Specific question discussion

[UlyssesInvictus]

Discuss specific questions here. Requests for the text of questions, and compliments/complaints about specific questions should go here.

[Jack G]

Can I see the full poker tossup? I buzzed at Phil Ivey, and I felt like it was really early in the question to name him.

[UlyssesInvictus]

In Star Trek: TNG, Data complains about strategy in this activity in the opening scene of “The Measure of a Man.” Phil Ivey and Daniel Negreanu are best known for this activity, and a Kenny Rogers song describing this activity repeats a refrain of “You’ve got to know.” (*) Cool Hand Luke earns his nickname after playing this game, and Vesper Lynd dies following a tournament of this activity in the first Bond film to star Daniel Craig. A Lady Gaga song describes the “Face” associated with this game, and hands in it include pocket aces and the royal flush. For 10 points, name this gambling card game in which a person can bluff or call.
ANSWER: poker (accept any subgame, like Texas Hold’Em poker or five card draw poker; prompt on “playing cards”; prompt on gambling)

I did wonder if dropping two of the most famous modern poker players would be too early, but I also did believe I couldn't expect everyone to actually watch televised poker--the logic being that basically, I was rewarding you for watching televised poker.

[Joshua Rutsky]

Maybe so. I'm old and a geek so I would have powered it right after strategy.

[sharathun]

Can you post the bonus on Japanese myth that had Kusanagi as one of its parts? I answered with "Grass Cutter" but it wasn't accepted for some reason. Also, could I see the tossup on cell counting? I thought it was probably one of the most difficult tossups of the tournament to get before the giveaway.

[jiholius]

5. Description acceptable. Coulter’s variant of this technique relies on his namesake principle that particles produce a change in impedance proportional to their volume. Modern forms of this technique might combine flow cytometry or image analysis with (*) fluorescent markers. Staining with Trypan blue is often used for this technique with hemo-cyto-meters, which are glass slides with namesake rectangular “chambers” used to perform it. A simple way to perform this type of action evenly distributes entities in a petri dish and proportionally multiplies the number in one section. For 10 points, describe this action that literally just quantifies the number of cells.
ANSWER: cell counting (accept just “counting them after “number of cells” is read; accept obvious synonyms as long as cell is mentioned; accept specific types of cells, including bacteria counting)

[AGoodMan]

Can you post the bonus on Japanese myth that had Kusanagi as one of its parts? I answered with "Grass Cutter" but it wasn't accepted for some reason.

[10] The kami Susano’o found this sword inside the dragon Orochi. It obtained its name after Prince Yamato Takeru used it to mow down a field that also happened to be on blazing fire.
ANSWER: Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi (prompt on Grasscutter and synonyms: we need the Japanese name)

[UlyssesInvictus]

Can you post the bonus on Japanese myth that had Kusanagi as one of its parts? I answered with "Grass Cutter" but it wasn't accepted for some reason.

[10] The kami Susano’o found this sword inside the dragon Orochi. It obtained its name after Prince Yamato Takeru used it to mow down a field that also happened to be on blazing fire.
ANSWER: Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi (prompt on Grasscutter and synonyms: we need the Japanese name)

I'll note that this is specifically one of the bonuses I changed my mind about, and will be rewriting it to accept Grasscutter outright.

[UlyssesInvictus]

Also, could I see the tossup on cell counting? I thought it was probably one of the most difficult tossups of the tournament to get before the giveaway.

5. Description acceptable. Coulter’s variant of this technique relies on his namesake principle that particles produce a change in impedance proportional to their volume. Modern forms of this technique might combine flow cytometry or image analysis with (*) fluorescent markers. Staining with Trypan blue is often used for this technique with hemo-cyto-meters, which are glass slides with namesake rectangular “chambers” used to perform it. A simple way to perform this type of action evenly distributes entities in a petri dish and proportionally multiplies the number in one section. For 10 points, describe this action that literally just quantifies the number of cells.
ANSWER: cell counting (accept just “counting them after “number of cells” is read; accept obvious synonyms as long as cell is mentioned; accept specific types of cells, including bacteria counting)

Sharath, could you elaborate on why you thought this tossup was particularly difficult to get before giveaway? I'm not arguing with you, to be sure: but I will elaborate that hemocytometry is the scientific name for the most common form of cell counting (other than doing it by hand), and the chambers describe that technique. Maybe a more accessible clue would have been to describe the grid system sometimes used?

I'm not a biologist by training, but I tried to reward knowledge from classroom labs / actual lab (i.e. research) techniques.

[UlyssesInvictus]

Can you post the bonus on Japanese myth that had Kusanagi as one of its parts? I answered with "Grass Cutter" but it wasn't accepted for some reason.

[10] The kami Susano’o found this sword inside the dragon Orochi. It obtained its name after Prince Yamato Takeru used it to mow down a field that also happened to be on blazing fire.
ANSWER: Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi (prompt on Grasscutter and synonyms: we need the Japanese name)

I'll also point out that the original question doesn't require the "no-Tsurugi" part, Kusanagi is fine. (So the quote should have been Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi)

[UlyssesInvictus]

Maybe so. I'm old and a geek so I would have powered it right after strategy.

Yeah, after my Spock bonus from last year, this is continuing in my trend of sneaking Star Trek clues into my sets. (I should probably stop before it becomes obvious.)

[sharathun]

Also, could I see the tossup on cell counting? I thought it was probably one of the most difficult tossups of the tournament to get before the giveaway.

5. Description acceptable. Coulter’s variant of this technique relies on his namesake principle that particles produce a change in impedance proportional to their volume. Modern forms of this technique might combine flow cytometry or image analysis with (*) fluorescent markers. Staining with Trypan blue is often used for this technique with hemo-cyto-meters, which are glass slides with namesake rectangular “chambers” used to perform it. A simple way to perform this type of action evenly distributes entities in a petri dish and proportionally multiplies the number in one section. For 10 points, describe this action that literally just quantifies the number of cells.
ANSWER: cell counting (accept just “counting them after “number of cells” is read; accept obvious synonyms as long as cell is mentioned; accept specific types of cells, including bacteria counting)

Sharath, could you elaborate on why you thought this tossup was particularly difficult to get before giveaway? I'm not arguing with you, to be sure: but I will elaborate that hemocytometry is the scientific name for the most common form of cell counting (other than doing it by hand), and the chambers describe that technique. Maybe a more accessible clue would have been to describe the grid system sometimes used?

I'm not a biologist by training, but I tried to reward knowledge from classroom labs / actual lab (i.e. research) techniques.

It's just that I've never encountered cell counting in any of my biology or biomedical classes. That doesn't make it a bad answerline, but I'm just not sure how many high school students will have enough knowledge of it in order to get it early. This problem may also be specific to me and the curriculum at my school, and if so, please disregard my comment. I thought overall the set was very well written and interesting to play as well.

[UlyssesInvictus]

It's just that I've never encountered cell counting in any of my biology or biomedical classes. That doesn't make it a bad answerline, but I'm just not sure how many high school students will have enough knowledge of it in order to get it early. This problem may also be specific to me and the curriculum at my school, and if so, please disregard my comment.

We might look at making this question more accessible to high schoolers then. One of the issues I was concerned could arise even before starting this set was the "college" bias in which college curricula are weighted more heavily simply b/c all of the writers are college students. IMO, this is actually a good thing, since I think college rewards "real world" knowledge much better than the often AP/common-core skewed regimens HSers encounter; but the fact remains this is a high school set.

I thought overall the set was very well written and interesting to play as well.

Thanks for the praise!

[Mototodile]

Could you post the full text of the Stanford toss-up and the bonus that had Yale as its second answer? I was particularly proud of those just because all of my friends know me as the neurotic college freak, and I was proud to have it come in handy.

[UlyssesInvictus]

6. Ernie Nevers played all 60 minutes of the 1924 Rose Bowl for this team, which was coached by Pop Warner
in that loss to Notre Dame. This team’s only Heisman winner was Jim Plunkett. An axe named for this school
is given to the winner of the (*) “Big Game,” one iteration of which saw a last-minute touchdown scored as a band
came onto the field. Before coaching the 49ers, Jim Harbaugh coached this school, and John Elway and Andrew
Luck played for this school. This Pac-12 university uses a tree as a mascot, and it plays against its in-state rival,
UC-Berkeley. For 10 points, name this elite school, a California football team nicknamed the Cardinal.
ANSWER: Stanford University (accept the Stanford Cardinal until mention)

14. For 10 points each, answer some questions about three cities with something in common:
[10] This city forms the “D” in the “DMV.” Pierre Charles L’Enfant was its city planner.
ANSWER: Washington , D.C. (accept either or both underlined parts; accept District of Columbia)
[10] This Ivy League university was founded in New Haven, Connecticut in 1701. The secret societies at this
supposed rival to Harvard University are called “tombs.”
ANSWER: Yale University (prompt on Collegiate College , I guess; Ed’s note: prompt on hell)
[10] Along with Raynor’s hometown of Washington, D.C., and Robert’s hometown of New Haven, other senior
Vimal claims Dallas as a hometown. This 710-mile river flows past downtown Dallas, where it runs under
Calatrava’s Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge. It has East, West, Clear, and Elm Forks.
ANSWER: Trinity River

[Antrobus63]

I enjoyed the set and thought it was well done. Just a few things I can think of right now:

Round 3, Bonus #14:
Das Rheingold is the first opera in the Ring Cycle. Die Walküre is the second.

Round 6, Toss Up

"After being told he “hate everybody,” this character..."

This turned out to be Darcy, but Alex buzzed quickly with Holden Caulfield and protested the neg. We won the match so it didn't matter, but this might be re-worded a bit to avoid the unintentional misdirection. True, Darcy is told that HE hates everybody and Holden says,
"If you sat around there long enough and heard all the phonies applauding and all, you got to hate everybody in the world, I swear you did," but this is a tough one.

[UlyssesInvictus]

I enjoyed the set and thought it was well done. Just a few things I can think of right now:

Round 3, Bonus #14:
Das Rheingold is the first opera in the Ring Cycle. Die Walküre is the second.

Round 6, Toss Up

"After being told he “hate everybody,” this character..."

This turned out to be Darcy, but Alex buzzed quickly with Holden Caulfield and protested the neg. We won the match so it didn't matter, but this might be re-worded a bit to avoid the unintentional misdirection. True, Darcy is told that HE hates everybody and Holden says,
"If you sat around there long enough and heard all the phonies applauding and all, you got to hate everybody in the world, I swear you did," but this is a tough one.

Thanks, we've fixed the first error.
As for the second one, I'm not sure I entirely want to change the clue--I feel like the structure of the sentence is definitely implying a (requisite) follow-up clue, and anyone who buzzes solely on the first clause (in any case, really) is buzzing at their own behest before the sentence is over. I'll take suggestions on how to reword the clue, certainly, but I'm not entirely convinced it's an ambiguous/factual error rather than an unfortunate sentence construction.

[Viridian]

I really enjoyed this set! Props to the editors and the writers who made this all possible. Can you post the tossups on Gauguin, Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, and Mother Courage? I felt like Mother Courage itself was a bit too hard to toss up at this level; if i remember correctly, there were only quotes comprising the power portion of that tossup, which made it really hard to convert unless Yvette or some other clue was read.

[jiholius]

1. This painter depicted his fourteen year-old girlfriend lying face down in front of a figure in all black in his Spirit of the Dead Watching. He was inspired by Japanese woodcuts in a work depicting a crowd of women in white hats observing the title event. One of this artist’s paintings is meant to be read from (*) right to left to answer the three title questions. This artist showed Jacob wrestling an angel in Vision After the Sermon, and he painted the crucifixion in 19th century France in his Yellow Christ. For 10 points, name this French-born painter of Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? who spent a lot of time in Tahiti.
ANSWER: (Eugène Henri) Paul Gauguin

20. One painting from this movement depicts a line of fancily dressed women walking down a street while men build a sewer; that painting, entitled Work, is by Ford Madox Brown. Another painting from this school shows the title figure raising his wounded hand in front of (*) carpenters building a door. A woman based on Elizabeth Siddal is prominently featured in a painting from this movement. John Everett Millais’ Christ in the House of His Parents and Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Beata Beatrix are masterpieces of, for 10 points, what British art movement which rejected the style of the painter of The School of Athens?
ANSWER: Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (or PRB)

1. The author wrote a commentary “Model Book” titled after this character, and Helene Weigel originally performed this role. This character states, “I must get back into business” at the end of the play, and she hears the prostitute Yvette sing the (*) “Song of Fraternization.” This character’s mute daughter is killed after playing a drum to warn of a Catholic sneak attack. This character’s true name is Anna Fierling, and her children Eilif, Kattrin, and Swiss Cheese all die while she’s operating a canteen wagon over the course of the Thirty Years War. For 10 points, name this character who, with “Her Children,” titles a Bertolt Brecht play.
ANSWER: Mother Courage (prompt on partial; accept Mother Courage and Her Children; accept either or both underline parts of Anna Fierling before read)

[DeepakM]

Can I see the tossup on images? First clue was something about a playboy model i believe

[UlyssesInvictus]

Can I see the tossup on images? First clue was something about a playboy model i believe

A standard reference item used for processing these items is named after Playboy model Lena Soderberg.
A type of anisotropic diffusion used on these items can result in a “smoothing” named for Gauss. DeepMask
is a piece of software that “segments” these items using feature detection while avoiding (*) noise. These items
can be stored in rasterized formats, like TIFF, or in vector formats, such as the SVG filetype, which allows these
items to scale well when undergoing dimension changes. These files are usually stored as grids of pixels of different
colors. For 10 points, name these files that might be of formats like JPEG or PNG.
ANSWER: images (accept any obvious synonym, like pictures; prompt on files; accept any image type, like jPEG
or PNG ; prompt on just data ; Ed’s note: feature detection and noise applies to all data, but DeepMask is specifically
Facebook’s algorithm for identifying images)

[El Salvadoreno]

Hello,
For the bonus on the Qu'ran with the first part of "The Cow," can I ask why "2nd Sura of the Qu'ran" is not at least prompted for that part.
Thank You.

[UlyssesInvictus]

Hello,
For the bonus on the Qu'ran with the first part of "The Cow," can I ask why "2nd Sura of the Qu'ran" is not at least prompted for that part.
Thank You.

In hindsight, it should have been. I initially decided not to prompt on "Quran" since the question explicitly labels the answer part of a larger work, but as you describe, it's easier to have a general prompt on Quran to handle subchapters. It's been fixed for future mirrors!

[sharathun]

Could I see the bonus on Masaccio? I was trying to figure out which was the easy part of this bonus, but IMO each part was equally difficult. It was also kind of discouraging to get zero points on the first bonus of the tournament, if I remember correctly.

[UlyssesInvictus]

Could I see the bonus on Masaccio? I was trying to figure out which was the easy part of this bonus, but IMO each part was equally difficult. It was also kind of discouraging to get zero points on the first bonus of the tournament, if I remember correctly.

1. One of this artist’s works includes a skeleton lying on a tomb beneath the words, “What you are, I once was; what
I am, you will be.” For 10 points each:
[10] Name this short-lived Italian. He used Jesus’ head as the vanishing point and showed Peter finding a coin in a
fish’s mouth in a piece located in the Brancacci Chapel, The Tribute Money.
ANSWER: Masaccio (or Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di Simone )
[10] This Masaccio fresco in Santa Maria Novella that depicts the title religious figures situated beneath an elaborate
barrel vault, one of the first uses of true linear perspective in Western painting.
ANSWER: The Holy Trinity, with the Virgin and St. John and Donors (or Santa Trinità)
[10] Masaccio also painted one of these scenes as part of the Pisa Altarpiece. This event comes 11th in the Stations
of the Cross, before being followed by Jesus dying as a result.
ANSWER: crucifixion of Jesus

[sharathun]

Oh, ok thanks. For some reason I remembered the bonus parts as The Tribute Money/Masaccio/The Holy Trinity, and now seeing the last bonus part kind of makes me ashamed that we zeroed this bonus.

[Irreligion in Bangladesh]

As promised, I've got more; in particular, a list of questions I really enjoyed. Two notes on my feedback here:
*I'm not giving proper credit below for "that was a well-executed tossup using standard clues on a standard answerline," and I'm doing so because most questions did pull that off well. In a page's worth of Round 1 alone, I'm seeing questions like Turner, Symphonie Fantastique, and 2 (common link science) that all hit the strike zone. That was the norm; that's a good norm.

*To the science writers/editors -- don't expect to see science in this list, but only because that's not my category, not because it's bad. Sorry!)


*I love the shipwrecks answerline and clue selection. I will request a "prompt goes earlier" re-write -- "After one of these events, the current site of Harpo Studios in Chicago was used as a makeshift morgue as more than 200 Western Electric workers were killed on their way to a picnic." -- The words "Eastland Disaster" aren't said later in the question or in the answer line, so if somebody hero pulls that answer during the first sentence it'll be rough; it's a thing worth adding, probably just to the answer line.

*I approve of the "Johnson impeachment as hard part" approach, though I'd personally swap the "which sentence is leadin, which sentence is in part 1" to give the "more contemporary" clue last. Makes it epsilon less confusing.

*The |island from the Tempest| being the first Description Acceptable tossup in the set was, I thought, a beautiful way of introducing the concept (to new players) during the day; in general, I thought this tournament used the convention perfectly.

*Great geography question on New Orleans; interesting early clues that reward having traveled there, important famous clues in the middle, great pre-FTP and giveaway structure.

*I loved the maize tossup; that's really good, interesting, and hard myth content, and done in a particularly inventive way. I'd recommend making the giveaway "more of a giveaway," in the sense of "FTP name this staple crop of American cultures" doesn't give players another clue that they didn't have before FTP. If you're OK with "Three Sisters, minus squash and beans" being the easiest clue, you can put that in the FTP; if you want the tossup to be easier, you can say "known as maize" at the very end. (The idea is "if somebody only starts listening once the moderator says FTP, they should be given at least something," not generally for "be nice to them" purposes, but for "Team A negged, Team B is more focused on telling their teammates not to vulch than on listening to clues, knowing that the giveaway will ask them the simplest possible question anyway" purposes.

*I really wish the propaganda tossup hadn't been consigned to tiebreaker status; it's more than good enough to deserve full exposure. :)

*Round 4 has three good Description Acceptable tossups in a bunch, one of which is given the tag (Canterbury Tale pilgrims) and two of which aren't ("killing Medusa" and "hearing"); all three tossups are fantastic, and the choice to use/not use the tag was done correctly; a player is going to need more reassurance with their buzz on the Canterbury Tales pilgrims answer line, but won't need nearly as much "help" with saying "decapitating of Medusa" or "ability to hear." Good creative work there.

*I loved the Dylan Thomas/Invictus/Clough bonus; it got the easy part where it needed to be and got two *really* good poems in the set.

*Round 6's tossup on |generating random numbers| was solid, though it'd be helpful if the answerline could address buzzes involving "pseudorandom" early on.

*Round 9's history tossup on Hollywood was great.

*Big O of n |squared| (specifically, its giveaway) is a nifty attempt at getting computer science questions to not go dead; it didn't work in my room, but don't let that slow you down.

*As someone who doesn't really "do" mythology, I thought the myth in this set was fantastic. Creative answer lines, common links that didn't just stick to Greece, and yet an emphasis on convertibility. The drowning question asks about obscure Slavic myth, much less obscure Mexican myth, then Scottish, and then Greek, with an answer line and giveaway that guarantees 100% conversion. Hats off.

*Round 10 had a ton of great hard bonus parts; I loved |the human voice| as an instrument, the Yangtze dolphin, Higgins' slippers, Hillsborough...

*The lit tossup on Prague was perfect for the finals packet, as was the Infinite Jest tossup. (I'd request adding answer line instructions on an early descriptive answer of "the film from Infinite Jest;" as a moderator, it was hard to make that call on the fly. I ended up being probably-too-strict and prompting, and the player got it with "the Entertainment.")

*You made Young Fenimore Lee really happy with |Mingus Ah Um|. He earned the hell out of those 30 points.

*Another good example of "one small clue before 'this blank' won't hurt" -- one of Jakob Myers' teammates on Naperville North (sorry that I forget which one! my fault for leaving this so late) had a two-word buzz on the TPP tossup, and wanted to express his joy at that.

*The conch from Lord of the Flies was another fantastic answer line.

*A solid ostracism tossup; I'll nitpick at the leadin, though. Aristides is asked to |write his own name on the man's shard|, not to directly |ostracize himself|. The intention with the answer is surely to take descriptions like that, so it probably isn't going to make a difference; indeed, I've got too much of a headache at the moment to bother trying to fix the leadin myself, knowing how nitpicky this is. :)

*Loved the |pilot| trash tossup.

In looking through the set one more time to accumulate this list, I also found two last quibbles.
*Round 1's Ferris Bueller tossup was neat, but the sentence about the post-credits scene, as written, directly applies to Deadpool's homage as well. (Everything else about the tossup was very nicely executed.) It's obviously not protestable - earlier clues etc. etc. - but it would be appropriate to give this a "Deadpool references this character's question, "You're still here?" and command "Go home!" in a post-credits scene" update to prevent that otherwise well-meaning neg. (This is a place where many writers would suggest a "It's not Deadpool, but this character [rest as-is]]" play; I don't like that because it doesn't explain at all why you're telling them not to buzz with Deadpool, and "Deadpool references this character" at least does that.)

*The teams in my room and I were confused as to how, in Round 6's CE bonus on Flint, you were supposed to know Virginia Tech. Is that just "remember a minor news story from however long ago?" Is Marc Edwards famous? As is, this part plays like "guess a college, probably Harvard or Yale given the set's predilections" and that's likely not what you're going for.

[UlyssesInvictus]

First, will note that the mirrors for the rest of the year have already gone out, so changes prompted by any of the stuff here isn't reflected. However, I really appreciated all the feedback and praise--it's pretty motivating--so wanted to take some corresponding time to reflect on it all.

As promised, I've got more; in particular, a list of questions I really enjoyed. Two notes on my feedback here:
*I'm not giving proper credit below for "that was a well-executed tossup using standard clues on a standard answerline," and I'm doing so because most questions did pull that off well. In a page's worth of Round 1 alone, I'm seeing questions like Turner, Symphonie Fantastique, and 2 (common link science) that all hit the strike zone. That was the norm; that's a good norm.

Awesome!

*I love the shipwrecks answerline and clue selection. I will request a "prompt goes earlier" re-write -- "After one of these events, the current site of Harpo Studios in Chicago was used as a makeshift morgue as more than 200 Western Electric workers were killed on their way to a picnic." -- The words "Eastland Disaster" aren't said later in the question or in the answer line, so if somebody hero pulls that answer during the first sentence it'll be rough; it's a thing worth adding, probably just to the answer line.

*I approve of the "Johnson impeachment as hard part" approach, though I'd personally swap the "which sentence is leadin, which sentence is in part 1" to give the "more contemporary" clue last. Makes it epsilon less confusing.

*Great geography question on New Orleans; interesting early clues that reward having traveled there, important famous clues in the middle, great pre-FTP and giveaway structure.

Not a bad series of fixes; I'll move them in. Glad you liked the questions! (All Robert's.)

*The |island from the Tempest| being the first Description Acceptable tossup in the set was, I thought, a beautiful way of introducing the concept (to new players) during the day; in general, I thought this tournament used the convention perfectly.

*Round 4 has three good Description Acceptable tossups in a bunch, one of which is given the tag (Canterbury Tale pilgrims) and two of which aren't ("killing Medusa" and "hearing"); all three tossups are fantastic, and the choice to use/not use the tag was done correctly; a player is going to need more reassurance with their buzz on the Canterbury Tales pilgrims answer line, but won't need nearly as much "help" with saying "decapitating of Medusa" or "ability to hear." Good creative work there.

Glad you liked the Description Acceptable convention--I really think it ought to be used more, because it really allows players to feel more involved in the question, and when they finally do give an answer, you know they've actually thought about it and they're not just reflex buzzing. I can't really take credit for the ordering of these questions, or when Description Acceptable was used and when it was implied, so I didn't explicitly "decide" those things, but I did think about all of them. The killing Medusa tossup actually didn't use "DA" because I didn't want to really give away that it wasn't a named quest, but also just because I didn't think it was necessary for someone who actually knew the answer--in general, I think, myth's stories are so insular that if you're asking for, like, a "story," it's understood you want a specific unit of legend. Also in general, I think using "DA" is less important than just having really good answerlines that fully flesh out what leeway the mod can take with accepting answers.

*I loved the maize tossup; that's really good, interesting, and hard myth content, and done in a particularly inventive way. I'd recommend making the giveaway "more of a giveaway," in the sense of "FTP name this staple crop of American cultures" doesn't give players another clue that they didn't have before FTP. If you're OK with "Three Sisters, minus squash and beans" being the easiest clue, you can put that in the FTP; if you want the tossup to be easier, you can say "known as maize" at the very end. (The idea is "if somebody only starts listening once the moderator says FTP, they should be given at least something," not generally for "be nice to them" purposes, but for "Team A negged, Team B is more focused on telling their teammates not to vulch than on listening to clues, knowing that the giveaway will ask them the simplest possible question anyway" purposes.

I actually did think this question led a bit hard for pre-power, but I really wanted to use the answerline since it's both very convertible and something that's extremely important to American cultures; you don't always get a perfect chance like that, and I really wanted to think of things like that for this set.

*I really wish the propaganda tossup hadn't been consigned to tiebreaker status; it's more than good enough to deserve full exposure. :)

Robert will be glad to hear that, but I ended up thinking it was just too transparent/confusing to parse to keep as a regular question. Robert's whole shtick was to disguise it as a Fine Arts tossup, but that was ruined by it being a tiebreaker (since then it had to come from the big 3).

*Round 9's history tossup on Hollywood was great.

Excellent! The Hollywood tossup was one of my favorites to write, since I think social history like that that's not prominently in the canon, or even textbooks, but which everyone knows a little about--because it's that culturally monumental--is something quizbowl is really learning to cover well. It was actually inspired by the propaganda question, since I really just wanted to clue RKO somewhere.

*I loved the Dylan Thomas/Invictus/Clough bonus; it got the easy part where it needed to be and got two *really* good poems in the set.
*Round 10 had a ton of great hard bonus parts; I loved |the human voice| as an instrument, the Yangtze dolphin, Higgins' slippers, Hillsborough...
*The conch from Lord of the Flies was another fantastic answer line.
*Loved the |pilot| trash tossup.
*You made Young Fenimore Lee really happy with |Mingus Ah Um|. He earned the hell out of those 30 points.

Almost all of these were by Robert's inspiration, but I did a few and Jason did one, so glad you liked all of them. I think being creative with answerlines is really just the best thing that a set can do to make players happy and not feel run-of-the-mill, so I'm glad my spent energy produced results.

*Round 6's tossup on |generating random numbers| was solid, though it'd be helpful if the answerline could address buzzes involving "pseudorandom" early on.
*Big O of n |squared| (specifically, its giveaway) is a nifty attempt at getting computer science questions to not go dead; it didn't work in my room, but don't let that slow you down.

We'll tune these answers a little more, I was really hoping n^2 wouldn't go dead anywhere, but I think it just intimidates some people too much. May have to just plain ask for it as a math function at the end.

*As someone who doesn't really "do" mythology, I thought the myth in this set was fantastic. Creative answer lines, common links that didn't just stick to Greece, and yet an emphasis on convertibility. The drowning question asks about obscure Slavic myth, much less obscure Mexican myth, then Scottish, and then Greek, with an answer line and giveaway that guarantees 100% conversion. Hats off.

Yay! I did most of the myth in this set, but I edited that question from one Erik wrote, so glad to see you enjoyed the plethora of systems covered--common link myth has really started to grow on me, so happy that the coverage is also aprpeciated elsewhere.

*The lit tossup on Prague was perfect for the finals packet, as was the Infinite Jest tossup. (I'd request adding answer line instructions on an early descriptive answer of "the film from Infinite Jest;" as a moderator, it was hard to make that call on the fly. I ended up being probably-too-strict and prompting, and the player got it with "the Entertainment.")

That's good advice, and glad you liked the finals questions.

*Another good example of "one small clue before 'this blank' won't hurt" -- one of Jakob Myers' teammates on Naperville North (sorry that I forget which one! my fault for leaving this so late) had a two-word buzz on the TPP tossup, and wanted to express his joy at that.

That's amazing. I almost don't believe that, off the top of my memory I don't think it at all could have been identifying by that point.

*A solid ostracism tossup; I'll nitpick at the leadin, though. Aristides is asked to |write his own name on the man's shard|, not to directly |ostracize himself|. The intention with the answer is surely to take descriptions like that, so it probably isn't going to make a difference; indeed, I've got too much of a headache at the moment to bother trying to fix the leadin myself, knowing how nitpicky this is. :)

*Round 1's Ferris Bueller tossup was neat, but the sentence about the post-credits scene, as written, directly applies to Deadpool's homage as well. (Everything else about the tossup was very nicely executed.) It's obviously not protestable - earlier clues etc. etc. - but it would be appropriate to give this a "Deadpool references this character's question, "You're still here?" and command "Go home!" in a post-credits scene" update to prevent that otherwise well-meaning neg. (This is a place where many writers would suggest a "It's not Deadpool, but this character [rest as-is]]" play; I don't like that because it doesn't explain at all why you're telling them not to buzz with Deadpool, and "Deadpool references this character" at least does that.)

*The teams in my room and I were confused as to how, in Round 6's CE bonus on Flint, you were supposed to know Virginia Tech. Is that just "remember a minor news story from however long ago?" Is Marc Edwards famous? As is, this part plays like "guess a college, probably Harvard or Yale given the set's predilections" and that's likely not what you're going for.

We'll look at fixing these. The Aristides one is probably, as you note, not worth changing, but it's still worth looking at.

The Bueller question as originally written by Robert actually noted the DP reference, but I deleted because I didn't think it would be at all possible for someone to confuse the two films--I felt like context should have totally made it obvious we didn't want something like Deadpool, but now that you point it out, it's been enough years by now that it's totally possible someone has seen DP and not FB...even though the former is R-rated and this is a high school set...

I remember when the Flint scandal was breaking, the VT team was fairly notable for being the first "outside" source to champion the pollution against the cover-up by the Michigan gov, and as a result Marc Edwards was given the EPA contract to further study the water. I wrote most of that part off of a NYT cover of his team, so I figured it was something notable--but if everyone totally blanked on it, it could have been one of those "I'm in a bubble" things where what I thought was "a thing," was "not a thing" to everyone else.

[A Dim-Witted Saboteur]

In case you're wondering who my teammate who firstlined TPP was, that was Alex Eastman. He does econ and stuff. Plus Jack Brandt pulled "images" on Lena Soderberg. This was after he powered a question at kickoff about scantily clad dancers at a Microsoft conference, so we're still needling him about that. The fact that my teammates were able to consistently power stuff in this tournament really speaks to both the breadth of knowledge rewarded in the set and their practice.

P.S. Could you include the Iliad tossup from whichever round we played IMSA and the "Chinese" tossup where you firstlined Stephen Owen (i.e. the questions I was complaining about in my general-discussion post)

[UlyssesInvictus]

Note that we've changed the Iliad one since, so the original that you most likely heard will have been different.

In case you're wondering who my teammate who firstlined TPP was, that was Alex Eastman. He does econ and stuff. Plus Jack Brandt pulled "images" on Lena Soderberg. This was after he powered a question at kickoff about scantily clad dancers at a Microsoft conference, so we're still needling him about that. The fact that my teammates were able to consistently power stuff in this tournament really speaks to both the breadth of knowledge rewarded in the set and their practice.

P.S. Could you include the Iliad tossup from whichever round we played IMSA and the "Chinese" tossup where you firstlined Stephen Owen (i.e. the questions I was complaining about in my general-discussion post)

19. In 2015, Harvard professor Stephen Owen published a translation of the complete works of a poet from
this country, which include a poem about the complaints of a conscripted soldier entitled “Song of the
Wagons.” Another poet from this country wrote at the end of “Quiet Night Thought” of seeing a (*) moon at
the window and how “I lower my head and think of my hometown.” Ezra Pound translated poetry from this country
to write “The River Merchant’s Wife,” and its most famous poet allegedly drowned after drunkenly trying to
embrace the moon. For 10 points, name this home country of poets like Du Fu [“doo foo”] and Li Bai [“lee bye”].
ANSWER: China (or Zhongguo )

8. This work was translated in 1990 by Robert Fagles and in 2011 by Stephen Mitchell. The image of an
attacking lion is used in several similes in this work, and it describes the Cosmos and a warring city in a
nine-part ekphrasis on a shield. This work notably ends with the pyre-burial of a (*) slain enemy, and its
Catalogue of Ships describes the origins of several troops. This work opens in medias res with the line
“Rage--Goddess, sing the rage of [...] Achilles,” subsequently describing Achilles’s killing of Hector. This work is
usually paired with one in which Odysseus struggles to venture home. For 10 points, name this epic written by
Homer about the Trojan War.
ANSWER: The Iliad

[Amizda Calyx]

I'll note here that I agree with "cell-counting" being way, way too hard for high school. It is pretty much impossible for teams to have come across this before in basically any reasonable context, and even if they work in college labs it's unlikely they would be familiar with it. A description of hemocytometry ("Sets of sixteen squares occupying the corners of a three-by-three laser-etched grid can be observed to count these objects") appears two lines before the end of power in the MLK tossup on cells! I did hemocytometry my senior year of college but have never done any of the other techniques mentioned in the question besides flow cytometry, and that clue doesn't distinguish between cell counting and cell sorting at all anyway. A player in my room got this four seconds after I finished the tossup by saying "...counting cells?" and then was very surprised when he was right.

A quick couple notes about the spleen question: 1. There are also hepatic and endocrine sinusoidal macrophages involved in the RES. 2. T1 B cells are in the blood and then migrate to the spleen to turn into T2 B cells. I'm not really sure what a "T1 step" would be.

[Hyrdofluoric_Acid]

I guess although I agree that cell counting probably shouldn't be tossed up we did it in our bio class while looking at root tips or something. God it was so boring. So a lot of juniors and seniors in AP bio may have done this.

[UlyssesInvictus]

I'll note here that I agree with "cell-counting" being way, way too hard for high school. It is pretty much impossible for teams to have come across this before in basically any reasonable context, and even if they work in college labs it's unlikely they would be familiar with it. A description of hemocytometry ("Sets of sixteen squares occupying the corners of a three-by-three laser-etched grid can be observed to count these objects") appears two lines before the end of power in the MLK tossup on cells! I did hemocytometry my senior year of college but have never done any of the other techniques mentioned in the question besides flow cytometry, and that clue doesn't distinguish between cell counting and cell sorting at all anyway. A player in my room got this four seconds after I finished the tossup by saying "...counting cells?" and then was very surprised when he was right.

A quick couple notes about the spleen question: 1. There are also hepatic and endocrine sinusoidal macrophages involved in the RES. 2. T1 B cells are in the blood and then migrate to the spleen to turn into T2 B cells. I'm not really sure what a "T1 step" would be.

The cell counting question is one we've had a lot of internal discussion about. We all agree that it without a doubt is one of the questions more difficult to convert before the end, if not because of the content then because of how the question has to be asked, but we all also unanimously agree that this is something that is done throughout much of your lab career, from high school up. I'm not a bio major, but the research-minded people on the team all report doing this often; and I went to an outlier of a science high school, so my experience should not be taken as standard, but I definitely had to count cells and that at least proves high schoolers doing research are expected to do stuff like this.

At the end of the day, does this merit keeping the question? We want to say yes, but the question's been panned by most science people who've played it. We want to still say yes regardless, if only because we really like the question subject and believe it's important--but we're going to keep talking about it internally.

And I'm not qualified to talk about the spleen clues.