2015-2016 BISB Specific Question Discussion

[adamsil]

Go ahead and request any questions that you'd like to see reproduced here, ideally with a rationale (potentially incorrect clue, poor clue placement, mishearing clues, wanting to see earlier/later clues, anything like that). I'll do my best to respond in a timely fashion. I haven't yet been told of any factual errors, so every site so far, up to this weekend, has played the exact same set.

[schen]

For the "distance formula" tossup, could you give rationale for not having "Pythagorean theorem" be at least promptable? A teammate that I wasn't playing with told me that he negged early with the latter, and it seems "close enough" to me.

[adamsil]

That's fair; I don't think it would be outright acceptable for any of the clues in the tossup, but I'll add it in as a prompt. Sorry about that!

[schen]

I also negged the tossup on the Russia-Ukraine conflict with "Ukrainian Civil War". It seems to me that this should be at least promptable, if not outright acceptable.

[adamsil]

That was a moderator mistake; the answerline said to accept any answer that mentioned a war in Ukraine. Sorry--I'm not sure how that was negged.

EDIT: Here's the text of the tossup; I could see a moderator getting potentially lost in the answerline, so I'll apologize for that, but I'll certainly add the "Ukrainian Civil War" up at the front as an acceptable answer, even though the intent was to give people points if the word "Ukraine", "Crimea", or "Donbass" was mentioned.

The Trilateral Contact Group attempted to end this conflict. People who died early in this conflict were known as “Heaven’s Hundred” after they were killed by the Berkut police. A group of unknown soldiers in this war were called the “little green men.” Two protocols signed at Minsk attempted to end this conflict. Two battles were fought during this war at an (*) airport named for Sergei Prokofiev in Donetsk. The Euromaidan protests against president Viktor Yanukovych led to this war, which is mostly centered in Donbass. For 10 points, name this conflict in which troops under Vladimir Putin have invaded a neighboring country.
ANSWER: War between Russia and Ukraine [or the War in Donbass; or Russian invasion of Ukraine; or Russian intervention into Ukraine; or Russian intervention into Crimea; accept any answer that mentions either the Ukraine or Crimea]

(the only things underlined or Ukraine/Crimea/Donbass; you need not have mentioned Russia to get the points)

[Hyrdofluoric_Acid]

Hey could I see the tossup on the gallic wars because to me the first line clue on the double fortifications at Alesia seems a bit easy for the first line? Thank you.

[adamsil]

During a siege in this campaign, a general formed a circumvallation surrounded by a contravallation, using sharp pikes called cippi. An eight-book history of this conflict begins with some Swiss men burning down their houses and emigrating. The losing commander of this conflict, a member of the Arverni tribe, was strangled after winning at (*) Gergovia. A set of commentaries on this conflict mentions a region “omnis divisa in partes tres”. Vercingetorix was captured at its pivotal siege at Alesia. The winning general of these wars later crossed the Rubicon. For 10 points, name these “wars” in modern-day France which earned Julius Caesar fame.
ANSWER: Gallic Wars

You recognize tactics at the Battle of Alesia, I've got no problem giving you a first-clue buzz. That's pretty deep knowledge, well done. Unless you think siege+sort-of-Roman-sounding-name is just a bit fraudable?

[Hyrdofluoric_Acid]

My issue is that the siege of Alesia is very famous especially for its tactics and is the most famous battle from the war, to me at least. I actually lost a buzzer race on the question which didn't get past the first clue. To me mentioning the helvetians first would make more sense because they are famous to these who have read de bello gaulica whereas Alesia is one of the most famous ancient world battles apart from the conflict. Then again maybe I'm just salty...

[adamsil]

Fair enough, I'll swap those clues for the mirrors after tomorrow. This is certainly not an area of history that I'm willing to die on a hill for. (Though, Vercingetorix did )

[On a lurgid bee]

Hey could I see the tossup on Moby Dick? I was listening to the question, and there seemed to be a ton of chapter titles. I personally didn't like this tossup, as it wasn't as rewarding for someone who had read it. I don't know about most people, but I don't really internalize chapter titles like plot events in novels. I would think others would be like that as well. This could just be me being defective, and maybe the tossup wasn't really like that.

Edit: Also the Great Gatsby tossup seemed pretty hard. Could I see that as well? I had read the book the Thursday before the tournament, and I barely powered it.

Also I would just like to say that the set was excellent, rewarded real knowledge in many areas, and was just delightful to play in general

[adamsil]

Hey could I see the tossup on Moby Dick? I was listening to the question, and there seemed to be a ton of chapter titles. I personally didn't like this tossup, as it wasn't as rewarding for someone who had read it. I don't know about most people, but I don't really internalize chapter titles like plot events in novels. I would think others would be like that as well. This could just be me being defective, and maybe the tossup wasn't really like that.

Edit: Also the Great Gatsby tossup seemed pretty hard. Could I see that as well? I had read the book the Thursday before the tournament, and I barely powered it.

Also I would just like to say that the set was excellent, rewarded real knowledge in many areas, and was just delightful to play in general

Sure! (I've included 1984 too because I think it's along similar lines, and these were the most "canonical" novels that got directly tossed up in the tournament)

Two consecutive chapters in this novel are both titled “Knights and Squires.” Its chapters “Dusk” and “Sunset” are written in the form of a play. This novel, which begins with a chapter called “Loomings” and a dedication to Nathaniel Hawthorne, ends with three chapters titled “The Chase”. This book’s middle section has (*) nonfiction chapters, like “The Gam” and “Cetology.” In its chapter “The Bosom-Friend”, the narrator meets a cannibal at the Spouter Inn in Nantucket. Chapters in this novel include “The Pequod Meets the Rachel” and “Queequeg in His Coffin”. For 10 points, name this novel about Ishmael and Captain Ahab, by Herman Melville.
ANSWER: Moby-Dick; or The Whale

Two characters in this novel appear to “balloon” down to a white sofa when a window is closed. A chapter of this novel concludes, “The holocaust was complete.” This novel’s closing line mentions “boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past”, and it opens with the narrator recounting advice given to him by his father. Characters in this novel dread the (*) Valley of the Ashes and its poster of optometrist TJ Eckleburg. Another symbol in this novel is a green light that shines to West Egg all the way from the Buchanans’ dock. For 10 points, name this novel narrated by Nick Carraway, set in the Jazz Age, by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
ANSWER: The Great Gatsby

The appendix to this novel provides sentences like “This dog is free of lice” and divides language into A, B, and C vocabulary. This novel introduced the idea of holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously, and accepting both as true. This novel’s protagonist receives a note that reads “dayorder doubleplusungood refs unpersons rewrite fullwise”, and is later told that (*) two and two make five. Words like Ingsoc, Miniplenty, and crimethink are used excessively in this novel’s Newspeak dialect. Its protagonist avoids telescreens and hopes that proles will bring down Oceania and Big Brother. For 10 points, name this George Orwell dystopian novel.
ANSWER: Nineteen Eighty-Four

These were, ironically enough, the first tossups I wrote for the tournament, and the intent was to reward really deep knowledge of books that I'd expect around half the teams playing the tournament to have read. I also wanted to reward knowledge other than plot: as a result, the Moby Dick tossup was chapter-title-centric. I'll maintain, interspersed among these clues, were helpful information about the play-like chapters, an interesting fact about the dedication, and some clues about the nonfiction middle section, which is far more memorable to me than the plot. Gatsby was intended to be a tossup really only using quotes from the book, which I justified, again, as feasible since so many people have read Gatsby, and nobody likes losing the first-line buzzer races on Dan Cody that happen in easy Gatsby tossups.

That said, I regret these tossups. They're emblematic of the greater failings of this set, which was that the "anti-stockitude" pervaded so much that inexperienced teams couldn't get early buzzes. I think Gatsby was okay--it got first-clued both when I was playtesting and when I read at the local site to some not-so-experienced teams, since that ballooning scene is fairly memorable. But Moby Dick would have played out much better as a tossup at PACE, I think. The 1984 tossup had some similar problems--that one was supposedly focused exclusively on Newspeak, but I'd still like teams who've read the book to be powering it, and I'm not sure that really happened.

[1992 in spaceflight]

I don't believe all of the 17 sons of Aureliano Buendia are killed by assassins; I think one or two of them survived?

[adamsil]

I'm fairly certain that 16 of them are killed by assassins instantly, one survives, but then gets assassinated some time later. But I no longer own a copy of the book so I can't easily check that. I haven't found anything online to suggest that one survives the duration of the novel.

[1992 in spaceflight]

I probably just misremembered what happened. (that's what happens when you read a book over 5 years ago!)

The giveaway for this Henry V tossup in round 2 is ridiculous. I actually had to prompt someone who said Henry after the fifth king of his name is said. Just keep the giveaway to "Name this Lancaster king of England who invaded France during the Hundred Years War."

EDIT: Incredibly minor point; Aureliano was only ever a colonel, not a general.

[adamsil]

Fair enough--those are easy changes to make (and for the ones you've sent me elsewhere, thanks!).

European History is definitely my weakest Big 4 category in QB and I wrote almost all of it this year, which is why it probably turned out too hard. I will admit to being outrageously stubborn on the "caudillo" question, maintaining that it was a middle part even though the point of that bonus being too difficult was brought up in playtesting too. That's entirely on me.

[rahulkeyal]

Could I see the TU on the stock market crash? I buzzed in at around P/E ratio and answered "Black Tuesday", which was accepted. While talking to others at my site, I heard that one mod didn't accept the answer because it was not in the answer line. Should it be deemed correct?

[adamsil]

I'm not sure they're exactly the same thing, since the crash happened over multiple days, but that should have been acceptable, my apologies.

[bajaj]

Out of curiosity, is the attachment theory clue for the mothers TU in packet 14 unique to mothers and not children? The first clue invalidates children as an answer, but the Strange Situation experiment clues used don't seem to differentiate one from another. I'm aware that the set has been posted, so this is just a random query,

The clue in question reads:

These people were classified as secure or insecure by leaving them in a room with a one-way mirror

.

[adamsil]

As I understand it, both the mothers and children were classified as secure and insecure, but the mothers were placed in the room with the one-way mirror. I'd have to do more research to confirm that, but I distinctly remember adding that clause at the end of the sentence to make the answer more specific.

[bajaj]

Online sources seem to confirm that the overall clue is unique for mothers in the context of the experiment; thanks for the clarification!

[Stained Diviner]

Please archive this discussion.