2025 Division I ICT: question-specific discussion

[Important Bird Area]

Disclaimer:

If you are planning to play a mirror of the 2025 ICT set, please do not read further posts in this thread. (There has been an expression of interest for a British mirror in summer 2025.)

This is your question-specific discussion for the 2025 Division I ICT set.

[joshxu]

Following this thread, can I ask what the Bible tossups in DI were (or how many there were)? The only direct textual question I remember hearing was Absalom in finals (maybe also the Potiphar's wife tossup which (I think) was Qur'anic at the time it was buzzed on in my room), which is much lower than the ~4 that I remember from 2024 DI ICT.

Could I see the gloria tossup from round 10 and the bonus about Origen that immediately followed? We sped-ran this cycle and forfeited away the third part of the bonus so I just want to process the questions. Thanks in advance!

[Important Bird Area]

This concept is represented by the last of three words of a Protestant solae whose initials were used on J. S. Bach's sheet music. The last of four words in the Latin motto of the Jesuits refers to this concept. This word begins a hymn adapted from the nativity in Luke whose second line is "and (*) peace to His people on Earth." This word is followed by "Patri" or "be" in the Lesser Doxology. For 10 points—in the Greater Doxology, what concept is attributed "in excelsis Dio," or "to God in the Highest?"

answer: glory or gloria (or glory of God or gloria Deo; accept gloriam or glorification)


Frederick Field collected the remaining fragments of this text. For 10 points each—

A. What version of the Bible compiled by Origen includes word-for-word comparisons of Hebrew, the Septuagint, and other Greek translations?

answer: Hexapla (or Origenis Hexaplorum)

B. Origen was a Christian theologian from this city, where Jewish translators produced the Septuagint with the aid of a massive library.

answer: Alexandria

C. According to Eusebius, Origen castrated himself after reading this book's chapter 19, verse 12. A portion of this book was analyzed in Dietrich Bonhoeffer's The Cost of Discipleship.

answer: Gospel of Matthew [Bonhoeffer's book discusses the Sermon on the Mount.]

[Important Bird Area]

Following this thread, can I ask what the Bible tossups in DI were (or how many there were)? The only direct textual question I remember hearing was Absalom in finals (maybe also the Potiphar's wife tossup which (I think) was Qur'anic at the time it was buzzed on in my room), which is much lower than the ~4 that I remember from 2024 DI ICT.

The Absalom tossup you mention is the only directly-textual Bible tossup in this year's Division I set. (There are a couple of bonuses, and a number of questions of broader scope with reference to theology/ritual/other religious traditions, like the Potiphar's wife tossup which used substantial Qur'anic clues.)

[Subhamitra Banerjee Roychoudhury]

Could I see the current versions of the tossup clue on Lusius Quietus/the Kitos War (at/around packet 4 question 9) and the bonus parts on Columbia University (5:11, part c), the UCMJ (6:9c), six (books of ahadith) (7:18c), and Kristallnacht (13:9b)?

[Important Bird Area]

Could I see the current versions of the tossup clue on Lusius Quietus/the Kitos War (at/around packet 4 question 9) and the bonus parts on Columbia University (5:11, part c), the UCMJ (6:9c), six (books of ahadith) (7:18c), and Kristallnacht (13:9b)?

Ammianus Marcellinus reports that raids from a subgroup of these people, the Austoriani, were hidden by Count Romanus. A prince from this ethnic group subdued a diasporic Jewish rebellion against Trajan, becoming the namesake of the Kitos War. Emperor Macrinus, who was from this ethnic group, came from a province they populated that split into (*) "Tingitana" and "Caesariensis" portions after being annexed by Claudius. Bocchus I ruled—for 10 points—what inhabitants of Mauretania in North Africa?

answer: Amazigh (or Imazighen; accept Berbers; before "Mauretania," accept Mauri or Moors; after "Mauretania," prompt on "Mauri" or "Moors"; reject "Numidians")

[Adam] Tooze is a professor at this Ivy League university where graduate student Mahmoud Khalil was arrested in 2025 after leading pro-Palestine protests.

The 2006 case Hamdan v. Rumsfeld held that holding detainees at Guantanamo Bay violated both the Geneva Conventions and this "code" that is the fundamental law of the U.S. armed forces.

Sunni Muslims agree that there are this many authentic collection of hadiths, as delineated by ibn Tahir of Caesarea.

[Aracy de] Carvalho was awarded the title "Righteous Among the Nations" for issuing Brazilian passports to Jews following this 1938 episode of coordinated vandalism.

[CPiGuy]

Was the tossup on Budapest from Finals 2 a downconvert? If so, can I see the D1 version?

Also, the tossup on Surtsey was extremely cool.

[Important Bird Area]

Was the tossup on Budapest from Finals 2 a downconvert?

No, that tossup was Division II-only.

[Subhamitra Banerjee Roychoudhury]

A prince from this ethnic group subdued a diasporic Jewish rebellion against Trajan, becoming the namesake of the Kitos War.

The Kitos War was, depending on the definition one uses, either partially or entirely in Judea, and Lusius Quietus, analogously, served as legate of Judea, so characterizing it as a "diasporic" rebellion without at least a qualifier is inaccurate.

[Adam] Tooze is a professor at this Ivy League university where graduate student Mahmoud Khalil was arrested in 2025 after leading pro-Palestine protests.

Mahmoud Khalil has not been a student since 2024, so he wasn't one at the time of his arrest, nor currently, so this should presumably say former graduate student.

The 2006 case Hamdan v. Rumsfeld held that holding detainees at Guantanamo Bay violated both the Geneva Conventions and this "code" that is the fundamental law of the U.S. armed forces.

This is not an accurate description of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, which, to my understanding, pertained specifically to the military commissions that were set up at Guantanamo Bay at that time, not to detainment there in general.

Sunni Muslims agree that there are this many authentic collection of hadiths, as delineated by ibn Tahir of Caesarea.

The Six Books are not the only collections of ahadith that Sunni Muslims necessarily hold to be authentic, but simply a particular set of some of the most prominent.

[Aracy de] Carvalho was awarded the title "Righteous Among the Nations" for issuing Brazilian passports to Jews following this 1938 episode of coordinated vandalism.

Describing Kristallnacht, an ideologically-motivated and premeditated pogrom where at least nearly a hundred Jews were murdered, that presaged the genocide of six million, as a mere "episode of coordinated vandalism," seems dangerously close to outright Holocaust distortion.

[Stinkweed Imp]

I am not an NAQT writer or editor but I’m certain the intent of that phrasing was to provide a linguistic clue regarding the origin of the word ‘Kristallnacht’ rather than attempting to provide any historiographic commentary.

[Subhamitra Banerjee Roychoudhury]

I am not an NAQT writer or editor but I’m certain the intent of that phrasing was to provide a linguistic clue regarding the origin of the word ‘Kristallnacht’ rather than attempting to provide any historiographic commentary.

The name itself has been sharply criticized for being heavily inadequate in describing what Kristallnacht was, and has indeed, I believe, relatively fallen out of fashion in the original German for exactly this reason. While using it is fine because it's the most common name in English, amplifying the misconception it can promote by describing the event as simply the literal meaning of its name, without any indication that's what's being done, is highly problematic. This also seems like something of an etymological fallacy—no one would excuse, I'd hope, describing the Holocaust as a "burnt offering," whatever that would mean.

[Stinkweed Imp]

Could I see the conversion data (if available) on the Mildred Dresselhaus tossup?

[Important Bird Area]

Could I see the conversion data (if available) on the Mildred Dresselhaus tossup?

1/1/1 in four rooms.

[The King's Flight to the Scots]

I don't see the Kitos War clue as inaccurate. The clue says that he "subdued a diasporic rebellion against Trajan," which is true (and Quietus put down a revolt in Mesopotamia before being appointed to Judea). The phrase "Kitos War" is also used more narrowly to mean the Judean revolt, so I suppose if you knew that definition, that clue wouldn't be too helpful to you - I'm sympathetic to that concern. However, I think it's important to differentiate concerns about correctness from concerns about exactitude. I would say the clue about Kitos was correct, if not as exact a definition as you'd find in a graduate thesis. The former standard is the only one we can really apply to quizbowl questions.

[trooper4907]

Could I see the David Hume tossup?

[Important Bird Area]

Could I see the David Hume tossup?

A chapter on morality by this philosopher contrasts our reactions to a tree overtopping its parent and to a human committing parricide. This philosopher remarked that morality was "more properly felt than judg'd of" in a book that relates "impressions" and (*) "ideas" through the "copy principle." A treatise by this philosopher that "fell dead-born from the press" characterizes reason as "the slave of the passions." For 10 points—A Treatise of Human Nature was written by what Scottish empiricist?

[cwasims]

Could I see the David Hume tossup?

A chapter on morality by this philosopher contrasts our reactions to a tree overtopping its parent and to a human committing parricide. This philosopher remarked that morality was "more properly felt than judg'd of" in a book that relates "impressions" and (*) "ideas" through the "copy principle." A treatise by this philosopher that "fell dead-born from the press" characterizes reason as "the slave of the passions." For 10 points—A Treatise of Human Nature was written by what Scottish empiricist?

I realize that commentary on specific questions is not the most helpful, but I remember finding that this question got easy quite quickly compared to other philosophy questions in the set which made it fairly jarring to play. I don't think an ICT question needs a full two lines after "impressions and ideas" and "copy principle", both of which are very famous aspects of Hume's work.

[thedoge]

Could I see the conversion data (if available) on the Mildred Dresselhaus tossup?

Now that I think about it, Dresselhaus does feel like a significantly harder answerline than the other science answerlines in this set (maybe lipid rafts is comparable?), but I think it's reasonable to toss up at this difficulty, maybe this just means the other science answerlines were, on average, on the easier side (not necessarily a bad thing).

I strongly disliked the tossup on allometry. Regardless of if it's a reified term, it's bound to play badly, as people will recognize the clues but not know the name of the field it's from, and it seems like most people have never heard of the term before (from talking to other players). evapotranspiration without prompts on stuff like transpiration seems pretty brutal too. I think it's more important for NAQT sets in particular to be a bit more generous+pinned down with their answerlines, since there is no "description acceptable" directive to help the player out.

[rhn26]

Geoffrey's post mentioned two of the harder science tossup answerlines in ICT. I wanted to follow up by praising them.

I greatly enjoyed the Dresselhaus tossup (although this may have been inflated by it showing up in a critical tiebreak round that I was playing). I thought it was an excellent choice of a "only at NAQT/ICT" answerline - you'd be hard pressed to write an 8-line ACF Nats tossup on the same answerline, but I think NAQT executed it superbly.

We lost a critical playoff game to Columbia because Geoffrey was able to pull "lipid rafts" at the end of the deciding tossup (I might've gotten there eventually but it would've taken me much longer than he took). I'm admittedly relying less on memory of the question here than for Dresselhaus because I didn't know the clues, but lipid rafts is again an amazing tossup idea perfectly suited for ICT - people might not know 8 lines of clues about them, but they're super important and of course worth asking about.

In general, I really look forward to playing ICT questions in part because of these "zany" answerlines that are certainly hard and probably wouldn't come up at any other tournament, but are unequivocally important. I think ICT's shorter-format questions lends itself naturally to well-executed tossups on these topics.

[theMoMA]

I think it's more important for NAQT sets in particular to be a bit more generous+pinned down with their answerlines, since there is no "description acceptable" directive to help the player out.

I'm a little confused by what you mean with "it's more important for NAQT sets in particular to be a bit more generous+pinned down with their answerlines," because "generous" and "pinned down" feel in tension rather than pulling in the same direction. I don't guarantee the success of this approach in every instance, and I certainly can't speak to the technical particulars of science questions, but my approach to writing NAQT questions is to "pin down" the answer to one thing (occasionally requiring a complex or descriptive answer rather than a simple answer), rather than writing on a loose collection of related topics and relying on a "generous" answer line to sort out the resulting problems.

I suspect you'll find that the reason that various responses weren't accepted or prompted for particular questions is because the answer lines were pinned down such that those responses were just plain wrong. It may be frustrating when a question sounds like it's going to be on one thing and ends up being on a related but distinct thing (or when it seems like something should at least be promptable, but for reasons that you probably don't realize at game speed, is actually just wrong), and it may be unwise to write on certain topics where such confusion is likely to occur. (The examples you list may even be such cases.) In my opinion, however, it is much better to write on specific ("pinned down") answers with clues that unambiguously point to those answers rather than relying on a "generous" answer line to do the work that the question writer should have done above the line.

[DavidB256]

Loved this set, especially the science, film, current events, and video game content.

As someone who worked alongside ecologists for a bit, but rarely feels rewarded on quizbowl's ecology content, I go into every set expecting some "omg why would I ever care about this"-type biology answerlines, but found myself to only feel such a way about allometry. I planned to complain here about how lipid rafts are silly and don't exist, but a quick Google Scholar search has brought me to Levental et al. 2020 and changed my mind. It was confusing to have ligation tossed up as "this reaction."

I perceived contemporary film questions as being uniformly easy, with the second line of The Substance tossup being buzzable by a savvy player from the trailer and the hard parts on two directors that got a ton of limelight during this past awards season, Mohammad Rasoulof (though I did manage to blank on his name in-game) and Hamdan Ballal. I'd be interested in seeing the conversion rates of these two bonuses contrasted with the one sporting an easy part on Cecil B. DeMille.

[thedoge]

Yeah there's probably a better way to say what I'm saying, I guess maybe making it more clear what kinds of answers are and aren't allowed at game speed? In particular, even if all the clues unambiguously refer to one answer, it might not be obvious to the players that this is the case (especially if the players don't know the clues cold!) and thus may reduce playability. Use of a nonstandard indicator might help for these situations. I should also note that I haven't had the chance to look at the text of the allometry and evapotranspiration tossups, and I got the evapotranspiration tossup right, so I'm just relying on what others said for that one.

Seconding Richard that I thought those two answerlines were done well and are part of why I enjoy ICT so much.

[CPiGuy]

Can I see the tossup on rongorongo?

[Acetylcolin]

Could I see the tossup on beamsplitters?

[Important Bird Area]

This writing system was used to create a simple lunar calendar on the Mamari tablet, according to Thomas Barthel, who grouped its characters using a three-digit system. The fluting of objects such as the Aruku Kurenga, which features this writing system, may have attempted to mimic the rule-like surface of (*) banana leaves. The Paris Snuffbox and the Santiago Staff are artifacts bearing—for 10 points—what undeciphered, glyph-based writing system found on wooden objects from Easter Island?

answer: Rongorongo (prompt on "Rapa Nui (language or writing)"; before "Easter Island," prompt on "Easter Island (language or writing)")

A 50/50 symmetric example of these devices is represented by the transfer matrix one over root 2 times elements 1, i, i, and 1. Identical photons entering these components of larger devices show a coincidence count "dip" in the Hong-Ou-Mandel effect. Common cube designs for these devices use a resin layer to create (*) frustrated TIR. These components of an interferometer may consist of a half-silvered mirror. For 10 points—what devices divide incoming light into transmitted and reflected rays?

answer: beam splitter(s) (before "frustrated TIR," accept half-silvered mirror(s); prompt on "splitter(s)"; before "frustrated TIR," prompt on "mirror(s)"; before "half-silvered," prompt on "prism(s)")

[Important Bird Area]

I perceived contemporary film questions as being uniformly easy, with the second line of The Substance tossup being buzzable by a savvy player from the trailer and the hard parts on two directors that got a ton of limelight during this past awards season, Mohammad Rasoulof (though I did manage to blank on his name in-game) and Hamdan Ballal. I'd be interested in seeing the conversion rates of these two bonuses contrasted with the one sporting an easy part on Cecil B. DeMille.

Rasoulof/Iran/Kiarostami: 0/13/8 in 14 rooms

Ballal/No Other Land/West Bank: 1/8/16 in 16 rooms

DeMille/Ken Loach/4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days: 8/1/0 in 15 rooms

[liamstarnes27]

Could I see the tossups on dimensionality reduction, Edward Everett, and tossup 21 of packet 1?

[Important Bird Area]

The repeated eigendirection problem affects techniques for decreasing this quantity, such as diffusion maps, which decrease this quantity by finding manifolds. The Kullback-Leibler divergence between two distributions with different values of this quantity is minimized in (*) t-SNE, decreasing this quantity for easier visualization. k-nn classification breaks down as this quantity increases due to its namesake curse. For 10 points—what quantity is the number of components of a feature vector?

answer: dimension (or dimensionality; accept (nonlinear) dimensionality reduction or curse of dimensionality)

This man lost reelection to Marcus Morton by a one-vote margin that prevented a Whig legislature from deciding the race. As governor of Massachusetts, he formed the first state board of education in 1837. In 1860 he ran with John Bell for the (*) Constitutional Union party. A long oration by this man, that concludes "there will be no brighter page," was followed by another man's speech describing a "new birth of freedom." For 10 points—who gave a speech preceding Abe Lincoln's Gettysburg Address?

The Hardy-Pomeau-Pazzis model is often used to describe these structures' namesake "gas automata." A sum over plaquettes forms the Wilson action in these structures' namesake "gauge theory." Models built on these structures include the Potts model of interacting (*) spins. Field theories may be discretized using these mathematical structures, of which there are 14 three-dimensional types. The Born-Haber cycle finds the namesake enthalpy of—for 10 points—what repeating structures seen in crystals?

answer: lattices (accept lattice gas automata or lattice gauge theory or lattice models or lattice field theory or Bravais lattices or lattice enthalpy; before "gauge," prompt on "array(s)"; reject "crystal(s)" or "crystalline lattice(s)")

[amundhe]

May I see the aforementioned Loach bonus, the Wong Kar-Wai bonus (with part pineapples), and Heraclitus bonus (with part "the way up and the way down"). In addition, I'd love to see the "Euphoria" tossup.

Of the categories that I pay attention to, I particularly enjoyed this year's classical music content and thought it solid across the board -- in particular, I appreciated the question on Buxtehude for making me think about him for the first time as a serious musician, rather than just a myth surrounding J. S. Bach.

[Important Bird Area]

May I see the aforementioned Loach bonus, the Wong Kar-Wai bonus (with part pineapples), and Heraclitus bonus (with part "the way up and the way down"). In addition, I'd love to see the "Euphoria" tossup.

For 10 points each—answer the following about winners of the Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or:

A. The first Palme d'Or went to Union Pacific, a film directed by this American whose last film was 1956's The Ten Commandments.

B. This British director has been nominated for the Palme d'Or a record 14 times, winning for The Wind That Shakes the Barley and I, Daniel Blake.

C. Cristian Mungiu directed this 2007 winner of the Palme d'Or, which depicts the procurement of an illegal abortion during the final years of Romania's Ceausescu era.

In this film, a theme written by Shigeru Umebayashi plays as one character carries a green thermos to a noodle stand. For 10 points each—

A. Name this Wong Kar-wai film in which two neighbors realize that their spouses are having an affair.

B. Wong's films In the Mood for Love and Chungking Express are primarily set in this city, whose Cantonese-language cinema starred actors like Bruce Lee.

C. After a breakup, the protagonist of the first part of Chungking Express stockpiles cans of this food, all with an expiration date of May 1.

Scholars have compared the equivalence of these two concepts to a fragment claiming that Hades and Dionysus are the same. For 10 points each—

A. Identify these two concepts that are the same as each other according to an ancient philosopher's Fragment 60, which illustrates the unity of opposites.

answer: (the) way up and (the) way down (accept in either order; accept any answer indicating the road up and the road down or the path up and the path down or the route up and down (a hill or mountain or incline); accept answers indicating the way up is (the same as) the way down; accept kathodos and anodos)

B. "The way up is the same as the way down" is a fragment from this ancient Greek, who believed that fire was the fundamental element.

C. Heraclitus's fragments contain several discussions of this Greek-language concept, which identifies the ordering principle of the universe in gnosticism and stoicism.

At the beginning of this song, a clip of the line "everything they say about me is true" from The Wiz is played in reverse. In its third verse, a much-debated reference to "Joel Hale Osteen" follows six lines that end "know (*) nothin' bout that." This song alludes to a viral DMX rant with a line beginning "I hate the way that you walk." For 10 points—what April 2024 response to Drake's "Push Ups" and "Taylor Made Freestyle" is a Kendrick Lamar diss track titled for "a feeling of well-being or elation"?

[russn1]

For the acid reflux TU in Round 3, I think it would be nice to have a directed prompt or outright accept on Barrett's esophagus before the mention of Norman Barrett. I didn't get to buzz on this question, as I lost the buzzer race (on columnar epithelium) but I would have given Barrett's esophagus as an answer and been negged. I asked the moderator about this at the end of the game and was surprised to learn this wasn't a possible answerline (I had not heard the part about Barrett in the question).

I know that acid reflux specifically causes the metaplastic change, but I think that someone who answers with Barrett's esophagus has pretty much correctly identified the condition and should probably get points for recognizing it or be given another chance to answer.

There's a pretty small window of time where this answer should be acceptable though, but it's a possible answer that would lead to a protest. It would kind of suck to identify the exact condition being described and still get negged.

Despite that, I enjoyed this tossup and it was cool to see the content that I've learned in class.

[touchpack]

As someone who worked alongside ecologists for a bit, but rarely feels rewarded on quizbowl's ecology content, I go into every set expecting some "omg why would I ever care about this"-type biology answerlines, but found myself to only feel such a way about allometry.

As someone who has taken 2 classes that fall under quizbowl's organism/population/ecology umbrella, I'm not an expert but know just enough to be dangerous (as I demonstrated with this tossup). I agree that it's rare for quizbowl's content under this umbrella to reflect the fundamentals of ecology as I learned them. I will defend allometry as something to important to ask about: the material late in the tossup about metabolic rate is core stuff from intro-level classes, and the West, Brown, and Enquist paper (the paper that inspired this question, it's extremely cool and I recommend reading it!) has 5934 citations, which is a truly staggering number compared to a large portion of the stuff that clues up in most quizbowl ecology questions. Maybe it was more important in 1997 compared to what ecologists are doing in the 2020s (I have no firsthand knowledge of this), but at bare minimum I'd argue it's significantly closer to stuff the field cares about than the vast majority of quizbowl ecology.

However, I will of course recognize that I significantly overestimated the number of players who would be familiar with the reified term
allometry, and at this difficulty level this would have played significantly better as a tossup on body size with more tortuous wording, but mostly the same clues. Mea culpa.