ACF Fall 2020 - Specific Question Discussion

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ACF Fall 2020 - Specific Question Discussion

Post by benmillerbenmiller »

You can use this thread to discuss specific questions and errata from ACF Fall 2020. I will be posting the packets within the next day or two, after incorporating feedback from our sites, but in the meantime feel free to request specific questions and I will post them here.
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Re: ACF Fall 2020 - Specific Question Discussion

Post by benmillerbenmiller »

All packets are now available here.
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Re: ACF Fall 2020 - Specific Question Discussion

Post by Destructive Desmond »

In tossup three of packet A, on RuPaul's Drag Race, I think there are several issues. First, I don't think it is accurate to say that Drag Race "popularized" the term reading, which comes from the ballroom scene in the 80s and 90s and was discussed in Paris is Burning. It may have popularized the term among audiences less familiar with drag, but the clue as it is written is arguably misleading. In addition, it is inaccurate to call Michelle Visage a "frequent guest judge" as she has been a member of the judging panel for every episode since season 3.
Last edited by Destructive Desmond on Thu Oct 22, 2020 1:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: ACF Fall 2020 - Specific Question Discussion

Post by Liarr »

I may be somewhat biased from answering this question incorrectly when I played it, but the second clue of Pack F's Tossup 7 has some issues. Civil servant or bureaucrat is arguably a more reasonable answer to the clue "That man who worked in this profession feuded frequently with Wang Anshi". It is possible to infer that the question is looking for 'historian' by the previous clue's pronoun of 'this discipline', but I think the tossup could have been made less confusing by using a word other than 'chancellor' in the first clue to make it clear that civil servant/bureaucrat is not the answer.
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Re: ACF Fall 2020 - Specific Question Discussion

Post by DavidB256 »

Tossup 17 of packet A describes Federico García Lorca as a "Golden age author." Wikipedia describes the Golden Age as taking place from ~1492-1681. García Lorca was born in 1898.

I originally clued Fuenteovejuna and Life Is a Dream as the first two sentences of this tossup, respectively, and was sad to see that every clue had been turned into a García Lorca clue. García Lorca is great, and provides important queer representation, but if the most famous Spanish Golden Age plays can't even be hard clues, then it feels like the only Spanish literature allowed for a Spanish literature tossup is Don Quixote and the Rural Trilogy.
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Re: ACF Fall 2020 - Specific Question Discussion

Post by naan/steak-holding toll »

Liarr wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 3:33 pm I may be somewhat biased from answering this question incorrectly when I played it, but the second clue of Pack F's Tossup 7 has some issues. Civil servant or bureaucrat is arguably a more reasonable answer to the clue "That man who worked in this profession feuded frequently with Wang Anshi". It is possible to infer that the question is looking for 'historian' by the previous clue's pronoun of 'this discipline', but I think the tossup could have been made less confusing by using a word other than 'chancellor' in the first clue to make it clear that civil servant/bureaucrat is not the answer.
I haven't seen the tournament, but this clue seems poor - it has no unique answer. Wang Anshi was in a lot of feuds, not just with Sima Guang - so if you don't know the previous clue you get no unique information here - and as noted Sima Guang had multiple occupations.
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Re: ACF Fall 2020 - Specific Question Discussion

Post by buffaloz1331 »

DavidB256 wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 3:52 pm Tossup 17 of packet A describes Federico García Lorca as a "Golden age author." Wikipedia describes the Golden Age as taking place from ~1492-1681. García Lorca was born in 1898.

I originally clued Fuenteovejuna and Life Is a Dream as the first two sentences of this tossup, respectively, and was sad to see that every clue had been turned into a García Lorca clue. García Lorca is great, and provides important queer representation, but if the most famous Spanish Golden Age plays can't even be hard clues, then it feels like the only Spanish literature allowed for a Spanish literature tossup is Don Quixote and the Rural Trilogy.
Can't speak to what the lit editor may have intended when editing this tossup, but Life is a Dream and Fuenteovejuna may have been cut from the tossup because the editor wanted to make the tossup more thematically coherent, i.e. specific to one period of Spanish drama, rather than any issue with difficulty.
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Re: ACF Fall 2020 - Specific Question Discussion

Post by Zealots of Stockholm »

Having two easy parts on Canada in the same packet (C) seems less than ideal
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Re: ACF Fall 2020 - Specific Question Discussion

Post by Trampius Stampius »

I answered "Tanganjika-Land" (a German name for Tanganyika/mainland Tanzania, which is where the Maji Maji rebellion occurred) as an answer to Packet B, bonus 12, but wasn't accepted. Tanzania isn't even entirely accurate, as Zanzibar was never a part of German East Africa.
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Re: ACF Fall 2020 - Specific Question Discussion

Post by SortesVirgilianae »

buffaloz1331 wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 5:01 pm Can't speak to what the lit editor may have intended when editing this tossup, but Life is a Dream and Fuenteovejuna may have been cut from the tossup because the editor wanted to make the tossup more thematically coherent, i.e. specific to one period of Spanish drama, rather than any issue with difficulty.
I can, though, because I am the lit editor (The poster quoted above is partially right).
DavidB256 wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 3:52 pm Tossup 17 of packet A describes Federico García Lorca as a "Golden age author." Wikipedia describes the Golden Age as taking place from ~1492-1681. García Lorca was born in 1898.
This is an egregious and atrocious error, and I can only apologise and take full responsibility. I suspect that what happened was "For 10 points, name this country of Golden Age author Pedro Calderón de la Barca as well as Federico Garcia Lorca" was over-zealously contracted at some point during the editing process, and somehow I failed to clock the error which had crept in.
DavidB256 wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 3:52 pm I originally clued Fuenteovejuna and Life Is a Dream as the first two sentences of this tossup, respectively, and was sad to see that every clue had been turned into a García Lorca clue. García Lorca is great, and provides important queer representation, but if the most famous Spanish Golden Age plays can't even be hard clues, then it feels like the only Spanish literature allowed for a Spanish literature tossup is Don Quixote and the Rural Trilogy.
I sympathise here, as I shared your approach in general. I didn't (and don't) think that the most famous Spanish Golden Age plays "can't even be hard clues". It was partly my desire to keep tossups thematically coherent; however, it was primarily because I already had a bonus set on earlier Spanish literature (Cervantes, packet M bonuses 17). I had earmarked 2/2 set-wide for Iberian literature, which became 1/1 each for Spain and Portugal. As such, I wanted 1 question on post-1900 and 1 on pre-1900 Spanish literature. This was why the Spain-from-drama tossup ended up being entirely 20th century content. (We can argue lots about whether this is a sensible way to divide things, and I'm sure there are other equally good or better approaches.)
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Re: ACF Fall 2020 - Specific Question Discussion

Post by L.H.O.O.Q. »

alanadickey wrote: Thu Oct 22, 2020 1:55 pm In tossup three of packet A, on RuPaul's Drag Race, I think there are several issues. First, I don't think it is accurate to say that Drag Race "popularized" the term reading, which comes from the ballroom scene in the 80s and 90s and was discussed in Paris is Burning. It may have popularized the term among audiences less familiar with drag, but the clue as it is written is arguably misleading. In addition, it is inaccurate to call Michelle Visage a "frequent guest judge" as she has been a member of the judging panel for every episode since season 3.
I agree with both of your assessments; both of these issues are the result of extremely sloppy research on my part. I am not sure if "frequent guest judge" was wording from the original question submission, but even if it was, it was my job to fact-check that, and I took it at face value. I wrote the clue about the Library Challenge from scratch, and inexplicably did not actually research the etymology of the word before coming to that conclusion. I'm sorry for any and all confusion that this carelessness probably created during the tournament, as such writing issues punish good players for knowing more than the editor.
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