Spartan Housewrite: Specific Question Discussion

[Ciorwrong]

Use this thread to ask for and discuss specific tossups or bonuses from the set. I'd ask that if you request a tossup you ask why you are requesting that tossup. Something like "I'd like to see the tossup on George Washington because I felt the drop of "apple tree" in the first line was suspicious" are much preferred to "I'd like to see the tossup on Washington."

[Mike Bentley]

Here were the notes I took that I also posted in the Discord channel:

• General
○ Agreed with the sentiment that literature and arts were for the most part pretty good
○ History as a bit hit or miss. There were some tossup answer choices that seemed a little on the difficult side for regular difficulty
§ Also the world history had some easy answer lines with hard clues. I'd tone down some things like horses, Egypt by a clue or two
§ Another example is the California tossup. It's an interesting idea to clue this almost entirely from Native American clues but 1) there's some transparency in this once you realize it isn't likely to be in a place where Indians have been sent to another state and 2) seemed to stay pretty difficult for quite some time
○ Tournament could benefit from some work on clarity and concision.
○ I don't remember a lot of other visual arts tossups but maybe I'm forgetting them
○ Seemed like lots of jazz in comparison to, say, film or architecture
• Round 1
○ Henry IV seemed a bit of a cliff for Italy tossup
○ Are Elisabeth Bernoulli and her brother notable?
○ The Social Network bonus was a bit hard
○ Were there 2 Lebanon bonuses in this round?
○ Long bonuses
○ That free will bonus seemed hard
• Round 2
○ Coffee cultivation in Netherlands seems a bit transparent--you can figure it out from history clues
○ Liked the Paris Metro Station entrance bonus
○ "Edit distance" seems early in the string question. You can figure it out that this is a data structure storing text. Some of the later clues implied things that were unique to strings but weren't
○ Seems like this packet had 1/1 postmodern philosophy in it
○ Did that Bostrom bonus part say Superintelligence? If not, I think that's his most famous work
• Round 3
○ That yellow tossup said "earth" pretty early, seemed guessable
○ Is people of the book acceptable on that jizya bonus? At least make it much clearer that you want the Arabic term
○ I might move Masolino later in Masaccio question, given how easy it is to memorize their relationship because of their very similar name
○ Were a lot of people buzzing on "Mother of the Market" from Death and the King's Horseman? She's a memorably named character but who knows
○ That Turing bonus was too easy
○ Gorilla bonus seemed a tad easy
○ I don't know that kids these days care that much about old baseball
○ Marketing bonus part was really hard to figure out, 3rd part also was really hard to figure out
• Round 4
○ Pneumonia seemed like a stingy giveaway
○ Cognitive bias just described a lot of ways that people are irrational, that seems hard to make a good tossup
○ I dislike when you need to obscure an answer by giving a misleading pronoun: Sicily
○ Age of the Universe was a neat idea
○ That East tossup was not great. Especially that you get a 1/4 chance of being right at the start
○ Why not say "people" for the brothers question? Figures is sort of misleading
• Round 5
○ "Most prominent foreshortening" is a pretty strong claim in the Mantegna question
§ And the Egon Schiele part was very stingy
○ Seal pop music bonus was pretty tough
○ There's more "trivia" than is probably ideal in this tournament - for instance UFO question
○ Carnot is on the easy side for a middle part
○ I like the idea of a feminism in Egypt tossup but that seemed to have a few too many hard clues
○ Did you intentionally not mention diaphragm in Goodbye Columbus?
• Round 6
○ Golden Temple a pretty mild middle part
○ Kluge is a pretty hard middle part for Romania
○ Why not make France-Algeria war just on France and Algeria?
○ Prayer bonus was a little easy
○ Freud and Richter are similar difficulty
○ The Vancouver tossup made it pretty clear it was in Canada early and Canada only has 2 NBA teams
○ Boston question ruled out a lot of answers pretty early: it had to be an Allied country that wasn't in France or Russia where anti-German sentiment was high, and because it's WWI it's probably not going to be anywhere beyond the East Coast of the US
○ Lake bonus was tough
○ That horses question was hard
• Round 7
○ Easier giveaway on gamma?
○ Gorky bonus was pretty easy
○ First sentence in that mass tossup was hard to parse
○ Jain bonus was pretty easy
○ That cheese bonus could have a clearer easy part
○ Did that Dark Lady tossup imply some later author than Shakespeare invented her? If so, that was a bit confusing
○ William I assassination might be a bit early
○ Rake's Progress got pretty transparent - this is a series about a guy who visits prostitutes
○ Qing Dynasty was a sort of hard easy part on those clues, you need to remember when in the 17th century the transition between Ming and Qing happened
○ Those two Dubliners stories were both pretty close to hard parts at this level
• Round 8
○ If you can't find interesting enough geography answers to not have boring common link list questions on green or east, just cut the geo distribution back
○ Did that depression tossups say "bereavement" in the middle of it?
○ The giveaway for garbage collection seemed to imply it was about memory deallocation but it was really hard to hear the moderator this round so maybe I'm wrong
○ Woman With Dark Glasses is rather early in Blindness
• Round 9
○ Did the snake question have "Moses had one of these as a staff" in power?
○ Mutiny on the bounty question seemed cliffy
○ Contract with America bonus seemed pretty easy
○ The Herbert bonus was tough
○ English counties bonus also seemed hard
○ The motherboard bonus could be a little more sciencey
○ Wouldn't put Toyota Wars in first line of Chad tossup
○ Why 2 Hundred Years War questions in this tournament?
○ Hawaii tossup had very Hawaiian sounding names in the middle
○ Should bounded be promptable for the being finite question?
○ That first part of the Hillbilly Elegy bonus seemed hard

[A Dim-Witted Saboteur]

Here were the notes I took that I also posted in the Discord channel:

• General
○ Agreed with the sentiment that literature and arts were for the most part pretty good
○ History as a bit hit or miss. There were some tossup answer choices that seemed a little on the difficult side for regular difficulty
§ Also the world history had some easy answer lines with hard clues. I'd tone down some things like horses, Egypt by a clue or two

I got mixed feedback on the difficulty of _Egypt_, but the back half of that tossup will be revised a bit to include easier clues while remaining true to the question's theme. I agree with you on _horses_

○ Tournament could benefit from some work on clarity and concision.

Clarifying prose and eliminating the "thing, and unrelated thing" construction that seemed to generate a lot of complaints will be a major focus of our editing efforts going forward

○ Is people of the book acceptable on that jizya bonus? At least make it much clearer that you want the Arabic term

Short answer: no. People of the book are non-Muslim followers of Abrahamic religions, whether or not they're under Muslim government or not, while dhimmi are non-Muslims living under Muslim rule. Noting that an Arabic term is required seems more reasonable, though.

○ That East tossup was not great. Especially that you get a 1/4 chance of being right at the start

That'll get cut. Thanks.

○ Seal pop music bonus was pretty tough

As much as I love French hip-hop, you're probably correct. I'll rework that bonus to have a less hard hard part and a more real easy part.

○ Golden Temple a pretty mild middle part

I may revise this to asking for Amritsar itself off of the massacre clues in the first part of the bonus

○ Kluge is a pretty hard middle part for Romania

As part of a larget pruning of what in retrospect seems like an excess of Central European stuff in geo, that bonus will likely get cut.

○ Why not make France-Algeria war just on France and Algeria?

I wanted to ask specifically about a war that isn't enough of a Named Thing to get used as an answerline in proportion to its importance. I'll admit my choice to do this was a bit experimental, but I definitely had a purpose in mind here.

○ That horses question was hard

I'll probably remedy that by moving Dayuan a bit earlier and adding more late clues

○ Qing Dynasty was a sort of hard easy part on those clues, you need to remember when in the 17th century the transition between Ming and Qing happened

I can probably solve this by just saying "Manchu"

○ Did the snake question have "Moses had one of these as a staff" in power?

I think this clue was referring to a different Moses/snake thing, but you're right that this is too easy to Gettier. It'll get changed.

○ Wouldn't put Toyota Wars in first line of Chad tossup

This was another oversight on my part; this tossup will be heavily modified.

○ Why 2 Hundred Years War questions in this tournament?

I missed this since, for some reason, Poitiers was not on my answerline tracking spreadsheet. That tossup will likely be removed.

○ Hawaii tossup had very Hawaiian sounding names in the middle

I wrote this with avoiding namefraudability primarily in mind; it's sad to hear that I didn't entirely succeed. The more obviously Hawaiian of those names will get replaced.

[sbraunfeld]

Some scattered comments arranged by packet.

1
aurora and moonquakes are both easy
2
General relativity: Describing the FLRW metric as central to this theory seems misleading. The entire theory was developed without it; it's one of many solutions and just so happens to be the one that we think models our universe best. In particular, both I and a player on the other team were wondering if it wanted lambda-CDM at this point. Also switching the pronoun to phenomenon in this sentence is confusing.
Venice: patron saint + San Marco seems really early
Strings: edit distance should certainly not be this early
Lagrange multipliers and gradient descent (as clued) both seem like medium parts
3
five: The group action clue is incorrect and should be replaced with something like the following: "This number is the largest degree of transitivity of any finite permutation group other than A n and S n."
integer factorization and P vs NP are both at most medium parts
4
Texas: "setting of Lonesome Dove" should be something like "starting point of Lonesome Dove"
red underbelly is maybe too easy a hard part?
7
Gamma: I think the first couple clues are non-specific enough to really invite a buzz with Poisson distribution; it should perhaps be clearer that the distribution is giving the time between events rather than the number of events in a given time. Also, describing the Erlang distribution as only defined for positive integers makes it sound discrete; it should probably say something like "The special case of this distribution when the shape parameter is a positive integer"
Consciousness: The physicalism and higher-order clues should probably be swapped. What does "That book" refer to? Also Nagel is arguing against reductionist approaches to consciousness.
deer: Many animals are considered messengers to the gods in Shinto.
stones: Perhaps the last two clues should be switched
8
ferromagnetism: Describing (and then name-dropping) the Ising model in the second clue is really early.
Naming and Necessity: A minor point, but the "instead" in the pre-FTP clue is incorrect/unnecessary
Is In the Mood for Love (as clued) a hard part?
convergence only clued from monotone convergence is a hard part
9
Hamiltonian: any observable will yield an orthonormal eigenbasis
finite: A matter of taste, but the leadin seems quite silly (as does the second clue). In particular, their difficulty comes from having to parse the clues and then apply some simple/trivial facts on the fly, rather than having any deep knowledge. Simple functions are usually also required to be measurable (and it may help to add this, since it at least didn't click with me that we were in measure theory for this clue). Also the double-negative in the torsion-free clue invites people (such as myself) to buzz before "no" with "infinite". Perhaps this should be reworded to something like "The order of a torsion element in a group has this property."
Tristram Shandy: Name dropping Mrs. Wadman in the first clue is probably too early, as is Trim in the second clue

[CPiGuy]

Is people of the book acceptable on that jizya bonus? At least make it much clearer that you want the Arabic term

The question did specify that the answerline is a foreign-language term that means "protected person". People of the Book are a similar but distinct category; I might prompt on that but will definitely not accept it.

That Turing bonus was too easy

Yuuuuuup. Getting fixed.

Lake bonus was tough

Yeah. I thought 4 degrees C was a fair easy part, and have been disabused of this notion. I'm going to fix that, and also change the hard part to something a lot more interesting, like meromictic lakes.

Easier giveaway on gamma?

I'm not sure how much easier you can get. Knowledge that the gamma function generalizes the factorial doesn't seem too out of place at this level.

Jain bonus was pretty easy

In what way? (I'm not arguing, I just want to know which parts were the offenders.)

If you can't find interesting enough geography answers to not have boring common link list questions on green or east, just cut the geo distribution back

I think this is a stylistic difference, as I'm a big fan of these common link questions and don't find them "boring" at all. I think there's definitely a place for one or two of them per tournament.

Did the snake question have "Moses had one of these as a staff" in power?

it did -- this is a completely separate instance of Moses using a snake-adjacent staff to do shit in the Bible. I might omit the reference to the fact that the Nehushtan itself was a snake and just clue based on the fact that the Nehushtan was used to repel snakes, because it seems like multiple people gettier'd this.

English counties bonus also seemed hard

This is getting cut or rewritten.

Wouldn't put Toyota Wars in first line of Chad tossup

yeah, this is my fault for not knowing that was a well-known thing. I've already rewritten the tossup to avoid mentioning them altogether.

Should bounded be promptable for the being finite question?

Hmm. Good question! I think the answer is no, because most of the clues are about sets in general, not necessarily sets living in an order space (like the real numbers) -- and most of them are just false of bounded sets.

[CPiGuy]

thanks for the feedback sam!

aurora and moonquakes are both easy

yeah, i'm going to make one of those significantly harder

Lagrange multipliers and gradient descent (as clued) both seem like medium parts

gradient descent is going to lose the "also named like a multivariable derivative" clue

five: The group action clue is incorrect and should be replaced with something like the following: "This number is the largest degree of transitivity of any finite permutation group other than A n and S n."

yeah, we discussed this and you're extremely correct, I misinterpreted my algebra notes when I was writing the question.

red underbelly is maybe too easy a hard part?

hmm, most of the comments on that question were that it was way too hard.

Gamma: I think the first couple clues are non-specific enough to really invite a buzz with Poisson distribution; it should perhaps be clearer that the distribution is giving the time between events rather than the number of events in a given time. Also, describing the Erlang distribution as only defined for positive integers makes it sound discrete; it should probably say something like "The special case of this distribution when the shape parameter is a positive integer"

I'm not a huge stats person so I really appreciate the feedback on this, I'll go back and take another look at that question.

stones: Perhaps the last two clues should be switched

Good idea!

convergence only clued from monotone convergence is a hard part

Hm. I was guessing that people would just recognize the monotone convergence theorem as being a thing, even if they didnt know its exact statement, but I'll probably go back and add another clue.

finite: A matter of taste, but the leadin seems quite silly (as does the second clue). In particular, their difficulty comes from having to parse the clues and then apply some simple/trivial facts on the fly, rather than having any deep knowledge. Simple functions are usually also required to be measurable (and it may help to add this, since it at least didn't click with me that we were in measure theory for this clue). Also the double-negative in the torsion-free clue invites people (such as myself) to buzz before "no" with "infinite". Perhaps this should be reworded to something like "The order of a torsion element in a group has this property."

Good point about simple functions, and I reworked the torsion-free group clue. I can see where the leadin is kind of silly and I'll look for a better one, but the second clue seems like something that you can figure out from knowing how well-orderings work, which doesn't seem to me to be a trivial fact.

[Amizda Calyx]

red underbelly is maybe too easy a hard part?

hmm, most of the comments on that question were that it was way too hard.

For the record, I also thought this was a rather easy hard part. It comes up late in basically every question involving sticklebacks (including as the easy part at CO).

[Everyman]

Tewkesbury is north of Gloucester; I believe the bonus part claimed the opposite.

[A Dim-Witted Saboteur]

Tewkesbury is north of Gloucester; I believe the bonus part claimed the opposite.

That's my bad; I'll fix it. Thanks!

[A Dim-Witted Saboteur]

Between the Discord mirror and the in-person mirror, this set went through very extensive revisions. We'd like to thank everyone who left comments on the set in the past few weeks, especially Will Alston, Jason Golfinos, Ryan Rosenberg, and Mike Bentley. Thanks are also due to Billy Busse for stepping in to edit physics. We also intend to follow up on feedback we received in person at the MSU mirror.

I'd like to apologize on behalf of the editing team for issues with packetization and proofreading; correcting those issues will be a primary focus of our continued editing effort.

Overall, I'm very pleased with the way the set turned out with a few minor exceptions. We do, however, remain open to any constructive critiques of the set. Thank you all for playing!

[Judson Laipply]

I'd like to see the "star formation" tossup because I thought I heard a reference to the "NASA Webb telescope" that notably hasn't launched yet already having observed something. I would also like to see the "age of the universe" tossup since I was having difficulty parsing that live.

[VSCOelasticity]

Can I see the machine learning bonus, Hamiltonian TU, and cubic/12/something bonus?

ML: I realize the second part ruled out support vectors with the second clue, but I parsed the first clue at game speed as saying that all kernel methods use a hyperplane.

Hamiltonian: If I recall, a clue said something like "this quantity is equal to p squared over 2m for the particle in a box". If this clue is in the question, it needs to be reversed because that quantity is the kinetic energy operator, so its only equal to the Hamiltonian in this case because there is no potential for the particle in the box.

cubic: I thought the question said that 8 is the coordination number of bcc and the number of hydrogens in cylcohexane, but our reader could have said the wrong compound.

[gimmedatguudsuccrose]

cubic: I thought the question said that 8 is the coordination number of bcc and the number of hydrogens in cylcohexane, but our reader could have said the wrong compound.

I recall hearing cyclohexyne, so I think your reader goofed.

I'll have more to say about this set in a day or two, but off the top of my head, the Stark Effect and the Ising Model clues were far too early. In fact, the entire tossup on ferromagnetism was essentially a high school-level tossup on the subject with two very challenging first clues.

[CPiGuy]

A function of this quantity and the density matrix is multiplied by negative i divided h bar in the first term in the Lindblad master equation. For a phonon, this quantity can be calculated by quadratic form as the sum of the product of frequency terms times two operators which are differentiated by a plus sign. In one approach to quantum field theory, the S matrix may be calculated by the integral of the time-ordered product, which is a function of this quantity which generates the (*) time evolution operator. This quantity is equal to negative h bar squared divided by twice the mass times the second derivative with respect to x in the 1D particle in a box. This quantity is the Legendre transform of the Lagrangian, and this operator is applied to the wave function in the time-independent Schrödinger equation. For 10 points, name this operator, that for a system, returns the total energy of a physical system.
ANSWER: Hamiltonian operator [prompt on "total energy"]

The rate of this process has been estimated by Chary and Elbaz using the spectrum of the cosmic infrared background and they argue that this process peaks at redshift values of .8 plus or minus .1. NASA has observed this process with its Webb Telescope in an object which contains the brightest star in the SMC, NGC 346. This process has been observed readily in an astronomical object named after an Elephant's Trunk. It was hypothesized that this process corresponded with (*) supernovae by Ernst Öpik. In one extremely cold location in the HII ("H Two") region where this process may take place, Herbig-Haro objects may be found; those locations are Bok globules. This process is occurring in the region depicted in the photograph The Pillars of Creation. For 10 points, identify this astronomical process in which dense regions inside molecular clouds collapse to form objects like our Sun.
ANSWER: Star formation [accept any answers which indicates stars are being created from interstellar matter]

By using the temperatures, luminosity and cooling rates of white dwarfs, scientists are able to put bounds above and below this value. In a model where alpha is proportional to a value raised to the two thirds power partially named after de Sitter, this value is infinite. Confirmed by the 2015 Planck Collaboration, under the assumption of a (*) cosmological constant, the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe reported this value with one percent precision. Given the density parameters, one can calculate this value by reversing and integrating the Friedmann equation. This value is scaled down by a factor of over ten to the eleventh power in the Carl Sagan-popularized cosmic calendar model. Assuming the deceleration parameter is near zero implies the reciprocal of the Hubble constant is this value. For 10 points each, what value that is best estimated to be approximately 13.8 billion years?
ANSWER: the age of the universe [accept time since the Big Bang; prompt on lifespan of the universe]

For 10 points each, name some things related to machine learning methods used to solve classification problems.
[10] In the method named for these objects, a tree is "grown" from data where at each node, a smaller amount of variables are selected and the best set of these is used to split the node. Out-of-bag data is used to get an unbiased estimate of the classification error in this technique.
ANSWER: random forests [or random decision forests; prompt on forest]
[10] Random forests can be rewritten to become a type of method named for these objects, which transform data into a space in with a clear dividing plane. In linear algebra, this is the name given to the set of elements that are taken to zero by a linear transformation and is also known as the nullspace.
ANSWER: kernel [or kernel methods]
[10] For large data sets, a fast option for classification is the logistic type of this statistical technique. Estimators from the linear form of this technique can be computed by Ordinary Least Squares.
ANSWER: regression [accept linear regression or logistic regression]

cubic: I thought the question said that 8 is the coordination number of bcc and the number of hydrogens in cylcohexane, but our reader could have said the wrong compound.

It was cyclohexyne. The reader did in fact goof.

[Cody]

Was there a pronunciation guide for cyclohexyne?

[VSCOelasticity]

this quantity

I don't think this is the best pronoun for the Hamiltonian. Not everything in science is a quantity (cf complaints from physics-y people when tossing up the wavefunction). The Hamiltonian cannot be measured, and especially in clues from QFT it is best to say "this operator" in my opinion.

In one approach to quantum field theory, the S matrix may be calculated by the integral of the time-ordered product, which is a function of this quantity which generates the (*) time evolution operator.

This is a very confusing way of wording Dyson's expansion, mostly coming from the two uses of 'which' in a row making it hard to parse when listening. I don't think it is necessary to contort the sentence so much to make sure time evolution operator is out of power.

This quantity is equal to negative h bar squared divided by twice the mass times the second derivative with respect to x in the 1D particle in a box.

The part in bold here is just a description of the momentum operator until "particle in a box". In fact, even if you put particle in a box first, kinetic would still be right because in this case the Hamiltonian is just the kinetic energy operator in this case. If you want to keep this clue, I think it'd be best to say something to the effect of "because the potential inside the box" or something.

For 10 points each, name some things related to machine learning methods used to solve classification problems.
[10] In the method named for these objects, a tree is "grown" from data where at each node, a smaller amount of variables are selected and the best set of these is used to split the node. Out-of-bag data is used to get an unbiased estimate of the classification error in this technique.
ANSWER: random forests [or random decision forests; prompt on forest]
[10] Random forests can be rewritten to become a type of method named for these objects, which transform data into a space in with a clear dividing plane. In linear algebra, this is the name given to the set of elements that are taken to zero by a linear transformation and is also known as the nullspace.
ANSWER: kernel [or kernel methods]
[10] For large data sets, a fast option for classification is the logistic type of this statistical technique. Estimators from the linear form of this technique can be computed by Ordinary Least Squares.
ANSWER: regression [accept linear regression or logistic regression]

Okay, I just had a brain fart. I like this bonus!

cubic: I thought the question said that 8 is the coordination number of bcc and the number of hydrogens in cylcohexane, but our reader could have said the wrong compound.

It was cyclohexyne. The reader did in fact goof.

[Ciorwrong]

Was there a pronunciation guide for cyclohexyne?

Not but this is probably worth adding.

[VSCOelasticity]

For the primes TU, why did it say description acceptable? Like who is going to answer "a number that has no integer factors besides itself and one" or whatever. It was kind of confusing because I thought the answer was primes and then was like "wait why would they have said description acceptable".

I feel like I'm nitpicking a lot, so I should say that I did have fun playing this set and the majority of the areas I care most about (physics/CS/math and I guess the rest of science) were on the whole asked about in interesting, enjoyable ways. I want to thank the editors/writers again, many of whom are younger and it might be there first time editing/writing for a college set. I don't want to come off as a curmudgeon, but just clear up some stuff.

Can I see the TU on 'finite'? I thought about buzzing 'computable' for a few clues and was wondering if it was promptable.

[Ciorwrong]

For the primes TU, why did it say description acceptable? Like who is going to answer "a number that has no integer factors besides itself and one" or whatever. It was kind of confusing because I thought the answer was primes and then was like "wait why would they have said description acceptable".

We appreciate the constructive comments Jonathen. For the primes tossup, which I didn't write, it was originally going to be on "generating and finding primes" (think sieve of Eratosthenes) and the final version of the tossup included a lot of stuff on primality testing and just prime numbers as a set.

Here's the finite tossup:

A set has this property if and only if every one-to-one function from the powerset of the powerset of the set to itself is surjective. This property for a set is equivalent to the assertion that the set can be given a total order which is a well-ordering in both directions. A measurable function is said to be simple if its range has this property. If the order of every non-identity element of a group lacks this property, the group is torsion-free. The Dedekind type of this property is possessed by a set if there is not a bijection from the set to any of its (*) subsets. Every topological space with this property is compact, because a set is compact if every open cover has a subcover with this property. A set has this property if and only if it is in bijection with a bounded-above subset of the natural numbers. For 10 points, identify this property of having a number of elements equal to a positive integer.
ANSWER: being finite [accept equivalents such as finiteness; please do not prompt on "infinite"] [\quote]

[CPiGuy]

For the primes TU, why did it say description acceptable? Like who is going to answer "a number that has no integer factors besides itself and one" or whatever. It was kind of confusing because I thought the answer was primes and then was like "wait why would they have said description acceptable".

[...]

Can I see the TU on 'finite'? I thought about buzzing 'computable' for a few clues and was wondering if it was promptable.

Harris is correct -- that TU was originally on "generating primes" until we decided to make the answerline cleaner. I did in fact forget to cut "description acceptable" -- I agree that "prime" is an answerline that does not need description acceptable.

I think computable is incorrect from the first clue because the first couple clues are about set theory stuff that is explicitly only true of finite sets.

[VSCOelasticity]

For the primes TU, why did it say description acceptable? Like who is going to answer "a number that has no integer factors besides itself and one" or whatever. It was kind of confusing because I thought the answer was primes and then was like "wait why would they have said description acceptable".

[...]

Can I see the TU on 'finite'? I thought about buzzing 'computable' for a few clues and was wondering if it was promptable.

Harris is correct -- that TU was originally on "generating primes" until we decided to make the answerline cleaner. I did in fact forget to cut "description acceptable" -- I agree that "prime" is an answerline that does not need description acceptable.

Oh ok, that makes sense.

I think computable is incorrect from the first clue because the first couple clues are about set theory stuff that is explicitly only true of finite sets.

Yeah, you're right. I thought it was a fun set theory TU (which is not an oxymoron).

Can I see the tossup on the number four? Like the cyclohexyne thing there might have been a reader error, but I'm curious about the clue about the kissing number.

[CPiGuy]

I think computable is incorrect from the first clue because the first couple clues are about set theory stuff that is explicitly only true of finite sets.

Yeah, you're right. I thought it was a fun set theory TU (which is not an oxymoron).

Can I see the tossup on the number four? Like the cyclohexyne thing there might have been a reader error, but I'm curious about the clue about the kissing number.

I took a class on set theory last spring, I had to do some deep cuts on it...

Also, there was definitely not a tossup on the number four. The tossup on the number six, on the other hand, did mention the kissing number. Here it is:

This is the largest value of the exponent which provides an exception to Zsigmondy's theorem. This is the largest number which is a harshad number in every base. A category whose objects are sets with N elements and whose arrows are bijections between them has a non-trivial functor to itself only when N equals this number; this is because this is the only number N such that the symmetric group of order N has an outer automorphism. This is the largest integer N such that there are no Graeco-Latin squares of order N. This is the solution to the kissing number problem for (*) circles. This is the number of elements in the smallest non-abelian group up to isomorphism; that group is the symmetric group of order three. This is the smallest positive integer with four factors, and it's the smallest perfect number. An octahedron has this many vertices. For 10 points, identify this number equal to 3 factorial.
ANSWER: 6 [or six]

[VSCOelasticity]

Oh you're right, the other team vulched with four and I wrote that down lol. That clears things up! Thanks for the help and your work on the math questions!

[Zealots of Stockholm]

It was cyclohexyne. The reader did in fact goof.

This happened in our room too

[Victor Prieto]

Can you post the tossup with the cyclohexyne clue, please?

[Ciorwrong]

Can you post the tossup with the cyclohexyne clue, please?

This was in fact a bonus part.

This word is in the name of a series of namesake lattices, whose simple variety has a packing density of pi over 6. For 10 points each:
[10] Name this word which describes a "body centered" structure which has two atoms per unit cell.
ANSWER: cubic [accept body-centered cubic or cubic close-back]
[10] This is the coordination number of a body-centered cubic cell. There are this many hydrogen atoms in cyclohexyne and there are this many sulfur atoms in one molecule of its common yellow allotrope.
ANSWER: 8 [accept (eight)]
[10] This vector, named for a Dutchman, is a measure of lattice distortion caused by the precence of the line effect. Slip occurs in the plane defined by this vector and the dislocation vector often symbolized t.
ANSWER: Burgers Vector

I think I will add an emphasize or a pronunciation guide for cyclohexyne. It is unfortunate that there was a moderator error here.

[Judson Laipply]

The rate of this process has been estimated by Chary and Elbaz using the spectrum of the cosmic infrared background and they argue that this process peaks at redshift values of .8 plus or minus .1. NASA has observed this process with its Webb Telescope in an object which contains the brightest star in the SMC, NGC 346. This process has been observed readily in an astronomical object named after an Elephant's Trunk. It was hypothesized that this process corresponded with (*) supernovae by Ernst Öpik. In one extremely cold location in the HII ("H Two") region where this process may take place, Herbig-Haro objects may be found; those locations are Bok globules. This process is occurring in the region depicted in the photograph The Pillars of Creation. For 10 points, identify this astronomical process in which dense regions inside molecular clouds collapse to form objects like our Sun.
ANSWER: Star formation [accept any answers which indicates stars are being created from interstellar matter]

This seems like every other tossup on SFR in that it says very early on that "This is a process occuring across many galaxies in the universe that has a notable rate." Not sure how to change that fundamental problem though.

That clue on the Webb telescope is either wrong since JWST hasn't launched yet or is referring to a different Webb. It does appear that webb will observe NGC346, so a tense change should probably be fine.

A better leadin might be to take the "corresponding with supernovae clue" remove the explicit reference to SNe and instead reference the "delay time distribution" which is the delay between SFR and the supernova rate (Perrett et al 2012)

By using the temperatures, luminosity and cooling rates of white dwarfs, scientists are able to put bounds above and below this value. In a model where alpha is proportional to a value raised to the two thirds power partially named after de Sitter, this value is infinite. Confirmed by the 2015 Planck Collaboration, under the assumption of a (*) cosmological constant, the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe reported this value with one percent precision. Given the density parameters, one can calculate this value by reversing and integrating the Friedmann equation. This value is scaled down by a factor of over ten to the eleventh power in the Carl Sagan-popularized cosmic calendar model. Assuming the deceleration parameter is near zero implies the reciprocal of the Hubble constant is this value. For 10 points each, what value that is best estimated to be approximately 13.8 billion years?
ANSWER: the age of the universe [accept time since the Big Bang; prompt on lifespan of the universe]

It doesn't seem right to me that a method depending on extrema (most or least massive WDs and cooling rates) could produce an upper and lower limit that are both meaningful, but maybe you could link a result or webpage that shows this.

I'm pretty sure the second clue is referring to the scale factor as "alpha" which is a little strange to me because every source I've used calls it 'a'. You can probably just name drop scale factor because judging on the number of Nats-minus tossups on it, nobody actually knows what it is. Also I think that any universe where scale factor is proportional to t^2/3 would have an infinite age but not sure about that. Anyways definitely include something like "scale factor is proportional to time to the two thirds power."

Going solely off the "WMAP one percent" clue, I could probably buzz in with any cosmological parameter and be correct.

I'd move reciprocal of Hubble constant before cosmic calendar because the cosmic calendar clue is basically saying "hey, do you know any time related things on a universal scale" whereas 1/H is at least semi-real knowledge.

[Cody]

This was in fact a bonus part.

This word is in the name of a series of namesake lattices, whose simple variety has a packing density of pi over 6. For 10 points each:
[10] Name this word which describes a "body centered" structure which has two atoms per unit cell.
ANSWER: cubic [accept body-centered cubic or cubic close-back]
[10] This is the coordination number of a body-centered cubic cell. There are this many hydrogen atoms in cyclohexyne and there are this many sulfur atoms in one molecule of its common yellow allotrope.
ANSWER: 8 [accept (eight)]
[10] This vector, named for a Dutchman, is a measure of lattice distortion caused by the precence of the line effect. Slip occurs in the plane defined by this vector and the dislocation vector often symbolized t.
ANSWER: Burgers Vector

I think I will add an emphasize or a pronunciation guide for cyclohexyne. It is unfortunate that there was a moderator error here.

So, I agree that it is unfortunate that moderators missed that it is "cyclohexyne" and mispronounced it. But the "a", "e", and "y" variations in chemical names (see: alkane, alkene, alkyne) are something that it is also incumbent on writers to carefully manage to make sure that players are getting the correct information. (And to carefully manage so that players are getting points for correct answers, and only correct answers.) This problem most frequently arises with the "y" variations. This can be done through careful use of pronunciation guides & warnings, or by using alternate clues.

In this case, I would question why it is important for this easy part to reward knowledge of the general chemical formula for cycloalkynes as opposed to rewarding knowledge of the general chemical formula for cycloalkanes, where there would be no confusion?

[Zealots of Stockholm]

Just remembered this: the bonus on Elizabeth I in painting said miniatures in one of the parts before the part with miniatures as an answer. Think this was packet 1, bonus 1 or 2

[gimmedatguudsuccrose]

This was in fact a bonus part.

This word is in the name of a series of namesake lattices, whose simple variety has a packing density of pi over 6. For 10 points each:
[10] Name this word which describes a "body centered" structure which has two atoms per unit cell.
ANSWER: cubic [accept body-centered cubic or cubic close-back]
[10] This is the coordination number of a body-centered cubic cell. There are this many hydrogen atoms in cyclohexyne and there are this many sulfur atoms in one molecule of its common yellow allotrope.
ANSWER: 8 [accept (eight)]
[10] This vector, named for a Dutchman, is a measure of lattice distortion caused by the precence of the line effect. Slip occurs in the plane defined by this vector and the dislocation vector often symbolized t.
ANSWER: Burgers Vector

I think I will add an emphasize or a pronunciation guide for cyclohexyne. It is unfortunate that there was a moderator error here.

So, I agree that it is unfortunate that moderators missed that it is "cyclohexyne" and mispronounced it. But the "a", "e", and "y" variations in chemical names (see: alkane, alkene, alkyne) are something that it is also incumbent on writers to carefully manage to make sure that players are getting the correct information. (And to carefully manage so that players are getting points for correct answers, and only correct answers.) This problem most frequently arises with the "y" variations. This can be done through careful use of pronunciation guides & warnings, or by using alternate clues.

In this case, I would question why it is important for this easy part to reward knowledge of the general chemical formula for cycloalkynes as opposed to rewarding knowledge of the general chemical formula for cycloalkanes, where there would be no confusion?

It appears to me that "cubic" was meant to be the easy part of this bonus, although in general it does have a easy/easy/middle structure

[Judson Laipply]

This was in fact a bonus part.

This word is in the name of a series of namesake lattices, whose simple variety has a packing density of pi over 6. For 10 points each:
[10] Name this word which describes a "body centered" structure which has two atoms per unit cell.
ANSWER: cubic [accept body-centered cubic or cubic close-back]
[10] This is the coordination number of a body-centered cubic cell. There are this many hydrogen atoms in cyclohexyne and there are this many sulfur atoms in one molecule of its common yellow allotrope.
ANSWER: 8 [accept (eight)]
[10] This vector, named for a Dutchman, is a measure of lattice distortion caused by the precence of the line effect. Slip occurs in the plane defined by this vector and the dislocation vector often symbolized t.
ANSWER: Burgers Vector

I think I will add an emphasize or a pronunciation guide for cyclohexyne. It is unfortunate that there was a moderator error here.

So, I agree that it is unfortunate that moderators missed that it is "cyclohexyne" and mispronounced it. But the "a", "e", and "y" variations in chemical names (see: alkane, alkene, alkyne) are something that it is also incumbent on writers to carefully manage to make sure that players are getting the correct information. (And to carefully manage so that players are getting points for correct answers, and only correct answers.) This problem most frequently arises with the "y" variations. This can be done through careful use of pronunciation guides & warnings, or by using alternate clues.

In this case, I would question why it is important for this easy part to reward knowledge of the general chemical formula for cycloalkynes as opposed to rewarding knowledge of the general chemical formula for cycloalkanes, where there would be no confusion?

It appears to me that "cubic" was meant to be the easy part of this bonus, although in general it does have a easy/easy/middle structure

You forget how hard it is to visualize and count in real time. Despite me knowing what bcc looks like I fucked up and said 6. That said, it is still more easy/middle/middle than easy/easy/middle. Especially because you first have to know what bcc looks like first.

[Cody]

It appears to me that "cubic" was meant to be the easy part of this bonus, although in general it does have a easy/easy/middle structure

You forget how hard it is to visualize and count in real time. Despite me knowing what bcc looks like I fucked up and said 6. That said, it is still more easy/middle/middle than easy/easy/middle. Especially because you first have to know what bcc looks like first.

It is the clue about sulfur that makes it an easy part. (Also, I wouldn't count Burgers vector as a middle part even though it's clued to make it easy for anyone to fill-in-the-blank. It's done poorly, but it isn't that easy.)

[Lake Winnipesaukee Mystery Stone]

Apologies if this post ends up a bit long - going to work my way through the packets question by question - first some general thoughts - and to say that despite what follows, I don't think that this was particularly a bad set, more a very good example of giving yourself time to read through and proofread your sets before you send them out:

• Organisational: Please finish your writing in time to proofread the questions, especially keeping in mind the UK will be starting to play your tournaments several hours before the first US mirror - it's not fair to charge us full price if you are going to send us unfinished packets
  Questions need alternative answerlines and prompts - not every mod (indeed,this applies to most) is familiar with every subject area, especially with titles translated into English from an original.
• Question writing: I'm not sure I have enough digits to count the number of times I heard "that was in power?" or the opposite - I will highlight what feels wrong for me as I go through the packets below - but at least at our site, there was a general consensus that the powermarking between different subjects felt very uncoordinated.
  Bonus difficulty - I don't have advanced stats to back this feeling up, but there seemed in general to be quite a few sets which missed an obvious medium part
• Subject specific: The history, while generally quite enjoyable, and with some experimental ideas that worked well, was a bit, for want of a better word "memey" - or as Daoud put it to me, a bit too close to the Zeitgeist - I'll highlight examples of this in my run through below.
  Geography suffered from relying too much on atlas knowledge, with a side-ordering of linguistic fraud. There was also an overabundance of riverine content.
• Packet 1 -
  TU8 - maybe I spend too much time playing EU4, but Ryukyu is one of those things that feels a bit like a "meme"
  TU11 - this is a great idea, well executed (though I think it might be better to say "an inscription" rather than "a stone", given that's what is important about it)
  TU16 - should veches be in power?
  Bonus 2 - as mentioned before, miniatures is both in the lead-in and an answerline. This may also be because I'm British, there is not an obvious medium part here because the Armada portrait is very well known.
• Packet 2 -
  TU1/Bonus 1 - repeated answerline of trees is terrible packet feng shui - reception of Alexander is a very good idea though.
  TU6 - The Black War, and Tasmania more generally, feel very well mined at this point, and probably should not be written about for a while- it was quite surprising to find Truganini and Flinders Island in power especially.
  TU11 - it felt like there was a lot of Mormon content in this tournament. Beaver Island is a bit of a "meme" as well I fear.
  TU12 - the Cycle of St Ursula is one of the most important paintings in the Accademia - her name shouldn't be dropped that early I think.
  TU15 - "aerial bombardment in this war" followed by a Spanish named bridge should not be in power.
  TU16 - The first river we will hear of today. There are very few deltas in Europe, and once you've dropped the first three names, it is very possible to fraud that this is South East Europe, and therefore the Danube. The first clue is very dull - any particular industry? Was the industry particularly important to the history of the city/country/river as a whole. What is important about the Devin Gate physically or culturally? Talk about why the tributaries were and are important to Passau, rather than just having a list of them. And Ada Kaleh is a meme.
  Basically, in my opinion, when writing geography, you should be asking what makes the Danube distinctive and interesting.
  
  Bonus 4 - Xhosa, if you aren't doing a click, is pronounced with a hard k, not an h.
  Bonus 11 - "free ice water" seems somewhat impossible, but maybe this is just a British thing.
  Bonus 12 - I'm not sure there is a hard part here?
  Bonus 20 - Again, may be because I'm British, but not sure there is much difference is difficulty between Warwick and Tewkesbury. Also Tewkesbury is very much north of Gloucester
• Packet 3
  TU5 - what's the source, other than wiki, for the "European letters [whatever that is meant to mean] instead of Gothic" claim - I can't obviously find a source which doesn't go back to wiki's uncited statement about this
  TU11 - Surprised to find the Brooke family in power for Borneo.
  TU12 - This is a good example of the possible answer being narrowed down rapidly in the first line or so. The first name is very clearly Ethiopian, we are looking for a "structure" rather than a building, and one that can be built on some falls - there's not much else it could be after 1 and a half lines. Dropping both Asyut and especially Philae in power, famous Egyptian places on the Nile, is not great either.

Have run out of time for now - will return later

[CPiGuy]

Thanks for your feedback, Oliver! I can't talk about the history much, but I wrote a lot of the geography so I'll talk about that.

Apologies if this post ends up a bit long - going to work my way through the packets question by question - first some general thoughts - and to say that despite what follows, I don't think that this was particularly a bad set, more a very good example of giving yourself time to read through and proofread your sets before you send them out:

• Organisational: Please finish your writing in time to proofread the questions, especially keeping in mind the UK will be starting to play your tournaments several hours before the first US mirror - it's not fair to charge us full price if you are going to send us unfinished packets
  Questions need alternative answerlines and prompts - not every mod (indeed,this applies to most) is familiar with every subject area, especially with titles translated into English from an original.
• Question writing: I'm not sure I have enough digits to count the number of times I heard "that was in power?" or the opposite - I will highlight what feels wrong for me as I go through the packets below - but at least at our site, there was a general consensus that the powermarking between different subjects felt very uncoordinated.

In retrospect, I definitely agree that one of the weaker parts of the set was the lack of inter-category communication/synchronization. I know I made some effort to keep the powermarks pretty consistent in categories I edited, for example, but I probably could have done more to keep that the same as the rest of the tournament.

Geography suffered from relying too much on atlas knowledge, with a side-ordering of linguistic fraud. There was also an overabundance of riverine content.

Hmm, that's unfortunate. I tried to avoid that, but I guess I didn't do a good enough job of it. I'm sure you'll point out specific instances of this. The rivers thing is an unfortunate coincidence, I think.

TU8 - maybe I spend too much time playing EU4, but Ryukyu is one of those things that feels a bit like a "meme"
TU11 - this is a great idea, well executed (though I think it might be better to say "an inscription" rather than "a stone", given that's what is important about it)

Didn't write the Ryukyu question but it seems like a notable clue for the answerline.
You can thank Nour for the Pilate question -- I did some minimal editing but the idea was all his. (In general, this is a good time to mention that Nour wrote a lot of quality religion content.)

TU11 - it felt like there was a lot of Mormon content in this tournament. Beaver Island is a bit of a "meme" as well I fear.

This might also be a consequence of our lack of cross-category checking, although I think there were 1.5 tossups and one bonus part that mentioned Mormonism, which doesn't seem too outrageous. I can't think of more off the top of my head, at least, but I might very well be wrong.

TU16 - The first river we will hear of today. There are very few deltas in Europe, and once you've dropped the first three names, it is very possible to fraud that this is South East Europe, and therefore the Danube. The first clue is very dull - any particular industry? Was the industry particularly important to the history of the city/country/river as a whole. What is important about the Devin Gate physically or culturally? Talk about why the tributaries were and are important to Passau, rather than just having a list of them. And Ada Kaleh is a meme.
Basically, in my opinion, when writing geography, you should be asking what makes the Danube distinctive and interesting.

Thanks for the detailed feedback! If I were to write this question again in retrospect I'd probably cut the Bystroye Canal clue and use that space to flesh out some of the others. I will disagree with you on Ada Kaleh -- while it might be a meme it is also certainly distinctive and interesting and therefore worth asking about, in my opinion.

Bonus 4 - Xhosa, if you aren't doing a click, is pronounced with a hard k, not an h.

Alright, I didn't actually know the standard for this (I actually produce the click but obviously don't expect the mods to do so). Thanks!

Bonus 11 - "free ice water" seems somewhat impossible, but maybe this is just a British thing.

This was converted in my room in both the playtest mirror and the actual tournament, which makes me think that it's a fine hard part that just plays poorly abroad.

TU12 - This is a good example of the possible answer being narrowed down rapidly in the first line or so. The first name is very clearly Ethiopian, we are looking for a "structure" rather than a building, and one that can be built on some falls - there's not much else it could be after 1 and a half lines. Dropping both Asyut and especially Philae in power, famous Egyptian places on the Nile, is not great either.

I didn't actually write this question, but in my opinion ling-frauding Ethiopian names is something that shouldn't be expected of most players. I agree that some of the clues were easy, but if I had to guess I think this tossup might have played harder than you might think, just because the answerline is not a named thing and requires a little more thought to get there. Regardless, your points are well-taken.

Thanks again for all your feedback!

[A Dim-Witted Saboteur]

I agree with you on the Spanish Civil War and Tasmania tossups. I will, however, dispute the idea that Ryukyu being a difficult EU4 achievement that people post about a lot should make cluing it in a tossup on a historical topic to which it was very important haram. I'll also defend veches and the Brooke family in power; as Will Alston pointed out to me in playtesting, the Brookes were a hard part at CMST last year. I'm comfortable with rewarding knowing about them with 15 points. Novgorod is a somewhat difficult answerline, too, so I decided to err a bit on the side of generosity in powermarking. Asking about Mormonism once in religion and once in history also doesn't seem terribly egregious to me. As noted above, I apologize for and will definitely fix the geographical error on the Tewkesbury bonus part.

[Red Panda Cub]

The claim in the Finals 2 packet that in Dominion cards that let you draw are called cantrips is incorrect. Cantrips let you draw + give you an additional action.

[Belgium]

All other gripes aside (I thought the tournament was generally quite good) and not counting my slight breakdown in the last round from fatigue, I basically only have one remark:

Uh, why were there two separate tossups with the answerline "Yukon"?

[sephirothrr]

[*]Subject specific: The history, while generally quite enjoyable, and with some experimental ideas that worked well, was a bit, for want of a better word "memey"

Ryukyu is one of those things that feels a bit like a "meme"

Beaver Island is a bit of a "meme" as well I fear.

And Ada Kaleh is a meme.

What the hell is any of this trying to say? I don't think you know what that word means.

[Good Goblin Housekeeping]

The claim in the Finals 2 packet that in Dominion cards that let you draw are called cantrips is incorrect. Cantrips let you draw + give you an additional action.

This tu also tells you immediately it is an action you can do in a card game which doesn't have a lot of possible answers

[CPiGuy]

The claim in the Finals 2 packet that in Dominion cards that let you draw are called cantrips is incorrect. Cantrips let you draw + give you an additional action.

The clue referenced the fact that "cantrip" is a term spanning many card games, and in games like Magic: the Gathering, where there is no concept of "actions", a cantrip is just anything that says "draw a card". I figured that the clue was technically accurate and that anyone who knew what was happening could buzz on it, and that making it 100% correct would make it ugly and lengthen the question unnecessarily. Hopefully this didn't affect gameplay.

All other gripes aside (I thought the tournament was generally quite good) and not counting my slight breakdown in the last round from fatigue, I basically only have one remark:

Uh, why were there two separate tossups with the answerline "Yukon"?

I wrote a Yukon River geography tossup not knowing that there was also a Yukon Territory literature tossup. We decided that they were in separate categories and it would be fine to keep them in the set together as long as they were packetized far away.

[Lake Winnipesaukee Mystery Stone]

[*]Subject specific: The history, while generally quite enjoyable, and with some experimental ideas that worked well, was a bit, for want of a better word "memey"

Ryukyu is one of those things that feels a bit like a "meme"

Beaver Island is a bit of a "meme" as well I fear.

And Ada Kaleh is a meme.

What the hell is any of this trying to say? I don't think you know what that word means.

It's probably not the best word, it's just the word we were bandying round at our site- I think it the idea behind the use of the word is that they have become interesting facts that are repeated over and over again, in excess of their importance - I'm struggling to articulate exactly what I mean here, sorry.

[sephirothrr]

[*]Subject specific: The history, while generally quite enjoyable, and with some experimental ideas that worked well, was a bit, for want of a better word "memey"

Ryukyu is one of those things that feels a bit like a "meme"

Beaver Island is a bit of a "meme" as well I fear.

And Ada Kaleh is a meme.

What the hell is any of this trying to say? I don't think you know what that word means.

It's probably not the best word, it's just the word we were bandying round at our site- I think it the idea behind the use of the word is that they have become interesting facts that are repeated over and over again, in excess of their importance - I'm struggling to articulate exactly what I mean here, sorry.

It seems that this is likely to be an experience that doesn't universalize - every tiny niche community (strategy gamers, Brits, etc) will arbitrarily elevate things of relative non-importance. It's impossible as well as pointless for quiz bowl writers to attempt to resolve this. If you manage to recognize a clue because your weird non-quizbowl interest overvalues it, congratulations, enjoy your fifteen points!

[Zealots of Stockholm]

Could the cantrip TU be posted? Didn't hear the finals packets and would like to see it.

[Ciorwrong]

Could the cantrip TU be posted? Didn't hear the finals packets and would like to see it.

In one card game, playing an Alchemist lets you do this twice, while playing a Caravan lets you do this when you play it and at the beginning of your next turn. Other cards that let you do this twice in that card game include Moat and Laboratory. In several games, including Dominion, cards which let you do this once when you play them are referred to as "cantrips." In Magic: the Gathering, the artifact Howling Mine causes all players to take this action an additional time per turn, and one of that game's so-called "Power Nine", (*) Ancestral Recall, causes you to do this action three times. In Uno, if a player cannot play, they must do this until they are able to make a legal play. In a variety of poker named for this action, players can discard any number of cards from their hand and then perform this action that many times. For 10 points, identify this action often taken in card games to increase one's hand size.
ANSWER: drawing a card [accept drawing any arbitrary number of cards such as drawing three cards]

[A Dim-Witted Saboteur]

Ada Kaleh is a meme.

[ivanilyich]

Hi, I played Spartan at the weekend and I thought I'd give some commentary on the literature questions (which I found to be mostly good, and one of the most well-done distros of the tournament).

Note: I'm a literature student and specialist, but also a relatively new player, so my apprehension of the 'canon' is probably off and I've tried to adjust for that.

-

Packet 1:
-Italian drama: Really like this tossup, there's a lot of Dario Fo content which hasn't really found its way into mainstream quizbowl.
-Borges: In my room, fairly bad reading meant that 'point-counterpoint' came out like a book title rather than a quote, which led to the inevitable Huxley neg. I'm wary of stuff like that - I recognise it's stupid to think Point Counter Point would come up that early, but it still seems somewhat like bait. Otherwise the TU seems fine, if a bit contorted.
-Dylan Thomas: Hard to do well, since he's getting done to death. Can't count how many times I've heard 'green age' in the past six months - it probably shouldn't be in power (though I don't know if it's as overdone in the US). Perhaps Under Milk Wood would be a fruitful way of revitalising future tossups on him?
-Robots/computers: Really like this tossup. Combines a somewhat underused genre - sci-fi and sci-fi short stories - with a 'this type of character' concept which is actually interesting and novel (they rarely are in my experience).
-The Gibran/Amichai/Adonis bonus set seems to lack a medium part, as does the McTeague bonus set (though I presume McTeague is easier in the US).

Packet 2:
-Katherine Porter: Seemed a touch difficult to me, though I've now been told that she does come up at regs.
-Barthes: Weird to drop Writing Degree Zero's name that early, even though it's just out of power. Aside from that, happy to see well-written Barthes content.
-This is a personal gripe, but as someone very fond of tragedy, I think the whole Anouilh-writes-about-Vichy-France and Racine-did-Phedre and Corneille-is-the-other-old-one-who-didn't-do-Phedre stuff is a bit shallow and tropey. The hard part is new though.
-Hellman/Hammett bonus set is E/H/E IMO

Packet 3:
-No criticisms, apart from a couple of hard bonus parts being Very Hard. I like how the Larkin TU went an alternative route to some other ones I've seen lately.

Packet 4:
-Why. On earth. Did you put. The medallion. In the first line. Of the Chekhov tossup. It's a massive Chekhov chestnut, and resulted in several players who know Chekhov quite well second-guessing themselves because 'they wouldn't put that in the first line, would they?'
-'The Trials of Arabella' is a bit memey for Atonement, but it's probably fine.
-Nice TU on the new Sappho poem.
-Very happy about the Munro content, though that bonus set was very much 'gentle medium / easy / FIRE AND FLAME'

Packet 5:
-Not about literature, but putting Russia straight after St Petersburg is poor packetising.
-The Forster TU drops off a bit - you basically step out of somewhat obscure short story territory right into 'Lucy Honeychurch'
-As happy as I was to see Angels in America, I think there needs to be a revamping of the clues we use for it, because pretty much everything in that TU has been used before (multiple times), and it's a long ass play.
-A+ for the Canterbury Tales bonuses.
-Roth hard part seems too hard, but that's probably just a UK/US divide.

Packet 6:
-Having 'thyrsus' in earlyish power for Bacchae seems unwise to me.

Packet 7:
-I hadn't heard of United States of Banana, so can't really comment, but it seems to make the tossup pretty hard and then drop off quite a lot at Marquez.

Packet 8:
-Dubliners bonuses: 'Eveline' as a medium is dubious

Packet 9:
-More general comment: I'd like to see Waiting for Lefty get more integrated into quiz, because right now tossups on it go like this: [crickets] [crickets] [crickets] 'cab drivers' [buzz]
-You should 100% prompt on shape poem for altar poem - it's a subset of shape poem.
-The Fugard bonuses are hard, I'm not sure Port Elizabeth counts as a medium

Packet 10:
-Again, general comment, but it appears we've decided that The Master Builder is The Ibsen Play Which Is Getting Tossed Up now?
-Am I completely out of the loop or does that epic poem bonus set go hard/hard/super easy?

Packet 11:
-That Mexico giveaway is too hard for a giveaway, given that Bolano isn't Mexican.
-The Celia bonus set has two hard parts, you can't lateral 'flowers' at all (especially since breathing on flowers does not make them smell like you, lol).
-Again two hard parts in the Tate bonuses though that's more understandable bc American

Packet 12:
-Might not really be an issue, but it's always a bit dicey saying 'this author has a book titled after The Waste Land'. I get that you wouldn't clue Handful of Dust that early in a Waugh tossup, but I still have an inherent antipathy towards any clues which can be 'bait'.
-I like the Tin Drum question but agree that the 'jazz trio' clue shouldn't be that early, also everything after power is stock clues but with Tin Drum at this point that's to be expected.
-Lucky/tennis/Godot is H/H/E

Packet 13:
-Don't think the name of 'Blonde' should be in power for Oates
-As someone who is very good at Marvell, that's a stingy power. I'd pull it forward another line to between 'green thought' and 'green shade', and make the 'house' line slightly more obfuscated, because I can tell the powermark is because of 'Upon Appleton House', but a line from 'The Garden' should realistically be in power in my opinion.
-The Barsetshire bonus set is realistically H/E/E in Britain.

Packet 14:
-Very small gripe, but having a powermark in the middle of a famous critic's name doesn't make any sense. She's not particularly notable for commenting on 'The Emperor of Ice Cream.'
-Love the Cordelia tossup, and love the mention of Nahum Tate, but dropping 'heaven's vault should crack' that early is dubious - Arante is definitely harder than that, and Tate is probably harder than that.
-Should 'What is an Author' be that early for Foucault?
-The second line of the Holocaust tossup should be rephrased for pronoun issues - when you've got a reference to both 'that poem' and 'title objects' without a mention of the 'event', it's very easy to get confused.
-Really nice 'French' tossup
-The Saki bonuses again do not have a medium part (H/E/H)
-The Walcott/Naipaul bonuses are H/E/H. Also, please always introduce Derek Walcott as 'this hater of V. S. Naipaul'.

Packet 15:
-Very small gripe, but you need to include 'accept 'Chesterton' before 'G. K. Chesterton' is read' on the Walpole tossup (v good tossup, by the way)
-I don't know how I feel about the 'western canon' tossup - it has a similar problem to social science tossups in that nobody is going to buzz until they recognise the Bloom, because it could be many different things.
Also, I find the 'often dismissed as overly focused on the works of White Men' line to be...strange. It sounds almost defensive, particularly with the hyperbolic capitalisation of White Men, and it's difficult to get the level of critique done on the concept of canonicity into a throwaway aside before the giveaway (plus there's a distinction to be made between 'the Western canon is dismissed because there's too many White Man Works in it' and 'the concept of 'Western canon' is designed to centre the works of white men and elide the works of all other demographics, which makes the concept itself problematic' - one implies that the white man books are the problem, the other implies that the listing itself and the reasoning behind it is the problem - again, though, this is far too complex to get into an aside). Basically I get the sentiment, but I think something like 'often criticised for marginalising the writings of women and minorities', or, even better, some actual critical quote about the idea of the Western canon, would have been better.
-Love the Boal/Bechdel/Morrison bonuses

Consistent critique of the literature bonuses = lack of medium parts, and the hard parts sometimes skewing too hard.

[Cody]

The clue referenced the fact that "cantrip" is a term spanning many card games, and in games like Magic: the Gathering, where there is no concept of "actions", a cantrip is just anything that says "draw a card". I figured that the clue was technically accurate and that anyone who knew what was happening could buzz on it, and that making it 100% correct would make it ugly and lengthen the question unnecessarily. Hopefully this didn't affect gameplay.

Why not just use an example of a card game where cantrip does mean that (MTG), instead of using an example where it doesn't (Dominion)?

edit: To be clear, this is not a critique of the question proper, which upon close inspection clearly has more important issues (including the use of "this" to refer to the answerline). I just find it odd to anchor the clue in a game where the term cantrip is ambiguous rather than a game where it isn't.

[Ciorwrong]

Hi, I played Spartan at the weekend and I thought I'd give some commentary on the literature questions (which I found to be mostly good, and one of the most well-done distros of the tournament).

Note: I'm a literature student and specialist, but also a relatively new player, so my apprehension of the 'canon' is probably off and I've tried to adjust for that.

Thank you Dani. Your comments are extremely helpful and this post is very well done. If others are wondering what type of feedback we are looking for, this post should serve as an excellent template. In general, detailed comments like this are much more appreciated then comments about powermarking. If you would like to question or critqieu the powermarking, I'd please ask you to mention specific tossups with powers you thought were stingy or too generous. I don't disagree that powermarking might have been inconsistent across categories, but it's hard to make it uniform across 20/20.

There are a couple of things Dani mentioned I would like to expand on, but I will do so after my current class.

[Carlos Be]

-'The Trials of Arabella' is a bit memey for Atonement, but it's probably fine.

What does this mean?

-You should 100% prompt on shape poem for altar poem - it's a subset of shape poem.

100% agree, and also prompt on 'concrete poem'

Also, please always introduce Derek Walcott as 'this hater of V. S. Naipaul'.

I'm assuming this is facetious?

Will the packets from the first closed mirror be posted somewhere? I'm interested in seeing some of the questions referenced here that were not part of the set during play-testing.

[Wartortullian]

Is "meme" just what British quizbowlers call "stock"?