2017 HSNCT discussion

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2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by Important Bird Area »

This is your discussion thread for the 2017 HSNCT.

(If you are planning to play the University of Toronto's HSNCT mirror this summer, please do not read this thread.)
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by Bosa of York »

Is it, perhaps, unwise to have this thread open publically given the relative ease of creating a private forum (though not, I suppose, of managing who exactly should be able to see it)?
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by Important Bird Area »

Our policy has consistently been that HSNCT is discussed in public right away (both because it's good to have public discussion for the largest tournament of the year, and because it is impractical to deal with the sheer volume of forum requests that would result from a tournament of this size).
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by Bosa of York »

Okay! I thought that past years' discussions were in private forums but I now see that I was mistaken.
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by CPiGuy »

One comment: the tossup on toruses has an ambiguous lead-in which is also true of the projective plane. Other than that, I really enjoyed reading this set, and it had some very good creative answerlines (like "Venus de Milo's arms").
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by quizbowllee »

This may seem silly, but I'm actually serious: Can NAQT please NOT write questions with major spoilers to new movies? At least give it a year. I'm a pretty big horror movie fan and was (and still am) planning to rent Get Out soon. I had avoided any plot points at all. But, the bonus on that movie gave away some pretty important information about what happens in the movie. It literally got a home video release 4 days before the tournament.
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by naan/steak-holding toll »

quizbowllee wrote:This may seem silly, but I'm actually serious: Can NAQT please NOT write questions with major spoilers to new movies? At least give it a year. I'm a pretty big horror movie fan and was (and still am) planning to rent Get Out soon. I had avoided any plot points at all. But, the bonus on that movie gave away some pretty important information about what happens in the movie. It literally got a home video release 4 days before the tournament.
Why privilege newer content over older works? Seriously, somebody finding out that Snape ki[redacted] could ruin their Harry Potter reading experience!
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by Cheynem »

Apropos of nothing, but I thought NAQT generally tried to avoid including questions on R-rated films like Get Out in high school tournaments.
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by jonah »

Cheynem wrote:Apropos of nothing, but I thought NAQT generally tried to avoid including questions on R-rated films like Get Out in high school tournaments.
I don't think we have a formal policy on this, though perhaps we should. I would note, however, that of 1,472 players at the HSNCT, 1,027 were juniors or seniors (which is, at this time of year, a pretty decent proxy for "at least 17."

As to the spoilers, I'm sorry. Once again I don't think we have a formal policy on this, and I'm not so sure we should — surely quiz bowl will always have a major component of knowing what happened in creative works. However, I will add this question to our (enormous) list of things to discuss over the summer.
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by quizbowllee »

jonah wrote:
As to the spoilers, I'm sorry. Once again I don't think we have a formal policy on this, and I'm not so sure we should — surely quiz bowl will always have a major component of knowing what happened in creative works. However, I will add this question to our (enormous) list of things to discuss over the summer.
Right. I understand that. But, a movie that was released literally 4 days prior to the tournament? That's slightly different than - say - the plot of Jane Eyre. Also, if memory serves me correctly, the "spoiler-ish" parts of the bonuses didn't really give any helpful information. Again, I apologize. I'm probably going to catch grief for bringing it up, but I'm really particular about spoilers....
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by Cody »

Get Out has been in theaters for 3 months -- hardly "four days before the tournament". It's not like Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 or something. I don't see how you can have a reasonable expectation of spoiler-free questions at that point.
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by ericlgame »

I believe the tossup on 1 said that cos(2x) = 1 - 2cos^2(x) rather than 2cos^2(x) - 1.
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by ashwin99 »

In general, it felt like a lot of bonuses had two easy parts and then one hard part, instead of an easy, medium, and hard part. But it may just be me, so I'm wondering if anyone else felt the same way.
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by Antrobus63 »

Oh, I noticed that there weren't that many visual art questions. Was that my imagination?
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by AKKOLADE »

ashwin99 wrote:In general, it felt like a lot of bonuses had two easy parts and then one hard part, instead of an easy, medium, and hard part. But it may just be me, so I'm wondering if anyone else felt the same way.
Average PPB for this year was 14.56 vs 13.72, which is a difference of approximately 8 bonus parts answered correctly per 100 bonus sets. I'd think this is well within normal variance.
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by Stained Diviner »

ashwin99 wrote:In general, it felt like a lot of bonuses had two easy parts and then one hard part, instead of an easy, medium, and hard part. But it may just be me, so I'm wondering if anyone else felt the same way.
I did not see the set--I am only looking at the data. If your statement was true for a huge number of bonuses, then there would be a cluster of teams near 20 PPB. Looking at the data, there is not. In fact, there is a better case for a cluster a little above 10. That being said, it is possible that there were a few bonuses per game that had two easy parts, and something like that would not be obvious looking at the stats.

Your team is very good at bonuses--3rd best in the tournament. Therefore, it is not surprising that a lot of medium parts would seem easy to you. Also, you spent most of the tournament playing teams that were around 20 PPB, but those teams are not typical of the whole field.
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by sonstige »

Cody wrote:Get Out has been in theaters for 3 months -- hardly "four days before the tournament". It's not like Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 or something. I don't see how you can have a reasonable expectation of spoiler-free questions at that point.
So I wrote the Get Out bonus, composing it shortly after seeing the film some months ago (knowing that it wouldn't be usable until at least HSNCT --- more than sufficient time for people to have seen the movie but not so long for it to fall into relative obscurity).

I recall some thread on here a few years ago where a player complained about the plots of books being ruined by questions. I'd recommend checking that thread out when you get a chance.

My personal philosophy on such things is simply: once a movie / book / TV show / whatever is available for public consumption, it is fair game to be asked. There should not be a "cooling off" period or whatever, imo, as that does not reward players who have already consumed said media.

Plus, some media simply won't age well --- is Get Out going to be as relevant in a year or so as it is now? --- and having an arbitrary "cooling off" period enforced disadvantages the player who consumed the media right away vs. the player who waited a year (or whatever) to whom the media would then be much, much fresher.
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by Good Goblin Housekeeping »

Antrobus63 wrote:
Is this satire? And are you saying that gay people aren't mammals, and that Muslims can't lead? I'm honestly so confused.

I'm assuming it's bad satire.
Well, you'd have to read the previous items in the thread, and live in America in 2017, for it to make sense... or meta-nonsense, as intended, but I think the genre is recognizable. If you think it sucks, I can live with that.

But what about the lack of art questions? That was a straight-up question, not satire.
When you say lack of art questions do you mean lack of art questions with respect to a typical NAQT distribution or do you mean a lack of art questions compared to the ~1.6/1.5 Fine Arts you would find in an average IS set as can be found on NAQT's publically available hs set distribution? The first is obviously explained by the distribution just having less in general (and the timer/24 questions making it more dilute and more possible to not hear) while the second would be an actual concern
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by Antrobus63 »

Less than both. But I could be wrong. It was really more of a question than a concern. The set was very good. As you say, it could have been a simple time issue and my team may not have heard some at the back end of the clock. Or maybe the art questions were there but in a different form from the visual narrative ("in the lower left corner...") than I am used to in NAQT sets.
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by sonstige »

Antrobus63 wrote:Less than both. But I could be wrong. It was really more of a question than a concern. The set was very good. As you say, it could have been a simple time issue and my team may not have heard some at the back end of the clock. Or maybe the art questions were there but in a different form from the visual narrative ("in the lower left corner...") than I am used to in NAQT sets.
Jeff probably is the one to discuss the exact details of the HSNCT distribution, but a few things I wanted to say to this:

1) It's very possible that some of the fine arts ended up at the ends of packets where some moderators simply didn't get to them.

2) I definitely tried to get a few more art questions into the set, once as a "current events" question (since that Basquiat work which sold was *just* in the news), and also as parts of the so-called "mixed" questions.

3) This so-called "visual narrative" for staging art questions seems...antiquated. Not saying that modern questions won't occasionally rely on clues like "In the foreground of this work, there is a dog" or whatever, but typically more interesting clues are going to describe the significance and context of the work rather than just lazily listing a bunch of images and their relative locations in the work itself.
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by jonah »

The HSNCT distribution is a little different than what Andrew linked, but I don't think visual art is one of the categories that differ.

The 2017 HSNCT (26 packets) had 13/12 painting, 4/4 architecture, 4/4 sculpture, 2/2 other visual art, and one mixed-fine-arts tossup with some visual clues. (That includes questions in the "Any Fine Arts" category.) Every packet had at least one visual arts question, 14 packets had two visual arts questions, and two packets had three visual arts questions.


I agree with the proferred explanations about bonuses skewing toward seeming to be easy/easy/hard, though it is certainly possible that they really did so too.


Despite living in America in 2017, I'm not touching this "meta-nonsense" post.
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by Valefor »

Antrobus63 wrote:Well, you'd have to read the previous items in the thread, and live in America in 2017, for it to make sense... or meta-nonsense, as intended, but I think the genre is recognizable. If you think it sucks, I can live with that.

But what about the lack of art questions? That was a straight-up question, not satire.
Not to preach to the choir or anything like that, and only speaking for myself, but--as someone who grew up gay in a hometown where those kinds of statements were continuously spouted with absolute seriousness--reading something like that without an overt, obvious indication that it's satire can cause Poe's law to kick in hard.

As for the other point, glancing through the detailed distributions for the 2015-2017 HSNCTs shows me that there were both the same overall number of visual art questions in each of the three sets, and in particular the exact same number of painting tossups and bonuses in each of the three sets. Looking through the Any/Misc. Fine Arts categories in each of those three years as well, it appears that a similar amount of each year's content in that category also arguably dealt with visual fine arts, with maybe 1-2 less questions on visual art and 1-2 more on music over the entire tournament this year as compared to 2016 and 2015 (depending on how you define a few pan-arts topics).

Obviously, whether or not all of those questions got heard based on which packets they ended up in (and where they fell within packets) is a separate issue, but the content was indeed in the set.
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by A Dim-Witted Saboteur »

The only issues I noticed were that history bonus difficulty seemed somewhat variable. The most extreme examples I can think of are that bonus on Connecticutian politicians and that other one that went Dalit (prompt on "untouchable")/Caste System/Gandhi. Otherwise this was an extremely solid set and well-run event that managed to be fun (I think of my teammate Jacob Fisher winning a first-line buzzer race on "Bad and Boujee") as well as rewarding the better team in the vast majority of cases.
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by Antrobus63 »

I agree that the visual narrative questions are antiquated and would love to see them fade away. It may certainly be the case that the art questions snuck past me. Again, just asking... The set was really excellent.

The bonuses were a bit harder than I expected, but I like that. As Jakob said, the better team usually won, and when my team lost I never thought the result was other than fair. Good work, NAQT. (I'd say I am "100% sincere" in that--which is the case--but the more one qualifies the word "sincere," the more sarcastic it sounds.)

As far as satire goes... I thought my post, good or bad, was if anything too overtly satirical. It was certainly in bad taste, but isn't that the point? From now on, when anyone wishes to be satirical, sarcastic, flip, or arch, perhaps we should consider following Monty Python's example of super-imposing a flashing "SATIRE" over the post. Would it be too much to ask for this option in future?

****

Was my post actually removed for being offensive? Wow. I guess I should stick to the universally accepted forms of expressing amusement or disagreement on this site: snarkiness, or anti-Madden-ness.
Last edited by Antrobus63 on Tue May 30, 2017 1:35 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by Kouign Amann »

Antrobus63 wrote: Was my post actually removed for being offensive? Wow.
I'm not the moderator who did it, but I can almost guarantee that your post was removed for being total nonsense and provoking a messy tangent that detracted from the purpose of the thread. Let's refocus, everyone.
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by Antrobus63 »

It actually did address a few issues previously raised on this thread about appropriate question material. The idea of editing out spoilers is obviously absurd, but the editing out of potentially upsetting material is actually dangerous. But, yes, I will decease from going any further down that road, at least on this thread.
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by Marble-faced Bristle Tyrant »

jonah wrote:
Cheynem wrote:Apropos of nothing, but I thought NAQT generally tried to avoid including questions on R-rated films like Get Out in high school tournaments.
I don't think we have a formal policy on this, though perhaps we should. I would note, however, that of 1,472 players at the HSNCT, 1,027 were juniors or seniors (which is, at this time of year, a pretty decent proxy for "at least 17."
I recall the intramural set description as being like IS, but with content like R-rated movies, so that's where people may have gotten the idea. Personally, I think critically acclaimed and award-winning titles should be fine to ask about.
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by browen »

How different was the Peron question from this year compared to last year (when it was in Round 17)? The answer line could easily be Argentina with Peron being an acceptable answer line early in the question. I just thought is was odd that the opening was exactly the same in back-to-back years in the playoffs. When Shub and I were discussing it at lunch Sunday Luke Tierney overheard us and came over to express the same sentiment.
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by jonah »

browen wrote:How different was the Peron question from this year compared to last year (when it was in Round 17)?
Not very :-)
2016 HSNCT, packet 17 wrote:Many left-wing supporters of this man were shot by snipers at the Ezeiza Airport after he returned from exile. After this man was excommunicated in 1955, his country's navy unsuccessfully attempted to start a coup by bombing the (*) Plaza de Mayo. In 1945 this politician married a radio actress who had many supporters among the descamisados. For 10 points—name this Argentine president, whose second wife was Evita.
2017 HSNCT, packet 18 wrote:This man's supporters were killed in the Ezeiza Massacre, which occurred after he returned from a 17-year exile. Héctor Cámpora resigned from the presidency to allow this man to return for his third term. (*) Descamisados once protested the imprisonment of this man, who was succeeded as president by his third wife, Isabel Martíinez. For 10 points—name this leader of Argentina who was married to the actress Eva Duarte.
browen wrote:The answer line could easily be Argentina with Peron being an acceptable answer line early in the question.
I don't really see that this would have helped much, but
browen wrote:I just thought is was odd that the opening was exactly the same in back-to-back years in the playoffs.
It is "odd" and certainly unintentional and not ideal. We don't repeat-check between HSNCTs for a lot of reasons (such as the fact that each HSNCT requires approximately 2500 answer lines and there is inevitably going to be a lot of overlap). Cross-checking lead-ins for tossups on the same answer line might be feasible (but that doesn't specifically mean we will do so).
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by browen »

jonah wrote:I don't really see that this would have helped much
That was my bad. I was adding up the score and thought this year's tossup had led with "The Ezeiza Massacre...".
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by DeepakM »

Can I see the tossups on thanatos and the chimera?
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by CPiGuy »

While we're doing "weird finals repeats", this is the third NAQT national championship tournament I have been to this year. This is also the third one to have a tossup on Belfast in a finals / late playoffs packet, and it is the third one to clue Shankill Road in the course of that tossup. This seems odd, especially since people could hypothetically have played multiple of them, and certainly were in attendance for multiple of them.
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by jonah »

DeepakM wrote:Can I see the tossups on thanatos and the chimera?
HSNCT packet 5 wrote:In the Iliad, this figure is sent to deliver Sarpedon to Lycia. In a play by Euripides, he comes to claim Alcestis, only to be defeated by Heracles. The Roman analogue of this being is the female Mors. This twin brother of Hypnos was a son of (*) Erebos and Nyx. According to some sources, Ares freed this figure who was tricked and bound in chains by Sisyphus. For 10 points—name this Greek embodiment of death.
HSNCT packet 8 wrote:According to the Iliad, this being was raised by King Amisodarus of Caria. This being is "armed with fire" to guard the underworld in the Aeneid. The hero who slew this beast for the King of Lycia also had to fight Cheirmarrhus and the Solymi. King (*) Iobates ordered the death of this creature, which was killed with the help of Pegasus and a block of lead. For 10 points—name this multi-headed monster slain by Bellerophon.
CPiGuy wrote:While we're doing "weird finals repeats", this is the third NAQT national championship tournament I have been to this year. This is also the third one to have a tossup on Belfast in a finals / late playoffs packet, and it is the third one to clue Shankill Road in the course of that tossup. This seems odd, especially since people could hypothetically have played multiple of them, and certainly were in attendance for multiple of them.
Heh. Indeed, there were four Belfast tossups in late playoff packets at this year's championships (ICT Division I, ICT Division II, MSNCT, and HSNCT), and all had Shankill Road in or near the lead-in. The Division II question was converted from the Division I question, so in some sense there were three questions. Written by two different people and edited by three (or four) different people. This was not intentional, and the late-playoff placement of all was unfortunate, but I do not expect we will ever repeat-check across championship sets for completely different audiences (even though, as you say, a very small number of people play more than one of them).
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by Bhagwan Shammbhagwan »

Could I see the Stockholm (rd 13), Vargas Llosa (rd 13), and Consulate (rd 17) tossups?
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by Important Bird Area »

Pascal Plays Poker wrote:Could I see the Stockholm (rd 13), Vargas Llosa (rd 13), and Consulate (rd 17) tossups?
2017 HSNCT round 13 wrote:This city was founded in 1252 by Birger Jarl of the House of Bjelbo. The Djurgardsbron bridge, which honors four Norse gods, was built in this city for the 1897 World's Fair. The Riksdag, a legislative body, convenes in this (*) most populous Scandinavian city. For 10 points—name this city in which a 1973 bank robbery led to it being the namesake of a psychological "syndrome" in which hostages bond with their captors.

answer: Stockholm, Sweden (accept Stockholm Syndrome after "bank")
2017 HSNCT round 13 wrote:The father of one of this author's protagonists is a stroke victim who was once nicknamed "Egghead." That protagonist, Urania Cabral, is offered by her father to a dictator in a novel by this author about (*) Rafael Trujillo. Another of this author's characters writes radio dramas while working at Radio Panamericana. For 10 points—name this Peruvian author of The Feast of the Goat and Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter.
2017 HSNCT round 17 wrote:This governmental body survived an attempt led by Georges Cadoudal and Charles Pichegru to place the Duke of Enghien on the throne. This ruling body made peace with three of its adversaries in the Treaty of Amiens. It was established after the coup of (*) 18 Brumaire, which overthrew the five-man Directory. For 10 points—what French governing body included Napoleon, and was named for the executive of the Roman Republic?

answer: French Consulate (or Consulat francais; prompt on "(French) First Republic" or "French government"; do not accept or prompt on "Directory" or "consul")
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by Monstruos de Bolsillo »

The Venus de Milo arms tossup was kind of confusing, at least in my room. I don't remember the exact wording, but I remember the person was prompted, and still couldn't arrive at the answer, and that it was somewhat unclear.
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by dhumphreys17 »

Monstruos de Bolsillo wrote:The Venus de Milo arms tossup was kind of confusing, at least in my room. I don't remember the exact wording, but I remember the person was prompted, and still couldn't arrive at the answer, and that it was somewhat unclear.
Did the other team steal off the prompt, or did the question go dead?
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by Monstruos de Bolsillo »

dhumphreys17 wrote:Did the other team steal off the prompt, or did the question go dead?
If I recall correctly, one team buzzed like 2/3 of the way through, said Venus de Milo, was prompted, and then couldn't come up with arms (and seemed pretty confused by being prompted, or more specifically, what the prompt was for). I don't remember whether the other team converted. I was scorekeeping that particular round, so the actual words of the tossup aren't that clear in my head.
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

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2017 HSNCT round 19 wrote:Cosmo Wenman used 3D printing to test a theory that these things were spinning thread. Olivier Voutier's drawings disproved the legend that these things were damaged by fighting between French sailors and Greeks or Turks. An interior metal rod may have supported one of these (*) limbs. 19th-century theorists imagined an apple was held by—for 10 points—what limbs, which a statue of the Roman love goddess is missing?

answer: Venus de Milo's arms (accept similar answers that mention the missing arms of the Venus de Milo or Aphrodite of Milos; accept hands or fingers in place of "arm(s)" before "limbs"; prompt on partial answers)
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by bluejay123 »

There was a bonus part on some Chinese road in Round 9 (I think) that seemed intriguing. Do you mind posting it?
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by iambadatnames »

Also, I'd be interested in seeing the Shakespeare tossups from the set if someone has a free moment to dig them out. In particular of course I liked the answerline of Yorick's Skull, but in general I really enjoyed the Shakespeare in general in the tournament. Edit: Actually, that's probably more than I should ask for. If someone could just please pull the tossup on the Skull, I'd really appreciate it.

Also, if someone could post the tossup on "n-1" I'd appreciate it as it's a cool answerline but the lead-in was (at least in my opinion) a little too easy so I didn't get to hear most of the clues.

Thanks to the staff of NAQT for hosting the discussion and for a very enjoyable tournament!
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

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2017 HSNCT round 20 wrote:An atypically authentic version of this object was donated to a theater by the pianist Andre Tchaikowsky. A man smells this object and sets it down after wondering what happened to its owner's "flashes of merriment." This object, which belonged to a "fellow of (*) infinite jest," was unearthed before Ophelia's funeral by a gravedigger. For 10 points—"I knew him, Horatio" is said by Hamlet as he holds what body part of a jester?

answer: Yorick's skull (accept answers that mention both skull and Yorick such as skull of Yorick; accept cranium in place of skull; prompt on "head" or "bones" or other less specific answers in place of skull; prompt on "Yorick")
[Tchaikowsky donated his own skull to be used as a prop.]
2017 HSNCT round 9 wrote:The t distribution with n observations has this many degrees of freedom. The maximum number of handshakes among n people is 1/2 n times this function of n. This function of n appears when defining a sub n recursively for a sequence. This is the largest value in the ring of integers (*) mod n. If n teams play a single-elimination tournament, this many games occur. For 10 points—give this function of n that turns 9 into 8.

answer: n - 1 (accept minus 1 or subtracting 1 or 1 less or 1 fewer or similar answers containing the same idea)
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by Aaron's Rod »

browen wrote:How different was the Peron question from this year compared to last year (when it was in Round 17)? The answer line could easily be Argentina with Peron being an acceptable answer line early in the question.
browen wrote:
jonah wrote:I don't really see that this would have helped much
That was my bad. I was adding up the score and thought this year's tossup had led with "The Ezeiza Massacre...".
For what it's worth:
NAQT Rules, Section J.13 wrote: d. If the clues of a tossup question (at the point at which a player signaled) do not uniquely specify an answer, then the tournament director should consider when the signaling occurred:
a. If the player signaled prior to the end of the first sentence of the question, the response shall be treated as incorrect. That is, players may not protest that they gave an answer that was “correct when they buzzed” during the first sentence of the tossup.
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by rhegde »

Could I see the tossups on Romania and Hell from round 2?
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by Important Bird Area »

2017 HSNCT round 2 wrote:In 1990 this country's Cighid orphanage became notorious for its terrible conditions. This country banned abortion and contraception in Decree 770. In 1989 mass protests in Timisoara led to the fall of this country's longtime Communist leader, who was (*) executed on television alongside his wife Elena on Christmas. For 10 points—name this country once led by Nicolae Ceausescu.
2017 HSNCT round 2 wrote:This place is "a city much like London" according to Percy Shelley's Peter Bell the Third. A letter supposedly sent "from" this place inspired the title of Alan Moore's graphic novel about Jack the Ripper. An abandoned New Jersey amusement park contains the entrance to a (*) "robot" version of this place in Futurama ["future"-AH-muh]. Garcin equates this place with "other people" in the play No Exit. For 10 points—name this fiery underworld.

answer: Hell (or l'enfer; accept From Hell letter or From Hell or Robot Hell or Hell is other people or L'enfer, c'est les autres; prompt on "inferno" or "infernal regions"; prompt on "(the) afterlife" or "underworld" or "netherworld" before "underworld")
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by Red Panda Cub »

Important Bird Area wrote:
2017 HSNCT round 2 wrote:In 1990 this country's Cighid orphanage became notorious for its terrible conditions. This country banned abortion and contraception in Decree 770. In 1989 mass protests in Timisoara led to the fall of this country's longtime Communist leader, who was (*) executed on television alongside his wife Elena on Christmas. For 10 points—name this country once led by Nicolae Ceausescu.
2017 HSNCT round 2 wrote:This place is "a city much like London" according to Percy Shelley's Peter Bell the Third. A letter supposedly sent "from" this place inspired the title of Alan Moore's graphic novel about Jack the Ripper. An abandoned New Jersey amusement park contains the entrance to a (*) "robot" version of this place in Futurama ["future"-AH-muh]. Garcin equates this place with "other people" in the play No Exit. For 10 points—name this fiery underworld.

answer: Hell (or l'enfer; accept From Hell letter or From Hell or Robot Hell or Hell is other people or L'enfer, c'est les autres; prompt on "inferno" or "infernal regions"; prompt on "(the) afterlife" or "underworld" or "netherworld" before "underworld")
Apologies if I'm just missing out on something obvious here (like guides being left in for the Hell TU but not the Romania one), but what's the reasoning for having a pronunciation guide for "Futurama" but not "Cighid", "Timisoara" or "Ceausescu"?
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by jonah »

Short-beaked echidna wrote:Apologies if I'm just missing out on something obvious here (like guides being left in for the Hell TU but not the Romania one), but what's the reasoning for having a pronunciation guide for "Futurama" but not "Cighid", "Timisoara" or "Ceausescu"?
In theory, we try to strip out pronunciation guides when posting questions to the boards. In practice, sometimes we miss them.

All the words you mentioned had pronunciation guides in the versions of the questions that moderators saw.
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by Dirty Water »

NAQT Correctness Guidelines wrote:D.5: In the case of questions that specifically ask for a shared first or last name by giving clues about different people who have borne it, the full name of any referenced person will be acceptable (even if the people are relatives). Note that this does not apply to questions asking for a specific person, even if the last name is the only part of the answer that is required.
Is this still the case? A teammate was given a neg for "Ichabod Crane" for the Ichabod tossup in round 19.
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

Post by The Sawing-Off of Manhattan Island »

Could I see the question on the Chinese Remainder Theorem? iirc I negged it with Fermat's Little Theorem based off of the RSA clue, which I thought might be technically correct, but I might be misremembering something. Thanks in advance!
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Re: 2017 HSNCT discussion

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2017 HSNCT round 15 wrote:Using this theorem speeds up the RSA encryption algorithm by about a factor of 4. All the moduli must be pairwise relatively prime to use this theorem, which is often combined with Euclid's algorithm. This theorem is often explained in terms of soldiers (*) left over when splitting a regiment into different-sized groups. For 10 points—identify this theorem for solving systems of modular congruences, named after a country.

answer: Chinese remainder theorem (prompt on "CRT")
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