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2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 11:15 am
by Important Bird Area
This is your discussion thread for the 2014 NAQT HSNCT.

(As usual, I'm traveling this week, so expect some measure of delay in my response to posts here)

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 1:05 pm
by samus149
The science this year I thought was an especially weak point. Some examples:

- Cauchy's generalization of Hooke's Law in the first line. Hooke's Law was determined a long time ago to be a terrible tossup idea, and this is a stock clue that was determined to be a terrible leadin.
- Complete metric space and Cauchy in the first line of the convergence tossup. Any clue that is used in the first clue in an IS set should not be used in the first line at nationals. Not saying it's not important but there are other clues.
- That tossup on geckos had an incredibly long powers (I think to the word before FTP), mostly because it had no useful clues in the first few lines.
- The tossup on amphoterics started with calling aluminum oxide "this kind of oxide" in solution, which is not only weird wording but also untrue, because it forms a coordination complex.

Overall, it just felt like something that was written last minute and was far inferior to NSC's amazing science. I get that the character limit makes it difficult to put deep clues in the first line, but this could have been done way better.

On the other side of things, the pop culture was quite fun, so props for that.

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 1:12 pm
by UlyssesInvictus
I wrote a lot of lit for this set, and a smattering of other stuff, so I'd like to know how that went over (and I'd post the full list of answerlines if I could figure out a way to scrape it directly from NAQT's website), but by far I'm most eager to know how the ocarina tossup I wrote went over.

EDIT: Here's the list, round by round:
2: Babbitt, Penelope
3: Kiss of the Spider Woman
4: Stephen Dedalus
5: IR/dipole/alcool, Leoncavallo/verismo/stabs, Dreyfus, Third Rep, Esterhazy
6: Synge, Watchmen, Borges/47 Ronin/Funes the Memorious
7: Dickinson, If, Song of Despair/Neruda/Machu Picchu
9: stress, Ivan Denisovich/USSR/samizdat
10: radical
11: prion/mad cow/central dogma, Shooting an Elephant/Orwell/Road to Wigan Pier, Gross Clinic, Little Prince
13: Ulysses, Kazantzakis, polymer, Old Ironsides
14: Claudius
15: Coltrane
16: Crane/Red Badge/Open Boat
17: Kiss/Armory Show/Davies, Pauli Exclusion
18: Death (lit), villanelle, Do Not Go Gentle/Auden
20: Chicago (architecture)
21: plasma, Gravity, Ivanhoe, Rochester
22: Fisher/Michigan/Sotomayor, Tales of Hoffman/Orpheus in the Underworld/can-can/
23: Four Freedoms/Rockwell/Triple Self-Portrait, Ocarina, Hedda Gabler/Tesman/Ghosts
24:Confederacy of Dunces, Rosh Hashanah
25: qualia/Wittgenstein/consciousness, Waiting for Lefty, Caliban
27: Menotti

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 1:22 pm
by Corry
I wrote a boatload of history and geography questions for this tournament, including a few questions that I suspect were probably bad ideas. If you think any of the following tossups were a "bad idea", please tell me:

Ulysses S. Grant
Haiti
Democratic Republic of Congo
Estonia
Kazakhstan
peace
New Zealand
Los Angeles
New Guinea
William Jennings Bryan
Nicaragua
Sparta
Tanzania
Gobi Desert
Ming Dynasty
Malcolm Gladwell
Yemen
Cuba
Switzerland
Philippines
Benito Mussolini
Chiang Kai-shek
North Sea
William Gladstone
German Navy
history
Nevada
Mauryan Dynasty
Singapore
Chile
Aegean Sea
Georgia
North Carolina
Hokkaido
Snake River
Albania
Paraguay
Benjamin Harrison
Syria
Laos
Lake Superior
Gulf of Mexico
Franklin Roosevelt
Mustafa Ataturk
Buenos Aires
Tang Dynasty
Poland
Nicholas II
John Brown
Nigeria
Adriatic Sea
James Polk
Angola
Rio Grande
NAACP
Orinoco River
Colorado
Francisco Franco
Tito
Algeria
Mongolia
Charles I
Mafia
Turkmenistan
William the Conqueror

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 1:33 pm
by AKKOLADE
Here's what I wrote and edited for this (asterisks denote edited only):

Rd 2: Aristotle/Ptolemy/Hypatia bonus
3: Bob Marley TU*, Asclepius TU, equilibrium constant/acid dissociation constant/van't Hoff function
4: Madonna TU*, Nestor TU
5: Surfer Rosa/Nirvana/Pearl Jam bonus*, House of the Seven Gables/Hawthorne/Great Carbuncle bonus
6: Red Hot Chili Peppers/Under the Bridge/Californication bonus*, Goya/Maxwell/Heinlein bonus
7: Dark Horse TU (Katy Perry song)*
8: Nelly/Grillz/Cruise bonus*, Dallas Cowboys TU
9: Loretta Lynn/Grand Ole Opry/Jack White bonus*
10: Dorothy Parker/Algonquin Hotel/Lillian Hellman bonus
12: Lil Wayne/Drake/Childish Gambino bonus*
13: Jay-Z TU*
14: Laius TU
15: Pompeii TU (Bastille song)*
16: The Beatles/Epstein/Sgt. Pepper's bonus*, The Gold-Bug/Cask of Amontillado/Fall of the House of Usher bonus, Circe TU
17: July's People/Nadine Gordimer/Smales family bonus, Laocoon/Sinon/Neoptolemus bonus
18: Marvin Gaye/Diana Ross/Bill Withers bonus*
19: Moves Like Jagger/Good Life/The Walker bonus*
22: Kendrick Lamar TU*
24: Hercules TU
26: Battle of Issus/Altdorfer/Albrecht Durer bonus
27: Hotel California TU*, Menelaus TU

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 1:35 pm
by tiwonge
Corry wrote: North Carolina
There were two NC questions (in the same round, no less). Was this the geography/history one, or the current events/politics one?

I realize that this wasn't your fault, but it made some teams hesitant to buzz in with NC on the second question.

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 1:38 pm
by Important Bird Area
tiwonge wrote:
Corry wrote: North Carolina
There were two NC questions (in the same round, no less). Was this the geography/history one, or the current events/politics one?

I realize that this wasn't your fault, but it made some teams hesitant to buzz in with NC on the second question.
This was our mistake. Jonah and I will be discussing ways to prevent this from ever happening again.

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 1:40 pm
by Kyle
tiwonge wrote:
Corry wrote: North Carolina
There were two NC questions (in the same round, no less). Was this the geography/history one, or the current events/politics one?

I realize that this wasn't your fault, but it made some teams hesitant to buzz in with NC on the second question.
Corry wrote the geography one; the other was classified as CE. Obviously, putting these two tossups in the same packet was a mistake.

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 1:54 pm
by Steeve Ho You Fat
Kyle wrote:
tiwonge wrote:
Corry wrote: North Carolina
There were two NC questions (in the same round, no less). Was this the geography/history one, or the current events/politics one?

I realize that this wasn't your fault, but it made some teams hesitant to buzz in with NC on the second question.
Corry wrote the geography one; the other was classified as CE. Obviously, putting these two tossups in the same packet was a mistake.
Let's be careful, however, that the very reasonable requests that this not happen in the same packet not give rise to overzealous calls for never having two tossups in the same tournament with the same answerline, when those tossups are in different categories and do not overlap any clues.

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 1:57 pm
by Corry
Dr. Loki Skylizard, Thoracic Surgeon wrote: 27: Hotel California TU*
The first line of this tossup seemed quite easy to me. In my mind, "we haven't had that spirit here since 1969" is actually one of the most recognizable quotes of the entire song Hotel California, on par with the lines in the actual chorus ("such a lovely place etc.").

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 2:07 pm
by Panayot Hitov
Some observations:
I think a tossup on Buenos Aires shouldn't have the big avenue as its lead-in. Also, for the Modi bonus, RSS isn't a "party."
Asking people to do Riemann sums in 5 seconds is a bad idea.
I thought the Chiang Kai-shek tossup was a little too easy.

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 2:19 pm
by Kyle
I have never been a fan of Ginseng's automatically generated pronunciation guides, and I felt vindicated while reading Packet 18. Ginseng's PG suggestions cannot handle words or names that can be pronounced in different ways. Consequently, packet 18 instructed readers to pronounce the name of the mythological ferryman Charon as "sharon" (like how James Christy said the name of the moon he discovered) and the name of the British city Slough as "sluff" (like the outer layer of skin of a snake). It's too easy for editors to accept the suggested pronunciation guides without stopping to check whether they are actually correct.
40th Day after death wrote:For the Modi bonus, RSS isn't a "party."
The original submission read "a member of the right-wing RSS." The word "party" got added somewhere along the way, but you are correct that it should not have been there.

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 2:45 pm
by The Stately Rhododendron
Could somebody post the round 21 tu on the British empire (#23)? My team had a protest relating whether or not "UK" should have been prompted or accepted.

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 2:47 pm
by Al Hirt
I wasn't at HSNCT, but could I see the Modi bonus as someone who generally likes CE?

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 2:58 pm
by Corry
40th Day after death wrote:Some observations:
I think a tossup on Buenos Aires shouldn't have the big avenue as its lead-in.

I thought the Chiang Kai-shek tossup was a little too easy.
I wrote these 2 tossups. In response:

1. I didn't know that the Avenida Nueve de Julio was particularly known. I'll wait for HSNCT conversion stats to come out before making my final judgment, but until then, my bad.
2. Yes, you're probably right about the Chiang Kai-shek tossup. I marked the tossup as "level 4 to 6", which means that it could be used for as low as a regular IS set to as high as HSNCT. So it's definitely on the easy end for HSNCT.

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 3:08 pm
by Important Bird Area
HSNCT round 21 wrote:J. R. Seeley wrote that this had been acquired "in a fit of absence of mind." It reached its peak in the 1920s with the addition of the League of Nations mandates. It engaged in the (*) "Great Game" to protect its Asian territories against Russia. In the poem "Recessional," Rudyard Kipling warned of its decline. One-quarter of the world's land was part of--for 10 points--what empire on which the sun allegedly never set?
This would have been clearer with something like "peak _geographical extent_" at the beginning of the second sentence.

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 3:11 pm
by Mewto55555
During the LASA B - Ladue game, there was a very nuanced protest on the neutrophils tossup. While it was handled correctly given the rules in place/facts of the question, it struck me (and some people I subsequently talked to) as rather concerning when it was brought to light that NAQT still has the protest rule in effect that:
If a player gives an incorrect response to an interrupted tossup before the question has uniquely identified any answer (including the correct one) the response will be treated as incorrect. Players may not protest that they gave an answer that was "correct when they buzzed" if their answer was not uniquely specified by the clues at the time that they signaled.
Perhaps it would be best if NAQT's protest procedure were brought in line with the recently-updated ACF/PACE/whatever else rules recently posted? It certainly seems unfair to expect a player to, after hearing two lines of clues that all substantively apply to a given answer, have to anticipate that a poorly-constructed question was in fact also applicable to another answerline, and get subsequently negged when they buzz in with their answer.

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 3:29 pm
by setht
Mewto55555 wrote:During the LASA B - Ladue game, there was a very nuanced protest on the neutrophils tossup. While it was handled correctly given the rules in place/facts of the question, it struck me (and some people I subsequently talked to) as rather concerning when it was brought to light that NAQT still has the protest rule in effect that:
If a player gives an incorrect response to an interrupted tossup before the question has uniquely identified any answer (including the correct one) the response will be treated as incorrect. Players may not protest that they gave an answer that was "correct when they buzzed" if their answer was not uniquely specified by the clues at the time that they signaled.
Perhaps it would be best if NAQT's protest procedure were brought in line with the recently-updated ACF/PACE/whatever else rules recently posted? It certainly seems unfair to expect a player to, after hearing two lines of clues that all substantively apply to a given answer, have to anticipate that a poorly-constructed question was in fact also applicable to another answerline, and get subsequently negged when they buzz in with their answer.
There's been some discussion of changing this rule (starting shortly after the LASA B - Ladue game finished). I don't know for a fact that it will be changed, or how it will be changed, but my guess is that it will be changed. I'm not sure it will look exactly like the current version of the ACF/PACE/whatever rules, which on this point seem a little unclear/require judgment calls from tournament directors that should be avoided if possible (at least, they seem that way to me).

-Seth

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 3:53 pm
by kiestosuccess
I'll just throw out that the X-Files tossup managed to make up for a pretty bad day for my team, all things considered. Too bad the lead in was about that God Awful last season, but beggars can't be choosers.

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 4:10 pm
by Harpie's Feather Duster
The one tossup I noted as being particularly hard from my spectating was the tossup on Joyce Carol Oates in the playoffs, which many teams told me went dead for them. I also feel like tossing up Malcolm Gladwell is a bit of a stretch for HSNCT, but I have a less clear idea of how that tossup went over in Saturday play.

What was the full answerline for the Battle of Issus (the Altdorfer painting) bonus part? The title straight from German is the Alexanderschlacht, and I've always heard it given as the Battle of Alexander at Issus, so I'm curious about what was acceptable.

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 4:23 pm
by WildKard
UlyssesInvictus wrote:I'm most eager to know how the ocarina tossup I wrote went over.
I thought it was a great idea, although I completely zoned out when I heard "this instrument". I began paying attention when I heard the name "Saria" and buzzed soon afterwards. Can I see the tossup? I'd like to read the earlier clues.

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 4:48 pm
by Corry
I finally did a quick read-through of the whole HSNCT. As usual, I liked most of the set (or at least, most of the history that I didn't write myself). However, also as usual, there were a few tossups answer lines that just struck me as somewhat ill-considered.

Regarding this, I have a question about NAQT's tournament philosophy for HSNCT: I know that NAQT aims to make the average tossup conversion rate at HSNCT around 85%. Does this mean that it's ok to have a lot of sub-50% converted tossups, as long as the average is around 85%? Or does NAQT want all of the tossups in the tournament to be at least somewhere in the above-50% conversion range?

Here are a few tossups that I thought were likely too hard (i.e. probably had like a quarter-ish conversion rate in the tournament, tops):
  • Gupta Empire: Although Indian history isn't a strong point of mine, this answer line seems more appropriate for SCT Div I than anything else.
  • Tripitaka: I don't actually know anything about this, but my colleague Jason Cheng tells me that this is really hard.
  • accretion disk: I also definitely don't know science, but my brother Kevin (Arcadia A's science player) tells me that this is also really really hard.
  • Carbonari: This is almost certainly too difficult. Had I been playing this tournament, I would have definitely negged this with "Young Italy" (although I actually know a decent bit about the Carbonari), simply because I couldn't have imagined such a difficult answer line coming up in the HSNCT. According to the NAQT admin website, the 2011 SCT Div I tossup on the Carbonari only had a 61% conversion rate, so I'd imagine that the conversion rates on this tossup at HSNCT would be even lower.
  • Satyricon: Jason also tells me that this was hard.
  • Measure for Measure: I remember that this tossup had like a 15% conversion rate or something at the 2013 HSNCT. I suppose this counts as canon expansion, but it still doesn't seem like a really good idea.
  • Charlotte Amalie: This might actually have been the most ridiculous tossup in the entire tournament. What high schooler knows anything about the capital of the U.S. Virgin Islands?! I will be amazed if anybody can get this before the FTP, much less before the power mark (although the two are fortunately quite close together).
  • Battle of Hydaspes River: I don't really have much to say about this tossup, except that the answer line is difficult. Yes.
Here are also a few tossups whose clues seemed a bit easy, or misplaced.
  • XYZ Affair: Putting the "not a sixpence" clue in the first line seems like a bad idea, since I'm pretty sure that's actually one of the best known things about the entire affair.
  • Italy: Isn't "bonga bonga" is a well-known thing about Italy now?

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 4:52 pm
by AKKOLADE
Goole by-election, 1971 wrote:What was the full answerline for the Battle of Issus (the Altdorfer painting) bonus part? The title straight from German is the Alexanderschlacht, and I've always heard it given as the Battle of Alexander at Issus, so I'm curious about what was acceptable.
All of that.
answer: The _Battle of Issus_ (or The _Battle of Alexander at Issus_ or _Alexanderschlacht_)

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 4:52 pm
by Stained Diviner
I wrote tossups on Bob Marley, Madonna, Belarus, West Virginia, parallel, conjugation, Cyprus, North Carolina (CE), Galapagos, Richard Sheridan, independence, Ghana, parallelogram, insulator, commutative, and Belgium.
I wrote bonuses on periodic/Fourier/(pi^2/6), Judith/Klimt/Tallis, Robeson/Robinson/Progressive, $10.10/Connecticut/Seattle, Calgary/Banff/Lake Louise, Mugabe/Zimbabwe/SADC, boxing (Hurricane Carter)/Dylan/Algren, inductor/resonance/permeability, Fox/Penn/Quakers, Archimedes/pi/infinitesimal, spherical/aberration/Schwarzschild, density/tension/node, Krugman/Friedman/Brooks, Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian/Alexie/Crazy Horse*, Copenhagen/Zealand/Fyn, and Bundy/Interior/tortoise.
I also wrote computational bonuses on colored cubes, 3 girls and 2 boys in line, octagon diagonals, equilateral triangle from coordinates, y=1/(x^2+1), evaluating logs, pyramid, Riemann sum and MVT, y=4+8cos(x), and evaluate exponents.

*I actually wrote a Momaday bonus that after several edits ending up having nothing to do with Momaday.

I'll add that I moderated in a room that did not have a ton of powers, but gecko got powered pretty early.

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 4:54 pm
by Important Bird Area
HSNCT round 23 wrote:Two brothers composed a song for this instrument that is accompanied by a poem with the line "from sun to moon, moon to sun." A bolero, a requiem, a minuet and six general "songs" were written for this instrument, which is used to play a piece taught inside a (*) windmill and another taught by Saria that is similar to the theme of the Lost Woods. For 10 points--name this five-hole wind instrument from a Legend of Zelda game.

answer: _ocarina_ (accept _Ocarina of Time_)
HSNCT round 26 wrote:answer: The _Battle of Issus_ (or The _Battle of Alexander at Issus_ or _Alexanderschlacht_)

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 4:55 pm
by AKKOLADE
Corry wrote:Regarding this, I have a question about NAQT's tournament philosophy for HSNCT: I know that NAQT aims to make the average tossup conversion rate at HSNCT around 85%. Does this mean that it's ok to have a lot of sub-50% converted tossups, as long as the average is around 85%? Or does NAQT want all of the tossups in the tournament to be at least somewhere in the above-50% conversion range?
This is not an official answer; I'm only speaking for myself, and barely have any circumstances where I could speak officially for NAQT.

Remember that NAQT has to write 27 packets of 24/24. That is 2,592 (mostly) unique answers that it has to have. With that many questions, there are always going to be outliers. There's certainly no edict that "it's okay to go nuts with X% of TU as long as Y% are equally easy" or something.

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 4:55 pm
by Corry
Goole by-election, 1971 wrote:I also feel like tossing up Malcolm Gladwell is a bit of a stretch for HSNCT, but I have a less clear idea of how that tossup went over in Saturday play.
I wrote this tossup. I wasn't sure about it at first, but I felt more comfortable tossing it up after I found out that other tossups on Gladwell had a 88.9% conversion rate at the 2013 DII SCT, and even a 78.3% conversion rate at the 2009 HSNCT.

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 4:57 pm
by Important Bird Area
Corry wrote:I know that NAQT aims to make the average tossup conversion rate at HSNCT around 85%. Does this mean that it's ok to have a lot of sub-50% converted tossups, as long as the average is around 85%? Or does NAQT want all of the tossups in the tournament to be at least somewhere in the above-50% conversion range?
There shouldn't be a lot of such tossups, but it is normal for the most difficult tossups in the tournament to be below 50% conversion rates.

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 4:58 pm
by vinteuil
Corry wrote:
  • Gupta Empire: Although Indian history isn't a strong point of mine, this answer line seems more appropriate for SCT Div I than anything else.
  • Tripitaka: I don't actually know anything about this, but my colleague Jason Cheng tells me that this is really hard.
  • accretion disk: I also definitely don't know science, but my brother Kevin (Arcadia A's science player) tells me that this is also really really hard.
  • Carbonari: This is almost certainly too difficult. Had I been playing this tournament, I would have definitely negged this with "Young Italy" (although I actually know a decent bit about the Carbonari), simply because I couldn't have imagined such a difficult answer line coming up in the HSNCT. According to the NAQT admin website, the 2011 SCT Div I tossup on the Carbonari only had a 61% conversion rate, so I'd imagine that the conversion rates on this tossup at HSNCT would be even lower.
  • Satyricon: Jason also tells me that this was hard.
  • Measure for Measure: I remember that this tossup had like a 15% conversion rate or something at the 2013 HSNCT. I suppose this counts as canon expansion, but it still doesn't seem like a really good idea.
  • Charlotte Amalie: This might actually have been the most ridiculous tossup in the entire tournament. What high schooler knows anything about the capital of the U.S. Virgin Islands?! I will be amazed if anybody can get this before the FTP, much less before the power mark (although the two are fortunately quite close together).
  • Battle of Hydaspes River: I don't really have much to say about this tossup, except that the answer line is difficult. Yes.
I agree that Gupta empire might be a bit hard, and that Charlotte Amalie is a bad idea, but I don't think that e.g. accretion disk is nearly as hard as you think it is.

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 5:05 pm
by Kyle
Corry wrote:[*] Italy: Isn't "bonga bonga" is a well-known thing about Italy now?[/list]
Perhaps this did not play as I had hoped, but do remember that there is a distinction between "bonga bonga" and "bunga bunga."

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 5:07 pm
by Chef Curry
Corry wrote:I finally did a quick read-through of the whole HSNCT. As usual, I liked most of the set (or at least, most of the history that I didn't write myself). However, also as usual, there were a few tossups answer lines that just struck me as somewhat ill-considered.

Regarding this, I have a question about NAQT's tournament philosophy for HSNCT: I know that NAQT aims to make the average tossup conversion rate at HSNCT around 85%. Does this mean that it's ok to have a lot of sub-50% converted tossups, as long as the average is around 85%? Or does NAQT want all of the tossups in the tournament to be at least somewhere in the above-50% conversion range?

Here are a few tossups that I thought were likely too hard (i.e. probably had like a quarter-ish conversion rate in the tournament, tops):
  • Gupta Empire: Although Indian history isn't a strong point of mine, this answer line seems more appropriate for SCT Div I than anything else.
  • Tripitaka: I don't actually know anything about this, but my colleague Jason Cheng tells me that this is really hard.
  • accretion disk: I also definitely don't know science, but my brother Kevin (Arcadia A's science player) tells me that this is also really really hard.
  • Carbonari: This is almost certainly too difficult. Had I been playing this tournament, I would have definitely negged this with "Young Italy" (although I actually know a decent bit about the Carbonari), simply because I couldn't have imagined such a difficult answer line coming up in the HSNCT. According to the NAQT admin website, the 2011 SCT Div I tossup on the Carbonari only had a 61% conversion rate, so I'd imagine that the conversion rates on this tossup at HSNCT would be even lower.
  • Satyricon: Jason also tells me that this was hard.
  • Measure for Measure: I remember that this tossup had like a 15% conversion rate or something at the 2013 HSNCT. I suppose this counts as canon expansion, but it still doesn't seem like a really good idea.
  • Charlotte Amalie: This might actually have been the most ridiculous tossup in the entire tournament. What high schooler knows anything about the capital of the U.S. Virgin Islands?! I will be amazed if anybody can get this before the FTP, much less before the power mark (although the two are fortunately quite close together).
  • Battle of Hydaspes River: I don't really have much to say about this tossup, except that the answer line is difficult. Yes.
Here are also a few tossups whose clues seemed a bit easy, or misplaced.
  • XYZ Affair: Putting the "not a sixpence" clue in the first line seems like a bad idea, since I'm pretty sure that's actually one of the best known things about the entire affair.
  • Italy: Isn't "bonga bonga" is a well-known thing about Italy now?
I don't think that the Gupta Empire tossup was too hard, I am a freshman at a public high school where the Gupta Empire was taught in my Honors Ancient History class. It is probably not an A-set answer line but in my opinion, but it seems appropriate for HSNCT.

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 5:20 pm
by Cheynem
I'm sure there is a distinction between "bonga bonga" and "bunga bunga" but both teams in my room (and I'm sure many, many teams) simply heard "bunga bunga" anyway and buzzer raced.

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 5:24 pm
by swwFCqb
I'd be happy to hear thoughts on any of the following questions I wrote that made it into the HSNCT:

[1] Theodore Gericault
[2] Roger/American Dad/Patrick Stewart
[3] St. Petersburg/Lake Ladoga/Karelia
[4] Moldova/Danube River/Tiraspol
[6] Dexter
[7] Dark Horse (Katy Perry song)
[8] Nelly/Grillz/Cruise; Malawi
[11] blood of Christ
[14] Strait of Magellan/Tierra del Fuego/Drake Passage
[15] Pickett's Charge
[16] War of Jenkins' Ear/War of Austrian Succession/Pragmatic Sanction
[17] Western Australia/Perth/Darling River
[19] Liberia; Sea of Okhotsk/Kamchatka/geyser
[21] Persian Letters/Montesquieu/The Spirit of the Laws; John Wilkes Booth/Samuel Mudd/William Seward
[24] Treaty of Payne's Landing/James Gadsden/Osceola; Casablanca (film)
[25] Yukon River
[27] Mount McKinley; Second Battle of Bull Run/Stonewall Jackson/Joseph Hooker

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 5:26 pm
by Excelsior (smack)
Good lord the Tripitaka is too hard for high schoolers. Maybe a medium part at NASAT if you want to push it. I'm guessing the accretion disk tossup looked something like "quack quack FTP name these things around black holes", which is the sense in which it is probably too hard - you'll have decent end-of-tossup conversion, but abysmal buzz distribution (though I would be happy to be proven wrong by the text of the tossup).

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 5:41 pm
by Important Bird Area
HSNCT round 9 wrote:These systems are assumed to have one turbulent stress component equal to the thermal pressure times a fixed alpha parameter in the Shakura-Sunyaev model. They can puff up to form so-called "Polish doughnuts" when they reach super-Eddington (*) mass transfer rates. AGN and protostellar jets typically lie perpendicular to--for 10 points--what extended, rotating bodies of gas surrounding a central object such as a black hole?

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 5:43 pm
by vengefulsweatermensch
Dr. Loki Skylizard, Thoracic Surgeon wrote: 13: Jay-Z TU*
This was by far my favorite question of the entire tournament -- if I recall correctly, it was clued entirely with lyrics from Kanye songs? I'd love to see it posted here.

Also, could I see the Mafia and Menotti tossups? Thanks to everyone at NAQT for writing and organizing the most enjoyable tournament of my high school career.

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 5:44 pm
by Sniper, No Sniping!
For the Fujita scale bonus, can someone explain why the answer of "F5" is not acceptable or promptable?

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 5:47 pm
by Important Bird Area
HSNCT round 13 wrote:A song about this man complains, "Next thing I know he got a song with Coldplay." This subject of "Big Brother" Instagrams his watch when a girl needs to "stop actin' lazy" on another song. He lists "Sasquatch, Godzilla, King Kong, Loch Ness" in a guest verse on (*) "Monster." Kanye West produced "Izzo" and "Takeover" for this artist's The Blueprint. For 10 points--name this rapper of "Holy Grail" and "99 Problems."
HSNCT round 26 wrote:Members of this group were arrested at the 1957 Apalachin Meeting, which was held six years after this group was investigated by the Kefauver Committee. It is governed by a body known as "The Commission," which organized the 1946 Havana Conference. Its (*) New York branch is controlled by the Five Families, including the Genovese family of Lucky Luciano. For 10 points--name this Italian-American criminal group.
HSNCT round 27 wrote:In one of this man's operas, a magician sings "How did I do it?" in a waiting room while John is trying to escape the secret police. This composer of The Consul wrote the libretto to Samuel Barber's (*) Vanessa, and composed an opera in which a boy offers his crutch to the Magi as a gift for the Christ child. For 10 points--name this composer of the first opera for television, Amahl and the Night Visitors.

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 5:48 pm
by Cody
Sniper, No Sniping! wrote:For the Fujita scale bonus, can someone explain why the answer of "F5" is not acceptable or promptable?
I haven't seen the question, but the writer/editor would have to mess up pretty hard to create a situation in which a value on the Fujita scale is acceptable/promptable for the Fujita scale itself. I have trouble imagining this being possible outside of the pronoun being extremely wrong.

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 5:51 pm
by Sniper, No Sniping!
Cody wrote:
Sniper, No Sniping! wrote:For the Fujita scale bonus, can someone explain why the answer of "F5" is not acceptable or promptable?
I haven't seen the question, but the writer/editor would have to mess up pretty hard to create a situation in which a value on the Fujita scale is acceptable/promptable for the Fujita scale itself. I have trouble imagining this being possible outside of the pronoun being extremely wrong.
The bonus I believe went Fujita scale as the first part, then was asking for the highest value a tornado can be assessed on the scale (I believe)... we answered "F5" and apparently the answer line said not to accept "F5", only "5". It didn't end up mattering in our game, but I am curious what the rationale behind it is.

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 5:56 pm
by Jason Cheng
Sniper, No Sniping! wrote:
Cody wrote:
Sniper, No Sniping! wrote:For the Fujita scale bonus, can someone explain why the answer of "F5" is not acceptable or promptable?
I haven't seen the question, but the writer/editor would have to mess up pretty hard to create a situation in which a value on the Fujita scale is acceptable/promptable for the Fujita scale itself. I have trouble imagining this being possible outside of the pronoun being extremely wrong.
The bonus I believe went Fujita scale as the first part, then was asking for the highest value a tornado can be assessed on the scale (I believe)... we answered "F5" and apparently the answer line said not to accept "F5", only "5". It didn't end up mattering in our game, but I am curious what the rationale behind it is.
The bonus part itself asked for the value "EF5" from the Enhanced Fujita Scale, and thus would not accept or prompt on "F5". In my opinion, the problem here is simply a confusing answer line selection, but I didn't write the question, so don't quote me on this.

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 5:57 pm
by tintinnabulation
I would appreciate feedback on the following questions if anyone has comments:

(1) Passionate Shepherd to His Love/Raleigh/Cynthia
(1) Tale of Two Cities
(2) Le Cid/Corneille/Richelieu
(4) Anthony Comstock/Orwell/BioShock Infinite
(7) Chromatography
(11) Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
(12) Chocolate
(12) Measure for Measure
(15) Billiards at Half-Past Nine/architect/The Master Builder
(17) Never Let Me Go/Great Gatsby/Virginia Woolf (from Florence + the Machine songs)
(20) Persuasion
(25) Wreck of the Deutschland/Hopkins/stressed syllables
(26) Troy Maxson/Fences/August Wilson

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 5:58 pm
by Sniper, No Sniping!
The Wilhelm II tossup, University of Texas, and Pythagoras tossups were enjoyable. Thumbs up to whoever wrote the Angels in America tossup.

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 6:02 pm
by Sniper, No Sniping!
ALGOL 68 wrote:
Sniper, No Sniping! wrote:
Cody wrote:
Sniper, No Sniping! wrote:For the Fujita scale bonus, can someone explain why the answer of "F5" is not acceptable or promptable?
I haven't seen the question, but the writer/editor would have to mess up pretty hard to create a situation in which a value on the Fujita scale is acceptable/promptable for the Fujita scale itself. I have trouble imagining this being possible outside of the pronoun being extremely wrong.
The bonus I believe went Fujita scale as the first part, then was asking for the highest value a tornado can be assessed on the scale (I believe)... we answered "F5" and apparently the answer line said not to accept "F5", only "5". It didn't end up mattering in our game, but I am curious what the rationale behind it is.
The bonus part itself asked for the value "EF5" from the Enhanced Fujita Scale, and thus would not accept or prompt on "F5". In my opinion, the problem here is simply a confusing answer line selection, but I didn't write the question, so don't quote me on this.
Okay, thanks. My understanding was "5" would've been just acceptable by itself, but I don't think any of our team was aware of the Enhanced Fujita scale there so the ignorance is on us. It did seem kind of confusing, because I always thought the National Weather Service alphanumerically labeled / announced tornadoes as F1, F2, etc

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 6:10 pm
by Bensonfan23
GW happened to have a bye that round, but we watched the exact same issue come up on the tornado bonus. I don't remember which team it was, but F5 was answered and almost everyone watching was fairly confused as to why it wasn't accepted or at least prompted.
Also, did anyone else think that the "Google" tossup mentioned the mystery-barge a little early in power?

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 6:17 pm
by grapesmoker
All I can say is that this accretion disk tossup is really difficult. I wouldn't be surprised to encounter it at ICT, honestly.

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 6:18 pm
by Lawrence Simon
Could I see the entirety of the "Watchmen" and "David Fincher" tossups? I liked the trash at this competition as well as the general lit and art and would like to thank everyone for helping to run it!

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 6:37 pm
by The Stately Rhododendron
tintinnabulation wrote:I would appreciate feedback on the following questions if anyone has comments:

(1) Passionate Shepherd to His Love/Raleigh/Cynthia
(1) Tale of Two Cities
(2) Le Cid/Corneille/Richelieu
(4) Anthony Comstock/Orwell/BioShock Infinite
(7) Chromatography
(11) Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard
(12) Chocolate
(12) Measure for Measure
(15) Billiards at Half-Past Nine/architect/The Master Builder
(17) Never Let Me Go/Great Gatsby/Virginia Woolf (from Florence + the Machine songs)
(20) Persuasion
(25) Wreck of the Deutschland/Hopkins/stressed syllables
(26) Troy Maxson/Fences/August Wilson
I'm not sure about a nationally televised commercial being the first clue for the Chocolate TU. I've seen that ad for Dove 10 times at least.

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 6:43 pm
by Schmidt Sting Pain Index
I really liked the Geo tossups especially Charlotte Amalie and Chocolate.

Re: 2014 HSNCT discussion

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2014 6:50 pm
by Corry
Schmidt Sting Pain Index wrote:I really liked the Geo tossups especially Charlotte Amalie...
You are a geography god.