Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for Quiz Bowl

Old college threads.
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dxdtdemon
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Post by dxdtdemon »

I think the bonus at CBI nationals about naming the three Heisman trophy winners from Ohio State who weren't Vic Janowicz, Les Horvath, or Howard "Hopalong" Cassady should be nominated. Even Abe Kanter, who has never watched a football game and somehow remains the only OSU student totally oblivious to football knew one of the three (ironically, it wasn't Troy Smith). Abe also has no idea who Greg Oden is.
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Post by shlack »

quantumfootball wrote:I think the bonus at CBI nationals about naming the three Heisman trophy winners from Ohio State who weren't Vic Janowicz, Les Horvath, or Howard "Hopalong" Cassady should be nominated. Even Abe Kanter, who has never watched a football game and somehow remains the only OSU student totally oblivious to football knew one of the three (ironically, it wasn't Troy Smith). Abe also has no idea who Greg Oden is.
While that is on the easy side for a football question, it's not particularly badly-written. You have to have a modicum of football knowledge to get Griffin, George and Smith. Not the worst by any means...
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Post by ecks »

quantumfootball wrote:Abe also has no idea who Greg Oden is.
Does that mean the rumor I heard about the requirement that all OSU students tatoo 'Greg Oden - 1 more year' to their foreheads wasn't true?
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Post by Aaron Kashtan »

quantumfootball wrote:I think the bonus at CBI nationals about naming the three Heisman trophy winners from Ohio State who weren't Vic Janowicz, Les Horvath, or Howard "Hopalong" Cassady should be nominated. Even Abe Kanter, who has never watched a football game and somehow remains the only OSU student totally oblivious to football knew one of the three (ironically, it wasn't Troy Smith). Abe also has no idea who Greg Oden is.
That was far from the worst bonus at CBI Nationals, although it was pretty bad. Almost any team that knows anything about football could have 30'd it.

The first bonus I heard in round one, IIRC, had "Holden Caulfield" and "The Catcher in the Rye" for answers. And as if that wasn't bad enough, J.D. Salinger was mentioned in the lead-in.

Going into the tournament, I of course knew that CBI sucked. But I had foolishly hoped that the questions would be at least a little bit difficult, given that this was a national tournament to which only the supposedly best 16 teams in the country were invited. After hearing that bonus part, I realized how foolish I had been.
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Post by dxdtdemon »

ecks wrote:
quantumfootball wrote:Abe also has no idea who Greg Oden is.
Does that mean the rumor I heard about the requirement that all OSU students tatoo 'Greg Oden - 1 more year' to their foreheads wasn't true?
I have not seen that tattooed on anyone's forehead. I realize that that bonus wasn't the worst one around, but I'm saying that if Melissa Munkel says that the St. Johns River tossup is obvious, then so would the OSU Heisman bonus. If I hadn't considered moving to Jacksonville next year at one point, I don't think I would've had that tossup at the point that Melissa pointed out, and I think I'm one of the few people that has powered an NAQT geography question (just one, however).
Last edited by dxdtdemon on Fri May 11, 2007 1:09 am, edited 1 time in total.
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dxdtdemon
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Post by dxdtdemon »

shlack wrote:
quantumfootball wrote:I think the bonus at CBI nationals about naming the three Heisman trophy winners from Ohio State who weren't Vic Janowicz, Les Horvath, or Howard "Hopalong" Cassady should be nominated. Even Abe Kanter, who has never watched a football game and somehow remains the only OSU student totally oblivious to football knew one of the three (ironically, it wasn't Troy Smith). Abe also has no idea who Greg Oden is.
While that is on the easy side for a football question, it's not particularly badly-written. You have to have a modicum of football knowledge to get Griffin, George and Smith. Not the worst by any means...
I guess that's true for people outside of I-270 (the I-270 that goes around Columbus), but Griffin has a big presence with the alumni association, there's an Eddie George-themed resteraunt, and Smith is obviously the most recent winner. For those people who have never been to any of the Eddie George-themed resteraunts around the country, they have 27 appetizers, 27 entrees, 27 types of alcohol at the bar, and 27 TV screens tilted 27 degrees. They apparently had also wanted to tilt 27 of the tables 27 degrees, but the zoning commision wasn't cool with that. At least the announcment of that feature made me consider the minimum coefficient of friction needed on the table to keep the plates and cups from sliding off.
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Post by DumbJaques »

I have not seen that tattooed on anyone's forehead.
Don't lie, you bastard, you know you've seen it up there in big, black ink.


I don't really remember, but I think this thread was about bad questions or something. If that's the case, I nominate every bonus on haikus that begins "Japanese Bonus/FTPE you should name/This poetry form" or anything like that.
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Post by dxdtdemon »

There was a bonus at the NAQT SCT that was in one of the rounds when we played Chicago B that had something to do with erectile dysfunction or premature ejaculation or something like that. It was the weirdest bonus I've ever heard.
Also, there was a bonus about the Tulip Revolution at the SCT that asked about the flower associated with the revolution. While they hadn't mentioned tulips in the previous two parts of the bonus, exactly how many other revolutions have there been in Kyrgyzstan in it's 16 years of existence as a soverign nation? I guess to the rest of the teams out there, this revolution might have been somewhat obscure (Chicago B had said "carnation" for that part of the bonus), but our team has an inside joke about it that's been around since December.
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Post by Captain Sinico »

quantumfootball wrote:There was a bonus at the NAQT SCT that was in one of the rounds when we played Chicago B that had something to do with erectile dysfunction or premature ejaculation or something like that. It was the weirdest bonus I've ever heard.
Also, there was a bonus about the Tulip Revolution at the SCT that asked about the flower associated with the revolution. While they hadn't mentioned tulips in the previous two parts of the bonus, exactly how many other revolutions have there been in Kyrgyzstan in it's 16 years of existence as a soverign nation? I guess to the rest of the teams out there, this revolution might have been somewhat obscure (Chicago B had said "carnation" for that part of the bonus), but our team has an inside joke about it that's been around since December.
What in the hell are you talking about? Please stop making so many off-topic posts.

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Post by Mr. Kwalter »

quantumfootball wrote:I think I'm one of the few people that has powered an NAQT geography question (just one, however).
What?
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Post by millionwaves »

I think we should post more funny/egregiously bad lead-ins. To that end:

Moon Pie Packet wrote: To create it, Abraham Mazlow observed successful people rather than mentally ill individuals.
I like both the mispelling of Maslow and the fact that his name appears in the first sentence of a tossup on his Hierarchy of Needs. Probably not as prize-worthy as Taco Bell soap, but still...
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Post by pray for elves »

I liked the SCT question that began "Formed by the confluence of the Holston and French Broad..." although that may just have been laughable because of where I'm from.

If Div. II SCT questions are still embargoed, please delete/edit this post.
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Post by Aaron Kashtan »

Would someone please explain this running joke about Taco Bell soap?
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Post by millionwaves »

Sure.
Lead-in to a pretty bad question wrote: A Taco Bell on Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive in Merced uses this brand of hand soap.
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Post by theMoMA »

I think the best part about that question is that it was written for the lit distribution.
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Post by Aaron Kashtan »

Thank you for the explanation... although on second thought, maybe I would have been better off not knowing. What was the answer?
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Post by wd4gdz »

In my humble opinion, the winner (so far) is clearly the following:

"During this year, the grandson of grandfathers Josiah Wedgewood and Erasmus Darwin, Charles Darwin, published On the Origin of Species, and the antebellum song “Dixieâ€
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Post by millionwaves »

The answer was "Conquest". The packet that contains the question in question can be found here. Please note, like Andrew mentioned, that it's a lit tossup.

Also from that glorious packet, is this lead-in:
UCLA Ghetto Warz Packet wrote:
Está enterrado en Kabul, y ascendió al trono cuando contaba con doce años.
I'm sure it wasn't used, of course. Or was it?
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Post by bornonatrain »

quantumfootball wrote: I have not seen that tattooed on anyone's forehead. I realize that that bonus wasn't the worst one around, but I'm saying that if Melissa Munkel says that the St. Johns River tossup is obvious, then so would the OSU Heisman bonus. If I hadn't considered moving to Jacksonville next year at one point, I don't think I would've had that tossup at the point that Melissa pointed out, and I think I'm one of the few people that has powered an NAQT geography question (just one, however).
That's my name, don't wear it out. :roll:

I don't think I really have so say this, but I'm not saying that the lead-in was bad because a person from Florida could get it quickly and have some kind of 'unfair advantage', I'm saying it was bad because it's a terrible clue to lead something in on, which was the whole point of the thread.
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Post by Auks Ran Ova »

millionwaves wrote:I'm sure it wasn't used, of course. Or was it?
If I remember the discussion right, it was used, but it was translated into English.
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Post by Aaron Kashtan »

From the same packet:
Your question writer placed an extra hydrogen on this molecule's beta carbon and received no credit on a quiz.
At least this tells you that it's a molecule with at least one hydrogen on its beta carbon. But is there any way that anyone, other than the question writer, could possibly answer the question at this point?
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Post by wd4gdz »

They were making fun a question written by yours truly.
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