2023 Division I ICT: specific question discussion

[Important Bird Area]

This is your question-specific discussion for the 2023 Division I ICT set.

[etotheipi]

Can I see the "El Desdichado" tossup and the poetry tossup on "Margaret"?

[Important Bird Area]

Jenna Le used the word "hickey" to translate this poem's line about a red mark on the speaker's forehead from the "kiss of the Queen." This poem is quoted after the command "O swallow swallow" in the last stanza of T. S. Eliot's "The Waste Land." A pseudonym used in (*) Ivanhoe titles this poem, which describes a "ruined tower" home to the "Prince of Aquitaine." The line "I am the man of shadows, the widower, the unconsoled" begins--for 10 points--what sonnet with a Spanish title by Gerard de Nerval?

In a 1849 poem, this name is called by "children's voices, wild with pain." A woman with this name hears Easter bells and abandons her undersea family in Matthew Arnold's "The Forsaken Merman." The couplet "it is the blight man was born for, it is" a girl with this name "you mourn for" ends a poem in which the speaker tells this girl that (*) "worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie." For 10 points--in Gerard Manley Hopkins's "Spring and Fall," a girl with what name is asked "are you grieving over Goldengrove unleaving?"

[zxc]

Can I see the (rest of the) St. Louis Cardinals TU? Thanks!

[Important Bird Area]

In 2019 this MLB team became the first to make the playoffs under a manager who had never played professional baseball. In that postseason, this team posted a record 10-run first inning in the divisional round. During the 2021 offseason, this team named a 35-year-old as manager in a surprise move that ousted Mike (*) Shildt. In 2022 Oliver Marmol managed a player on this team who hit his 700th career home run. Albert Pujols began and ended his career with—for 10 points—what team in Missouri?

[NotAiden]

Could I see the Brigadoon question? Thanks

[rhn26]

Could I see the Albee and Janacek tossups? Those stood out to me as being disproportionately easier than the rest.

[Important Bird Area]

In this musical, the "sweetest candy" that "ever shook loose a tooth" is sold at "Sandy's booth." A chorus urges "run and get him now or you won't plough another meadow" in a chase sequence from this musical's second act that ends with the discovery of Harry (*) Beaton's corpse. A song in this musical that notes "there's a smile on my face for the whole human race" is sung by Fiona and Tommy. "Almost Like Being in Love" is from—for 10 points—what Lerner and Loewe musical about an enchanted Scottish village?

One play by this man centers on an architect who is about to be interviewed by Ross Tuttle when he tells his wife that he has fallen in love with the title animal. For another play, this man used his cousin Barbara as the model for Julia, a woman who returns home to her parents after being thrice (*) divorced. In a third play by this man, Charlie and Nancy's picnic is interrupted by humanoid lizards. The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? is by—for 10 points—what author of A Delicate Balance and Seascape?

This composer wrote an E-flat minor piano sonata whose movements "Foreboding" and "Death" were inspired by the bayoneting of a young worker. This composer of 1. X. 1905 used a viola to portray a much-younger married woman named Kamila in his string quartet "Intimate Letters." An "Intrada" unusually follows a (*) postludium for solo organ in a work by this man that sets texts in Old Church Slavonic. A fanfare for 25 brass opens the Sinfonietta by—for 10 points—what Czech composer of the Glagolitic Mass?

[BenWeiner27]

Could I see the bonuses that had "Hobey Baker" and "St. Louis County, Minnesota" as answerlines? Very happy to see college hockey content make an appearance in the set.

[Important Bird Area]

The first-ever All-American quarterback was named Edgar Allan Poe in honor of a famous relative. For 10 points each—

A. Poe played quarterback for what school that, 20 years earlier, lost 6-to-4 in what is considered the first game of American football?

B. This later Princeton quarterback was the basis for a character in This Side of Paradise, and is also the namesake of the award given to college hockey's best player each year.

C. Quarterback Dick Kazmaier is the only player from Princeton to win this trophy that goes to college football's best player each year.

For 10 points each—answer the following about California's largest counties:

A. California's three most populous include this historically conservative county southeast of L.A. that contains Huntington Beach and Anaheim.

answer: Orange County

B. California's five most populous original counties include this county, whose seat is Martinez. It is named for being on the other side of the Bay from San Francisco.

answer: Contra Costa County

C. San Bernardino County, which is the largest by area in California and the U.S., is nearly three times as big as this largest county by area east of the Mississippi, which contains the city of Hibbing.

answer: St. Louis County [in Minnesota]

[rhn26]

Yeah, I'm not sure if this is just an "our team" thing, but cluing the basic plot of The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? firstline seems easier than other clues about A Delicate Balance or Seascape. The Janacek tossup also seems quite soft, but it's possible that 1. X. 1905 is less famous than I thought.

Could I additionally see the von Bulow and C. P. E. Bach tossups? It sounded like the first tossup was a commonlink, and I'm just curious as to what was going on there.

[theMoMA]

Rob might be able to elaborate on this, but we made a mistake of some kind that resulted in a layer of edits to the Albee question not being saved. Our apologies for not catching this.

[etotheipi]

Jenna Le used the word "hickey" to translate this poem's line about a red mark on the speaker's forehead from the "kiss of the Queen." This poem is quoted after the command "O swallow swallow" in the last stanza of T. S. Eliot's "The Waste Land." A pseudonym used in (*) Ivanhoe titles this poem, which describes a "ruined tower" home to the "Prince of Aquitaine." The line "I am the man of shadows, the widower, the unconsoled" begins--for 10 points--what sonnet with a Spanish title by Gerard de Nerval?

I'm pretty sure that "O swallow swallow" isn't a command - it references the bird (which is also named in the Latin quote right before it).

[Auks Ran Ova]

Rob might be able to elaborate on this, but we made a mistake of some kind that resulted in a layer of edits to the Albee question not being saved. Our apologies for not catching this.

Yeah, I'm unclear where exactly in the process we messed this up (I'm guessing I just screwed up in making sure my final text got pasted back in the file to be uploaded), but we noticed this suboptimal leadin in editing and I wrote what I assure you was a thrilling new sentence about The Play About the Baby to replace it. It was definitely unintentional; apologies for the error!

[theMoMA]

I'm pretty sure that "O swallow swallow" isn't a command - it references the bird (which is also named in the Latin quote right before it).

That is true; I don't think it should've affected gameplay, but apologies for the oversight.

[Important Bird Area]

Could I additionally see the von Bulow and C. P. E. Bach tossups? It sounded like the first tossup was a commonlink, and I'm just curious as to what was going on there.

A man with this surname created a bloc of pro-imperialist parties that was successful in the election of 1907 during his decade as German chancellor. A pianist with this name debuted Franz Liszt's Sonata in B minor and was the first husband of the future (*) Cosima Wagner. A man with this surname who was accused of giving his wife an overdose of insulin in 1980 was represented by Alan Dershowitz. For 10 points—give this surname of the politician Bernhard, conductor Hans, and socialite Claus.

Jocelyne Collier recorded a set of this composer's sonatas in a program based on Yukio Mishima's Spring Snow. This composer wrote a C-minor trio sonata framed as a dialogue between two "humors," titled "Sanguineus et Melancholicus." Modern piano fingering is based on a (*) treatise by this composer, who epitomized the empfindsamer stil. An Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments was written by—for 10 points—what member of a musical family who served in the court of Frederick the Great?

[modernhemalurgist]

This composer wrote an E-flat minor piano sonata whose movements "Foreboding" and "Death" were inspired by the bayoneting of a young worker. This composer of 1. X. 1905 used a viola to portray a much-younger married woman named Kamila in his string quartet "Intimate Letters." An "Intrada" unusually follows a (*) postludium for solo organ in a work by this man that sets texts in Old Church Slavonic. A fanfare for 25 brass opens the Sinfonietta by—for 10 points—what Czech composer of the Glagolitic Mass?

I agree that the in-power clues for this tossup feel very easy. Also, is Glagolitic Mass really more famous than Sinfonietta, or even Intimate Letters?

[DavidB256]

Can I see the tossup on alternating permutations? The indicator "these permutations" seems egregiously limited. The only potential answerlines that I can think of are "alternating permutations," "cycles," and "transpositions."

[Important Bird Area]

In this type of permutation, each element's magnitude is not between the neighboring elements. The smallest non-abelian simple group is the fifth group of this type, which is the group of even permutations on five elements. A (*) convergence test named for this type of series checks that the absolute value of terms monotonically approaches zero. The harmonic series of this type sums to the natural log of 2. For 10 points—what type of sequence has terms that switch between positive and negative?

answer: alternating (accept alternating permutation(s) or (fifth) alternating group or alternating series test or alternating harmonic series or alternating sequence; accept zigzag permutation before "group of this type")

[setht]

Can I see the tossup on alternating permutations? The indicator "these permutations" seems egregiously limited. The only potential answerlines that I can think of are "alternating permutations," "cycles," and "transpositions."

There's also "odd," "even," "inverse," "partial," "random," "cyclic" (not the same as a cycle), "circular" (different from cyclic and cycle), "sorted," "reverse," and others. But setting aside exactly how many plausible answerlines there could be for "these permutations," my thinking while editing this tossup was that almost no one in the DI field will have encountered the phrase "alternating permutations," so it's fine to give a very clear indicator in that first clue. (In fact, if I'm right about how few people have heard of alternating permutations, I think it's preferable to give a very clear indicator there—if you try to describe an alternating permutation *and* give a definition of permutations without saying "permutations," I think you'll just confuse people.)

I may have been wrong to think that, and if so I apologize. From looking at the scoresheets, I think this tossup got a noticeably higher power rate than we'd like; of course, that doesn't tell me whether lots of people knew (or guessed on) the lead-in, or if giving power through the second sentence was more generous than our target.

[touchpack]

Can I see the tossup on alternating permutations? The indicator "these permutations" seems egregiously limited. The only potential answerlines that I can think of are "alternating permutations," "cycles," and "transpositions."

There's also "odd," "even," "inverse," "partial," "random," "cyclic" (not the same as a cycle), "circular" (different from cyclic and cycle), "sorted," "reverse," and others. But setting aside exactly how many plausible answerlines there could be for "these permutations," my thinking while editing this tossup was that almost no one in the DI field will have encountered the phrase "alternating permutations," so it's fine to give a very clear indicator in that first clue. (In fact, if I'm right about how few people have heard of alternating permutations, I think it's preferable to give a very clear indicator there—if you try to describe an alternating permutation *and* give a definition of permutations without saying "permutations," I think you'll just confuse people.)

I may have been wrong to think that, and if so I apologize. From looking at the scoresheets, I think this tossup got a noticeably higher power rate than we'd like; of course, that doesn't tell me whether lots of people knew (or guessed on) the lead-in, or if giving power through the second sentence was more generous than our target.

My thinking when set editing this question was that it was on the easier side, but not egregiously so, and thus the tossup would be fine, especially in a prelims packet (where fewer good teams are playing eachother and thus fewer buzzer races will occur). I certainly may have misjudged though, and perhaps this tossup was closer to D1 SCT level than it was to D1 ICT level (and I guess we'll get more solid evidence when the conversion stats come out).

[Valefor]

I apologize if the Janacek tossup felt easier than the remainder of the music. I'll look over the conversion data for this once it's available to see if this did shade easier over the field than we would have liked.

[DavidB256]

There's also "odd," "even," "inverse," "partial," "random," "cyclic" (not the same as a cycle), "circular" (different from cyclic and cycle), "sorted," "reverse," and others. But setting aside exactly how many plausible answerlines there could be for "these permutations," my thinking while editing this tossup was that almost no one in the DI field will have encountered the phrase "alternating permutations," so it's fine to give a very clear indicator in that first clue. (In fact, if I'm right about how few people have heard of alternating permutations, I think it's preferable to give a very clear indicator there—if you try to describe an alternating permutation *and* give a definition of permutations without saying "permutations," I think you'll just confuse people.)

I may have been wrong to think that, and if so I apologize. From looking at the scoresheets, I think this tossup got a noticeably higher power rate than we'd like; of course, that doesn't tell me whether lots of people knew (or guessed on) the lead-in, or if giving power through the second sentence was more generous than our target.

I failed to fully parse the first sentence and then buzzed at the comma in the second sentence, so I was under the incorrect impression that the entire tossup was on alternating permutations, as opposed to uses of the word "alternating" in mathematics. My impression is that the vast majority of undergraduates studying math learn about how A_5 is smallest non-abelian simple group within their first two abstract algebra classes.

[Mahavishnu]

Mentioned this to Jonathen while waiting for the airport shuttle, but I loved the menthol question, whose existence I had predicted while purchasing lemon cough-drops and peppermints (for pseudoscientific mental acuity) a couple days prior to the event.

[Abdon Ubidia]

The clue that gave "yes I said yes I will yes" in French was hilarious and probably my favorite lateral thinking buzz I've ever made

[Adventure Temple Trail]

It was kinda weird that there were two relatively deep-cut Walter Benjamin conceptual tossups (arcades and "aura") in back to back rounds. Similarly, teams in tiebreakers might have been a little confused that the second half of the day had two tossups on Colombia (though it seems like one was history and the other some kind of cultural geography/GK and the clues didn't overlap).

[theMoMA]

The arcades question was mostly not about Benjamin (although it did end with him), but I agree that the two should have been separated more. Thanks to Seth's hard work, we were able to put a lot more thought into packet feng shui this year than often happens at SCT/ICT (because of time and packet constraints of having a DII set), but obviously it's very hard to get everything perfect.

My philosophy is that fairly generic answerlines (such as countries) are fair game to come up multiple times, as long as the categories and clues are different.

[benchapman]

The clue that gave "yes I said yes I will yes" in French was hilarious and probably my favorite lateral thinking buzz I've ever made

Would it be possible for this question to be posted? I'm kicking myself for not picking up on that and am very interested in seeing it now.

[Important Bird Area]

Passages from a novel originally in this language were translated by Jacques Benoist-Mechin for a 1921 lecture billed as a "seance." Helene Cixous's 800-page dissertation was on the "exile" of an author who wrote in this language, whose letters she pirated from Cornell's library. Auguste Morel translated a novel in this language that was published by a (*) Paris bookstore in 1922, rendering the last line as "oui j'ai dit oui je veux bien Oui." For 10 points—in what language did James Joyce write Ulysses?