2020 Division II SCT: specific question discussion

[Important Bird Area]

This is your discussion thread for specific questions from the 2020 Division II SCT.

[Mike Bentley]

Two errors I remember from reading:

A bonus on Henry II of England implied that he only had 3 sons. He had 5 sons with Eleanor, although not all lived until adulthood.

The tossup on Adventure implied it had the first Easter Egg in a videogame. This used to be the assumption but in recent years there have been several earlier examples found. Although I think it is correct to say that the term "easter egg" was first coined for Adventure.

[Important Bird Area]

The Henry II issue was my fault; I have just fixed this for future use.

I referred the video game question to editors who know about that field of knowledge.

[hexagonman]

I think the lead-ins on the Saints and Kansas City questions were just too easy. Most people with any knowledge of recent Super Bowls knew what the Saints did in 2012, and also a lot of people remember that game beyond those interested in the NFL. For the Kansas City question, Jackie Robinson played for the Monarchs and also using the Monarchs-->Royals logic it kind of gave the question away before power mark.

Also, I don't think referencing Stadium Names that are not known by non-fans (see: the Braves toss-up) gives a disproportionate advantage to people who are fans/know the team. Like mentioning Fenway Park at the end of a question is ok but having a non-well-known stadium before power mark will be a waste of a clue for most players.

[Cheynem]

I'm not defending the clue per se, but I think the point of the stadium name clue in the Braves tossup is that the stadium had just changed its name (to a name that got roundly roasted on Twitter, to boot). I'm not a fan of the Braves, but I found that controversy amusing enough to remember.

[CPiGuy]

This repeat was pretty awful:

A. Give this two-word term. The St. Crispin's Day speech in Henry V is addressed to a group described both by this
term and as a “band of brothers.”
answer: happy few (accept we happy few or We few, we happy few)

19. This play concludes a tetralogy beginning with Richard II. For 10 points each—
A. Name this Shakespeare history play that includes the St. Crispin's Day Speech.
answer: Henry V [“the fifth”] (or The Life of Henry the Fifth or The Cronicle History of Henry the fift)
B. Henry gives the St. Crispin's Day Speech the night before this battle of the Hundred Years' War.
answer: Battle of Agincourt [ah-zhin-KOOR]
C. In the speech, Henry calls his soldiers “we few, we happy few” before referring to them by this three-word
phrase which inspired the title of an HBO miniseries.
answer: (we) band of brothers

This feng shui was pretty awful:

answer: Liberal Democrats (or Lib Dems)

answer: Conservative (and Unionist) Party

Miscellaneous answerline sparseness:
"Presley" wasn't an acceptable answer to the bonus part on Elvis in Packet 4. Whyyyyyyyyyy?
The tossup on "vertical bar/vertical line" in Packet 11 should have prompted on just "bar" or "line".
The team in my room was really angry that the bonus part on "Natty Bumppo" in Packet 7 didn't accept "Hawkeye". I don't know anything about this but apparently that's what he's primarily referred to in at least one book?
Not accepting "Abraham" for "Ibrahim" all the way through the question is incredibly ungenerous, even though it's technically within the rules -- especially because the players can't see the lack of commas in "this figure in Islamic tradition", so they might interpret that as "this figure, in Islamic tradition, places..." and assume not all the clues are exclusively Islamic.
The aforementioned tossup on the Conservative Party not accepting "Tories" is a pretty major oversight.

Other miscellaneous stuff:
I don't think the up arrow is actually relevant enough to be a reasonable middle part at DII level. It also falls into the general class of, like, "math trivia", e.g. things that aren't actually relevant to math but which non-math people know about math since they're "wacky!".
The "boreholes" tossup was pretty terrible, not gonna lie. I'm usually a big fan of NAQT's tossups on things that would be impossible to toss up on longer questions, but this kinda fell flat.
I really enjoyed the myth tossup on "mountains" that clued things like the European kings who are sleeping under mountains to reawake in their country's time of greatest need.
The bonus part on "yellow" from "what color badge did [various middle ages people] force Jews to wear" is probably going to play way easier than intended, because there is uh a much more famous yellow badge for Jews

[Important Bird Area]

Thanks for reporting these, Conor- we'll get them fixed up for future uses of the set.

[cruzeiro]

C. A story by Mansfield shares its title with this man's Restoration comedy Marriage à la mode. This first English Poet Laureate wrote the satirical Mac Flecknoe and Absalom and Achitophel.
answer: life (accept isn't life)

This was not ideal to see when reading an advantaged final.

[Important Bird Area]

That was indeed a bad mistake and we have fixed the bonus for future use.

[Fado Alexandrino]

Asking for hydrogen as "this substance" was pretty confusing.

[CPiGuy]

A couple comments from talking to a scientist friend who also played the set (but is not active on the forums):

-- he says "physiologic" should be acceptable for the bonus part on isotonic saline, since that's apparently what it's called in medical contexts?

-- "tarnishing" should probably be antiprompted on the corrosion TU in the same way rusting was (btw, I really appreciated the specific directed prompt there and am glad NAQT has started doing these more frequently!)

[Good Goblin Housekeeping]

Asking for hydrogen as "this substance" was pretty confusing.

is hydrogen... not a substance?

[Abdon Ubidia]

I successfully protested an answer of "cleavage" for the question on bonds breaking, just wanted to post here that that should have been officially in the answerline in case it hasn't already been added.

[maharhar17]

Better to just say "this element". Or if you really wanna obscure the answerline, say "this particle" or something like that.

Also, iirc, the very first line of the machine learning tossup said "the goal of this field is to build linear classifiers" or something like that, which is a bit, uhhh....

[CPiGuy]

"this particle" would be way more confusing than "this substance"

if hydrogen gas can't reasonably be referred to as a "substance" I literally have no idea what can

[Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Dreams]

The 21 cm line is produced by (neutral) atomic hydrogen, which is not a single particle. This element is probably a better pronoun than this substance if the question continues to talk about atomic hydrogen after the 21 cm line, but I think both are fine

[VSCOelasticity]

Does "this substance" sufficiently rule out buzzes of "ISM" or "IGM" on the 21-cm line clue? I wasn't sure what to say when I heard it. I don't know enough about the subject (obviously) to say whether or not those answers were ruled out by earlier clues, though.

[setht]

Here's the DII version of the hydrogen tossup.

Hendrik van de Hulst predicted that this substance can undergo a spin-flip transition to produce a radio wave feature known as the 21-centimeter line. The spectral classes of stars were originally arranged alphabetically based on the observed strength of (*) spectral lines in this element's Balmer ["BALL"-mur] series. The CNO ["C-N-O"] cycle and the proton-proton chain fuse—for 10 points—what element into helium?

answer: hydrogen (or H; do not accept or prompt on "H2" or "molecular hydrogen")

I've gone ahead and changed to "this element" for future uses of the set.

I'm not sure it ever would have occurred to me (beforehand) that people hearing that first sentence (with "this substance") might get confused and think the answer could be the IGM or ISM or whatever. I don't know if people find this convincing, but to me, an answer of "IGM/ISM" off of the first sentence would mean we're saying that "the IGM (or ISM) undergoes a spin-flip transition," which doesn't make any sense. I guess I can see how people might hear that lead-in and think "well, maybe they really mean 'one specific component of this substance undergoes a spin-flip transition.'" (Also, van de Hulst presumably had no real notion of "the IGM" when he made his prediction.) I am sorry for causing confusion here, especially since upon reflection I think I really did not need to avoid saying "element" for the DII version.

[VSCOelasticity]

Here's the DII version of the hydrogen tossup.

Hendrik van de Hulst predicted that this substance can undergo a spin-flip transition to produce a radio wave feature known as the 21-centimeter line. The spectral classes of stars were originally arranged alphabetically based on the observed strength of (*) spectral lines in this element's Balmer ["BALL"-mur] series. The CNO ["C-N-O"] cycle and the proton-proton chain fuse—for 10 points—what element into helium?

answer: hydrogen (or H; do not accept or prompt on "H2" or "molecular hydrogen")

I've gone ahead and changed to "this element" for future uses of the set.

I'm not sure it ever would have occurred to me (beforehand) that people hearing that first sentence (with "this substance") might get confused and think the answer could be the IGM or ISM or whatever. I don't know if people find this convincing, but to me, an answer of "IGM/ISM" off of the first sentence would mean we're saying that "the IGM (or ISM) undergoes a spin-flip transition," which doesn't make any sense. I guess I can see how people might hear that lead-in and think "well, maybe they really mean 'one specific component of this substance undergoes a spin-flip transition.'" (Also, van de Hulst presumably had no real notion of "the IGM" when he made his prediction.) I am sorry for causing confusion here, especially since upon reflection I think I really did not need to avoid saying "element" for the DII version.

(For reference I played the DI version of this tossup, but was just adding to discussion here)

Ah, I just did not process "spin-flip transition" when hearing the question. I agree with what you've said here.

[TylerV]

I don't have it in front of me, but I believe the phrasing on the legalism bonus suggests Zhuge Liang implemented it during the Qin Dynasty. If it is worded that way, that's incorrect because while he was a legalist, he was born long after the fall of the Qin.

The Division I version of this bonus was also flawed in that part 1 mentioned communal and part 3 asked for communalism.

[Important Bird Area]

Both versions of the legalism question have been corrected.