BDAT II General Discussion

[BlueDevil95]

This is the thread to discuss general aspects of the BDAT II. As discussion picks up, I'll post what I wanted to accomplish with the tournament, but, for now, I''d like to thank the following people for their work on the set: Adam Silverman, Tanay Kothari, Brady Weiler, Michael Sokolow, Joey Reifenberger, and Hernan Morales. Without you guys, the set would not have been completed. Thank you!

Discuss away!

[vinteuil]

OK, I'll be frank: I didn't really like this set. I know that Raleigh Charter didn't—they claimed that a very serious amount of editing (even rewriting sometimes) was necessary. I'll leave details of that to them.

I felt like the answer lines were sometimes a little bit...strange. "Time," "radius," and "mass" all felt a little bit simplistic for answer lines (very hard to tell exactly what was being asked for). Other times, I got the feeling that the writer didn't have very much knowledge of the subject (I heard "Rudolf of Austria" with no "Archduke" during the Beethoven question, and the fluorine question began with a giveaway on uranium hexafluoride).

[BlueDevil95]

Jacob,

I'm sincerely sorry that you didn't find the set enjoyable. We'll be working hard to fix everything "strange" by the time December rolls around so that more teams will like it.

Ms. Newmark of Raleigh Charter told me that her team caught some errors in the set, but not enough that it was a "serious amount of editing."

In regards to the three science tossups (besides mass, we didn't have a TU on it) you pointed out, I can see why as a player it would be confusing/frustrating to hear those questions, but I'll leave the decision to Adam, as he wrote most of the chemistry and physics. Most likely they'll be replaced. The Beethoven question was supposed to have the archduke part in there, I don't know why it wasn't. In any case, it's been added now.

Can you think of any other examples of tossups or bonuses you didn't particularly like? Or, If I were to send you the set, would you be willing to just survey it and pick out the worst offenders?

My team and I will be working very hard this upcoming month to improve the set.

[adamsil]

Hey Jacob,

I guess you can blame me for most of the science you didn't like, and I'll take full responsibility for them. I can't speak for Mostafa's goal, but I was attempting to reward people who have real knowledge of physics/chemistry things, rather than you know, normal stock clues on friction and the Nernst equation. I like asking about new answer lines, like volume (I presume that's what you were referring to, as there wasn't a question on mass in the set), radius, and time. Now, I can see how these could play oddly, but other than radius (which, admittedly, is a bit awkward, though the answerline on that one was very generous to accept things like lever arm which was appropriate for certain clues), I can't see why something simplistic is inappropriate to toss up because it's hard to "figure out". Volume and radius did get tossed up at PACE this year, I believe. Time is a real thing, time constant is a real thing, time dilation is a real thing, and so on. Considering that specific tossup was written well after the rest of the physics distribution and was intended to be general physics, I could see how someone could be frustrated by the fact that it wasn't pinned down to a specific discipline. Jumping from modern to emag to modern to mechanics could definitely be confusing, so yeah.

In regards to the fluorine thing, that could be a misplaced clue, but I didn't see it in any fluorine tossups before on the archive, and the intent of that tossup was principally on fluorine compounds, not its chemistry. If you think that's too easy for the leadin, then I'll change it--I don't think it's too easy, it seems pretty reasonable to me that if you know that uranium hexafluoride is formed in nuclear reactors, then good for you. Perhaps hydrofluoric acid is a better leadin, I don't know. I'll post the entire tossup with Mostafa's permission, if you like.

And I've looked through this set and I didn't find any serious problems with typos, for instance, so I have no idea why Raleigh Charter would want to rewrite portions of it. Do you know why they would?

Thanks for the feedback--I feel responsible for a large part of the physics and chemistry on Mostafa's behalf, so you can blame that on me, not him :)

[BlueDevil95]

I guess I'll go ahead and post some things that I wanted to accomplish with this set as well, even if some of the results turned out to be a bit weird.

First off, like Adam wanted to do for the chemistry and physics, I wanted to reward "real knowledge" over knowing quizbowl stock most of the time. That's why, in the social sciences, I strayed away from answerlines like the usual Malinowski or Treatise on Probability or what have you. Instead, I focused on stuff that students might come across in their classes or real life (the anthropology TU on Mexico, the economics bonus that went Keynes/FiscalPolicy/Investment bonus, the religion tossups on water, wine, and candles, etc.) I hope these questions played out well.

Furthermore, I tried to come up with new and interesting answerlines because I'm trying to think of topics accessible to the average high schooler, while still rewarding knowledgeable players. For example, my visual arts tossup on the "Eiffel Tower" is, I think, a very accessible answer line for even the newest players and it still let people with deeper knowledge be rewarded.

Also, I tried to be very realistic about the tossups and bonuses in the set. Like, instead of devoting 2-3 lines about Chrome Yellow , I put a hard clue about Brave New World in power so that people who've read it could power it, because, in my opinion, 90% of high schoolers are not reading any other Huxley novels. Another example of this is the tossup on Sinclair Lewis, which began which a description of Main Street.

In regards to science, I wrote all of the biology questions, so if you noticed any qualms with those questions let me know.

[vinteuil]

I should clarify; I still had fun, but I was just perpetually confronted with annoyances of various sizes in the set. I do not mean to sound over-critical. Ms. Newmark may have been downplaying their reaction; again, one of our readers told us that he had had to rewrite at least one question entirely.

By "mass" I meant the Catholic rite—Proper and Ordinary was fine, but the rest of the question was rather confusing. Sorry for any confusion.

I guess that I was most annoyed by the bonuses. There were some "impossible" bonus parts (yes, "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer" is a good poem, but that does not seem like a gettable third part, and I think that it wasn't for almost any team. Same with Alexander's Bridge).

The most egregious one was the "Clarinet glissando" question. First, that question had two hard parts (I like Grofé too, but still). Second, I heard a clue about "two eighth notes" and then "128th notes" which is patently incorrect—I have the score in front of me, and they are notated as a half note with a fermata tied to a quarter note and then 32nd note "17ets" (heptadectets?). Third, this is just an insane question to ask, sort of like putting a question on the orchid in Olympia's hair as the first clue (which did not happen)—it makes sense as a later clue, but there is no way to ask about this in a reasonable, specific, and uniquely identifying way.

Again, people seem not to necessarily have really had knowledge of the subject they were writing about—Marx did not invent the labor theory of value, Adam Smith did.

Other times, there were bonuses that had no hard part—I'm thinking of the Vietnam war movies bonus here.

Fluorine—I buzzed on "six of this element" because it didn't matter if it was sulfur hexafluoride, xenon hexafluoride, or uranium hexafluoride; fluorine is one of the very few elements electronegative enough to do that.

For me personally, there was a lot of economics relative to the paucity of sociology/anthropology, but that's entirely up to you guys. A few topics (Manet, Mexico) came up a lot, but that's ok.

[BlueDevil95]

I should clarify; I still had fun, but I was just perpetually confronted with annoyances of various sizes in the set. I do not mean to sound over-critical. Ms. Newmark may have been downplaying their reaction; again, one of our readers told us that he had had to rewrite at least one question entirely.

I think this is the question that was entirely rewritten. Here's the original:

2. This practice was the subject of a court case that concluded a Boston professor could not be arrested by Thomas Eisenstadt because of the “rational basis test.” Another court case about this practice declared a Nebraska law which incriminated Leroy Carhart unconstitutional because of undue burden. The spread of this practice was made illegal by the (*) Comstock Laws, and it was supported in Griswold v. Connecticut. It was the subject of a 1973 case about a Texas woman named Norma McCorvey. For 10 points, name this practice advocated for by Margaret Sanger, declared legal in Roe v. Wade, and done with the use of contraceptives.
ANSWER: birth control [accept abortion; also accept contraception before the end]

And here's the edited version:

2. This practice was the subject of a court case that concluded a Boston professor could not be arrested by Thomas Eisenstadt because of the “rational basis test.” One of the the earliest descriptions of this practice recommended the use of acacia gum or a mixture of honey and sodium carbonate. Giving information about this practice (*) was supported in Griswold v. Connecticut. For 10 points, name this practice advocated for by Margaret Sanger and done to prevent pregnancy.
ANSWER: birth control [accept contraception]

Now, I'm no expert, but in a strictly legal/historical sense wouldn't abortion and birth control be considered the same concept? I'd love some external input here.

By "mass" I meant the Catholic rite—Proper and Ordinary was fine, but the rest of the question was rather confusing. Sorry for any confusion.

Here's the bonus:

9. The collection of prayers sung at this service is either the Proper or the Ordinary. For 10 points each:
[10] Name this Catholic service in which Latin text set to voices are part of a reenactment of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion.
ANSWER: Mass
[10] Each section of Mass contains this setting also known as plainsong. They contain single-line melodies called neumes and are named after a 6th century pope.
ANSWER: Gregorian chants [prompt on plainchant or just “chant”]
[10] This is the name given to the first section of a Gregorian melody’s Ordinary. It is responsorial and has a ternary form that represents the Trinity, and its name means “Lord, have mercy” in Greek.
ANSWER: Kyrie eleison [pr. Key-ree-ay e-lay-son]

For the last two parts, I learned about both in my music theory class and even consulted my music theory textbook to get a sense of how I should ask for them. The way they are written are close to how they were presented to me in class. I've changed the first part to just "Latin," if that helps any.

I guess that I was most annoyed by the bonuses. There were some "impossible" bonus parts (yes, "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer" is a good poem, but that does not seem like a gettable third part, and I think that it wasn't for almost any team. Same with Alexander's Bridge).

I will fix these in the upcoming weeks.

The most egregious one was the "Clarinet glissando" question. First, that question had two hard parts (I like Grofé too, but still). Second, I heard a clue about "two eighth notes" and then "128th notes" which is patently incorrect—I have the score in front of me, and they are notated as a half note with a fermata tied to a quarter note and then 32nd note "17ets" (heptadectets?). Third, this is just an insane question to ask, sort of like putting a question on the orchid in Olympia's hair as the first clue (which did not happen)—it makes sense as a later clue, but there is no way to ask about this in a reasonable, specific, and uniquely identifying way.

This has already been changed. I apologize for this bonus part.

In regards to the rest of your post, I will go through and attempt to weed out errors.

[adamsil]

You make a good point about fluorine. I'll rearrange the clues there. Here's the new fluorine tossup:

The acid of this element is commonly used to etch silicon glass. A compound of uranium and this element is commonly produced in nuclear reactors. The first known binary compound of a noble gas consists of four atoms of this element bonded to xenon. PTFE, exclusively composed of carbon and this other element, is commonly used in (*) non-stick cookware and is marketed as Teflon. Its anion is commonly added to water supplies to prevent tooth decay. On the Pauling scale, it has a value of 4.0, making it the most electronegative element. For ten points, name this lightest halogen with symbol F.
ANSWER: fluorine (or F before mentioned)

[vinteuil]

You make a good point about fluorine. I'll rearrange the clues there. Here's the new fluorine tossup:

The acid of this element is commonly used to etch silicon glass. A compound of uranium and this element is commonly produced in nuclear reactors. The first known binary compound of a noble gas consists of four atoms of this element bonded to xenon. PTFE, exclusively composed of carbon and this other element, is commonly used in (*) non-stick cookware and is marketed as Teflon. Its anion is commonly added to water supplies to prevent tooth decay. On the Pauling scale, it has a value of 4.0, making it the most electronegative element. For ten points, name this lightest halogen with symbol F.
ANSWER: fluorine (or F before mentioned)

Thanks, that seems more pyramidal to me.

I should clarify; I still had fun, but I was just perpetually confronted with annoyances of various sizes in the set. I do not mean to sound over-critical. Ms. Newmark may have been downplaying their reaction; again, one of our readers told us that he had had to rewrite at least one question entirely.

I think this is the question that was entirely rewritten. Here's the original:

2. This practice was the subject of a court case that concluded a Boston professor could not be arrested by Thomas Eisenstadt because of the “rational basis test.” Another court case about this practice declared a Nebraska law which incriminated Leroy Carhart unconstitutional because of undue burden. The spread of this practice was made illegal by the (*) Comstock Laws, and it was supported in Griswold v. Connecticut. It was the subject of a 1973 case about a Texas woman named Norma McCorvey. For 10 points, name this practice advocated for by Margaret Sanger, declared legal in Roe v. Wade, and done with the use of contraceptives.
ANSWER: birth control [accept abortion; also accept contraception before the end]

And here's the edited version:

2. This practice was the subject of a court case that concluded a Boston professor could not be arrested by Thomas Eisenstadt because of the “rational basis test.” One of the the earliest descriptions of this practice recommended the use of acacia gum or a mixture of honey and sodium carbonate. Giving information about this practice (*) was supported in Griswold v. Connecticut. For 10 points, name this practice advocated for by Margaret Sanger and done to prevent pregnancy.
ANSWER: birth control [accept contraception]

Now, I'm no expert, but in a strictly legal/historical sense wouldn't abortion and birth control be considered the same concept? I'd love some external input here.

Birth control is preventative, abortion isn't; also, Roe v. Wade and Griswold v. Connecticut are about different things entirely.

By "mass" I meant the Catholic rite—Proper and Ordinary was fine, but the rest of the question was rather confusing. Sorry for any confusion.

Here's the bonus:

9. The collection of prayers sung at this service is either the Proper or the Ordinary. For 10 points each:
[10] Name this Catholic service in which Latin text set to voices are part of a reenactment of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion.
ANSWER: Mass
[10] Each section of Mass contains this setting also known as plainsong. They contain single-line melodies called neumes and are named after a 6th century pope.
ANSWER: Gregorian chants [prompt on plainchant or just “chant”]
[10] This is the name given to the first section of a Gregorian melody’s Ordinary. It is responsorial and has a ternary form that represents the Trinity, and its name means “Lord, have mercy” in Greek.
ANSWER: Kyrie eleison [pr. Key-ree-ay e-lay-son]

For the last two parts, I learned about both in my music theory class and even consulted my music theory textbook to get a sense of how I should ask for them. The way they are written are close to how they were presented to me in class. I've changed the first part to just "Latin," if that helps any.

Actually, it's only under the current Pope that Latin mass is allowed again (or a lot of the plainchant stuff, for that matter—Vatican II is weird), but I think that that definitely clarifies it—maybe "in Latin or the vernacular"? I'm not sure.
Also, both Proper and Ordinary are included in the Mass, which was majorly confusing (they just divide what changes week-to-week and what does not).

The Kyrie part is fine; I actually meant just the first answerline. However, plainsong really is just any chant, so that could be clarified ("a kind of plainsong").

I guess that I was most annoyed by the bonuses. There were some "impossible" bonus parts (yes, "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer" is a good poem, but that does not seem like a gettable third part, and I think that it wasn't for almost any team. Same with Alexander's Bridge).

I will fix these in the upcoming weeks.

Thanks. There was a Keynes bonus part that seemed ridiculous to our team (some component of something—I gave that to our econ specialist), but we don't know economics well enough to really say that it was too hard or not.

The most egregious one was the "Clarinet glissando" question. First, that question had two hard parts (I like Grofé too, but still). Second, I heard a clue about "two eighth notes" and then "128th notes" which is patently incorrect—I have the score in front of me, and they are notated as a half note with a fermata tied to a quarter note and then 32nd note "17ets" (heptadectets?). Third, this is just an insane question to ask, sort of like putting a question on the orchid in Olympia's hair as the first clue (which did not happen)—it makes sense as a later clue, but there is no way to ask about this in a reasonable, specific, and uniquely identifying way.

This has already been changed. I apologize for this bonus part.

I guess I overreacted, but thank you for the change.

In regards to the rest of your post, I will go through and attempt to weed out errors.

Again, thanks for the response—overall, I think that you achieved your goals of having less stale answer lines and clues while keeping the packets accessible very well.

[vinteuil]

Double post because I didn't address this adequately.

Hey Jacob,

I guess you can blame me for most of the science you didn't like, and I'll take full responsibility for them. I can't speak for Mostafa's goal, but I was attempting to reward people who have real knowledge of physics/chemistry things, rather than you know, normal stock clues on friction and the Nernst equation. I like asking about new answer lines, like volume (I presume that's what you were referring to, as there wasn't a question on mass in the set), radius, and time. Now, I can see how these could play oddly, but other than radius (which, admittedly, is a bit awkward, though the answerline on that one was very generous to accept things like lever arm which was appropriate for certain clues), I can't see why something simplistic is inappropriate to toss up because it's hard to "figure out". Volume and radius did get tossed up at PACE this year, I believe. Time is a real thing, time constant is a real thing, time dilation is a real thing, and so on. Considering that specific tossup was written well after the rest of the physics distribution and was intended to be general physics, I could see how someone could be frustrated by the fact that it wasn't pinned down to a specific discipline. Jumping from modern to emag to modern to mechanics could definitely be confusing, so yeah.

I actually really love this approach (having taken enough upper-level science and math courses, it pisses me off to no end when people get these through memorization of stock clues). I guess that expectations (this applies to non-people-centric social sciences too, I suppose) played a part here; if I were more used to not having Nernst equation redux, I would probably have been a lot more happy about this. Yes, they were all real things, and interdisciplinary isn't so bad unless it consists of confusing different kinds of equilibrium or something. I'll backpedal about "simplistic."

[BlueDevil95]

Here's the Keynes bonus:

10. John Hicks’s introduction of the IS-LM model began the “Neoclassical” school named for this thinker. For 10 points each:
[10] Name this English economist whose namesake school advocates for higher government spending. That idea was expanded upon in his General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money.
ANSWER: John Maynard Keynes
[10] The higher government spending desired by Keynes falls under this type of policy, which focuses on government spending and taxation to change the economy. It is contrasted with monetary policy.
ANSWER: fiscal policy
[10] Keynes's General Theory introduced the idea that aggregate demand was equal to the sum of government spending, consumption, and this other quantity.
ANSWER: investment

The answer choices I picked are basic things a student would learn about in an economics class, in my opinion. I definitely learned about fiscal policy and investment in my AP Macroeconomics class.

Again, I'd like to thank you for helping us fix stuff with the set.

[vinteuil]

Here's the Keynes bonus:

10. John Hicks’s introduction of the IS-LM model began the “Neoclassical” school named for this thinker. For 10 points each:
[10] Name this English economist whose namesake school advocates for higher government spending. That idea was expanded upon in his General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money.
ANSWER: John Maynard Keynes
[10] The higher government spending desired by Keynes falls under this type of policy, which focuses on government spending and taxation to change the economy. It is contrasted with monetary policy.
ANSWER: fiscal policy
[10] Keynes's General Theory introduced the idea that aggregate demand was equal to the sum of government spending, consumption, and this other quantity.
ANSWER: investment

The answer choices I picked are basic things a student would learn about in an economics class, in my opinion. I definitely learned about fiscal policy and investment in my AP Macroeconomics class.

Again, I'd like to thank you for helping us fix stuff with the set.

OK, I figured that it would be reasonable to someone with real knowledge. Again, congratulations on creating a set that avoids many of the stereotypical quiz bowl problems and thus achieving many of your goals.

[shrey96]

First of all, I thoroughly enjoyed this set and I would like to congratulate you guys on a job well done. A quick search of the set discussion before this mirror reveals some dissatisfaction, but I think it was edited well in response to the criticisms and it came out a much, much better product.

To address a few things I noticed:

1. The set was a bit more difficult than advertised, but really nothing out of the ordinary. I thought the difficulty was well managed (in terms of just keeping the difficulty constant throughout the tournament), especially in later rounds when questions tend to get a bit harder and teams seem a bit more tired - your set avoided this, and again, kudos on that.

2. There were a few problems with repetition. The one I can remember was the "Lake Tanganyika" clue/answerline for the bonus with Zanzibar and the tossup on Tanzania. There may or may not have been one with Beethoven, and one of my moderators said he caught a few more, so that's potentially something to look into.

3. There were a few grammatical errors in the earlier rounds (1-3 or 4) - moderators had to work on the fly a couple of times, and one of our moderators was new to it all, so that was a problem for us. But really, nothing earth-shattering in the grammar department, just a few small problems.

4. There were a couple of minor factual inaccuracies that were pointed out to me by opposing teams and moderators. Unfortunately, most of them were history questions and I can't really remember those, but here's one I do remember: One bonus mentioned Nicholas II as the successor to Alexander II, when in fact Alexander III was the emperor for a good 13 years between the two. Again, not really terrible mistakes I'm talking about, but just things to look into to make the set even better.

I'm sure I'll think of more things to nitpick later, but again, I would like to thank you for a well-written set.

One final note - whoever wrote the science for this tournament (Adam Silverman, I believe?), you did a phenomenal job. It was nice to hear a lot of questions that were very "real" knowledge-centric rather than just a laundry list of stock clues. As a science specialist, I appreciated this very much.

[adamsil]

One final note - whoever wrote the science for this tournament (Adam Silverman, I believe?), you did a phenomenal job. It was nice to hear a lot of questions that were very "real" knowledge-centric rather than just a laundry list of stock clues. As a science specialist, I appreciated this very much.

Thanks, I appreciate it (though I think Mostafa did a great job with the bio too).

[BlueDevil95]

While we're on the topic of who wrote what, here's exactly that:

I wrote all the literature, most of the fine arts, all the history, all the biology, most of the RMP, all the social science, all current events, and some trash.
Adam wrote all the chemistry, physics, and some of the religion (a lot of the Jewish stuff, he edited).
Hernan, Michael, and Joey wrote trash and geography.

[Ravi]

After playing the set today, I definitely think it was well written however I was annoyed at a couple of things. The main issue I had was the large amount of poetry within the lit distro. It felt as though there was a 2/2 Poetry, 1/1 Plays and 1/1 Novels. I do agree that I didn't like how some clues were repeated but I think this set was better than a most other housewrites in this aspect. Finally I would like to thank Adam Silverman for how he wrote the science questions. As a mainly science player I do appreciate some new variety to the questions such as questions on "brown dwarf" and "power". I also appreciate how you avoided a lot of stock clues which allowed me to buzz on my actual knowledge. Some of the science questions did appear a little bit strange, I believe radius was referred to as a "quantity" which sort of tripped me up but as a whole I feel the science was a welcome change to the usual stock clues.

[BlueDevil95]

After playing the set today, I definitely think it was well written however I was annoyed at a couple of things. The main issue I had was the large amount of poetry within the lit distro. It felt as though there was a 2/2 Poetry, 1/1 Plays and 1/1 Novels. I do agree that I didn't like how some clues were repeated but I think this set was better than a most other housewrites in this aspect. Finally I would like to thank Adam Silverman for how he wrote the science questions. As a mainly science player I do appreciate some new variety to the questions such as questions on "brown dwarf" and "power". I also appreciate how you avoided a lot of stock clues which allowed me to buzz on my actual knowledge. Some of the science questions did appear a little bit strange, I believe radius was referred to as a "quantity" which sort of tripped me up but as a whole I feel the science was a welcome change to the usual stock clues.

While there may have been a bit more poetry than usual, I don't think there was an excess amount. Maybe the problem is that it was concentrated to a few rounds instead of being evenly distributed?

I'd also like to take this time to thank Adam for the way he approached the science in this set, and for checking my mistakes in the biology. I'll let him comment on the science questions, though.

[adamsil]

I'm not sure what radius would be, other than a quantity...though I do love me some "quantity" questions, if you didn't notice.

And I'm glad the response to the science has been mostly positive. I've recently grown disappointed in most HS science questions, so it's nice to see that other aspiring scientists and engineers appreciate questions that don't focus on the same five topics, with the same clues, over and over and over again.

I'm afraid you cannot thank me for any astronomy. I don't even pretend to know anything about astronomy.

And on the poetry front: I didn't notice a predominance, and I generally dislike poetry questions. Though I do remember telling Mostafa that some rounds were unbalanced as with genres of literature, so one round has all drama, one round has all poetry, etc. So it could be hindsight bias based on certain games you remember.

[BlueDevil95]

Here's last year's BDAT, now (finally) on quizbowlpackets.com:

http://www.quizbowlpackets.com/573/