2018 Division II ICT: specific question discussion

[Important Bird Area]

This is your discussion thread for specific questions from the 2018 Division II ICT and IPNCT.

[Gene Harrogate]

I'd like to vent my frustration about two instances. In the first, when I buzzed in with "Assyrian Empire" the moderator negged me and insisted that I had answered "Uh... Syrian Empire". I was flabbergasted that I wasn't even asked to repeat my answer, considering the closeness of the moderator's interpretation to the correct answer as well as the general expectation that a collegiate quizbowler would know there was no "Syrian Empire" in ancient Mesopotamia. When I protested after the other team had picked up the tossup, 3 of them insisted that they had heard me say "Uh... Syrian". This came across as unsportsmanlike to me (I won't name the team), as this insistence seemed to me and my teammates completely unfounded. It was especially frustrating since one member of the opposing team told me afterwards he sympathized with me and thought I had given the correct answer. I know if I was on the other team I would have (and have in similar situations) given the benefit of the doubt.

The other instance was a just a plain moderator mistake. My teammate answered "If This is a Man" for "Survival in Auschwitz" and was negged, despite the fact that (I believe) his answer was on the list of acceptable answerlines. Unfortunately neither of us had the wherewithal to challenge at that time and only found out the mistake after the fact.

Excuse me if this comes across as petulant, I realize that no single tossup really costs a team the game, and we had other opportunities to win that we didn't capitalize on. I also realize everyone makes mistakes, especially when doing grueling work for hours, unpaid. The two games were decided by 70 and 30 points respectively, however, and the first loss in particular cost us a spot in the top bracket without a tiebreaker. It's especially a shame given the amount of money and effort teams put into attending ICT, and the emotional stakes involved.

[Protean]

Common restriction enzymes used in cloning include this one, which cuts at a GAATTC recognition sequence and leaves a 5' sticky end.
answer: EcoRI

I guess this was supposed to be the hard part (with DNA ligase and topoisomerases being easy and medium, respectively) but I thought that this was fairly unreasonable. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but to my knowledge nothing in this question was uniquely identifying except the recognition sequence. There are numerous common restriction enzymes which leave sticky ends so you would just have to pull a specific restriction enzyme from memorizing a pretty unremarkable 6-nucleotide sequence.

[Good Goblin Housekeeping]

Common restriction enzymes used in cloning include this one, which cuts at a GAATTC recognition sequence and leaves a 5' sticky end.
answer: EcoRI

I guess this was supposed to be the hard part (with DNA ligase and topoisomerases being easy and medium, respectively) but I thought that this was fairly unreasonable. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but to my knowledge nothing in this question was uniquely identifying except the recognition sequence. There are numerous common restriction enzymes which leave sticky ends so you would just have to pull a specific restriction enzyme from memorizing a pretty unremarkable 6-nucleotide sequence.

isn't this like... the most famous restriction enzyme that produces sticky ends

[Protean]

Common restriction enzymes used in cloning include this one, which cuts at a GAATTC recognition sequence and leaves a 5' sticky end.
answer: EcoRI

I guess this was supposed to be the hard part (with DNA ligase and topoisomerases being easy and medium, respectively) but I thought that this was fairly unreasonable. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but to my knowledge nothing in this question was uniquely identifying except the recognition sequence. There are numerous common restriction enzymes which leave sticky ends so you would just have to pull a specific restriction enzyme from memorizing a pretty unremarkable 6-nucleotide sequence.

isn't this like... the most famous restriction enzyme that produces sticky ends

I mean, if the question is written in a way where the only way you're answering is "I'll just name the most famous restriction enzyme" instead of any actual clues, that question may need to be reworked a bit. I say the sequence is unremarkable because there's nothing about GAATTC that makes it any more notable than any other restriction enzyme sequence and in practice many other sticky end-generating enzymes are used just as commonly as EcoRI.

[Dirty Water]

I said "slaves in Egypt" for _pyramid builders_ and got negged; I understand not all of the builders may have been slaves per se, but what were the acceptable and promptable responses?

[touchpack]

Common restriction enzymes used in cloning include this one, which cuts at a GAATTC recognition sequence and leaves a 5' sticky end.
answer: EcoRI

I guess this was supposed to be the hard part (with DNA ligase and topoisomerases being easy and medium, respectively) but I thought that this was fairly unreasonable. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but to my knowledge nothing in this question was uniquely identifying except the recognition sequence. There are numerous common restriction enzymes which leave sticky ends so you would just have to pull a specific restriction enzyme from memorizing a pretty unremarkable 6-nucleotide sequence.

isn't this like... the most famous restriction enzyme that produces sticky ends

I mean, if the question is written in a way where the only way you're answering is "I'll just name the most famous restriction enzyme" instead of any actual clues, that question may need to be reworked a bit. I say the sequence is unremarkable because there's nothing about GAATTC that makes it any more notable than any other restriction enzyme sequence and in practice many other sticky end-generating enzymes are used just as commonly as EcoRI.

EcoRI is by far the most commonly used example of a restriction enzyme in high school and intro collegiate biology classes. While I get that philosophically, the question isn't super interesting to listen to, pragmatically, I don't see a problem here. Most people who have taken a biology class and have the quizbowl skill needed to qualify for ICT should be able to figure out what the question wants, even if they haven't memorized the recognition sequence.

[setht]

I said "slaves in Egypt" for _pyramid builders_ and got negged; I understand not all of the builders may have been slaves per se, but what were the acceptable and promptable responses?

The answer line was
pyramid builders (accept answers that mention people who worked on pyramids at Giza)

I guess we should have included specific instructions on what to do with answers involving "slave(s)." Since you just said "slaves in Egypt" but nothing about "working on pyramids," I'm not sure if you would have earned points on a protest. (For instance, it's presumably not the case that all slaves in Egypt lived in homes separated from a sacred area by the Wall of the Crow.)

-Seth

[ErikC]

I said "slaves in Egypt" for _pyramid builders_ and got negged; I understand not all of the builders may have been slaves per se, but what were the acceptable and promptable responses?

The answer line was
pyramid builders (accept answers that mention people who worked on pyramids at Giza)

I guess we should have included specific instructions on what to do with answers involving "slave(s)." Since you just said "slaves in Egypt" but nothing about "working on pyramids," I'm not sure if you would have earned points on a protest. (For instance, it's presumably not the case that all slaves in Egypt lived in homes separated from a sacred area by the Wall of the Crow.)

The modern understanding is that the pyramids were built by farmers, not slaves as the old myth goes. I answered with "Egyptian farmers" because that's who actually build the pyramids, and "pyramid builders" is not really a group of people by most definitions.

Perhaps the answerline should have been "building pyramids" and instead of asking for a group, you ask for a task.

[Maxwell Sniffingwell]

I said "slaves in Egypt" for _pyramid builders_ and got negged; I understand not all of the builders may have been slaves per se, but what were the acceptable and promptable responses?

The answer line was
pyramid builders (accept answers that mention people who worked on pyramids at Giza)

I guess we should have included specific instructions on what to do with answers involving "slave(s)." Since you just said "slaves in Egypt" but nothing about "working on pyramids," I'm not sure if you would have earned points on a protest. (For instance, it's presumably not the case that all slaves in Egypt lived in homes separated from a sacred area by the Wall of the Crow.)

-Seth

Yeah, I got negged for "the slaves that built the pyramids" on this.

[vinteuil]

I said "slaves in Egypt" for _pyramid builders_ and got negged; I understand not all of the builders may have been slaves per se, but what were the acceptable and promptable responses?

The answer line was
pyramid builders (accept answers that mention people who worked on pyramids at Giza)

I guess we should have included specific instructions on what to do with answers involving "slave(s)." Since you just said "slaves in Egypt" but nothing about "working on pyramids," I'm not sure if you would have earned points on a protest. (For instance, it's presumably not the case that all slaves in Egypt lived in homes separated from a sacred area by the Wall of the Crow.)

-Seth

Yeah, I got negged for "the slaves that built the pyramids"
on this.

Was the DI version different? Chris Ray got prompted from "slaves" to "egyptian slaves" to pyramid builders on this?

[Youngster Joey]

May I see the tossup on "etching"? I buzzed in with "photolithography" after hearing a description of photoresist removal, which I think is at least promptable. Also, may I see the FRET bonus?

[Important Bird Area]

This process alternates with passivation steps in the Bosch process. High selectivities can be achieved by the "reactive ion" form of this technique, which removes layers of photoresist and oxide from silicon wafers. Its "wet" form uses chemicals like (*) hydrofluoric acid to make patterns in a substrate. For 10 points—name this technique classically used in printmaking to create designs in metal plates by means of corrosion.

answer: etching (accept (deep) reactive ion etching or wet etching; prompt on "(deep) RIE")

We ruled that photolithography was not acceptable or promptable for this tossup.

This mechanism's efficiency scales with the negative sixth power of the distance between acceptor and donor molecules. For 10 points each—

A. Name this fluorescent process discovered by Theodor Forster.

answer: FRET ["fret"] (or Forster resonance energy transfer or fluorescence resonance energy transfer)

B. Common fluorophores used for FRET are variants of this protein first isolated from the A. victoria jellyfish. Its name refers to its emission of light at a wavelength of about 509 nanometers.

answer: green fluorescent protein or GFP

C. Instead of employing fluorescent proteins, a bioluminescent variant of FRET called BRET uses this class of enzymes found in fireflies as a source of photons.

answer: luciferase(s)

[setht]

I said "slaves in Egypt" for _pyramid builders_ and got negged; I understand not all of the builders may have been slaves per se, but what were the acceptable and promptable responses?

The answer line was
pyramid builders (accept answers that mention people who worked on pyramids at Giza)

I guess we should have included specific instructions on what to do with answers involving "slave(s)." Since you just said "slaves in Egypt" but nothing about "working on pyramids," I'm not sure if you would have earned points on a protest. (For instance, it's presumably not the case that all slaves in Egypt lived in homes separated from a sacred area by the Wall of the Crow.)

-Seth

Yeah, I got negged for "the slaves that built the pyramids"
on this.

Was the DI version different? Chris Ray got prompted from "slaves" to "egyptian slaves" to pyramid builders on this?

The DI version had the same answer line. (Well, I guess the parenthetical directive said "answers indicating" rather than "answers that mention," but that's the only difference.)

-Seth

[touchpack]

I said "slaves in Egypt" for _pyramid builders_ and got negged; I understand not all of the builders may have been slaves per se, but what were the acceptable and promptable responses?

The answer line was
pyramid builders (accept answers that mention people who worked on pyramids at Giza)

I guess we should have included specific instructions on what to do with answers involving "slave(s)." Since you just said "slaves in Egypt" but nothing about "working on pyramids," I'm not sure if you would have earned points on a protest. (For instance, it's presumably not the case that all slaves in Egypt lived in homes separated from a sacred area by the Wall of the Crow.)

-Seth

Yeah, I got negged for "the slaves that built the pyramids"
on this.

Was the DI version different? Chris Ray got prompted from "slaves" to "egyptian slaves" to pyramid builders on this?

The DI version had the same answer line. (Well, I guess the parenthetical directive said "answers indicating" rather than "answers that mention," but that's the only difference.)

-Seth

I wasn't moderating for Chris this round, but I read the parenthetical directive as indicating that "pyramid builders" isn't a specific Named Group, and thus reasonable descriptors (like "slaves" or "Egyptian slaves") would thus be promptable (and I did give out those prompts when the tossup was answered that way in my room). I'm guessing Chris's moderator for that round felt the same way.