2020 IKEA - Specific Questions Discussion
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2020 IKEA - Specific Questions Discussion
Please ask questions about specific questions here.
Last edited by Bhagwan Shammbhagwan on Tue Dec 01, 2020 12:12 am, edited 1 time in total.
Hari Parameswaran
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Re: Sepcific Questions Discussion
Can I see the tossup on proteases? I answered "Trypsin" early and was surprised to not get prompted.
Similarly, if "echocardiogram" is acceptable for ultrasound, "echo" should also be prompted or outright accepted.
Similarly, if "echocardiogram" is acceptable for ultrasound, "echo" should also be prompted or outright accepted.
Paul Lee
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Re: Sepcific Questions Discussion
The question had a prompt, so that must have been a moderator error.Packet 10 wrote: 16. Deficiency of an inhibitor of these proteins causes early-onset panacinar emphysema in PiZZ homozygotes. FBS-containing media is added to cells in suspension during splitting in order to block these proteins, which can also be blocked by a "cocktail" used to prepare lysates from cell culture. In one of these proteins, a tetrahedral intermediate is stabilized by an "oxyanion hole" formed by the residues glycine-193 and (*) serine-195. That one of these enzymes also has a "proton shuttle" in which aspartate and histidine, members of the "catalytic triad", deprotonate a key serine residue. These enzymes use nucleophilic residues to attack stable amide groups. Chymotrypsin is an example of, for 10 points, what enzymes that catalyze the breakdown of proteins into their constituent amino acids?
ANSWER: proteases [accept proteinases or peptidases; prompt on trypsin]
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Re: Sepcific Questions Discussion
The only minor science quibble I had was that the tossup on isothermal should probably have a prompt added for compression or expansion (whichever one matches the description of the work in the tossup, I forget), since "this type of process" is vague for that clue.
Eleanor
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Re: Sepcific Questions Discussion
The phrasing of the clue matches both compression and expansion. I think it's reasonable to prompt on both.VSCOelasticity wrote: ↑Sun Oct 25, 2020 11:59 pm The only minor science quibble I had was that the tossup on isothermal should probably have a prompt added for compression or expansion (whichever one matches the description of the work in the tossup, I forget), since "this type of process" is vague for that clue.
Billy Busse
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Re: Sepcific Questions Discussion
A few things I remember off the top of my head:
-the toss up on Bengal could use a prompt on British India, at least on the early clues.
-On the Colson Whitehead bonus, I'm not sure that Pulitzer Prize works as a easy/medium part, especially since The Underground Railroad also won the National Book Award (which is what we said).
-The Procopius evil demon clue coming up second clue in the Byzantine TU felt too early.
-I really liked the Middlemarch question
-The Tampa Bay question probably could have just said Gasparilla in the second clue: the way the clue was phrased made it pretty hard to buzz on with certainty, even though Tampa Bay was what I was thinking. I felt like this question rewarded my experience living in Florida for 26 years, which is good.
I will probably have more to say once I go back over the packets.
-the toss up on Bengal could use a prompt on British India, at least on the early clues.
-On the Colson Whitehead bonus, I'm not sure that Pulitzer Prize works as a easy/medium part, especially since The Underground Railroad also won the National Book Award (which is what we said).
-The Procopius evil demon clue coming up second clue in the Byzantine TU felt too early.
-I really liked the Middlemarch question
-The Tampa Bay question probably could have just said Gasparilla in the second clue: the way the clue was phrased made it pretty hard to buzz on with certainty, even though Tampa Bay was what I was thinking. I felt like this question rewarded my experience living in Florida for 26 years, which is good.
I will probably have more to say once I go back over the packets.
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Re: Sepcific Questions Discussion
Can I see the Gaels question?
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Re: Sepcific Questions Discussion
Prompting on British India seems reasonable enough to do before "ruler of" - since at that point, the question I think has clearly ruled out the notion that we're talking about all of India.
The Byzantine empire question was originally far harder; I made it a good bit easier and it seems to have played out as not particularly hard, so we could potentially replace that clue - or at least remove the part about "veritable demons" and keep the rest of the substance. I think I'll replace it with a clue about Justinian's "sky-tax" while keeping the part about the headless stroll.
As for Gaels:
Figured I'd post Middlemarch as well - I took a lot of time writing this question, figuring out how to highlight the novel's attempt to be a "scientific" lens on life (and talking about the various scientific aspects of the novel) as opposed to trying to clue a bunch of specific plot incidents from a massive novel thus trying to pick out an angle that people might care about regarding the book. I had a similar approach to the War and Peace question.
The Byzantine empire question was originally far harder; I made it a good bit easier and it seems to have played out as not particularly hard, so we could potentially replace that clue - or at least remove the part about "veritable demons" and keep the rest of the substance. I think I'll replace it with a clue about Justinian's "sky-tax" while keeping the part about the headless stroll.
As for Gaels:
This was a total shot in the dark, but I was pleased to see a few buzzes on the early clues rewarding areas of historical linguistics and medieval social history which often don't get touched on very much.Packet 8 wrote:16. These people's movement to new islands marks the last major expansion of the Q-branch of the broader language family to which they belong, as opposed to the P-branch. An English corruption of a term from these people's namesake language, "septs," denotes their family units; another such corruption produced the term "gallowglass," denoting elite mercenaries from those among them who intermingled with the Norse. These people migrated to new lands during the 6th century expansion of the kingdom of Dál Riada ("dahl REE-uh-duh"), which reached the (*) Isle of Skye and the coast of Argyll ("AR-ghyle"). They later merged with the Picts under King Kenneth I to form the Kingdom of Alba, which ruled the highlands. For 10 points, name this group of Celtic people originating from Ireland, whose namesake language has "Scots" and "Irish" varieties.
ANSWER: Gaels [or Gaelic people, or Goidels, or Goidelic people; prompt on Celts or Celtic people before "Celts"; prompt on Irish or Scots by asking "to what ethno-linguistic group do they belong?"]
<Alston, History - European History>
Figured I'd post Middlemarch as well - I took a lot of time writing this question, figuring out how to highlight the novel's attempt to be a "scientific" lens on life (and talking about the various scientific aspects of the novel) as opposed to trying to clue a bunch of specific plot incidents from a massive novel thus trying to pick out an angle that people might care about regarding the book. I had a similar approach to the War and Peace question.
Packet 11 wrote:17. A passage of this novel claims it would be impossible to understand a woman's matchmaking by following her "pony-phaetons" even if "a telescope...swept the parishes of Tipton and Freshitt". A doctor in this novel seeks to understand romance by studying "primitive tissue" after his disastrous affair with Madame Laure. After becoming destitute by funding his naturalist hobbies through gambling, a vicar in this novel inherits (*) Lowick Parsonage after its proprietor dies. Because he cannot read German, a scholar in this novel struggles to complete his Key to All Mythologies. In this novel, the medical reformer Tertius Lydgate struggles financially after marrying Rosamond Vincy. Edward Causabon and Dorothea Brooke also marry in, for 10 points, what "study of provincial life" by George Eliot?
ANSWER: Middlemarch, A Study of Provincial Life
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Re: Sepcific Questions Discussion
I was just curious why there was a prompt on Nagel for Thomas Nagel. I'd always figured that any reference to "Nagel" was to Thomas.
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Re: Sepcific Questions Discussion
Ernest Nagel is a philosopher of science who is completely askable as a bonus part at this level, albeit as a hard part.whatamidoinghere wrote: ↑Fri Oct 30, 2020 3:45 pm I was just curious why there was a prompt on Nagel for Thomas Nagel. I'd always figured that any reference to "Nagel" was to Thomas.
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Re: Sepcific Questions Discussion
I didn't particularly think this was an issue, especially since the question said they're awarded by Columbia iirc.
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Re: Sepcific Questions Discussion
That, plus I think the question mentioned Eugene O'Neill, which wouldn't make sense for the National Book Award. But I do understand the frustration.Zealots of Stockholm wrote: ↑Fri Oct 30, 2020 6:53 pmI didn't particularly think this was an issue, especially since the question said they're awarded by Columbia iirc.
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Re: Sepcific Questions Discussion
I'm curious as to why y'all chose to prompt on "clinics" for the question on surgeries--I asked one of the GT staffers about it during our mirror, and they said that not all of the clues refer to clinics, but as far as I can tell, they all refer to Gross/Agnew? This isn't that big a deal, as "surgeries" should be a pretty easy pull from there, but my mind went completely blank after I was prompted and I ended up negging it, so I was a bit frustrated.
I wasn't a huge fan of the question on Mozart, as it seemed like it tested somewhat arbitrary Murakami knowledge, especially considering how much other composers come up in Murakami works (the Wind-Up Bird clues especially felt like neg bait for Rossini). The inclusion of Amadeus near the end also felt forced to me.
I wasn't a huge fan of the question on Mozart, as it seemed like it tested somewhat arbitrary Murakami knowledge, especially considering how much other composers come up in Murakami works (the Wind-Up Bird clues especially felt like neg bait for Rossini). The inclusion of Amadeus near the end also felt forced to me.
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Re: Sepcific Questions Discussion
The Mozart question was probably the one time I went "let's see if we can do this" - I do get the frustration though, and despite being very pleased with the question I may just try to not aim so high on a future question. However, Killing Commendatore is at least clear that it's talking about Mozart and the "Bird-Catcher Man" is pretty clearly Papageno. I wouldn't call the latter two things "arbitrary" as they're pretty fundamental motifs there - and the recurring theme of classical music itself in Murakami doesn't strike me as arbitrary at all.henrygoff wrote: ↑Sun Nov 01, 2020 3:04 pm I wasn't a huge fan of the question on Mozart, as it seemed like it tested somewhat arbitrary Murakami knowledge, especially considering how much other composers come up in Murakami works (the Wind-Up Bird clues especially felt like neg bait for Rossini). The inclusion of Amadeus near the end also felt forced to me.
The nice thing that the answerline does is that it lets you be much more direct about the music theme, as opposed to writing a tossup on Murakami or one of his works, in which it could be quite obvious that you're talking about Murakami if you went for such a theme so quickly.
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Re: Sepcific Questions Discussion
I was uncomfortable reading the film bonus that included answer lines on Paris Is Burning and Brokeback Mountain because I do not think it is okay for a cishet person to use the term that was the first answer line. I know this is not a concrete thing (just look at the different answers given in this quora post asking about the topic), but I wanted to bring it up for the editors to consider.
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Re: Sepcific Questions Discussion
Why is the tossup on Aristotle's Poetics categorized as literature and not philosophy? I'm admittedly not very good at philosophy, but it just reads like a philosophy tossup to me.
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Re: Sepcific Questions Discussion
Poetics is a pioneering work of literary criticism - I don't see what's wrong with putting it in the literature distribution, especially in a tournament with less philosophy than normal?Zealots of Stockholm wrote: ↑Tue Nov 03, 2020 8:11 pm Why is the tossup on Aristotle's Poetics categorized as literature and not philosophy? I'm admittedly not very good at philosophy, but it just reads like a philosophy tossup to me.
For reference, the tossup:
1. This book's third section discusses a debate over whether words meaning "to revel" or "to wander from village to village" are the origin of the word "comedian". This book's last section considers a critique of "histrionic" art which is exaggerated by gesticulation and argues that it applies equally to two forms, which each produce effect "without action". This book argues in favor of "complex" rather than "simple" structures, but against the use of double endings and (*) subjects, and begins by considering the medium, object, and manner of imitation, or mimesis ("MIH-meh-sis"). It argues that moments of reversal, or peripeteia, and cleansing effects, or katharsis, are created by the plots of proper tragedies. The three classical unities were derived from, for 10 points, what literary treatise by Aristotle?
ANSWER: Poetics [or Peri poetikes; or De Poetica]
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Re: Sepcific Questions Discussion
I guess that makes sense. It just reads like a "thought" tossup to me. Not really a big deal, was just curious.
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Re: Sepcific Questions Discussion
I thought this set was great top to bottom, but one erratum from the bonus part on just-noticeable difference resurfaced in my mind just now:
In my opinion, the first sentence is slightly ambiguous but clearly applies better to absolute threshold, since it describes a "level" of stimulus rather than a "change" of stimulus. The second sentence does seem to clearly pick out the JND, though.Packet 6 wrote:[10] Psychophysics often searches for this threshold, defined as the level of stimulus which a subject detects 50 percent of the time. Weber's law suggests it is directly proportional to the original stimulus.
ANSWER: just-noticeable difference [or JND; prompt on noticeable difference]
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Re: Sepcific Questions Discussion
I loved this set, but this was a small issue I found during my reading of the packets post-tournament.
In the first tossup in the tiebreaker packet:
In the first tossup in the tiebreaker packet:
Third part of bonus 5 of packet 13:In the synthesis of these structures, the enzyme thrombin converts fibrinogen to fibrin, which is then cross-linked to form a solid mesh. Aggregation of platelets causes the formation of, for 10 points, what structures which form in response to blood vessel injury?
ANSWER: blood clots [accept thrombi]
[10] Wound licking may be beneficial in part because saliva contains tissue factor, which activates this enzyme. This enzyme converts fibrinogen to fibrin during the clotting cascade.
ANSWER: thrombin [accept coagulation factor II]
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Re: Sepcific Questions Discussion
Thanks for pointing this out - I'll change it to "change of stimulus" and see if I can find a way to pin this down more. Thanks!t-bar wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 12:16 pm I thought this set was great top to bottom, but one erratum from the bonus part on just-noticeable difference resurfaced in my mind just now:In my opinion, the first sentence is slightly ambiguous but clearly applies better to absolute threshold, since it describes a "level" of stimulus rather than a "change" of stimulus. The second sentence does seem to clearly pick out the JND, though.Packet 6 wrote:[10] Psychophysics often searches for this threshold, defined as the level of stimulus which a subject detects 50 percent of the time. Weber's law suggests it is directly proportional to the original stimulus.
ANSWER: just-noticeable difference [or JND; prompt on noticeable difference]
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Re: Sepcific Questions Discussion
Revisiting this point earlier - appreciate you bringing this up. Since the term is discussed in an academic context (including presumably by non-LGBTQ+ scholars) I think it's fair to ask as-is, but I'll think about how to modify the answerline to accommodate players who are uncomfortable in a similar manner to give an alternate answer which demonstrates equivalent knowledge.VSCOelasticity wrote: ↑Tue Nov 03, 2020 1:47 pm I was uncomfortable reading the film bonus that included answer lines on Paris Is Burning and Brokeback Mountain because I do not think it is okay for a cishet person to use the term that was the first answer line. I know this is not a concrete thing (just look at the different answers given in this quora post asking about the topic), but I wanted to bring it up for the editors to consider.
Will Alston
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Re: Specific Questions Discussion
I think a directed prompt would be helpful on the "web scraping" TU. I buzzed on the clue about BeautifulSoup and said various variations of "HTML parsing" while being prompted, ending up with a neg. As far as I understand, BeautifulSoup is specifically used for parsing HTML and XML, which is a subtask of web scraping. Granted, the previous clues applied to other aspects of web scraping. However, the tossup was "description acceptable." If a player buzzes on such a tossup and gives a description that is unambiguously correct for the clue they buzzed on, it's very confusing to receive a prompt without the prompt giving a hint of how to modify that description to get the main answerline.
Natan Holtzman
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Re: Specific Questions Discussion
Here are my thoughts on the tossups for packets 1-5. I might do the same for packets 6-10 if I have time.
Atlantic Ocean should specify that "South Atlantic" should be accepted
I never realized that egg matzo didn't contain eggs! Cool clue
Maya tossup: the "j" in "ajaw" is pronounced as a guttural fricative, as in Spanish, not English
I said "particle size" instead of "molecular size" and the mod accepted it; I don't know if that was correct
Welding is a good thing to ask about!
"ultrasound" was missing a prompt on "sonography"; luckily the mod prompted me on it anyway
"Call to prayer" was a fresh answerline executed well; so was "philosopher's stone"
"Ronin" seemed transparent
The clues in power for "brahmins" seemed very hard, though I'm certainly not an expert on that area.
I liked the Igbo tossup. It was a very engaging way to connect together a set of historical events that could have been easily asked in a more dry manner.
"Outliers" seemed like a weird thing to write a tossup about. I just don't think it's important enough.
"Radar [in earth science]" is a topic dear to my heart that I'm glad came up and was well-clued.
Atlantic Ocean should specify that "South Atlantic" should be accepted
I never realized that egg matzo didn't contain eggs! Cool clue
Maya tossup: the "j" in "ajaw" is pronounced as a guttural fricative, as in Spanish, not English
I said "particle size" instead of "molecular size" and the mod accepted it; I don't know if that was correct
Welding is a good thing to ask about!
"ultrasound" was missing a prompt on "sonography"; luckily the mod prompted me on it anyway
"Call to prayer" was a fresh answerline executed well; so was "philosopher's stone"
"Ronin" seemed transparent
The clues in power for "brahmins" seemed very hard, though I'm certainly not an expert on that area.
I liked the Igbo tossup. It was a very engaging way to connect together a set of historical events that could have been easily asked in a more dry manner.
"Outliers" seemed like a weird thing to write a tossup about. I just don't think it's important enough.
"Radar [in earth science]" is a topic dear to my heart that I'm glad came up and was well-clued.
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Re: Specific Questions Discussion
Glad to hear you appreciated a bunch of these!warum wrote: ↑Sun Dec 06, 2020 9:14 pm Here are my thoughts on the tossups for packets 1-5. I might do the same for packets 6-10 if I have time.
Atlantic Ocean should specify that "South Atlantic" should be accepted
I never realized that egg matzo didn't contain eggs! Cool clue
Maya tossup: the "j" in "ajaw" is pronounced as a guttural fricative, as in Spanish, not English
I said "particle size" instead of "molecular size" and the mod accepted it; I don't know if that was correct
Welding is a good thing to ask about!
"ultrasound" was missing a prompt on "sonography"; luckily the mod prompted me on it anyway
"Call to prayer" was a fresh answerline executed well; so was "philosopher's stone"
"Ronin" seemed transparent
The clues in power for "brahmins" seemed very hard, though I'm certainly not an expert on that area.
I liked the Igbo tossup. It was a very engaging way to connect together a set of historical events that could have been easily asked in a more dry manner.
"Outliers" seemed like a weird thing to write a tossup about. I just don't think it's important enough.
"Radar [in earth science]" is a topic dear to my heart that I'm glad came up and was well-clued.
Regarding Outliers - I almost cut that question due to my intense dislike of Malcolm Gladwell, but I will defend the question in terms of "this is an extremely popular author whose work comes up in a lot of places." I definitely had a very odd AP Economics class, but we also read excerpts of Outliers there, and I also have encountered that work and others by Gladwell in business school. I think it's also his second-most cited book after The Tipping Point.
Apologies if "South Atlantic" was the answer you gave and that was not accepted. That's a good call-out.
Curious as to your thoughts on why "ronin" was transparent. I feel like there could be a decent number of plausible answers pertaining to the era - daimyo, Christians, ninjas (which a few people negged with), monks, etc.
Will Alston
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Re: Specific Questions Discussion
I thought this set was fun to play! Thank you to the writers and the editors for all their effort.
One piece of feedback that I can remember right now:
In our room, the other team negged the "surgeries" tossup with "dissections." Should that have been accepted?
One piece of feedback that I can remember right now:
In our room, the other team negged the "surgeries" tossup with "dissections." Should that have been accepted?
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Re: Specific Questions Discussion
When we ruled on this previously, we determined that "dissection" almost always refers to examination of a dead individual. To my understanding, the Eakins paintings in question all depict living subjects. Therefore, we did not accept "dissection."vrohan wrote: ↑Sun Dec 06, 2020 10:37 pm I thought this set was fun to play! Thank you to the writers and the editors for all their effort.
One piece of feedback that I can remember right now:
In our room, the other team negged the "surgeries" tossup with "dissections." Should that have been accepted?
Will Alston
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Re: Specific Questions Discussion
That makes sense--thanks!naan/steak-holding toll wrote: ↑Sun Dec 06, 2020 10:48 pmWhen we ruled on this previously, we determined that "dissection" almost always refers to examination of a dead individual. To my understanding, the Eakins paintings in question all depict living subjects. Therefore, we did not accept "dissection."vrohan wrote: ↑Sun Dec 06, 2020 10:37 pm I thought this set was fun to play! Thank you to the writers and the editors for all their effort.
One piece of feedback that I can remember right now:
In our room, the other team negged the "surgeries" tossup with "dissections." Should that have been accepted?
Rohan Venkateswaran
UC Berkeley '24
Westview High '20
Black Mountain Middle '16
Co-Coach, Meadowbrook Middle 2017-2020
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Re: Specific Questions Discussion
"Outliers" bothered me because the way the tossup was written it seemed like an academic question, and I don't think of "Outliers" as a very academic book. That may be OK depending on how you conceive of the miscellaneous category; I just found it unexpected to come across in game.naan/steak-holding toll wrote: ↑Sun Dec 06, 2020 10:05 pm
Regarding Outliers - I almost cut that question due to my intense dislike of Malcolm Gladwell, but I will defend the question in terms of "this is an extremely popular author whose work comes up in a lot of places." I definitely had a very odd AP Economics class, but we also read excerpts of Outliers there, and I also have encountered that work and others by Gladwell in business school. I think it's also his second-most cited book after The Tipping Point.
Apologies if "South Atlantic" was the answer you gave and that was not accepted. That's a good call-out.
Curious as to your thoughts on why "ronin" was transparent. I feel like there could be a decent number of plausible answers pertaining to the era - daimyo, Christians, ninjas (which a few people negged with), monks, etc.
In hindsight, I probably just thought "ronin" was transparent because the multitude of other possible answers didn't occur to me at game speed. The mention of "21 rules for life" immediately made me think of Bushido, so I buzzed in shortly after that and said "samurai." I was prompted and successfully guessed "ronin" without having known that any of the clues specifically applied to ronin.
"South Atlantic" was just something I thought of while looking at the packets today; it didn't come up in game.
Natan Holtzman
Stanford 2024, UNC 2016, Enloe 2012
Stanford 2024, UNC 2016, Enloe 2012
Re: Specific Questions Discussion
Here are my comments on the rest of the packets I played.
6
"Hospitals" was fun, reminded me of something that would be in a Mike Bentley-written tournament
7
In the clustering tossup, the mention of "Scikit" was unhelpful for two reasons. First, the package is actually called scikit-learn; there's no package just called scikit as far as I know. Second, scikit-learn includes various algorithms for doing many different machine learning tasks, so saying that a particular algorithm is included in scikit-learn doesn't provide much information.
"Intermediate periods" was a very cool tossup, both in answerline and in cluing.
It was nice to see spatial statistics come up in the "maps" tossup.
8
In the "Tampa Bay" tossup, I buzzed on Pinellas County because it had been prominently featured in presidential election coverage. I think the county clue could have been moved one sentence later for that reason. Very minor issue though.
The clues before power in the "salinity" tossup all felt very "real", like things an ocean scientist would know but an average quizbowl science specialist would not necessarily have learned from packet study. I enjoyed buzzing on the "practical units" clue.
9
See my earlier comment on "web scraping"
10
Similar to "salinity", I liked how the early clues in "numerical integration" were things that come up in research
6
"Hospitals" was fun, reminded me of something that would be in a Mike Bentley-written tournament
7
In the clustering tossup, the mention of "Scikit" was unhelpful for two reasons. First, the package is actually called scikit-learn; there's no package just called scikit as far as I know. Second, scikit-learn includes various algorithms for doing many different machine learning tasks, so saying that a particular algorithm is included in scikit-learn doesn't provide much information.
"Intermediate periods" was a very cool tossup, both in answerline and in cluing.
It was nice to see spatial statistics come up in the "maps" tossup.
8
In the "Tampa Bay" tossup, I buzzed on Pinellas County because it had been prominently featured in presidential election coverage. I think the county clue could have been moved one sentence later for that reason. Very minor issue though.
The clues before power in the "salinity" tossup all felt very "real", like things an ocean scientist would know but an average quizbowl science specialist would not necessarily have learned from packet study. I enjoyed buzzing on the "practical units" clue.
9
See my earlier comment on "web scraping"
10
Similar to "salinity", I liked how the early clues in "numerical integration" were things that come up in research
Natan Holtzman
Stanford 2024, UNC 2016, Enloe 2012
Stanford 2024, UNC 2016, Enloe 2012
- Krasznahorkai did nothing wrong
- Wakka
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Re: Specific Questions Discussion
Here are some questions I loved
- I thought the VFA in this set was especially strong. Here are a few that stood out to me: Kehinde Wiley, Adolph Hitler, Florentine Baptistry, Shakespeare, the soak-stain focused abstraction bonus, the Eliasson bonus. I especially want to shout out the Tintoretto tu in round 2, I think if there was a tu that typified what this set did well it was this one. Last year there was a beautiful Tintoretto exhibition at the National Gallery and the final painting in the gallery was his Self Portrait as an old man which is an incredibly striking and memorable painting especially when juxtaposed with his other work. I'm really glad to see it come up. I love how this tossup has really interesting and notable original clues but segues into easier stuff that makes it super convertible.
- Loved the vodka tu, the protest themed Beijing tu, and the Philosopher's stone tu. It was also really cool to see TKM show up in quizbowl, and Lumumba is a good way to ask about him.
- There was also some strong lit in this set I enjoyed the old english tu, the Marji Satrapi tu, and the Joko al-Harthi bonus
- I thought the VFA in this set was especially strong. Here are a few that stood out to me: Kehinde Wiley, Adolph Hitler, Florentine Baptistry, Shakespeare, the soak-stain focused abstraction bonus, the Eliasson bonus. I especially want to shout out the Tintoretto tu in round 2, I think if there was a tu that typified what this set did well it was this one. Last year there was a beautiful Tintoretto exhibition at the National Gallery and the final painting in the gallery was his Self Portrait as an old man which is an incredibly striking and memorable painting especially when juxtaposed with his other work. I'm really glad to see it come up. I love how this tossup has really interesting and notable original clues but segues into easier stuff that makes it super convertible.
- Loved the vodka tu, the protest themed Beijing tu, and the Philosopher's stone tu. It was also really cool to see TKM show up in quizbowl, and Lumumba is a good way to ask about him.
- There was also some strong lit in this set I enjoyed the old english tu, the Marji Satrapi tu, and the Joko al-Harthi bonus
-Jakob Boeye Carleton 22'
- naan/steak-holding toll
- Auron
- Posts: 2516
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- Location: New York, NY
Re: Specific Questions Discussion
I was inspired to write that Tintoretto tossup, and to clue that portrait, by the exact same exhibition - and had the same feeling as you did about it. It's wonderful to see that was appreciated!
That said, I refused to accept the advice of "change this to a question on Ramses II or something." No, and not because that's been done before - but because there's a lot of Egyptian history out there, I've had a ton of fun learning about it, and I think that it's possible to test untapped knowledge and inspire people to learn more by going beyond the boundaries here. So:
This approach is hard to implement - it requires doing a lot of work to not only understand what people would care about, but also tight prose to make sure the clues are unique and interesting to listen to. If there's a type of history question I wish there were more of, though, it would be questions like this.
I'm very glad to see this was appreciated - this was a huge swing in the dark. A lot of people in the open playtest mirrors felt frustrated by this answer - which I can totally understand. Nonetheless, I personally took this shot because I think it's one of the few ways you can tap into hundreds of years of Egyptian history that are pretty hard to ask about otherwise (a bunch of the pharaohs are, obviously, insanely obscure) and get at how we understand this history. Like, the actual records of these periods are things I suspect almost nobody in the field has really looked at. So it's a big challenge to try to make this stuff accessible (and even interesting) to a wider audience.warum wrote:"Intermediate periods" was a very cool tossup, both in answerline and in cluing.
That said, I refused to accept the advice of "change this to a question on Ramses II or something." No, and not because that's been done before - but because there's a lot of Egyptian history out there, I've had a ton of fun learning about it, and I think that it's possible to test untapped knowledge and inspire people to learn more by going beyond the boundaries here. So:
This question was really tricky to write - I tried to pick clues that would point a very broadly knowledgeable person towards Egyptian history relatively early, i.e. Nomarchs and Osorkon (there are, I think, at least three pharaohs named Osorkon), with increasing clarity about this intent as the early clues went on. Kenneth Kitchen in particular is one of the most prominent, if perhaps even the most prominent, living Egyptologists as well - best known for his work on the Third Intermediate Period - and while I doubt that's a field a ton of people know, someone familiar with Egyptology could probably be clued in there too. Overall, it was really an attempt to get at "how we study and view the Intermediate Periods" and craft something of a narrative around it, as you can probably tell by the fact that this tossup only has five total sentences.11. The first of these periods, defined by Georg Steindorff and Henri Frankfort, is generally regarded to have begun due to the "4.2 kiloyear aridification event" and the rise of hereditary nomarchs ("NO-marks"). The definitive textbook on another of these periods was written by Kenneth Kitchen, who cites details about kings named Osorkon as evidence for the Old Testament's historical accuracy. Yet another of these periods was defined by the hegemony of a group that Josephus calls "shepherd-kings," who introduced (*) chariot warfare and established their capital at Avaris. The fall of the 13th dynasty brought about the second of these periods, which was marked by Hyksos dominance. Egypt was disunited during, for 10 points, what periods named for coming in between such eras as the Middle and New Kingdoms?
ANSWER: Intermediate Periods of Ancient Egypt [prompt on Egyptian periods or equivalents indicating periods of Egypt's history; prompt on Egyptian dynasties by saying "we want the term for the broader periods in question"; do not accept or prompt on "Egyptian kingdoms"]
<Alston, History - Ancient History and Archaeology>
This approach is hard to implement - it requires doing a lot of work to not only understand what people would care about, but also tight prose to make sure the clues are unique and interesting to listen to. If there's a type of history question I wish there were more of, though, it would be questions like this.
Will Alston
Dartmouth College '16
Columbia Business School '21
Dartmouth College '16
Columbia Business School '21