The Quizbowl Resource Center

[If you are planning on playing this set at Oxford on November 12th, you should not read this thread until afterwards]

Now that the two Sunday sites seem to have wrapped things up, here is the place to discuss this year's Fall. I'd like to thank Sarah, Bryan, Gaurav, Matt, Matt, and Matt for the hard work they put into editing this set. I would also like to thank all the teams and people that submitted packets and/or played the tournament and all the hosts who made playing this tournament possible. I'll also take this chance to apologize for the repeats, hiccups in sentences, and other errors that slipped by me when I should have caught them. Hopefully everyone still enjoyed playing on the set, and feedback of any sort can be given here. Specifics can be discussed, but the set won't be sent to George until after the Oxford site has played.

I edited history for this tournament. For clarity, the John Paul II tossup was under history, while the Nazi Gold tossup was "Your Choice." I'd appreciate any useful comments people have about my portion of the set.

I edited the fine arts for this tournament. In case I don't respond to your specific question(s), please email me at bryanbe AT umich DOT edu.

I know there were a few repeats in my category. In particular, I'd like to apologize for the two sculpture bonuses that were almost identical. This was completely my fault, as I wrote a bonus to replace one of them, but I forgot to paste it into the document that I sent Carsten. Sorry if this caused any major problems.

Repeats aside, the thing I wanted to mention about this set was some of the clues that came up, in my opinion, too early on in the tossups. At least as far as Lit was concerned, I felt like there were a bunch of easy clues coming on pretty early in the question (i.e. first or second clue). The tossups on The First World War and Jorge Luis Borges are the ones that spring to mind right now.

Also, I remember having "The Sun" as an answer line really throwing our room for a loop. I'm not a science person, and I can't comment as to the content of the question, but having an answer line of "The Sun" with phrases like "this solar body" did mess with people. It reminds me of a criticism that was made of a anthropology tossup at MOO (I think) - everybody in the room thinking "It can't be the sun..." and too nervous to actually buzz.

I edited the literature for this tournament. I generally tried to err easy on world lit because Fall's target audience is fairly new players, and I hope that didn't detract from anyone's experience. I learned a lot from editing this tournament, and since I know tournament discussion tends to mostly involve what people didn't like, I'll note that I'd also be interested in knowing what people did enjoy so I can have a sense of what worked as I hoped it would.

I mostly enjoyed this tournament.

However, the tiebreaking packet not being evenly distributed is a pretty not good thing. Playing a team that is superior on science on a half packet tiebreaker with 3 science tossups out of ten puts a team at a serious disadvantage. There were also some repeats in said packet, which didn't bother me as much. But if you're going to do half-packet tiebreakers, please balance the subjects!

I really enjoyed this tournament except for a couple things.

The repeats,while they didn't realistically affect who got what, were still extremely frustrating. Thankfully there weren't that many, but it was still very much non-ideal.

My other complaint is about what I felt were egregious hard parts to some of the science bonuses. From what I remember, things like areal velocity, Dauer stage, op-amp, Robert Clark Jones and GNRH all struck me as somewhat out of place at Fall.

If any packet has the potential to be used as a tiebreaker (and thus has the potential to be used as a half-packet tiebreaker), then it should be distributed by half. While I'm certainly not complaining that the three science tossups in the first half of the Macomb packet allowed us to beat UMD B, it probably really, really sucks to be on the receiving end of that. Since this will obviously have to vary a lot from site to site, perhaps the Editors should write a tiebreaker packet that can be used for that purpose.

Anyway, as I said above, I really enjoyed this tournament, so thanks especially to Matt Menard and Gaurav for doing a pretty bang up job on the science and, of course, all the other editors.

Visa requirements for Romanian citizens wrote:I mostly enjoyed this tournament.

However, the tiebreaking packet not being evenly distributed is a pretty not good thing. Playing a team that is superior on science on a half packet tiebreaker with 3 science tossups out of ten puts a team at a serious disadvantage. There were also some repeats in said packet, which didn't bother me as much. But if you're going to do half-packet tiebreakers, please balance the subjects!

Sorry about that, Isaac, that was in part a directorial mistake. I didn't anticipate needing to use half-packets, and since I got the packets when I woke up Saturday morning and just went down the list Carsten had sent TDs of what packets were being used to make the schedule, I didn't think to check the distribution of the packets I'd designated as tiebreakers.

I thought this tournament was pretty good. Some things I felt were a little lacking were things that are endemic to most tournaments--it seemed like some editors were not on the same page as to the difficulty of their questions (I thought RMP tended to be harder than the other categories, for instance). There were also I think some occasional clunkers--the "astro-turfing" question effectively defines what it is in the first few sentences, for example.

One thing that needed to really be improved was answerlines. There were just too many times when answerlines did not take into account what people might say. To think of a few examples, the Monica Lewinsky scandal should have clarified what to say on "Clinton scandal" or "Clinton impeachment." The "Nazi gold" tossup should have clarified how to answer a buzz of "stolen Jewish gold" or stuff like that.

I was also confused that a number of packet tiebreakers seemed to be trash (one was Paul Simon, one was the Atlanta Braves, etc.). That seems odd to me.

I worked on the biology, chemistry, and other science for this tournament. I, too, will apologize for any repeated clues and flat out bad questions. I tried to write questions based on what I have learned in classes, and based on my conversations with players on young teams at the Carleton site majoring in the biological or chemical sciences, this seemed to go over fairly well. If there was anything I did wrong, please let me know. This was the first time I was heavily involved with the production of a college tournament (maybe with the exception of last year's MUT), and I learned a lot while working on the set.


Also,

JamesIV wrote:Also, I remember having "The Sun" as an answer line really throwing our room for a loop. I'm not a science person, and I can't comment as to the content of the question, but having an answer line of "The Sun" with phrases like "this solar body" did mess with people.

I can only apologize for this question. I don't know why I thought it was in good shape when I sent it off to Carsten; I was cringing the entire time I was reading this question in my room. That 'solar body' thing was wonky, I am sincerely sorry about that.

To clarify, I enjoyed playing this tournament, and, for example, I really like the idea of a Lit tossup on the First World War (that one just needed some middle clues) and I enjoyed the tossup on the I Have A Dream Speech. I do remember thinking that the trash could get a bit funky (the band within the show "Doug," for example), but I loved that the Sopranos came up.

JamesIV wrote: Also, I remember having "The Sun" as an answer line really throwing our room for a loop. I'm not a science person, and I can't comment as to the content of the question, but having an answer line of "The Sun" with phrases like "this solar body" did mess with people. It reminds me of a criticism that was made of a anthropology tossup at MOO (I think) - everybody in the room thinking "It can't be the sun..." and too nervous to actually buzz.

I submitted the Sun tossup. I'm not sure why they needed to add the "solar body" pronoun. The original tossup looked like this:

I originally wrote:Time variances of the differential rotation of this body create “jet streams” below the surface known as torsional oscillations. Features of this body in the x-ray spectrum such as shocks known as Moreton waves were observed by the Japanese Yohkoh experiment. The magnetic field lines of this body were found to be much less dense than expected due to polar surveys from the Ulysses spacecraft. A transition layer known as the tachocline exists within this body separating its larger, inner radiative zone from its outer convective zone. An eleven year cycle on this body results in varying magnetic activity where higher activity is marked by temporary dark blotches on its surface. For 10 points, identify this main sequence, type-G star, the closest to the planet Earth.
ANSWER: The Sun or Sol

Some other things I didn't like about the science questions is that there seemed to be a lot of named things dropped casually in the first lines of tossups. Furthermore, the name of these things tended to generally come before the description allowing easier frauds. The magnetic field tossup and the Turing Machine tossups stood out as examples of this kind of writing.

Also, what was up with the enthalpy tossup having a bunch of clues that mostly specifically referred to lattice energy? If I recall correctly, there was no alternate answer or prompts in the answer line. Were there any sites that had problems with this?

Cheynem wrote:I was also confused that a number of packet tiebreakers seemed to be trash (one was Paul Simon, one was the Atlanta Braves, etc.). That seems odd to me.

Ah, yes, this was the other thing I meant to mention. This was an extremely poor choice, and I'm glad the TD at our site had the good sense to replace that with a non-Trash TB.

Jeaton1 wrote:Also, what was up with the enthalpy tossup having a bunch of clues that mostly specifically referred to lattice energy? If I recall correctly, there was no alternate answer or prompts in the answer line. Were there any sites that had problems with this?

If I remember correctly, a player on Dorman negged this tossup with "lattice energy," causing them to lose to Duke.

I'll remind everyone that discussion is much more useful (and interesting) when it transcends "I thought X was cool, but Y was weird/hard/whatever." Talking about how you liked or disliked a particular answer isn't really helpful to anyone else unless it points out a trend in the questions that others can spot and future editors can potentially avoid (or continue, if it's good). Factual mistakes or incomplete answer lines are another thing.

One bonus incorrectly claimed that every country in the European Union uses the Euro. This may have led some teams to second-guess themselves and answer "euro zone" or something similar.

JamesIV wrote:To clarify, I enjoyed playing this tournament, and, for example, I really like the idea of a Lit tossup on the First World War (that one just needed some middle clues) and I enjoyed the tossup on the I Have A Dream Speech. I do remember thinking that the trash could get a bit funky (the band within the show "Doug," for example), but I loved that the Sopranos came up.

In one story, a major who loves to fence and was injured in this conflict uses a machine to help restore his damaged hand. That story about this conflict is “In Another Country.” John McCrae described how “the poppies blow / between the crosses, row on row” marking the graves of those who died in this conflict. One work set in this conflict asks “what passing-bells for these who die as cattle?” and another describes troops who are “bent double, like old beggars under sacks.” For 10 points, name this conflict described in “In Flanders Fields,” as well as the poems of Wilfred Owen, including “Anthem for Doomed Youth” and “Dulce et Decorum Est.”
ANSWER: World War One

Spence, you've managed to point to a TU from which I actually remember my thought process, so I'll explain our disagreement. I had somewhat of a tough time editing this TU, but I think it has middle clues. As submitted I thought it was too hard and also used clues from some authors I wasn't willing to burn all in one tossup, but I generally tried to keep submitted answerlines where I could. I'll respectfully disagree that the author of "In Flanders Fields" and lines from it were too easy, but perhaps my only exposure to that poem being in middle school was atypical and more people remember that poem. It's true that the tossup went from that to a line from "Anthem for Doomed Youth," but I think requiring people to make the jump from the line to either Owen or the title to Owen and then to WWI makes that reasonable placement for the beginning of the sentence before the giveaway. To refer to your earlier post, I also think "In Another Country" is a decent choice for a lead-in, as my impression is that you'd need to be a fan of Hemingway or literature about WWI more generally to have read it (and thus having read it would be the sort of knowledge to be rewarded in this TU).

Jeaton1 wrote:Some other things I didn't like about the science questions is that there seemed to be a lot of named things dropped casually in the first lines of tossups. Furthermore, the name of these things tended to generally come before the description allowing easier frauds. The magnetic field tossup and the Turing Machine tossups stood out as examples of this kind of writing.

While I think this certainly can be a problem (c.f. Butler-Volmer as the first clue for the Nernst equation), I don't really think it's something to worry about for Fall, per se.

jekbradbury wrote:One bonus incorrectly claimed that every country in the European Union uses the Euro. This may have led some teams to second-guess themselves and answer "euro zone" or something similar.

I really don't think I said "every," but if this misled anyone, I apologize.

EDIT: Oops! So I did. Sorry about that.

Northwestern A packet, question 19 wrote:19. The chorus of this play says, “what a remarkable piece of work is man.” After a dust storm that blinds them has
passed, guards in this work discover the title character’s crime. In this play, the protagonist’s lover, Haemon, tries
to stab the king but misses and falls on his own sword after the protagonist hangs herself. Creon had earlier decided
to seal the title character in a cave because she ignored her sister Ismene’s warnings and tried to give their brother
Polyneices a proper burial. For 10 points, name this third of Sophocles’ Theban plays, whose title character is a
daughter of Oedipus.
ANSWER: Antigone

This may be a petty complaint, but I immediately buzzed on the first clue, thinking of Hamlet's "what a piece of work is a man" monologue, and was promptly negged. Obviously Hamlet doesn't have a chorus, but I think a different clue should probably have been chosen here, given the notability of the Hamlet speech containing almost that exact line. On the whole, I liked the questions.

Jeaton1 wrote:
Also, what was up with the enthalpy tossup having a bunch of clues that mostly specifically referred to lattice energy? If I recall correctly, there was no alternate answer or prompts in the answer line. Were there any sites that had problems with this?

I negged that tossup on the leadin and our team ALMOST lost the game because of it. I feel like even if there were alternate answer/prompt parts in the answer line it's still a very bad idea to have a tossup on enthalpy and fill it with lattice energy clues. If you're going to write a tossup on lattice energy, write a tossup on lattice energy. If I had been prompted I would have just been very confused and would definitely not have thought to make the lateral connection to enthalpy.

Another chemistry tossup that had an issue was the Gibbs free energy tossup, with the leadin on the Hammond postulate. The Hammond postulate refers to a general reaction energy vs reaction coordinate diagram, and textbooks will talk about it in terms of enthalpy OR Gibbs free energy. Examples: (I hope these links work, if not you can do some research by google books searching "Hammond postulate"

http://books.google.com/books?id=gY-Sxi ... te&f=false
(uses endo/exothermic, referring to enthalpy, then draws some diagrams using Gibbs free energy

http://books.google.com/books?id=HyuogO ... te&f=false
(refers to Gibbs free energy)

http://books.google.com/books?id=4EA5AA ... py&f=false
(talks about the relationship between enthalpy and Gibbs free energy in regards to the Hammond postulate)

So it's a very easy mistake to make, but it's still very important that enthalpy be accepted until "voltaic" or whatever the first clue was that referred uniquely to Gibbs free energy

Some errata after going through the packets and my notes:

• I'm pretty sure Dogberry doesn't say anything about being made to /look/ like an ass, nor does he have his sexton write it down. As I recall, the whole spiel is about how he can't (for some reason) have his sexton write down that he's been called an ass, culminating in the immortal line "O that I had been writ down an ass".
• Polymers are chains. It isn't the best idea to drop a model that contains the word "chains" in the lead-in.
• Hair follicles is dropped halfway through the skin tossup. That's a problem.
• In the GR TU, you mean Einstein ring, not Einstein cross.
• Isn't the human telomere sequence TTAGGG? Is this interchangeable with GGGTTA?
• Boron has atomic number 5, not 6.

Generally enjoyed this tournament.

The science was filled with errors (Gibbs & enthalpy TUs as described above were pure negbait... the GnRH bonus may have been the worst I have ever heard in my quizbowl career. Not even sure the lead-in for that bonus was a proper sentence, and the description of GnRH was just poorly done]

This did not affect my enjoyment of the set, however. [though I suppose it would have if it had changed the outcome of a match]

Thanks for all the feedback on the science questions. I think the biggest takeaway for me so far is that I am still a young writer, and I cannot and should not get away with writing/editing questions post-midnight after having a long day of classes. I need to be more diligent about my answer lines and be more careful that I don't make stupid mistakes like calling Boron element 6. I am really sorry to anyone who may have been affected by this, and I promise to eliminate these errors in MUT and any other tournament I am given the opportunity to work on.

As to the GnRH question, there seems to have been some miscommunication between me and Carsten. The question that was put into the UCSD and Berkeley packet was not in its final form; that was just an original submission. I had edited the bonus to read:

My edited GnRH etc. bonus wrote:
A deficiency of this hormone causes the Kallmann syndrome. For 10 points each:
[10] Name this hormone that upregulates the production of leutenizing hormone and follicle stimulating hormone in the posterior pituitary.
ANSWER: gonadotropin releasing hormone [ or GnRH or luteinizing hormone releasing hormone or LHRH]
[10] GnRH is produced in this area of the brain which houses the superchiasmatic nucleus and maintains homeostasis. The name of this structure refers to the fact that it sits under another structure in the diencephalon.
ANSWER: hypothalamus
[10] The hypothalamus also releases this hormone, which stimulates the production of milk. It takes part in a notable positive feedback loop, as the stretching of the cervix it causes stimulates this hormone’s production.
ANSWER: oxytocin

I hope this explains why the question was so sketchy, and I apologize if that bonus determined any games. I agree that the clues given in the bonus as it appeared in the packet were pretty dumb and unhelpful, but after learning about GnRH in a highschool anatomy class and reading about it in my introductory bio textbook, I don't think it's too hard in and of itself.

Edit: While I am at it, most of what I learned about telomeres comes from Alberts' MBoC, which refers to the human telomere sequence as GGGTTA (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK26826/#A819). I don't know why there is this discrepancy between this (pretty commonly used, as I understand it) text and other sources on The Internet.

The Laughing Cavalier wrote:

JamesIV wrote:To clarify, I enjoyed playing this tournament, and, for example, I really like the idea of a Lit tossup on the First World War (that one just needed some middle clues) and I enjoyed the tossup on the I Have A Dream Speech. I do remember thinking that the trash could get a bit funky (the band within the show "Doug," for example), but I loved that the Sopranos came up.

In one story, a major who loves to fence and was injured in this conflict uses a machine to help restore his damaged hand. That story about this conflict is “In Another Country.” John McCrae described how “the poppies blow / between the crosses, row on row” marking the graves of those who died in this conflict. One work set in this conflict asks “what passing-bells for these who die as cattle?” and another describes troops who are “bent double, like old beggars under sacks.” For 10 points, name this conflict described in “In Flanders Fields,” as well as the poems of Wilfred Owen, including “Anthem for Doomed Youth” and “Dulce et Decorum Est.”
ANSWER: World War One

Spence, you've managed to point to a TU from which I actually remember my thought process, so I'll explain our disagreement. I had somewhat of a tough time editing this TU, but I think it has middle clues. As submitted I thought it was too hard and also used clues from some authors I wasn't willing to burn all in one tossup, but I generally tried to keep submitted answerlines where I could. I'll respectfully disagree that the author of "In Flanders Fields" and lines from it were too easy, but perhaps my only exposure to that poem being in middle school was atypical and more people remember that poem. It's true that the tossup went from that to a line from "Anthem for Doomed Youth," but I think requiring people to make the jump from the line to either Owen or the title to Owen and then to WWI makes that reasonable placement for the beginning of the sentence before the giveaway. To refer to your earlier post, I also think "In Another Country" is a decent choice for a lead-in, as my impression is that you'd need to be a fan of Hemingway or literature about WWI more generally to have read it (and thus having read it would be the sort of knowledge to be rewarded in this TU).

I don't take any issue with "In Another Country as a lead-in, I think that's just fine. What I was questioning with this TU was more that the next clue ought to be "In Flanders Fields," particularly as it's the best-known line from that poem. Perhaps I'm generalizing too much, but my impression was that that particular poem/line was very widely known.

One more error to note. The glucose tossup was rather well written, although in the giveaway clue the chemical formula is listed as C6H6 instead of C6H12O6.

I'll repeat the general sentiment here that other than the science (the toss-up on the sun using the phrase "this solar body" is quite possibly the worst college toss-up I've heard thus far), this was a great tournament. Also sort of weird was the presence of both art and history questions on George Washington, although obviously I haven't been around long enough to know if there's any precedent to something like that.

SirT wrote:Some errata after going through the packets and my notes:

• I'm pretty sure Dogberry doesn't say anything about being made to /look/ like an ass, nor does he have his sexton write it down. As I recall, the whole spiel is about how he can't (for some reason) have his sexton write down that he's been called an ass, culminating in the immortal line "O that I had been writ down an ass".

Sorry about that, Cody. That TU was submitted and I thought I remembered the scene pretty vividly from seeing Much Ado a few years ago, so I didn't doublecheck the exact text. Looking at it now, the sexton isn't present to write it down (I think my confusion sprang from Maggie Walker's production of this changing the scene a little, since I remember our sexton being on stage for this scene), leading Dogberry to end his speech with the line you've quoted. I hope that clue didn't confuse anyone.

I'd be curious to see the physics tossups that people are saying were neg-bait. Also, to respond to Cody, I don't think "op-amp" is an unreasonable hard part at ACF Fall. It's something covered in intro circuits, so I'd personally feel comfortable having that as a hard part at this tournament.

JamesIV wrote:

The Laughing Cavalier wrote:

JamesIV wrote:To clarify, I enjoyed playing this tournament, and, for example, I really like the idea of a Lit tossup on the First World War (that one just needed some middle clues) and I enjoyed the tossup on the I Have A Dream Speech. I do remember thinking that the trash could get a bit funky (the band within the show "Doug," for example), but I loved that the Sopranos came up.

In one story, a major who loves to fence and was injured in this conflict uses a machine to help restore his damaged hand. That story about this conflict is “In Another Country.” John McCrae described how “the poppies blow / between the crosses, row on row” marking the graves of those who died in this conflict. One work set in this conflict asks “what passing-bells for these who die as cattle?” and another describes troops who are “bent double, like old beggars under sacks.” For 10 points, name this conflict described in “In Flanders Fields,” as well as the poems of Wilfred Owen, including “Anthem for Doomed Youth” and “Dulce et Decorum Est.”
ANSWER: World War One

Spence, you've managed to point to a TU from which I actually remember my thought process, so I'll explain our disagreement. I had somewhat of a tough time editing this TU, but I think it has middle clues. As submitted I thought it was too hard and also used clues from some authors I wasn't willing to burn all in one tossup, but I generally tried to keep submitted answerlines where I could. I'll respectfully disagree that the author of "In Flanders Fields" and lines from it were too easy, but perhaps my only exposure to that poem being in middle school was atypical and more people remember that poem. It's true that the tossup went from that to a line from "Anthem for Doomed Youth," but I think requiring people to make the jump from the line to either Owen or the title to Owen and then to WWI makes that reasonable placement for the beginning of the sentence before the giveaway. To refer to your earlier post, I also think "In Another Country" is a decent choice for a lead-in, as my impression is that you'd need to be a fan of Hemingway or literature about WWI more generally to have read it (and thus having read it would be the sort of knowledge to be rewarded in this TU).

I don't take any issue with "In Another Country as a lead-in, I think that's just fine. What I was questioning with this TU was more that the next clue ought to be "In Flanders Fields," particularly as it's the best-known line from that poem. Perhaps I'm generalizing too much, but my impression was that that particular poem/line was very widely known.

I could be wrong, but I always thought "In Flanders Fields" was the most famous WWI poem. Like Sarah I read that poem in middle school for class, and I was under the impression that that was one of those poems that lots of people know from watered-down histories of WWI they encounter in 7th grade history or something. An analogy would be every middle school kid reading "The Road Not Taken." It also certainly doesn't help that it's rather famous that poppies are symbolic of WWI and are used to celebrate Veterans' Day.

gyre and gimble wrote:I could be wrong, but I always thought "In Flanders Fields" was the most famous WWI poem. Like Sarah I read that poem in middle school for class, and I was under the impression that that was one of those poems that lots of people know from watered-down histories of WWI they encounter in 7th grade history or something. An analogy would be every middle school kid reading "The Road Not Taken." It also certainly doesn't help that it's rather famous that poppies are symbolic of WWI and are used to celebrate Veterans' Day.

I think this varies quite a lot by country. For one thing, poppies aren't used to celebrate Veterans' Day in the US nearly as much as they are used in Britain and the Commonwealth to celebrate Remembrance Day (my Canadian roommate used to wear one). Many of the poets in question are particularly associated with certain countries. The idea of a Canadian not knowing "In Flanders Fields," for example, is impossible. On the other hand, the results of my survey last spring indicate that Wilfred Owen is the single most frequently taught author in British secondary schools (even ahead of the likes of Shakespeare and Dickens). But for an American audience, this question is somewhat less egregious.

I do think one of the reasons that "In Flanders Fields" stands out in this tossup as coming too early is that there is no shortage of harder (but still gettable) poems that discuss World War I and that could have been mentioned before it, including the works of Siegfried Sassoon, Rupert Brooke, and Robert Graves.

One of the problems with World War I poetry, incidentally, is that quite a lot of it has titles that give away too much of the context. The title "In Flanders Fields" does sort of make you think of a war that was fought, you know, in Flanders. Similarly, you don't have to know anything at all about Siegfried Sassoon to figure out that "Suicide in the Trenches" is probably about World War I.

I would rank "Dulce et decorum est" slightly ahead of "In Flanders Field," but they're both pretty famous. One clue that might have been good here would have been a reference to "The Enormous Room," which I think is much better suited for a middle clue.

I actually don't have an issue with that poem being right there, but I believe that the author (John McCrae) was mentioned before the actual line, and it makes more sense to switch those two.

I wish there was more film in the tournament.

Blanford's Fringe-fingered Lizard wrote:I actually don't have an issue with that poem being right there, but I believe that the author (John McCrae) was mentioned before the actual line, and it makes more sense to switch those two.

This may be one of those very rare cases in which the line (and, in particular, the idea of poppies) is more famous than the name of the poet.

Kyle wrote:

Blanford's Fringe-fingered Lizard wrote:I actually don't have an issue with that poem being right there, but I believe that the author (John McCrae) was mentioned before the actual line, and it makes more sense to switch those two.

This may be one of those very rare cases in which the line (and, in particular, the idea of poppies) is more famous than the name of the poet.

Kyle has stated my thought process exactly here.

I don't have the text of the question in front of me, but the Raskolnikov question basically stated the central thesis/takeaway point for a cursory study of Crime and Punishment in either the first or second line (specifically, if you're a total badass than you're above law and order). With so many minor yet memorable plot points available, I thought it was very poorly done to have a character's main philosophy so early, especially in a novel where the character's philosophy is such a central point.

The tossup on kinetic energy seemed to me to have a very easy lead-in. Most people that has taken physics or chemistry beyond the first year level (should) know that kinetic energy equals 3/2 times Boltzmann's constant times temperature. Worse yet, I remember having nearly the exact same lead-in at a past tournament.

Blanford's Fringe-fingered Lizard wrote:I actually don't have an issue with that poem being right there, but I believe that the author (John McCrae) was mentioned before the actual line, and it makes more sense to switch those two.

This would only be the case if you're writing for a purely Canadian audience. John McCrae is practically idolized in Canada so a lot of the general Canadian population have heard of him and 100% of Cdn. quizbowlers would be able to the TU off the name-drop alone. Poppies are still notable for us, but so is John McCrae. For the rest of the world I don't think they really care about the author of the poem, just about the poem themselves, hence the lines being after the author.

Though to be fair, the "In Flanders Fields" clue could have come up later since I thought that it was pretty big and not just in Canada/Commonwealth realms.There's plenty of other less notable works that could've gone in the middle like Service, Sassoon, Brooke, Pope, Seeger, Hardy etc.

Tom007 wrote:The tossup on kinetic energy seemed to me to have a very easy lead-in. Most people that has taken physics or chemistry beyond the first year level (should) know that kinetic energy equals 3/2 times Boltzmann's constant times temperature. Worse yet, I remember having nearly the exact same lead-in at a past tournament.

While that may be true, I think its obscure enough to a general audience that its a fine leadin. I'd honestly have some trouble remembering that fact.

Tom007 wrote:Worse yet, I remember having nearly the exact same lead-in at a past tournament.

Fall is an "easy" tournament. It is inevitably going to wind up sharing lead-ins, clues and answer lines with other tournaments.

The whole Graham's Law clue in the Georgia Tech A packet refers to both the answer (diffusion) and a thing that is not the answer (effusion). From my experience, chemistry classes treat Graham's Law as a Law of Effusion.

In our packet, I figured that "court case" + "import tax" + "Bird in Space" would be fine for a middle part and specifically did not mention in the original question that the sculptor in question was Romanian, which I felt would give the question two easy parts and one hard part. Sure enough, "Romanian" was added. One of the best ways to make difficulty-appropriate middle and hard parts at this level is to make them on answers the players have heard of but leave out the easiest clues. Perhaps this was merely a disagreement between me and the arts editor about how difficult teams would find it to come up with either Fountain or Brancusi off the easiest clues, but I suspect that a lot of the bonuses that felt like "two easy parts, one hard part" were caused by either the writer or the editor deciding to add in "extra" clues.

The general feeling I got from people on my team and others yesterday was that this set was somewhat disappointing. A huge amount of source material (62 packets) and yet we still had to sit through repeats and an occasional lousy question. It seemed like every round there would be some sort of mistake in several questions (grammar, punctuation, that kind of stuff) that caused every moderator to stop and figure out how to correctly read the question. Also it seemed like a good deal of questions (example: the sun) were written in a way that nearly everyone would hesitate to answer on an obvious clue because they couldn't imagine it coming at that point in the question.

Personally I didn't feel the set was terrible or anything, I would even say it was good although not as good as past versions. I think going into the tournament most people figured this would be an excellent set, but for whatever reasons, it underwhelmed a bit. Things like this happen though, I'm not going to sit in this thread and bitch about every imperfection, just generally hope that 2012 ACF Fall is better.

I definately learned of Graham's law of effusion in Chemistry class, but I see how it belongs, since Graham's law of effusion resulted from his work on diffusion of gases. Above all else, its still a vague clue.

The Hub (Gainesville, Florida) wrote: Also it seemed like a good deal of questions (example: the sun) were written in a way that nearly everyone would hesitate to answer on an obvious clue because they couldn't imagine it coming at that point in the question.

It does seem like a lot of people have been saying something along these lines, so I do feel obligated to respond to this. Specifically, that tossup on "the sun" had other issues, but come on. You, someone who has been playing quizbowl for years now, kept hearing early clues that you knew but "couldn't imagine" them coming up early at a novice tournament? The examples people have been bringing up (Borges' seventh most famous story as a lead-in clue) make me question how valid these complaints are. Your point about grammar is one thing, but yes, if lots of good teams play a novice set they are going to answer questions early. Maybe the early clues should have been a little harder, but please take a step back and consider whether using easy early clues at ACF Fall is such a bad thing.

gaurav.kandlikar wrote:Thanks for all the feedback on the science questions. I think the biggest takeaway for me so far is that I am still a young writer, and I cannot and should not get away with writing/editing questions post-midnight after having a long day of classes. I need to be more diligent about my answer lines and be more careful that I don't make stupid mistakes like calling Boron element 6. I am really sorry to anyone who may have been affected by this, and I promise to eliminate these errors in MUT and any other tournament I am given the opportunity to work on.

As to the GnRH question, there seems to have been some miscommunication between me and Carsten. The question that was put into the UCSD and Berkeley packet was not in its final form; that was just an original submission. I had edited the bonus to read:

My edited GnRH etc. bonus wrote:
A deficiency of this hormone causes the Kallmann syndrome. For 10 points each:
[10] Name this hormone that upregulates the production of leutenizing hormone and follicle stimulating hormone in the posterior pituitary.
ANSWER: gonadotropin releasing hormone [ or GnRH or luteinizing hormone releasing hormone or LHRH]
[10] GnRH is produced in this area of the brain which houses the superchiasmatic nucleus and maintains homeostasis. The name of this structure refers to the fact that it sits under another structure in the diencephalon.
ANSWER: hypothalamus
[10] The hypothalamus also releases this hormone, which stimulates the production of milk. It takes part in a notable positive feedback loop, as the stretching of the cervix it causes stimulates this hormone’s production.
ANSWER: oxytocin

I hope this explains why the question was so sketchy, and I apologize if that bonus determined any games. I agree that the clues given in the bonus as it appeared in the packet were pretty dumb and unhelpful, but after learning about GnRH in a highschool anatomy class and reading about it in my introductory bio textbook, I don't think it's too hard in and of itself.

Edit: While I am at it, most of what I learned about telomeres comes from Alberts' MBoC, which refers to the human telomere sequence as GGGTTA (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK26826/#A819). I don't know why there is this discrepancy between this (pretty commonly used, as I understand it) text and other sources on The Internet.

This had to have been a communication error then as the bonus that actually wound up getting into the packw as nothing like this. It had a fragmented first clue that seemed to start midsentence and its third part wasn't even factually correct (it asked which part of the pituitary FSH and LH came from IIRC and said "posterior" in the answer line, and myself and the science player reading the pack were just shaking our heads at how bad the question was edited). [in fact I don't even remember hearing LH/FSH in the GnRH question]

Mt.Vinokurov wrote:
I'd be curious to see the physics tossups that people are saying were neg-bait. Also, to respond to Cody, I don't think "op-amp" is an unreasonable hard part at ACF Fall. It's something covered in intro circuits, so I'd personally feel comfortable having that as a hard part at this tournament.

They weren't physics tossups they were written as chemistry I am quite sure.

Tom from Guelph wrote:
The tossup on kinetic energy seemed to me to have a very easy lead-in. Most people that has taken physics or chemistry beyond the first year level (should) know that kinetic energy equals 3/2 times Boltzmann's constant times temperature. Worse yet, I remember having nearly the exact same lead-in at a past tournament.

Like Eric, I had a little bit of trouble pulling this out [ie. I just waited for the very next clue for confirmation]. It's something that nearly all scientists should know, yes, but your actual ability to convert it might be more dependent on how recently you have gone over said material..

Dwight wrote:The whole Graham's Law clue in the Georgia Tech A packet refers to both the answer (diffusion) and a thing that is not the answer (effusion). From my experience, chemistry classes treat Graham's Law as a Law of Effusion.

While this is correct, who actually buzzes in at ACF Fall with an answer line of "effusion"? I didn't consider this negbait just because of that.

fourplustwo wrote:

Dwight wrote:The whole Graham's Law clue in the Georgia Tech A packet refers to both the answer (diffusion) and a thing that is not the answer (effusion). From my experience, chemistry classes treat Graham's Law as a Law of Effusion.

While this is correct, who actually buzzes in at ACF Fall with an answer line of "effusion"? I didn't consider this negbait just because of that.

I was attempting to, but I was beaten by a fraction of a second and an opposing player who answered "diffusion". I don't think "people aren't likely to give this answer" is any kind of reason to allow an ambiguous clue.

I would have personally liked to have seen 1/1 trash come up more consistently in this tournament, as I think trash can serve an important function in novice tournaments.

There were some tossups that clearly had fundamental problems (i.e. the astroturfing tossup), but for the most part I agree with Matt Bollinger that if you think the leadins in this tournament were too easy maybe you shouldn't be playing ACF Fall. I don't get the impression that most B & C teams or non-circuit teams were really complaining that things were too easy, and I think ACF Fall should largely (but not exclusively) be serving these teams.

jonah wrote:

fourplustwo wrote:

Dwight wrote:The whole Graham's Law clue in the Georgia Tech A packet refers to both the answer (diffusion) and a thing that is not the answer (effusion). From my experience, chemistry classes treat Graham's Law as a Law of Effusion.

While this is correct, who actually buzzes in at ACF Fall with an answer line of "effusion"? I didn't consider this negbait just because of that.

I was attempting to, but I was beaten by a fraction of a second and an opposing player who answered "diffusion". I don't think "people aren't likely to give this answer" is any kind of reason to allow an ambiguous clue.

Honestly, I feel like adding an "accept effusion on *" would have made the tossup much better, considering how Graham's Law can describe both processes. Of course, then you get the issue of "the previous clues don't apply to effusion though!" However, I still feel like if you don't accept or at the very least prompt on effusion you're just setting up yet another neg-trap for people with real chemistry knowledge (something which this tournament already had enough of)

Wait, they expected you to get GnRH solely off of Kallman's syndrome? That's intense.