Pascal Plays Poker wrote:- While common links tossup are a nice change, I think you guys overdid them a bit in favor of regular answer lines that I thought would've been better.
Your Feline Genome wrote:2017 in amusement parks wrote:I'd like to see the tossup on "ice" because I'm curious where it went after One Hundred Years of Solitude clues.
On that note, when will the set be posted? I think people would like to be able to see the set while they discuss it.
PPB, NSC 2017
Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. Max.
6.48 13.84 15.66 15.84 18.07 22.53
PPB, NSC 2016
Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. Max.
8.97 13.48 16.21 16.34 18.99 24.39
Powers/game, NSC 2017
Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. Max.
0.000 1.133 1.733 2.154 2.700 6.889
Powers/game, NSC 2016
Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. Max.
0.2667 1.3920 2.3000 2.6390 3.6520 7.1500
csa2125 wrote:I'll write up a larger commentary on the set later, but overall I enjoyed it very much.
One question I was curious about, however, was the bonus asking for "The Hebrew Bible," which prompted but did not outright accept "the Old Testament," when asking about some philosopher who did not consider the God worshipped by the pre-Christianity Jews to be the same as the God worshipped by the Christians. Could someone post that bonus and explain why "Old Testament" wouldn't have been entirely correct there?
[10] The dualist Marcion of Sinope taught that the God described in this religious text was not the God taught by Jesus. The protocanonical books, but not the deuterocanonical ones, derived from this text.
ANSWER: Tanakh [accept Hebrew Bible or Hebrew Scriptures or Mikra; prompt on the Old Testament; prompt on the Bible; anti-prompt (ask the player to be less specific) on the Torah or the Pentateuch]
sambrochin wrote:But seriously, what was with that MacGuffin tossup? And why was it basically the only film tossup in the whole set?
2017 in amusement parks wrote:Will the All-Star packet be included when the set is posted?
nitzuga wrote:One of the only issues I noticed was a sort of poor placement of questions, both within rounds and between rounds... In Round 9, a bonus part on Australia comes soon after a tossup on Australia, in Round 15 a mention of Lord Byron in a bonus immediately precedes a tossup on Byron, and in the video I'm currently watching (DCC v Barrington Round 17), the first three tossups and one of the corresponding bonuses are all science, and there are two mentions of Thomas De Quincey in the bonuses.
2017 in amusement parks wrote:I'd like to see the tossup on "ice" because I'm curious where it went after One Hundred Years of Solitude clues.
Round 17 wrote:12. A man who breaks plates without touching them opens a factory that produces this stuff, then builds a railroad to improve its business. In a tent, a giant with a copper nose ring opens a pirate chest containing this stuff, which is proclaimed "the greatest invention of our time." A character's only happy moments after his first sight of this stuff occurs while he sits in his workshop crafting tiny (*) gold fish. A man pays five reals (ree-ALLS) to touch this substance while searching for the gypsy Melquíades. In the first sentence of a 1967 novel, a man facing a firing squad, Colonel Aureliano, recalls when "his father took him to discover" this substance. For 10 points, name this cold substance, a motif in Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, in which it is initially mistaken for diamonds.
ANSWER: ice [or el hielo]
nitzuga wrote:PS: Could I see the answer line for the In Search of Lost Time common link tossup? I buzzed in with flashback and was surprised to not even receive a prompt...
Round 05 wrote:15. In one passage, this process is caused by things like a starched napkin, a clattering spoon, and some uneven paving stones. This phenomenon occurs at the end of a chapter in which the narrator's magic lantern makes him fear going to sleep without his mother's kiss. This phenomenon produces moments bienheureux (moh-MON bee-ANN-urr-oo) in a novel that it titles in C. K. Scott-Moncrieff's translation. A notable description of this (*) mental phenomenon occurs at the end of a chapter beginning "For a long time, I went to bed early" and is followed by the "Combray" chapter. The narrator experiences the "involuntary" form of this process after he eats a tea-soaked madeleine of the sort that he had eaten as a child. For 10 points, Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time has been titled for what mental faculty "of things past"?
ANSWER: involuntary memory [or remembrance]
nitzuga wrote:My teammates and I were a little disappointed with the math tossups. For example, the lead in for "point" could be buzzed on if one had just vaguely heard of point-set topology, and I personally thought the "arithmetic" tossup was a little weird; describing it as a branch of math threw me off (although apparently that's a thing, darn) and dropping modular arithmetic was a little early IMO. In both tossups the clue placement made me hesitant to buzz. However, this might be less about the questions and more about me being picky or not reading enough math tossups to make that real knowledge -> good buzzes transition, but idk.
Related to this, however: when talking to people about the math questions, a couple responded that answers had to be fairly simple (e.g. point, vector, arithmetic) to accommodate the knowledge provided in high school. I think this is fair for some levels of play, but I don't see how this is reasonable for PACE-- if I asked people at my school those math tossups, I'm sure many (hopefully most) of the people in honors math classes could answer them by the end. On the other hand, I'd be surprised if like, any could convert Daphne du Maurier or The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Why do other categories get to ask about stuff high schoolers have never heard of, but math can't?
nsb2 wrote:(edit) One more issues I wanted to bring up: The very large amount of tossups on architecture (or with clues on architecture). Partially as a result of this, I think I buzzed in later on this packet's fine arts than I did on ACF Regs (which I find very odd).
nsb2 wrote:-The preponderance of classical (Greek/Roman) history answerlines. I enjoyed getting powers on Roman history and culture, but objectively speaking, the amount of it seemed excessive.
Mike Bentley wrote:The amount of architecture in the tournament was the same as last year (4/4), although it's certainly possible there were more architecture clues in non-architecture questions.
[10] The dualist Marcion of Sinope taught that the God described in this religious text was not the God taught by Jesus. The protocanonical books, but not the deuterocanonical ones, derived from this text.
ANSWER: Tanakh [accept Hebrew Bible or Hebrew Scriptures or Mikra; prompt on the Old Testament; prompt on the Bible; anti-prompt (ask the player to be less specific) on the Torah or the Pentateuch]
The second sentence here was intended to point you towards something that preceded the Christian Old Testament, though perhaps that was unclear or insufficiently helpful. I apologize if so; it was a change I made while trying to calibrate the bonus's difficulty.
Auks Ran Ova wrote:csa2125 wrote:I'll write up a larger commentary on the set later, but overall I enjoyed it very much.
One question I was curious about, however, was the bonus asking for "The Hebrew Bible," which prompted but did not outright accept "the Old Testament," when asking about some philosopher who did not consider the God worshipped by the pre-Christianity Jews to be the same as the God worshipped by the Christians. Could someone post that bonus and explain why "Old Testament" wouldn't have been entirely correct there?[10] The dualist Marcion of Sinope taught that the God described in this religious text was not the God taught by Jesus. The protocanonical books, but not the deuterocanonical ones, derived from this text.
ANSWER: Tanakh [accept Hebrew Bible or Hebrew Scriptures or Mikra; prompt on the Old Testament; prompt on the Bible; anti-prompt (ask the player to be less specific) on the Torah or the Pentateuch]
The second sentence here was intended to point you towards something that preceded the Christian Old Testament, though perhaps that was unclear or insufficiently helpful. I apologize if so; it was a change I made while trying to calibrate the bonus's difficulty.
Pascal Plays Poker wrote:- I thought the difficulty fluctuated a lot between rounds
nsb2 wrote:Mike Bentley wrote:The amount of architecture in the tournament was the same as last year (4/4), although it's certainly possible there were more architecture clues in non-architecture questions.
This was indeed what I was referring to -- I believe there were a lot more architecture clues (referring to cities, for example) than I've seen in other sets.
i never see pigeons in wheeling wrote:nsb2 wrote:Mike Bentley wrote:The amount of architecture in the tournament was the same as last year (4/4), although it's certainly possible there were more architecture clues in non-architecture questions.
This was indeed what I was referring to -- I believe there were a lot more architecture clues (referring to cities, for example) than I've seen in other sets.
That "cities" tossup was an "other social sciences question" with the intention to treat urban design as a social science in and of itself. It was not my intention to contribute to the perceived glut of architecture.
Auks Ran Ova wrote:the geography was overall probably a little more human-focused than physical-focused
wcheng wrote:Auks Ran Ova wrote:csa2125 wrote:I'll write up a larger commentary on the set later, but overall I enjoyed it very much.
One question I was curious about, however, was the bonus asking for "The Hebrew Bible," which prompted but did not outright accept "the Old Testament," when asking about some philosopher who did not consider the God worshipped by the pre-Christianity Jews to be the same as the God worshipped by the Christians. Could someone post that bonus and explain why "Old Testament" wouldn't have been entirely correct there?[10] The dualist Marcion of Sinope taught that the God described in this religious text was not the God taught by Jesus. The protocanonical books, but not the deuterocanonical ones, derived from this text.
ANSWER: Tanakh [accept Hebrew Bible or Hebrew Scriptures or Mikra; prompt on the Old Testament; prompt on the Bible; anti-prompt (ask the player to be less specific) on the Torah or the Pentateuch]
The second sentence here was intended to point you towards something that preceded the Christian Old Testament, though perhaps that was unclear or insufficiently helpful. I apologize if so; it was a change I made while trying to calibrate the bonus's difficulty.
Just want to note that when I originally wrote this bonus, "Old Testament" was the primary answerline, and this was changed during editing. I don't think that there's any particular reason why "Old Testament" should not be a correct answer, so I will let the editors explain their thought process on that one.
(I"m pretty sure) It changed the outcome of Clark's tie match against DCC in the super playoffs.
Ike wrote:(I"m pretty sure) It changed the outcome of Clark's tie match against DCC in the super playoffs.
It did not. This question was used in the superplayoffs game that took place beforehand (where Dublin Scioto played Barrington), unless my memory is really failing me. Even though I was ostensibly the religion editor, Rob Carson overrode the submitted and my edited version of the question in place of the version that was played. I assume he did so because of difficulty reasons (indeed, the bonus as originally written shaded a bit easy in relation to the rest of the set) The allusion in the question to protocanonical and deuterocanonical books makes an answer of "Old Testament" not entirely correct, but certainly promptable.
Big Y wrote:Pascal Plays Poker wrote:- I thought the difficulty fluctuated a lot between rounds
Somebody else said the same thing to me during the tournament, so I looked at the round report to see what happened. My first impression in looking at the report was that this statement is false--the standard deviation of PPG/Team is 11.8, of TUPts/TUH is 0.5, and of BPts/BHrd is 0.9, all of which seem within reason. There are a lot of rounds close to the means.
I then looked at which rounds were high and which were low, and I saw where the impression of fluctuation was coming from. The most difficult rounds were 13 and 15, and the easiest round was 14. Looking just at bonuses, the easiest round was 2 and the most difficult round was 3. The fact that the easiest and hardest rounds were next to each other was unfortunate and was of course not done on purpose, and it's also difficult for editors to pick up on. That being said, it's the type of thing that people notice and can be a bit disorienting.
Big Y wrote:Pascal Plays Poker wrote:- I thought the difficulty fluctuated a lot between rounds
Somebody else said the same thing to me during the tournament, so I looked at the round report to see what happened. My first impression in looking at the report was that this statement is false--the standard deviation of PPG/Team is 11.8, of TUPts/TUH is 0.5, and of BPts/BHrd is 0.9, all of which seem within reason. There are a lot of rounds close to the means.
I then looked at which rounds were high and which were low, and I saw where the impression of fluctuation was coming from. The most difficult rounds were 13 and 15, and the easiest round was 14. Looking just at bonuses, the easiest round was 2 and the most difficult round was 3. The fact that the easiest and hardest rounds were next to each other was unfortunate and was of course not done on purpose, and it's also difficult for editors to pick up on. That being said, it's the type of thing that people notice and can be a bit disorienting.
dhumphreys17 wrote:I would urge PACE to consider the round reports with a grain of salt in the later rounds; there was a packet snafu in Tier IV during the playoffs which caused Packet 9 to be read in Round 8 and so on that may have changed some of those round reports, although I can't be sure of by how much. For what it's worth, that packet snafu was rather well-handled in a rather quick and professional timeframe given its pervasiveness in Tier IV.
Sit Room Guy wrote:The same happened with Hats and Waiting for Godot, as well as Remembrance and In Search of Lost Time.
Your Feline Genome wrote:Sit Room Guy wrote:The same happened with Hats and Waiting for Godot, as well as Remembrance and In Search of Lost Time.
Just curious, can you elaborate on your specific issue with hats and remembrance? I remember thinking hats was an especially good and creative tossup, since the hats in those scenes are pretty memorable in my opinion. I don't have anything to say about the remembrance tossup along those lines, though, since I haven't read that book (I don't have THAT much time on my hands) and am not actually a lit player. Also, for curiosity's sake, can I see the hats tossup?
Sit Room Guy wrote:This was, as stated above, a really good set, probably the best of the year, but, as with both sets, I had an extremely specific set of both issues and things I liked.
ISSUES:
1) There was a distinctive subset of literature tossups that, while not common links per se, singled out a specific element from single authors' works. In my opinion, these did a rather poor job of rewarding knowledge.
The following answerlines (and probably some more) followed this editing philosophy:
Ice
Hats
New Jersey
Remembrance
Let's zero in on the New Jersey tossup. I've read at least part of Goodbye, Columbus and knew that all of the clues involved Phillip Roth's works at least from the namedrop of Swede Levov. However, based on the setting of parts of Goodbye,
Columbus, I negged this with New York and the other team picked it up on the geographic giveaway. Now, if the objective was to reward the team with the more in-depth knowledge of Philip Roth, this tossup objectively failed. The same happened with Hats and Waiting for Godot, as well as Remembrance and In Search of Lost Time. All of these would have played far better as tossups on the works they exclusively used clues from.
Sit Room Guy wrote:4) Odd myth concentrations
The myth distro seemed a tad heavy on Hindu and Iliad questions. I don't know if that was intentional or not, but that was an issue that I heard brought up a lot.
Sit Room Guy wrote:5) Really difficult/peripherally academic answerlines
Godel Escher Bach stands out. There's no conceivable way someone who hasn't read this will convert it before the last line. Even so, do you really want to give people points for reading what the question itself admits is "pop philosophy"?
Sit Room Guy wrote:Your Feline Genome wrote:Sit Room Guy wrote:The same happened with Hats and Waiting for Godot, as well as Remembrance and In Search of Lost Time.
Just curious, can you elaborate on your specific issue with hats and remembrance? I remember thinking hats was an especially good and creative tossup, since the hats in those scenes are pretty memorable in my opinion. I don't have anything to say about the remembrance tossup along those lines, though, since I haven't read that book (I don't have THAT much time on my hands) and am not actually a lit player. Also, for curiosity's sake, can I see the hats tossup?
I was negged for buzzing with "Remembering" on Remembrance. Several other teams had issues such as "flashbacks" and other answers not being accepted even though they adequately describe what is happening in those scenes.
Cheynem wrote:In Goodbye, Columbus, they drive to New York to go to the doctor's office. Neil wanders around Central Park and ends up in Saint Patrick's Cathedral.
Pascal Plays Poker wrote:I thought the difficulty fluctuated a lot between rounds (University of Alabama and Lisbon being two I think; Michael also expressed his concern above)
On a lurgid bee wrote:I read Anna Karenina, loved it, remembered the clue I buzzed on exactly, and still couldn't produce the answer you wanted.
Mike Bentley wrote:Pascal Plays Poker wrote:I thought the difficulty fluctuated a lot between rounds (University of Alabama and Lisbon being two I think; Michael also expressed his concern above)
Given that Lisbon has been mentioned at least twice in this thread, I'm curious to learn more about this comment.
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