse-lid or cloisonné.

Knights of Labor - probably a bad idea to name Mother Jones, a co-founder of the IWW, first line in this tossup. At best you signal what type of organization is likely to be the answer, at worst you neg people who know things about your clues.

suns - suns aren’t really objects. Should have instructions on what to do with corpses, bodies, etc. considering how all the suns of the Aztec mythology are created.

[Father of the Ragdoll]

Yeah Roger Bacon was exceptionally difficult. I converted it at the end (in practice) because of the title but I’d be pretty surprised if anyone got it before then. I don’t see why it this couldn’t be a common link on Bacon or some scholastic concept. I think that would have been a much better way to introduce Roger Bacon to the lower than nats canon rather than bludgeoning people with this.

[naan/steak-holding toll]

I'm not sure why one needs to change a tossup on Barcelona to Spain - there's plenty of usable history clues on Barcelona. I didn't find that question too far above the rest of the tournament's history.

[Santa Claus]

I'm not sure why one needs to change a tossup on Barcelona to Spain - there's plenty of usable history clues on Barcelona. I didn't find that question too far above the rest of the tournament's history.

Perhaps you, one of the top history players in the nation, should take your own stance on the difficulty of this question with a grain of salt. I suppose we’ll see if I was simply overestimating the question’s difficulty when the advanced stats come out, but at least the impression I got from reading it to the Harvard and MIT teams was that it was easily a tick in difficulty above the rest of the history of the set.

[naan/steak-holding toll]

Perhaps people should learn more things! I can totally believe the later clues were a bit harder than most teams but there's no reason a tossup on a very famous city with a lot of history like Barcelona (in particular, its central role in the Spanish Civil War) needs to be changed to a tossup on Spain. Use some clues about the recent independence movement for late clues and its totally fine, particularly in the context of a tournament with similarly in-depth tossups on Kabul, etc.

[benmillerbenmiller]

Perhaps people should learn more things! I can totally believe the later clues were a bit harder than most teams but there's no reason a tossup on a very famous city with a lot of history like Barcelona needs to be changed to a tossup on Spain. Use some clues about the recent independence movement and its totally fine.

I agree that this question does not need to be (nor should be) a tossup on Spain, but it is rather difficult and the clue-ordering is somewhat suspect. To me, Tragic Week, CNT, and May Days all seem a lot easier than what follows. The pre-FTP sentence stands out in particular since it doesn't really drop a "late clue" until Franco, which is not ideal. Since the timescale is already so broad, why not mention the 1992 Olympics or incorporate more Spanish context/terms to make it more buzzable after the power mark?

[Santa Claus]

Went through and did some clue look-up for the Barcelona tossup. Obviously this is not an absolute statement of any individual clue’s difficulty, especially since it is very reasonable to say that the Barcelona angle of many of these clues hasn’t been put to good use, but I think it’s pretty clear that this tossup is very hard and is likely overestimating the average player’s knowledge of Barcelona. It would certainly work better as a tossup on Spain.

Nevertheless, feel free to draw your own conclusions on what to do about this tossup.

Two legends attribute the founding of this city either to Hercules upon saving the ninth ship of Jason’s fleet or to Hamilcar. King James I ordered Nachmanides to burn his ‘blasphemous’ pamphlet after a 1263 disputation in this city. Labor unionists protesting a military reservist call-up in this European city clashed with police and soldiers in 1909 during the Tragic Week. The anarchist union confederation CNT was founded in this city, which it lost to allied government troops in the May Days during a (*) civil war. After its country boycotted the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Berlin, this city planned to host a People’s Olympiad using the infrastructure of its 1929 International Exposition. The leader of the regional Generalitat was shot in this city’s Montjuïcmon-joo-eek Castle on the orders of Francisco Franco. For 10 points, name this capital of Catalonia in Spain.
ANSWER: Barcelona

Barcelona founded by Hercules (0)
Barcelona founded by Hamilcar (0)
on Wikipedia I guess (Barca -> Barcino -> Barcelona?)

James I of Aragon/the Conqueror (3)

Nachmanides (4)
Spanish rabbi
2017 Penn Bowl: bonus answerline, mentions Disputation of Barcelona
2017 FRENCH: in power for _book burnings_, mentions Disputation of Barcelona
2013 ACF Nationals: tossup, mentions 1263 disputation but no city
2012 BARGE: clue just out of power for _Spanish Jews_, no mention of Barcelona

Tragic Week (3)
2017 Chicago Open: bonus on Francisco _Ferrer_, mentions 1909 in Barcelona
2015 Chicago Open: in power for _Barcelona_
2011 Chicago Open History Doubles (4): lead-in for _Barcelona_
can also refer to the May Days

CNT (5)
2018 Chicago Open (1): bonus answer, no mention of Barcelona
2015 STIMPY (2): in power for _Spanish Civil War_, no mention of Barcelona
2015 Chicago Open (3): in power for _Barcelona_
2014 ACF Nationals: clue for Don _M_iguel _Primo de Rivera_, no mention of Barcelona
2011 Sack of Antwerp: clue for _anarchism_, mention of Spain but no mention of Barcelona
2007 Guns of August: history tournament: clue for _Franco_, no mention of Barcelona

May Days/May Events (4+3)
2018 Chicago Open: clue for _CNT_ (1)
2016 ACF Nats: bonus on _Barcelona_
2015 STIMPY: in power, no mention of Barcelona (2)
2015 Chicago Open: in power (3)
2014 PADAWAN: in power for _Spain_, no mention of Barcelona
2011 Chicago Open History Doubles: in power (4)

~~~End of Power~~~

Spanish boycott of 1936 Berlin Olympics (0)
not to be confused with the proposed boycott over Nazi discrimination

People's Olympiad (2)
2015 STIMPY: no mention of Barcelona (2)
2011 Chicago Open History Doubles: (4)

1929 International Exposition (11)
2019 ILLIAC: clue for _Barcelona_
2015 MUT: bonus lead-in for Ludwig _Mies_ van der Rohe, mentions Barcelona Pavilion
2013 VCU Closed: clue for _Mies_ van der Rohe, mentions Barcelona Pavilion
2011 ACF Nationals: bonus on _Barcelona_
2010 Delta Burke: clue for _Barcelona_
2010 ANGST: clue for _Mies_ van der Rohe, mentions Barcelona Pavilion
2010 ACF Fall: clue for _Mies_ van der Rohe, mentions Barcelona chairs
2009 Minnesota Open: clue for _Barcelona_ Pavilion
2009 FIST: clue for _chair_, mentions Barcelona chairs
2008 Matt Cvijanovich Memorial Novice Tournament
2007 ACF Fall: bonus on _Barcelona_

Generalitat of Catalonia/Palace of the Generalitat (4)
2017 WAO II: bonus on Carles _Puigdemont_
2017 ACF Nationals: clue for _Catalonia_
2013 TIT: clue for _Barcelona_
2009 Missouri Open: bonus on War of the _Remences_

(shooting of) Lluis Companys (0)
literally never come up

Montjuic (2)
2018 FST: in power for _Sagrada Familia_
2010 Delta Burke: lead-in for _Barcelona_

[Justice William Brennan]

Went through and did some clue look-up for the Barcelona tossup. Obviously this is not an absolute statement of any individual clue’s difficulty, especially since it is very reasonable to say that the Barcelona angle of many of these clues hasn’t been put to good use, but I think it’s pretty clear that this tossup is very hard and is likely overestimating the average player’s knowledge of Barcelona. It would certainly work better as a tossup on Spain.

Nevertheless, feel free to draw your own conclusions on what to do about this tossup.

Two legends attribute the founding of this city either to Hercules upon saving the ninth ship of Jason’s fleet or to Hamilcar. King James I ordered Nachmanides to burn his ‘blasphemous’ pamphlet after a 1263 disputation in this city. Labor unionists protesting a military reservist call-up in this European city clashed with police and soldiers in 1909 during the Tragic Week. The anarchist union confederation CNT was founded in this city, which it lost to allied government troops in the May Days during a (*) civil war. After its country boycotted the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Berlin, this city planned to host a People’s Olympiad using the infrastructure of its 1929 International Exposition. The leader of the regional Generalitat was shot in this city’s Montjuïcmon-joo-eek Castle on the orders of Francisco Franco. For 10 points, name this capital of Catalonia in Spain.
ANSWER: Barcelona

Generalitat of Catalonia/Palace of the Generalitat (4)
2017 WAO II: bonus on Carles _Puigdemont_
2017 ACF Nationals: clue for _Catalonia_
2013 TIT: clue for _Barcelona_
2009 Missouri Open: bonus on War of the _Remences_

(shooting of) Lluis Companys (0)
literally never come up

Montjuic (2)
2018 FST: in power for _Sagrada Familia_
2010 Delta Burke: lead-in for _Barcelona_

For what it's worth, I (falsely) assumed the Generalitat was more well-known than its representation in databases because of the recent furor over Catalonia. I also assumed Montjuïc was more well-known as a geography clue than it actually is. I think the People's Olympiad clue is misplaced because I linked it to the much more famous International Exposition, I should have split the two and separated them. I also probably should have used more chronologically-recent clues to help smooth out the pre-giveaway, but I wanted to keep the focus on Barcelona's role as a leftist stronghold in the Second Republic.

[Justice William Brennan]

I'm not sure why one needs to change a tossup on Barcelona to Spain - there's plenty of usable history clues on Barcelona. I didn't find that question too far above the rest of the tournament's history.

...I suppose we’ll see if I was simply overestimating the question’s difficulty when the advanced stats come out...

The advanced stats have already come out for both spates of mirrors (you can find them in another thread in this discussion forum). Sadly, we don't have any info on the Barcelona tossup because it was placed in packet 15, which no site played.

[naan/steak-holding toll]

I think maybe the question could lose one of the early to early-middle clues and have some easier pre-giveaway clues about recent history, but I wouldn't call that super qegregious in terms of difficulty. Like yes, this question is tough, but so were a lot of questions in the tournament - I don't think this is a huge outlier. Could the whole tournament be easier? Sure, though this isn't where I would start.

In particular, I think it's bizarre to suggest that the question ought to be on Spain. Why can't clues that have appeared in tossups on the Spanish Civil War show up in a tossup on Barcelona? Are we assuming nobody ever bothers to go learn the substance of clues when they read them in packets? This seems like begging for points for superficial packet knowledge - it's not like this question is robbing you of context (if anything quite the opposite). Knowing that Catalonia was a Republican base of power is very important as is the associated social history, and I don't see a large fundamental difficulty difference between "The May Days happened in Barcelona" and "The May Days happened during the Spanish Civil War" other than that due to old packets. Sometimes if you read an old packet and remember a clue, but don't actually go learn the actual substance of the clue and just have an association, you deserve a neg.

[Santa Claus]

Why can't clues that have appeared in tossups on the Spanish Civil War show up in a tossup on Barcelona? Are we assuming nobody ever bothers to go learn the substance of clues when they read them in packets?

...

Knowing that Catalonia was a Republican base of power is very important as is the associated social history, and I don't see a large fundamental difficulty difference between "The May Days happened in Barcelona" and "The May Days happened during the Spanish Civil War" other than that due to old packets. Sometimes if you read an old packet and remember a clue, but don't actually go learn the actual substance of the clue and just have an association, you deserve a neg.

I mean that's fair. I agree that the clues discussing Barcelona's role in the Spanish Civil War are very reasonable, and the failure to mention Barcelona explicitly in previous uses of those clues is probably just to avoid messing up the pyramidality of the question. When looking at those clues, Barcelona is a fine answerline because it is very realistic to expect people who know the clue to know the city it points to.

However, there are another five or so clues preceding the first mention of anything related to the Civil War, that have almost never come up and/or are not nearly as strongly associated with Barcelona. In a hypothetical question that preserved most of those clues, switching the answer to Spain would mean that someone knew that Nachmanides was a Spanish Jew (but not necessarily that they were from Barcelona/had a disputation there) or that the CNT was a Spanish anarchist group (but not that it was founded in Barcelona) could still buzz on those clues, which are otherwise remarkably difficult, as evidenced by the fact that knowing about the CNT or the Tragic Week were good for power in multiple Nats+ sets.

[aseem.keyal]

I enjoyed this tournament a lot and might get chance to feedback on a few more questions later, but I did want to point out that the leadin to the Picasso tossup made it abundantly clear that the answer was a) a notably sexist artist who b) painted a lot of warped faces - this seemed to turn the rest of the tossup into a large game of chicken.

Yeah this makes sense. While this tossup had a pretty average power rate, I think the second clue about Jacques Lacan is harder than the description of Picasso's 1937 Portrait of Dora Maar, so I'll swap the description with that clue.

[Zealots of Stockholm]

Some round-by-round feedback on the 10 packets I played:

1: This Achebe tossup seems really hard, and seems reasonably likely to get frauded at "Obi," though perhaps I'm wrong and people actually read his short stories. Jim was a good deep cut. Both teams agreed that the giveaway to the Tupac Amaru tossup tries too hard to be cute, and should just omit anything about Tupac Shakur. I have mixed feelings about the Ovid tossup, which I think is a cool idea but seems to have pretty limited answer space at this level. Since we were playing against Georgia Tech in this round I went in early with Dante since I figured it was either him, Ovid, or Shakespeare maybe. I like asking "The Case for Reparations" in lit, but the hard part in this bonus seems to have nothing to do with the rest of the bonus. The Morocco bonus felt hard to me. All of the teams at our site seemed to love the trash bonus on fictional dances. The Major Barbara bonus has a very boring structure of character/author/character, though I have no clue how important Stephen is to the plot of the play, and if he's quite important then I rescind my criticism. The Braithwaite bonus seems pretty hard, but I didn't check the conversion stats.

2: Both the painting TU (Mughal emperors) and bonus (Abstract Expressionism stuff) in this packet were good, well written ideas, as was much of the art in this set, which I enjoyed playing even if I didn't do well on it. The Allende tossup seemed difficult and mostly on short fic, even though its categorized as long fiction. The Chinese poetry bonus seemed pretty easy, as Paz's book about Wang Wei comes up pretty often; conversely, the Zola bonus seemed pretty difficult.

3: Tossing up Pepys' diary was a really cool idea imo. While I said I liked most of the painting, I didn't understand why the 16th century tossup wasn't just a tossup on Mannerism, and while I realize negging with 17th century is stupid and makes my knowledge seem "fake" or whatever, I knew the paintings were Mannerist. I also really liked the Indian Constitution TU, though it definitely felt like a World History TU. Beychella was a good idea, much like most of the trash. I agree with earlier comments that the Booker T. tu felt extremely easy even though I sat on it like a dufus. The Hawthorne bonus is also labelled "novel," even though its basically all short fic.

4: "a priori" seemed to come early in the Kant tu. The Stalin bonus was good historiography, and both teams found the linguistics bonus in this round interesting. The New zealand/rugby/Muldoon bonus mentions rugby in the leadin, which deterred us from saying rugby. The DC/Banneker/Jefferson bonus has 2 easy parts.

5: I, and many other qbers, hate the word polity. Was there no way to write the Qin tossup with a different pronoun? The Judith Beheading Holofernes tu was a cool idea. I also questioned if On Liberty is undoubtedly Mill's most famous work, as Utilitarianism would be the first that comes to my mind.

6: The Nobel Prize in Lit acceptance speeches was perhaps my favorite tu of the day, and I thought it was well executed. The tu on the social war seems like a very hard answerline."cult of Isis" in power seemed to be on the easier side, but I don't really know myth. The easy part of the Nottage/Sweat/bars bonus could've been made easier by just saying "Harry Hope." The tossup on mental asylums could have "Ten Days in a Mad House" added to the answerline.

7: As I mentioned in the general thread, I thought the tu on The Children's Hour, as it spends the first two lines on quotes. I won't claim to be an expert on the play, but I do have a good amount of cards on it and found the tossup pretty hard. Back to back decade tus in this packet made for bad feng shui. The bonus on cars in lit was a very neat idea, and I also loved seeing Kureishi come up at this tournament!

8: I also thought this Morrison tu was pretty hard, though maybe her essays and short fic are more widely read than I think. Bellows should be accepted for Bellow.

9 The 1948 tossup has a very short powermark. I'm not saying buzzing on "you can't shoot an idea with a gun" should be a power, but it comes so early in the question that I was surprised to learn the powermark had already ended. The Omeros tu calls it both a Novel and a poem. We didn't get to hear it, but the bonus on Apple card/Vestager/Ireland tu is a good idea.

10: The bonus part on cossacks in art feels very guessable.

[i never see pigeons in wheeling]

I, and many other qbers, hate the word polity. Was there no way to write the Qin tossup with a different pronoun?

It's a legitimate word, and while there's a reason to hate its prior overuse in qb, there's no particular reason to hate the word (same thing with "titular," actually). Nevertheless, I would've used another word, but "polity" was the best umbrella descriptor for the time period covered by the archaeology--its status as a regional power and later as a bona fide nation-state/dynasty that unified China defies easy categorization. As long as no one was confused by the word choice, I'm satisfied.

[Subotai the Valiant, Final Dog of War]

The bonus part on cossacks in art feels very guessable.

For what it's worth, I did fraud this correctly in game with absolutely no knowledge.

[aseem.keyal]

While I said I liked most of the painting, I didn't understand why the 16th century tossup wasn't just a tossup on Mannerism, and while I realize negging with 17th century is stupid and makes my knowledge seem "fake" or whatever, I knew the paintings were Mannerist.

Thanks for the kind words about the painting! My reasoning here was that Mannerism isn't so much a movement as it is a style. In my opinion, a tossup on "this movement" would've been inaccurate and "this style" would either be transparent or have to withhold Italian sounding stuff for a couple clues, and might end up just confusing people anyways. Also, I think it's okay sometimes to "keep players honest" and ask for centuries or decades, but I definitely understand why people could be frustrated if they know these paintings but don't know what century they were painted in.