Illinois Open 2021 - Specific Questions

[Auroni]

Discuss specific questions here. If you have factual or technical errors to point out, do that in the Errata thread. In case you don't want to navigate outside this thread to download the set, here it is again. Once again, do not share these packets with anyone who does not have access to this subforum.

[Iain.Carpenter]

Because it will likely come up, I’d like to apologize for how confusing the swung rhythm tossup was. I thought it was both super intrinsic to music from the past 100 years and heavily underasked in quizbowl - which I still think is the case - but, the resultant tossup ended up being very confusing and too far into “read my mind” territory to be effective. I’ll be changing the tossup for later mirrors, and may bonusify the tossup, I’m not sure yet. So yeah, sorry if this was the game-changing tossup for any of y’all.

[Sean]

While biographically-inspired literature questions are not a novel idea, I thought that the tossup on Oe’s son and the bonus on Heaney’s brother were especially well done. The latter stands out more to me because the bonus did a surprisingly good job at incorporating a core theme from Death of a Naturalist in a novel way, which I thought was impressive for a not-so-obscure poet like Heaney. Also, both questions were well-rooted in specific texts, which seems ideal to me for these types of questions. With respect to the rest of the literature, I liked choices for some of the harder answer lines, including The Little Clay Cart, Ingeborg Bachman, Milkman, and I would prefer not to tossups from round 10. The last one specfically seems much better suited to be tossed up at this level as opposed to whenever it was tossed up at HSNCT.

I don’t know enough to gauge how knowable/good the clues are, but I appreciated the myth questions on white stags, Laozi, ghouls, and the Pacific Northwest. The first two because they were good ideas to tossup, and the latter two because the regional representation is more interesting to engage with for open-level questions than more obscure aspects of often-asked about myth systems, in my opinion.

Silhouettes, Paolo and Francesca, stairs, and a 1950s fashions question I flubbed were among the visual arts tossups I most enjoyed. In the same vein as the ghouls and Pacific Northwest myth tossups, the Hawaiian music music tossup was great and probably the only auditory other fine arts question from the set that I can truly appreciate with my lack of music knowledge.

There were several other good questions worth mentioning, but they either got insanely impressive buzzes or I’ve just forgotten them. Overall, I enjoyed the mix of “playful” vs. “serious” themed questions and core vs. obscure questions in this set.

[AGoodMan]

Can I see the Koreans (Christianity) bonus? First, I thought the Vineyard movement part was worded confusingly (something about the Vineyard movement influencing the vast majority of Korean American Christians? This really threw me off as that has, experientially, not really been the case for me or many of the other Korean American Christians that I have known for a while.), and to not at least clue John Wimber is frankly pretty brutal.

I also (admittedly, it was sub-optimal) said "charismatic" for the Pentecostalism third part, but I'm wondering if I could see the exact wording of the bonus to see if it should have been prompted.

I do want to stress that I heard this bonus towards the end of a tournament that was fun but quite tough, and I was extremely sleep deprived, so I definitely could have misheard or misparsed the bonus. I was quite sad to 10 a bonus that I strongly feel like I could have (and should have) 30'd, but independent of my own performance on the question, on the whole, I very much appreciated the bonus.

Furthermore, could I see the following tossups: Alfred the Great, Saladin, and James Oglethorpe?

[Iain.Carpenter]

Can I see the Koreans (Christianity) bonus? First, I thought the Vineyard movement part was worded confusingly (something about the Vineyard movement influencing the vast majority of Korean American Christians? This really threw me off as that has, experientially, not really been the case for me or many of the other Korean American Christians that I have known for a while.), and to not at least clue John Wimber is frankly pretty brutal.

I also (admittedly, it was sub-optimal) said "charismatic" for the Pentecostalism third part, but I'm wondering if I could see the exact wording of the bonus to see if it should have been prompted.

I do want to stress that I heard this bonus towards the end of a tournament that was fun but quite tough, and I was extremely sleep deprived, so I definitely could have misheard or misparsed the bonus. I was quite sad to 10 a bonus that I strongly feel like I could have (and should have) 30'd, but independent of my own performance on the question, on the whole, I very much appreciated the bonus.

A 1996 article in Christianity Today coined the term “silent exodus” to describe the departure of second-generation immigrants from churches run by this ethnic group. For 10 points each:
[m] Name this ethnic group that runs the All Nations Church in Los Angeles. Roughly 15% of the membership of the Presbyterian Church in America consists of congregations of this ethnic group, which are heavily concentrated on the West Coast and in the Northeast.
ANSWER: Korean-Americans
[h] The worship style at Korean-American churches is heavily influenced by this neo-charismatic renewal movement. It was founded in West Los Angeles by Kenn Gulliksen in 1974 and named for a type of place that God is said to guard in Isaiah 27:2-3 [chapter 27 verses 2 to 3].
ANSWER: Vineyard Movement [or Association of Vineyard Churches]
[e] The Vineyard Movement was founded as a middle ground between evangelism and this movement. This movement celebrates spiritual gifts such as speaking in tongues, such as those bestowed by the Holy Spirit 50 days after Easter.
ANSWER: Pentecostalism
<AG, Religion>

Furthermore, could I see the following tossups: Alfred the Great, Saladin, and James Oglethorpe?

One account claims that this man found an infant he named Nestingum in an eagle’s nest wearing gold armbands and wrapped in a purple cloak.Though likely not their original source, this man is attributed numerous sayings in The Owl and the Nightingale and his namesake 12th-century Proverbs. A letter of recommendation written to this king for the eponymous monk provides the name of the Grimbald Gospels. This king’s wife established Nunnaminster in a city protected by the largest of a series of (*) fortifications across his lands; that city was Winchester. This king is traditionally credited with the translation of The Old English Boethius. He built upon the law codes of Aethelberht of Kent and Offa of Mercia in the Doom Book. For 10 points, name his King of Wessex best known for fending off Guthrum’s Great Heathen Army.
ANSWER: Alfred the Great
<AF, Commonwealth History, 1>

Tales from a collection of accounts of this man compiled by Margaret Jubb claim that he was a bastard of a noble house from Ponthieu. An author known only as the “Minstrel of Reims'' claimed that this man had an affair with the mother of his most famous rival. One source claims that this man gave away all the wealth he acquired from murdering his overlord to his soldiers, forcing him to borrow money to support himself; that story comes from a history of Outremer [oo-truh-MARE] by William of (*) Tyre. The bull Audita tremendi claims that “the army of Sennacherib was overcome by an angelic force” to justify levying armies against this man. Despite pressure from a kingdom to the south, William the Lion did not collect a tax related to this man. For 10 points, name this man, whom Europeans considered noble even though a namesake 1188 tithe was levied in England to fund Richard the Lionheart’s conflict with him.
ANSWER: Saladin [accept Al-Nasir Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub; accept Salah ad-Din]
<AF, European History, 1>

A hearsay account in the journal of William Stephens is the only evidence to support posthumous claims of this man’s questionable labor practices on land bought from Jean-Pierre Pury. Noble Jones, an officer under this man, was the first initiate into Solomon’s Lodge, which claims to be the first Masonic lodge in America. Fort Picolata was taken by this man prior to a failed attempt to besiege a rival city. This man’s most famous undertaking was inspired by his findings as part of a committee formed after the death of (*) Richard Castell. This man’s vision of an economy based on individual work ethic led him to found a settlement that banned slavery. This founder of the Gaols [JAILS] Committee later commanded forces that fended off a Spanish invasion by ambushing them in the Battle of Bloody Marsh. For 10 points, identify this founder of the colony of Georgia.
ANSWER: James Edward Oglethorpe
<AF, American History, 3>

[AGoodMan]

Can I see the Koreans (Christianity) bonus? First, I thought the Vineyard movement part was worded confusingly (something about the Vineyard movement influencing the vast majority of Korean American Christians? This really threw me off as that has, experientially, not really been the case for me or many of the other Korean American Christians that I have known for a while.), and to not at least clue John Wimber is frankly pretty brutal.

I also (admittedly, it was sub-optimal) said "charismatic" for the Pentecostalism third part, but I'm wondering if I could see the exact wording of the bonus to see if it should have been prompted.

I do want to stress that I heard this bonus towards the end of a tournament that was fun but quite tough, and I was extremely sleep deprived, so I definitely could have misheard or misparsed the bonus. I was quite sad to 10 a bonus that I strongly feel like I could have (and should have) 30'd, but independent of my own performance on the question, on the whole, I very much appreciated the bonus.

A 1996 article in Christianity Today coined the term “silent exodus” to describe the departure of second-generation immigrants from churches run by this ethnic group. For 10 points each:
[m] Name this ethnic group that runs the All Nations Church in Los Angeles. Roughly 15% of the membership of the Presbyterian Church in America consists of congregations of this ethnic group, which are heavily concentrated on the West Coast and in the Northeast.
ANSWER: Korean-Americans
[h] The worship style at Korean-American churches is heavily influenced by this neo-charismatic renewal movement. It was founded in West Los Angeles by Kenn Gulliksen in 1974 and named for a type of place that God is said to guard in Isaiah 27:2-3 [chapter 27 verses 2 to 3].
ANSWER: Vineyard Movement [or Association of Vineyard Churches]
[e] The Vineyard Movement was founded as a middle ground between evangelism and this movement. This movement celebrates spiritual gifts such as speaking in tongues, such as those bestowed by the Holy Spirit 50 days after Easter.
ANSWER: Pentecostalism
<AG, Religion>

So it seems like I missed the mention of "neo-charismatic" in the Vineyard Movement part, but I also think it's relatively easy to miss as it's mentioned before 2 other clues. It would be better if "charismatic" was mentioned once more in the easy part, or still prompted / accepted, as in colloquial "church-speak" the two terms seem to be conflated a lot. Another option is to rephrase the last sentence as "This movement, which celebrates spiritual gifts such as speaking in tongues, is named after the day on which the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles" or something like that.

I still think the Vineyard --> Korean American worship style clue sounds a little weird, as there are plenty of churches that do not follow that tradition (and aren't even charismatic / Pentecostal). Maybe rephrasing it in a way that caveats appropriately would be better ("Some Korean American churches, such as Onnuri, adopted worship styles that were heavily influenced by...")

I also still contend that John Wimber should be name dropped in that bonus part as he's the most famous person in that movement (and including him, in my opinion, does not make the bonus much easier as it is still asking about a pretty niche subset within Protestantism). The Isaiah clue seems pretty obscure and did not help me much, despite having read the book a few times.

[Auroni]

Thank you for your comments on the Korean-American Christianity bonus, Jon. I thought that the name of the person regarded as the founder of the Vineyard movement (Kenn Gulliksen) in combination with the Biblical passage that gives the movement its name was sufficient information, but I see now that John Wimber is the figure most-associated with the movement, so I will work him in. I will also make the connection between Pentecostalism and the holiday of Pentecost more clear in the easy part.

[Aaron's Rod]

Sorry that this comes, uh, 4 months late.

The editors already saw me be very confused about this tossup in real-time, but as someone who usually sings both Vigil (Vespers + Matins) and Divine Liturgy weekly or more, the tossup on All-Night Vigil in packet 11 had a couple of clues that could be easily confused with Rachmaninoff's Divine Liturgy. (In the Russian antiphons,) Both Vigil and Divine Liturgy start with Psalms that begin "Bless the Lord, O My Soul."* Divine Liturgy begins with Psalm 102 (103) and Vigil begins with Psalm 103 (104). In addition, both Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky wrote settings of both Divine Liturgy and Vigil. Obviously I could've known the score clue, but those two clues put next to each other made for a suboptimal playing experience.

(EDIT: *Actually, Russian-style settings of the First Antiphon from Divine Liturgy include "Blessed art Thou, O Lord" after the first line[!] even though it's not in the original Psalm, so that's another clue overlap.)

[jinah]

The philosophy tossups in this set felt consistently hard to power. Additionally, it felt like a lot of the clues were merely suggestive, rather than being specifically notable or memorable. I think that’s particularly an issue for tossups, because the potential penalty for being wrong disincentivizes guessing with answers that are just “likely” rather than “definitely right.”

I went through and marked some specific issues I had, but it worked out to “some trivial-to-minor issue with pretty much every tossup,” which felt a little pedantic and excessive to post. If a writer or anyone else would like to see them, I’m happy to share.

Some specific issues I had that I think are more generally applicable / slightly less pedantic:

I dislike the clues in the simulation theory/hypothesis tossup that claim the brain in a vat argument attempts to “refute a thought experiment based on this hypothesis,” and that it “explores this hypothesis.” That argument is about refuting skepticism (and I’ve always heard it discussed in the context of Putnam’s arguments for semantic externalism), and the simulation part of it is incidental. This is, to me, the equivalent of saying that Descartes’ Meditations refute the “evil demon hypothesis” (and not taking any other answer, since skepticism wasn't promptable or acceptable in this TU); IMO, this kind of clue rewards surface-level awareness of Putnam rather than philosophical engagement. It feels like the Putnam clues were shoehorned into the tossup to facilitate an answerline that wouldn’t otherwise have late clues cluing philosophy, and that the question would have been better suited for Other Academic or Modern World.

Several of the less-evocative or more-generic-sounding clues, when I looked them up, touched on interesting things that I wish had been in the questions themselves. In the Paulo Freire tossup, the bell hooks clue (“In a dialogue titled for this thinker, bell hooks examines sexism in his thought, while still maintaining that it is liberatory.”) sounds very generic, and simply knowing “Paulo Freire was a big influence on bell hooks” is not a good reason to buzz at this difficulty. What I assume is the chapter of Teaching to Transgress being referenced is literally written as a script/dialogue between “bell hooks” and “Gloria Watkins,” which seems much more memorable and interesting than is indicated by the current clue.

The power clues felt hard across the board, which often resulted in what felt like cliffs. If you look at the tossup on Sense and Reference, the clues in power are extremely suggestive but are not in themselves very memorable. The pre-powermark clue on the Bucephalus example is only mentioned once in the whole paper, while the “a=a” vs “a=b” clue right after power is a) very famous and b) repeated/referenced extensively throughout the essay. Contrast that with e.g., the tossup on Sense and Reference at 2018 ICT: that tossup led in with the Napoleon example, which is prominently featured and recurs 6 or 7 times throughout the essay. (Also, the tossup should accept just Sense and Reference, without the “On.”)

Those complaints are fairly minor, but I think they’re representative of trends I noticed throughout the philosophy questions. The one tossup I really disliked was the reason tossup, which basically combines all of the above issues:

• The second clue, on Hobbes, seems hard enough that you could just name Hobbes or De Corpore. Additionally, the question's specific characterization of Hobbes’ definition of calculative reason in the second clue seem to show up almost exclusively in a) Wikipedia and b) things that cite Wikipedia. This is a subjective aesthetic preference, but I’m not thrilled about a tossup where people are most likely to power it if they’ve read the Wikipedia article on “Reason” recently or they can complete the title of a philosophical work by Ethan Allen, who is best known for other work. (Ethan Allen is also not mentioned anywhere in the SEP, and based on NDPR results no one’s been writing about him, so I think his repopularization among philosophers is yet to come).
• The leadin seems really hard; I’m not able to find anything about Taylor’s “background agent” account of reason via Google or Google Books. As mentioned, the power clues are also on the harder side. On the other hand, every post-power clue is quite famous, which seems like a recipe for a buzzer race.
• While I'm sure people can get to the right answer, I think the Descartes clue is wrong; Descartes’ Discourse on Method talks at length about how even stupid men have reason, which all animals lack, thus demonstrating that reason is the faculty that differentiates men from animals. This is the opposite of what the clue says.

Especially since this tossup would be played in round 9, which is when a lot of 10- or 11-round mirrors would likely be having consequential games, I think all of the above are unfortunate.

[Iain.Carpenter]

Sorry that this comes, uh, 4 months late.

The editors already saw me be very confused about this tossup in real-time, but as someone who usually sings both Vigil (Vespers + Matins) and Divine Liturgy weekly or more, the tossup on All-Night Vigil in packet 11 had a couple of clues that could be easily confused with Rachmaninoff's Divine Liturgy. (In the Russian antiphons,) Both Vigil and Divine Liturgy start with Psalms that begin "Bless the Lord, O My Soul."* Divine Liturgy begins with Psalm 102 (103) and Vigil begins with Psalm 103 (104). In addition, both Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky wrote settings of both Divine Liturgy and Vigil. Obviously I could've known the score clue, but those two clues put next to each other made for a suboptimal playing experience.

Thanks for pointing this out Alex, I was unaware of this piece and will always welcome more Rachmaninoff choral music into my life! I've fixed this to explicitly mention the Divine Liturgy before dropping "Bless the Lord, O My Soul."

[AGoodMan]

The philosophy tossups in this set felt consistently hard to power.

I felt this way about some of the history tossups, but I am careful to bring it up as I'm by no means a very competitive history player at this difficulty level (especially compared to the level of knowledge that JinAh has in philosophy). However, I feel like there were a few tossups on "stuff" that I thought I had a pretty decent grasp on, and were relatively surprised to be pretty lost in the first half of the questions.

8. Tales from a collection of accounts of this man compiled by Margaret Jubb claim that he was a bastard of a noble house from Ponthieu. An author known only as the “Minstrel of Reims'' claimed that this man had an affair with the mother of his most famous rival. One source claims that this man gave away all the wealth he acquired from murdering his overlord to his soldiers, forcing him to borrow money to support himself; that story comes from a history of Outremer [oo-truh-MARE] by William of (*) Tyre. The bull Audita tremendi claims that “the army of Sennacherib was overcome by an angelic force” to justify levying armies against this man. Despite pressure from a kingdom to the south, William the Lion did not collect a tax related to this man. For 10 points, name this man, whom Europeans considered noble even though a namesake 1188 tithe was levied in England to fund Richard the Lionheart’s conflict with him.
ANSWER: Saladin [accept Al-Nasir Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub; accept Salah ad-Din]
<AF, European History, 1>

To take the Saladin TU, I'm not really sure how many of the power clues are buzzable, or even that "locatable" until maybe "Outremer." Margaret Jubb, Ponthieu (in the context of Saladin or the Third Crusade in general), and the "Minstrel of Reims" all have never come up in aseemsdb. Now, I get that this set is at a high difficulty level and novel clues do and should appear, but I still felt a bit frustrated and surprised to have little idea of what was going on until relatively late in the question.

8. The presence of six scribal dots over each letter of a word for this action in Genesis 33:4 [“chapter 33 verse 4”] has been interpreted as proof that a character did it insincerely. During the recitation of the Shema, it is customary to perform this action each time the tzitzit is mentioned. Several midrashim of Deuteronomy 34:5 [“chapter 34 verse 5”] interpret the Hebrew phrase Al pi Adonai as meaning that Moses died when this action was performed upon him by God. In Genesis, Isaac smells the goatskins which Esau normally wears when (*) Jacob performs this action upon him. The Song of Songs begins with the speaker asking an unnamed “him” to perform this action. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the chief rabbi of the Western Wall asked worshippers not to perform this action upon it. For 10 points, after touching it with one’s prayer shawl, what intimate reverent action do Jewish congregations perform on the Torah scrolls?
ANSWER: kiss [accept word forms; accept embrace before “tzitzit” is read]
<JP, Religion, 1>

I would contend that the two scriptural clues until "Isaac" are basically impossible to buzz on or really get a sense of what's going on. In gameplay, I actually remember hearing Genesis 33 in the leadin and thinking it was possibly about Jacob meeting Esau, but I had no idea what the question was asking for: is it bowing (in verse 3)? Kissing? Weeping? Embracing (which I didn't know was also acceptable as an answer)? All three happen to be mentioned in Genesis 33:4. Of course, this would compromise the thematic purity, but I think including some New Testament clues ("greet each other with a holy kiss," Judas kissing Jesus, etc.) about kissing could greatly improve playability.

[Auroni]

I acknowledge that the Jacob/Esau kiss is difficult to isolate given the scriptural reference, but I would have to disagree about the Deuteronomy clue. Moses having received the kiss of God at the moment of his death is reasonably well known and seemed suitable for a late power clue.

[AGoodMan]

I acknowledge that the Jacob/Esau kiss is difficult to isolate given the scriptural reference, but I would have to disagree about the Deuteronomy clue. Moses having received the kiss of God at the moment of his death is reasonably well known and seemed suitable for a late power clue.

Google searching has shown me that this is indeed something that is discussed in Midrash, but I would not agree with the estimation that it amounts to a late power clue as I think there is a considerable gap in difficulty between it and the next clue talking about Isaac / Jacob. I am decently confident in saying that I have had a high degree of exposure to the Judeo-Christian scriptures and their commentaries (at least within the quiz bowl community), but I have never heard of the Judaic legend of God kissing Moses at the time of his death (and fwiw, I don't think aseemsdb returns any hits either). I think the larger issue here is the leadin, which I would recommend be replaced as it is basically not uniquely identifying.

I've given a decent amount of criticism about a select few questions, but I also want to praise the questions that I thought were thought provoking and well-executed (aside from the aforementioned Korean American Christianity bonus). Some examples that currently come to mind are the barbershops (an area of US history I had never thought about) and Ronald Reagan (there's a lot of angles to focus in on for Reagan, and this question chose an interesting one) TUs. I was also happy to hear the Toledo TU, as it's one of the very few art things I know relatively well.

[Iain.Carpenter]

I was also happy to hear the Toledo TU, as it's one of the very few art things I know relatively well.

Thanks! Once I saw Masson’s Iconic Views of Toledo and found Sorolla’s Blind Man of Toledo I knew I had to write it.

[DavidB256]

The math bonus on continuity/uniform continuity/Hölder continuity was, by far, my least favorite part of this set. Writing a bonus that has players list related concepts is bad form. Additionally, the clues for the latter two parts of the bonus are extremely difficult to parse verbally. Like lengthy score clues, complicated equations are almost never helpful to players. The usefulness of the mathematical clues for the part on Hölder continuity is dwarfed by the mention of the answer being named for a German mathematician; at that point, answering the bonus becomes a guessing game between Lipschitz and Hölder. There are more meaningful ways to engage with mathematical analysis than to enumerate its quantifier-heavy definitions.

The Gaussian integers tossup was a cool idea, but felt less cool to play in the context of it being the second number theory tossup of the set, after the one on Euler's totient function.

[Asterias Wrathbunny]

18. The Dalton Road was built to support this industry. Product from this industry was being transported during the most famous voyage of the SS Manhattan. The interests of this industry hastened the resolution of private land claims advocated for by Emil Notti through the 1971 passage of ANCSA. The recommendations made by an investigative commission led by Walter Parker were largely incorporated into a (*) 1990 bill increasing corporate responsibility in this industry. Creating adequate support on permafrost and handling earthquakes on the Denali Fault were challenges faced in establishing Prudhoe Bay as a center for this industry. For 10 points, name this industry, which received extensive backlash when the southern Alaskan coastline was devastated after the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill.
ANSWER: oil industry [accept petroleum industry; prompt on energy industry or fuel industry]

Is there an explanation as to why Dalton Highway was changed to "Dalton Road" in the first line? I can't find any sources ever calling it the latter.

[Shorts are comfy and easy to wear]

18. The Dalton Road was built to support this industry. Product from this industry was being transported during the most famous voyage of the SS Manhattan. The interests of this industry hastened the resolution of private land claims advocated for by Emil Notti through the 1971 passage of ANCSA. The recommendations made by an investigative commission led by Walter Parker were largely incorporated into a (*) 1990 bill increasing corporate responsibility in this industry. Creating adequate support on permafrost and handling earthquakes on the Denali Fault were challenges faced in establishing Prudhoe Bay as a center for this industry. For 10 points, name this industry, which received extensive backlash when the southern Alaskan coastline was devastated after the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill.
ANSWER: oil industry [accept petroleum industry; prompt on energy industry or fuel industry]

Is there an explanation as to why Dalton Highway was changed to "Dalton Road" in the first line? I can't find any sources ever calling it the latter.

I assume that I had seen it called as such somewhere, but since it's been nearly two years since I wrote the question, I can't say for sure.