2012 SCT individual question discussion

[bt_green_warbler]

This is your thread to talk about the details of specific questions.

[Smuttynose Island]

I had an issue with the Paris Commune TU. The Paris Commune that Adolphe Thiers put down was technically the second Paris Commune as a Paris Commune existed during the French Revolution. I was originally negged for giving that answer. It would probably be prudent to add "Second" to the answerline so that such a thing doesn't happen at future mirrors.

[bt_green_warbler]

It would probably be prudent to add "Second" to the answerline so that such a thing doesn't happen at future mirrors.

Done.

[Nun's puffs]

More than one person pointed out that Manhunter was the first movie that Hannibal Lecter appeared in (as opposed to Silence of the Lambs, as mentioned in the bonus), although I notice his name is spelled differently in the former.

[theMoMA]

It should be noted that Maris is the wife of Niles, not Frasier. That was my fault.

[Masked Canadian History Bandit]

I thought the Schwerer Gustav clue for Leningrad was either neg bait for Sevastopol or outright incorrect. It's certainly more famous for busting several forts of the Crimean port and seems to either not have been used or barely used during Leningrad before the Germans had to retreat.

[Bartleby]

The question on "red line": although there are several lines which are red on a hockey rink, there is only one designated as the "red line". Stating that the puck has to cross at least two "red lines" is very confusing.

Also, this isn't about individual questions, and I've no idea about how this sort of thing gets determined, but having TUs on both the U2 incident and the Bay of Pigs in the same pack didn't seem entirely prudent to me.

[bt_green_warbler]

having TUs on both the U2 incident and the Bay of Pigs in the same pack didn't seem entirely prudent to me.

It's not and I should have switched one of those. My apologies.

[bt_green_warbler]

I thought the Schwerer Gustav clue for Leningrad was either neg bait for Sevastopol or outright incorrect. It's certainly more famous for busting several forts of the Crimean port and seems to either not have been used or barely used during Leningrad before the Germans had to retreat.

It was one of the pieces of siege equipment the Germans moved from Sevastopol to Leningrad. I should have clarified the sentence structure to explicitly mention that and avoid this neg.

[Distance model]

The Indo-European question would probably benefit from some kind of prompt/anti-prompt, as well as one of those little explanations you sometimes get in answer lines. The first answer given in my room was either "Slavic" or "Balto-Slavic"; I forget which. I hesitated because I thought the Ruki rule was a Sanskrit thing; I guess I was confusing it with some other Sanskrit sound law that's called by an acronym (I'm not an Indo-Europeanist, that's for sure). The answering player's interpretation of this was to basically anti-prompt himself and explain it, so it was fine, except that I feel like I made him waste a bunch of clock time and if I'd had a thing that said "accept/anti-prompt 'Slavic' until X", it would have been better because I could have just accepted it.

Also, I wrote the Finnish composers tossup, but it was two years ago.

[women, fire and dangerous things]

The Indo-European question would probably benefit from some kind of prompt/anti-prompt, as well as one of those little explanations you sometimes get in answer lines. The first answer given in my room was either "Slavic" or "Balto-Slavic"; I forget which. I hesitated because I thought the Ruki rule was a Sanskrit thing; I guess I was confusing it with some other Sanskrit sound law that's called by an acronym (I'm not an Indo-Europeanist, that's for sure). The answering player's interpretation of this was to basically anti-prompt himself and explain it, so it was fine, except that I feel like I made him waste a bunch of clock time and if I'd had a thing that said "accept/anti-prompt 'Slavic' until X", it would have been better because I could have just accepted it.

Also, I wrote the Finnish composers tossup, but it was two years ago.

It was first discovered in Sanskrit, so that's presumably what you were thinking of. I don't think Slavic should be accepted or anti-prompted, though, because it doesn't apply only to Slavic; it also applies in Indo-Iranian and some other satem languages.

[Sir Thopas]

The Indo-European question would probably benefit from some kind of prompt/anti-prompt, as well as one of those little explanations you sometimes get in answer lines. The first answer given in my room was either "Slavic" or "Balto-Slavic"; I forget which. I hesitated because I thought the Ruki rule was a Sanskrit thing; I guess I was confusing it with some other Sanskrit sound law that's called by an acronym (I'm not an Indo-Europeanist, that's for sure). The answering player's interpretation of this was to basically anti-prompt himself and explain it, so it was fine, except that I feel like I made him waste a bunch of clock time and if I'd had a thing that said "accept/anti-prompt 'Slavic' until X", it would have been better because I could have just accepted it.

Also, I wrote the Finnish composers tossup, but it was two years ago.

It was first discovered in Sanskrit, so that's presumably what you were thinking of. I don't think Slavic should be accepted or anti-prompted, though, because it doesn't apply only to Slavic; it also applies in Indo-Iranian and some other satem languages.

As the one who answered in that way, my reasoning for that was, and remains, as follows: if the statement "The ruki rule occurred in Slavic languages" is true, than not to anti-prompt on the clue (whose wording I don't exactly remember, but which I think made reference to "many languages in this family") would be extremely uncharitable.

[women, fire and dangerous things]

The Indo-European question would probably benefit from some kind of prompt/anti-prompt, as well as one of those little explanations you sometimes get in answer lines. The first answer given in my room was either "Slavic" or "Balto-Slavic"; I forget which. I hesitated because I thought the Ruki rule was a Sanskrit thing; I guess I was confusing it with some other Sanskrit sound law that's called by an acronym (I'm not an Indo-Europeanist, that's for sure). The answering player's interpretation of this was to basically anti-prompt himself and explain it, so it was fine, except that I feel like I made him waste a bunch of clock time and if I'd had a thing that said "accept/anti-prompt 'Slavic' until X", it would have been better because I could have just accepted it.

Also, I wrote the Finnish composers tossup, but it was two years ago.

It was first discovered in Sanskrit, so that's presumably what you were thinking of. I don't think Slavic should be accepted or anti-prompted, though, because it doesn't apply only to Slavic; it also applies in Indo-Iranian and some other satem languages.

As the one who answered in that way, my reasoning for that was, and remains, as follows: if the statement "The ruki rule occurred in Slavic languages" is true, than not to anti-prompt on the clue (whose wording I don't exactly remember, but which I think made reference to "many languages in this family") would be extremely uncharitable.

I guess the analogy would be answering a question starting "Many cities in this polity..." with Scotland, when the clue refers to a characteristic of cities throughout the UK. I don't have very strong intuitions about whether that should be anti-promptable, so I'm fine with whatever the consensus is.

[Tees-Exe Line]

That reminds me: could we see the "Scotland" question by any chance? I sort of wanted to say "Northern Ireland" until the "Westlothian Question" was named, when I buzzed, considered saying "Northern Ireland" since the Westlothian Question still applies, but thought the better of it since that would have seemed a little perverse by SCT standards. I want to see if my Northern Ireland thoughts were completely crazy.

[bt_green_warbler]

In many languages from this family, the alveolar fricative became a post-alveolar or velar fricative after "r," "k," or "u" according to the Ruki law. Those languages from this family are known as the "satem" languages, part of the division of this family based on words for "one hundred." Tocharian and (*) Anatolian are extinct branches of this family, whose Hellenic and Celtic languages survive. For 10 points--name this language family that includes Sanskrit, Russian, French, and English.

This country's cabinet meets at Bute House. It is only guaranteed two seats on the supreme court that rules on its laws. Its opposition is led by Ruth Davidson, a member of its Conservative and Union Party. This country has a keen interest in the West Lothian question and is wrangling with (*) David Cameron over whether to ask one or two questions on a referendum on furthering devolution or even independence. For 10 points--name this portion of the U.K. led from Edinburgh.

[Tees-Exe Line]

Okay, there are obviously unique Scotland clues in there, but there's also some misinformation which is probably what caused my Northern Ireland confusion. The official opposition in the Scottish Parliament right now is Labour, not the Tories (they've usually been in fourth place since devolution, though wikipedia tells me they're now in third). Furthermore, is it standard to refer to the Conservative Party as the "Conservative and Union Party?" It's the formal name, but it seems to me that formulation has the effect of directing people's attention away from, rather than towards, the Conservative and Union Party of the United Kingdom.

**EDIT**

Also, the controversy over the referendum isn't whether to ask one or two questions, it's whether to give two or three answers. As in, should there be a third option for "give Alex Salmond more power; don't embarrass him by revealing that most people think an independent Scotland is ridiculous."

** FURTHER EDIT**

I wasn't aware that there's a specific reservation for Scottish judges on the Supreme Court of the UK, pursuant to the Constitutional Reform Act of 2005. Do you know where that idea comes from?

[Sun Devil Student]

At ASU, we only played the first 9 packets. Three tossups stick out in my mind from the SCT set:
1) "Indo-European" (language family) really screwed with the minds of both ASU teams, we were all sitting there thinking "it can't be that easy? surely at this level 'language family' *doesn't* automatically mean 'Indo-European'?"
2) A common-link tossup on syphilis studies involving human subjects, which then accepted Tuskegee as an answer even though that was only one of several studies mentioned. My teammate was negged after being mystified when he was prompted on "human scientific studies" or something like that. If the tossup had been written as "this disease was the subject of X study etc" instead of "this kind of study" or if the answer had been simply "studies with human subjects/accept all equivalents like 'clinical trial' etc" that would have helped us. I don't know how many other teams are affected.
3) "Fugacity" stuck out to me as being a much higher difficulty answerline than the vast majority of the chemistry questions, because I had at least heard of all the other chemistry tossup answerlines from either organic or physical chemistry classes, whereas "fugacity" is a term I have not to this day seen outside of a quizbowl context. Maybe it's in much more common use outside of Arizona or something, but I'd want to ask about this.

There were other dead tossups that seemed incredibly out-of-left-field compared to the standard canon ASU teams have gotten used to at ACF tournaments, but the overall difficulty reduction made the few wacky tossups much more tolerable. This year it was mostly just the wacky tossups that went dead, whereas in past years it was not only the wacky tossups but also a significant fraction of the canonical tossups that would go dead. It's easier to sit through the occasional clunker when there are plenty of answerable ones around them.

The bonuses generally seemed very inconsistent in their difficulty level. About a quarter of the bonuses had no discernible easy part. I don't have the set in front of me, so I don't have specific examples.

Overall, this set was much more fun (for a typical third-quartile team like mine, anyway) than last year's, a big thank you to NAQT for thinking about their non-Nationals audience.

[Bad Boy Bill]

As a reader in Div I, there were two questions that were big buzzer races on the first clue in my room. The one was "this city rejected black firefighter test scores" -- it's pretty much the only thing I remember about Sotomayor other than the "wise Latina" remark, and apparently others remember that too.

I'm going to have to dig to find the other one, but I seem to recall it after lunch.

[jonah]

As a reader in Div I, there were two questions that were big buzzer races on the first clue in my room. The one was "this city rejected black firefighter test scores" -- it's pretty much the only thing I remember about Sotomayor other than the "wise Latina" remark, and apparently others remember that too.

I agree that this lead-in was too easy. In fact, it's the only clue I personally know from that question before "Yale".

[Fond du lac operon]

For DII, I went over the packets last night and found a few tossups that I had issues with:

• The HMS Pinafore tossup has something of the form "Never... well, hardly ever" as its first clue. Since that's one of the best-known bits from that operetta (and it recurs several times) I'm not sure it should be a lead-in.
• It might just be my biases, but I'm not sure the Martin Freeman tossup was pyramidal -- it started out with a clue I didn't know and failed to write down, but then the second one was The Office, which may be better known than Sherlock and is almost definitely better-remembered than the H2G2 movie from 7 years ago, which was the giveaway.
• The tossup on the Scopes trial was almost totally stock clues -- I think "George Rappelyea" were the second and third words, and "Dayton, Tennessee" was well within power.
• Most egregiously, the first buzzable clue in the tossup on Arthur Miller was about Giles Corey asking for "more weight." That led to, like, a five-way buzzer race in my room, and not against one of the better teams at the site, either.

Also, this is probably just sour grapes, but for the tossup on unemployment, I think "employment" should've been acceptable -- or at least prompted -- early in the question. I buzzed in with that answer after the clue on Okun's law and got negged; while it's true that Okun's law relates the unemployment rate to output, it relates the concept of employment to output, as does the Phillips curve, and I don't believe there was anything that early in the question to distinguish the two.

[Madagascar Serpent Eagle]

Most egregiously, the first buzzable clue in the tossup on Arthur Miller was about Giles Corey asking for "more weight." That led to, like, a five-way buzzer race in my room, and not against one of the better teams at the site, either.

Also, this is probably just sour grapes, but for the tossup on unemployment, I think "employment" should've been acceptable -- or at least prompted -- early in the question. I buzzed in with that answer after the clue on Okun's law and got negged; while it's true that Okun's law relates the unemployment rate to output, it relates the concept of employment to output, as does the Phillips curve, and I don't believe there was anything that early in the question to distinguish the two.

These are both also examples of what I was talking about before: almost everyone in my room buzzed on "more weight," and we also had a pretty big buzzer race when Okun's law was mentioned quite early. I don't remember the exact wording so I can't comment on the acceptability of employment, but I went with unemployment just because "Okun's law = whichever of unemployment or GDP they haven't said yet" is kind of a stock clue even in high school

[Vernon Lee Bad Marriage, Jr.]

Most egregiously, the first buzzable clue in the tossup on Arthur Miller was about Giles Corey asking for "more weight." That led to, like, a five-way buzzer race in my room, and not against one of the better teams at the site, either.

Also, this is probably just sour grapes, but for the tossup on unemployment, I think "employment" should've been acceptable -- or at least prompted -- early in the question. I buzzed in with that answer after the clue on Okun's law and got negged; while it's true that Okun's law relates the unemployment rate to output, it relates the concept of employment to output, as does the Phillips curve, and I don't believe there was anything that early in the question to distinguish the two.

These are both also examples of what I was talking about before: almost everyone in my room buzzed on "more weight," and we also had a pretty big buzzer race when Okun's law was mentioned quite early. I don't remember the exact wording so I can't comment on the acceptability of employment, but I went with unemployment just because "Okun's law = whichever of unemployment or GDP they haven't said yet" is kind of a stock clue even in high school

Did you seriously just complain about "stock clues" in the DII set? Are you attempting to parody circa-2009 era high school stars? At least they could back it up!

George Rappelyea

I would not buzz on this, although I think he may have been in an ACF Fall tossup I edited, don't remember. Anyway this is perfectly fine for a lead-in in DII.

[bt_green_warbler]

"Okun's law = whichever of unemployment or GDP they haven't said yet" is kind of a stock clue even in high school

Number of times Okun's law has ever appeared in NAQT IS sets through 2011: one. (round 1 of IS #69A)

[Cheynem]

Just to clarify: a "stock clue" seems to be being conflated with "notable, buzzable clue." I've read a whole book on the Scopes trial and would not buzz on Rapplelyea, and there are a lot of people who wouldn't buzz on Okun's law. A key fact that you know, even that a number of people know, is (not always) still a reasonable lead-in at DII--we would expect good players to buzz quickly on an easy set. Just like ACF Fall, DII SCT is an easy tournament that I don't see as appreciably different from some high school sets (although, of course, in the big picture they are harder).

[Madagascar Serpent Eagle]

Most egregiously, the first buzzable clue in the tossup on Arthur Miller was about Giles Corey asking for "more weight." That led to, like, a five-way buzzer race in my room, and not against one of the better teams at the site, either.

Also, this is probably just sour grapes, but for the tossup on unemployment, I think "employment" should've been acceptable -- or at least prompted -- early in the question. I buzzed in with that answer after the clue on Okun's law and got negged; while it's true that Okun's law relates the unemployment rate to output, it relates the concept of employment to output, as does the Phillips curve, and I don't believe there was anything that early in the question to distinguish the two.

These are both also examples of what I was talking about before: almost everyone in my room buzzed on "more weight," and we also had a pretty big buzzer race when Okun's law was mentioned quite early. I don't remember the exact wording so I can't comment on the acceptability of employment, but I went with unemployment just because "Okun's law = whichever of unemployment or GDP they haven't said yet" is kind of a stock clue even in high school

Did you seriously just complain about "stock clues" in the DII set? Are you attempting to parody circa-2009 era high school stars? At least they could back it up!

In my defense, I've always opposed making high school questions more difficult. My argument here is that I would expect this to be more difficult than a high school tournament; if consensus disagrees, as it seems to, that's fine. As Chris Ray pointed out, I obviously won't be playing DII next year, and if future audiences would be better suited by a set that's not any harder than this year's was, great, I'll gladly write questions for it that are around the level of difficulty of this year's (if I haven't written a decent number at the right level by a few weeks before this, someone from NAQT remind me, assuming I can if I play DI). For Okun's law specifically, apparently I was wrong about it in NAQT sets, though the Torrey Pines database shows it coming up multiple times in high school and introductory college sets in the last few years, and I was able to buzz on it despite never having discussed it in an economics class or researching it, indicating that I learned it from hearing it in questions. If I'm wrong and it's not a stock clue, fine, but since the team we were playing was buzzing too (I don't remember who it was, but it wasn't one of the top four at our site) I figured that indicated that it was at least better known than one normally wants a lead-in to be.

[Tanay]

I think the leadin* that mentioned "eight choirs of five voices" may have been misplaced for the Thomas Tallis tossup. I'm not speaking as a particularly qualified source on music, but I thought one of the better-known things about Spem in alium was the forty voices. It certainly seemed more immediately helpful than a lot of the later clues, and Joey from Stanford (a fantastic music player) and maybe one or two others in my room played chicken for a couple of lines after that clue, to whatever extent that might actually be declarable.

*EDITED: It's actually the first sentence, not really the leadin clue.

[bt_green_warbler]

A 2001 CD contains a reconstruction of parts of this man's four-movement ~Salve intemerata Mass~, which is based on a motet of the same name, and a work written for eight five-part choirs. A 2007 CD was the first to record the third of his tunes for ~Archbishop Parker's Psalter~, "Why fum'th in fight"; it also included the (*) 1910 work for string orchestra that tune inspired. For 10 points--name this Tudor composer of ~Spem in alium~ who inspired an eponymous fantasia by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

[Vernon Lee Bad Marriage, Jr.]

I think the leadin* that mentioned "eight choirs of five voices" may have been misplaced for the Thomas Tallis tossup. I'm not speaking as a particularly qualified source on music, but I thought one of the better-known things about Spem in alium was the forty voices. It certainly seemed more immediately helpful than a lot of the later clues, and Joey from Stanford (a fantastic music player) and maybe one or two others in my room played chicken for a couple of lines after that clue, to whatever extent that might actually be declarable.

*EDITED: It's actually the first sentence, not really the leadin clue.

Musical details of Spem in Alium are perfectly appropriate as lead-in material. This is a non-issue.

[ThisIsMyUsername]

I think his point is not so much that that clue is too easy to be a lead-in at this level, but rather that it is easier than the clues that follow it, thus making the tossup unpyramidal. I would agree with him.

[Tanay]

I think his point is not so much that that clue is too easy to be a lead-in at this level, but rather that it is easier than the clues that follow it, thus making the tossup unpyramidal. I would agree with him.

That's precisely what I was saying.

[The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi]

Could I see the tossups on Henrik Ibsen and Eugene Ionesco? I remember being confused for a minute or two at first when I heard these.

[Sir Thopas]

At ASU, we only played the first 9 packets. Three tossups stick out in my mind from the SCT set:
1) "Indo-European" (language family) really screwed with the minds of both ASU teams, we were all sitting there thinking "it can't be that easy? surely at this level 'language family' *doesn't* automatically mean 'Indo-European'?"

Hey dude, that's just too bad for you. The clues were nice and buzzable (although satem was probably a bit easy at that point). You can try and game the packets all you want, but you can't complain that you couldn't buzz until a clue that you actually knew came up.

[bt_green_warbler]

In one play by this man, Old Ekdal is allowed to fire guns in the attic to relive his past as a great hunter. He created Thea Elvsted and the alcoholic Ejlert Lovborg in another play about the search for a "beautiful death." A third play relates how Nils (*) Krogstad blackmailed Torvald Helmer's wife, Nora. For 10 points--name this playwright born in Christiana who wrote ~The Wild Duck~, ~Hedda Gabler~, and ~A Doll's House~.

In one play by this author, Dany is murdered in the Radiant City. Another of his plays ends with the protagonist declaring, "I will not capitulate" after Daisy gives in. This author of ~The Killer~ wrote a play in which the Smiths and Martins host the Fire Chief at a dinner party. He also created (*) Berenger, who refuses to turn into a rhinoceros. For 10 points--name this Romanian absurdist who wrote ~The Bald Soprano~.

[The Quest for the Historical Mukherjesus]

Some errors: serine proteases are called serine proteases because they have serine in their active site, not because they cut next to serine. Also, acetals should be acceptable for ketals, as in the IUPAC notation ketals are considered a subset of acetals and saying acetals would demonstrate knowledge.

[Black-throated Antshrike]

Bonus 13 in Packet 9: It was on sports players that changed their name.

Was it just me or was this either your getting 30 points or none?

[The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi]

In one play by this man, Old Ekdal is allowed to fire guns in the attic to relive his past as a great hunter. He created Thea Elvsted and the alcoholic Ejlert Lovborg in another play about the search for a "beautiful death." A third play relates how Nils (*) Krogstad blackmailed Torvald Helmer's wife, Nora. For 10 points--name this playwright born in Christiana who wrote ~The Wild Duck~, ~Hedda Gabler~, and ~A Doll's House~.

This question is fine. I've never read the Wild Duck, which is why I was confused.

[Bartleby]

Bonus 13 in Packet 9: It was on sports players that changed their name.

Was it just me or was this either your getting 30 points or none?

Can I see the bonus in question?

[The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi]

Most egregiously, the first buzzable clue in the tossup on Arthur Miller was about Giles Corey asking for "more weight." That led to, like, a five-way buzzer race in my room, and not against one of the better teams at the site, either.

Also, this is probably just sour grapes, but for the tossup on unemployment, I think "employment" should've been acceptable -- or at least prompted -- early in the question. I buzzed in with that answer after the clue on Okun's law and got negged; while it's true that Okun's law relates the unemployment rate to output, it relates the concept of employment to output, as does the Phillips curve, and I don't believe there was anything that early in the question to distinguish the two.

Yeah, I didn't play this packet, but it probably would have been better to shift around a clue. The one about Joe Keller selling faulty airplane parts would probably have been a better lead-in for this.

[cornfused]

In one play by this man, Old Ekdal is allowed to fire guns in the attic to relive his past as a great hunter. He created Thea Elvsted and the alcoholic Ejlert Lovborg in another play about the search for a "beautiful death." A third play relates how Nils (*) Krogstad blackmailed Torvald Helmer's wife, Nora. For 10 points--name this playwright born in Christiana who wrote ~The Wild Duck~, ~Hedda Gabler~, and ~A Doll's House~.

This question is fine. I've never read the Wild Duck, which is why I was confused.

I wasn't a fan of this one, just in that it begins with "In one play by this man, [Norwegian-sounding name]." It's very vulnerable to fraud*.

*Yes, I suppose, Strindberg. But still, wouldn't it be better to lead with a plot clue first before a such a tempting-to-fraud character name?

[The Two Hearts of Kwasi Boachi]

In one play by this man, Old Ekdal is allowed to fire guns in the attic to relive his past as a great hunter. He created Thea Elvsted and the alcoholic Ejlert Lovborg in another play about the search for a "beautiful death." A third play relates how Nils (*) Krogstad blackmailed Torvald Helmer's wife, Nora. For 10 points--name this playwright born in Christiana who wrote ~The Wild Duck~, ~Hedda Gabler~, and ~A Doll's House~.

This question is fine. I've never read the Wild Duck, which is why I was confused.

I wasn't a fan of this one, just in that it begins with "In one play by this man, [Norwegian-sounding name]." It's very vulnerable to fraud*.

*Yes, I suppose, Strindberg. But still, wouldn't it be better to lead with a plot clue first before a such a tempting-to-fraud character name?

That's a fair sentiment. I mean, they could have said, "in one play by this man, the title character commits suicide after being blackmailed by Judge Brack" or something like that. That would have prevented people frauding it (maybe).

[The Motley Eye]

The polar graphs bonus in packet 12 of DII:

One of the parts had an answer of Archimedean, but said explicitly not to accept "Archimedes."

Can you please explain why the latter was unacceptable?

[tiwonge]

Mathworld, for example, calls it Archimedes' Spiral.
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ArchimedesSpiral.html

Edit: (It has a listing for an Archimedean Spiral, but that's different from the one in the question. Their Archimedes' Spiral more appropriates the a + b*theta of the question.)

[jonah]

The polar graphs bonus in packet 12 of DII:

One of the parts had an answer of Archimedean, but said explicitly not to accept "Archimedes."

Can you please explain why the latter was unacceptable?

No, I can't. It should have been, and the version of the question I uploaded as subject editor said to accept Archimedes; I guess it got changed in set editing.

[touchpack]

Can you post the aldehydes tossup? (DI) I remember thinking it was unusually hard when I played it.

[Mechanical Beasts]

These compounds react with DABCO [DAB-koh] and electron-poor {alkene}s to give allylic [uh-LIH-lik] alcohols in the {Baylis-Hillman reaction}. An alkene or {alkyne} forms 1,3-diols or allylic alcohols upon reaction with one of these compounds in the {Prins reaction}. Pyridinium [PIH-rih-DIN-ee-um] salts react with secondary {amine}s to, upon aqueous workup, give the (*) Zincke type of these compounds. Some {ester}s can be reduced to these compounds using DIBAL. For 10 points--name these compounds with terminal {carbonyl} groups.

If I had this one back, I might have cut out one of the early middle clues--probably the Prins reaction clue--to make room for easier stuff. That said, an organic chemistry undergraduate definitely runs into the Baylis-Hillman reaction and probably runs into Prins. Could probably have used more later clues, sure.

[Mechanical Beasts]

Also, acetals should be acceptable for ketals, as in the IUPAC notation ketals are considered a subset of acetals and saying acetals would demonstrate knowledge.

I disambiguated that one by specifically saying what carbon is bonded to (two O-alkyl groups and two carbons/alkyl groups). So I guess I probably should have prompted on ketals, but saying acetals doesn't demonstrate enough knowledge to get the question.

[Red-necked Phalarope]

At ASU, we only played the first 9 packets. Three tossups stick out in my mind from the SCT set:
1) "Indo-European" (language family) really screwed with the minds of both ASU teams, we were all sitting there thinking "it can't be that easy? surely at this level 'language family' *doesn't* automatically mean 'Indo-European'?"

Hey dude, that's just too bad for you. The clues were nice and buzzable (although satem was probably a bit easy at that point). You can try and game the packets all you want, but you can't complain that you couldn't buzz until a clue that you actually knew came up.

For the record, I also sat on this past the Ruki rule clue, since I wasn't sure if they wanted Indo-Iranian or some other specific branch. (I then proceeded to sit on this all the way to 'Tocharian', but that was just me being stupid.)

[Sir Thopas]

At ASU, we only played the first 9 packets. Three tossups stick out in my mind from the SCT set:
1) "Indo-European" (language family) really screwed with the minds of both ASU teams, we were all sitting there thinking "it can't be that easy? surely at this level 'language family' *doesn't* automatically mean 'Indo-European'?"

Hey dude, that's just too bad for you. The clues were nice and buzzable (although satem was probably a bit easy at that point). You can try and game the packets all you want, but you can't complain that you couldn't buzz until a clue that you actually knew came up.

For the record, I also sat on this past the Ruki rule clue, since I wasn't sure if they wanted Indo-Iranian or some other specific branch. (I then proceeded to sit on this all the way to 'Tocharian', but that was just me being stupid.)

I mean, yeah, I did a similar thing (as I described upthread). In an ideal world (a) any of the satem branches would have been acceptable there and (b) this would have been somehow communicated, but this seems pretty impossible, unfortunately.

[bt_green_warbler]

For 10 points each--to what did these professional athletes legally change their first name?

A. Boxer Marvin Hagler in 1982?

answer: _Marvelous_ (accept _Marvelous Marvin Hagler_)

B. Basketball player Lloyd Bernard Free in 1980?

answer: _World_ (accept _World B. Free_)

C. Baseball pitcher John Paul Bonser in 2001?

answer: _Boof_ (accept _Boof Bonser_)

[Bartleby]

For 10 points each--to what did these professional athletes legally change their first name?

A. Boxer Marvin Hagler in 1982?

answer: _Marvelous_ (accept _Marvelous Marvin Hagler_)

B. Basketball player Lloyd Bernard Free in 1980?

answer: _World_ (accept _World B. Free_)

C. Baseball pitcher John Paul Bonser in 2001?

answer: _Boof_ (accept _Boof Bonser_)

Yeah that's a really absurd bonus, particularly when you have people like Cassius Clay and Lew Alcindor kicking around. Especially for DII. A boxer who hasn't fought in twenty-five years, a man who's greatest accomplishment was probably his name change, and Boof Bonser? It's bonuses like this that get people's haunches up about NAQT trash.