2014 IHSA

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2014 IHSA

Post by heterodyne »

So I figured someone should make one of these. When are these questions clear for discussion?
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by jonah »

The IHSA has no published policy on this, and the questions will not be used at any other tournament, so as far as I can tell, as soon as you want.
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by remake20 »

Does IHSA consider trash lit, lit? Or was that just an askew opinion of what literature in quizbowl is?
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by jonah »

The IHSA's guidelines for what defines a category are a secret and, as far as I know, prepared by someone who is apathetic (and in some senses ignorant, and in other senses outright opposed) to modern standards of quizbowl. Based on many years of reading questions of which she is in charge, her perspective seems to be "if it's written down, we can call it literature".
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by heterodyne »

Yes, literature appeared to encompass any vaguely non-art humanities type thing. If we are discussing questions, I would like to post some rather odd answerline or question choices. If some of these are explainable and I just don't know enough, please enlighten me.
  • The colonialism in Uganda bonus. We got one part, and barely.
    Xhosa TU
    Dixon Mounds Museum
    George Magazine
    Martin Buber
    Treaty of Lodi
    WIllow glass??
    Prompting on Wyeth (yes, it's correct, but it does seem a bit odd)
    Mentioning degree measure early for radian
    "This Romanian sculptor"
    Dali TU was transparent
    Rosa Parks had few meaningful clues
    HAYMITCH ABERNATHY
    Tossup on Uruk seemed off.
    Counterpoint?
    Grignard Reagents (not impossible, but quite hard for a regional level state tournament)
    Pope tossup was odd.
    Putting all Durkheim titles in French? Maybe not the best idea?
    The myth was transparent
    Dali TU hyperfraudable
All in all, the questions were short, devoid of meaningful clues, highly variable in difficulty, in weird topics, and altogether atrocious. This feels like a significant step down from last year, where the questions were somewhat passable.

EDIT: Also, that drug that apparently a bunch of people are addicted to? I knew what they were talking about, but they wanted the WHOLE thing.
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by jonah »

Sure it's explainable. In the wake of last year's scandal in which Ron McGraw fired an editor for reporting plagiarized questions, all the competent writers and editors boycotted the disgustingly corrupt organization and process that is the IHSA and its writing cabal. You might also find that the officiating at State sucks uniformly instead of merely sometimes. Have fun!
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by snacksinthebasement »

You left out some of the best parts! Like the bonus on Artificial Sweeteners, the Iranian councils bonus, the Minuet in G tossup that had about no buzzable clues unless you read the Wikipedia page, the "this woman's poet husband" Mary Shelley tossup, Charles' Law coming up twice in one packet, and others I'm sure I'm forgetting too. Oh yeah, the Nigerian-whatever-that-was bonus in the finals.

My teammate got Haymitch Abernathy really early, and I thought he was some philosopher I didn't know about until he told me it was trash.

The Brancusi tossup made me laugh because of how bad it was.

The Pope tossup and the Twain tossup seemed very poorly written to me.

The Durkheim tossup only seemed bad to me because "sociology" and then "French stuff".

Buber is gettable by very good philosophy players, I guess.

The radians tossup was bad. The math tossup where you had to find the distance between two points in 3D space had the wrong answerline.

Continuous was very easy (sine functions are this, but step functions aren't!).

No idea on Treaty of Lodi, Xhosa, or most of the obscure social studies stuff, but my team is pretty bad at that part of the distro.

So many of the questions seemed like once you "figured it out" you got the points, e.g. the Dali tossup beginning with "this Spaniard" and then talking about a guy doing weird stuff, or the Rosa Parks tossup, or the Ella Fitzgerald tossup.

I realize this is regionals, and isn't meant to differentiate the best teams in the state, but why throw in Buber and other nationals-level answer lines like Grignard Reagents? It seems like the writers didn't really know what they wanted to do, or how to do it when they wrote this.

Overall, too much biographical information and not enough academic knowledge being tested. Of course, we get the agriculture and the stupid stuff we've come to expect from IHSA too. I hope somehow the questions get better for sectionals and state, but it's unlikely.
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by kievanrustic »

This Urn Is So Grecian wrote: The colonialism in Uganda bonus. We got one part, and barely.
Xhosa TU
Dixon Mounds Museum
Hey, if you don't have deep knowledge on indirect rule and acephalous tribes, I don't know what to say (we 0'd that bonus). One of my teammates from assures me that the Dickson Mounds Museum is something that sometimes people in Illinois hear about, so I see no problem in tossing that up. After all, what is the point of quiz bowl if not to facilitate the gaining of DEEP KNOWLEDGE.
This Urn Is So Grecian wrote: Treaty of Lodi
Finally, some canon expansion! I've begun to think that tossing up Milan or Sforza creates questions that are just too dang easy. While we're expanding the canon with some appropriately-difficult tossups on 15th century Italian treaties, I think that we should take a look at the Medieval and Renaissance history that has been overlooked by quiz bowl. Some preliminary ideas that I have include tossups on Charles the Bold, Olaf Trygvason, Vladimir the Great, and the Albigensian Crusade. We should all take notice of the IHSA's policy of expanding our minds.
This Urn Is So Grecian wrote: Putting all Durkheim titles in French? Maybe not the best idea?
Au contraire, mon frere. Perhaps only having titles in the original language helps the best team win. After all, a complete knowledge of Durkheim should include knowledge of his culture and thus his language. I look forward to writers following the IHSA's example by writing questions on Les Fleurs du Mal using only quotes from the original French text.

Edit: Corrected spelling of Dickson Mounds Museum
Last edited by kievanrustic on Tue Mar 11, 2014 12:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by Southern Double-collared Sunbirb »

The Dickson Mounds aren't in Dixon, actually.

But yeah.. 1990s trash needs to be then, not in the 2014 Series. Not to mention everything else.
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by Harpie's Feather Duster »

The Dickson Mounds tossup seems like a bad example of writers thinking Illinois players have more knowledge about their homestate than they do. If you want to tossup something much more historically significant and gettable (though still probably too hard for this set), just toss up Cahokia!

From what I've heard these questions seem worse than the Questions Galore Masonic questions I remember playing in my first 2 years, and that's saying something. Tossups on the Treaty of Lodi and the Xhosa? Those are like hard college answerlines!
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by mlaird »

Sister John, if on the off chance that you are reading this, please take note that all of these comments are coming from current players. Current players from non-Chicago area schools. This tournament is doing no good for any players.
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by the return of AHAN »

Golden-bellied Starfrontlet wrote:The Dickson Mounds tossup seems like a bad example of writers thinking Illinois players have more knowledge about their homestate than they do. If you want to tossup something much more historically significant and gettable (though still probably too hard for this set), just toss up Cahokia!
Precisely the answer offered by Matthew of Barrington, but only because he knew my background as a native Cahokian.
From what I've heard these questions seem worse than the Questions Galore Masonic questions I remember playing in my first 2 years, and that's saying something. Tossups on the Treaty of Lodi and the Xhosa? Those are like hard college answerlines!
Xhosa was scored early by Pranav. The prime factorization of 720,000,000 or whatever it was earned Bryce applause from the Highland Park players. He buzzed it before I was done reading!
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by Hobbie Klivian »

Talking about math, there seemed to be a tosssup about distance between two (x,y,z) coordinates with incorrect z coordinates. (Two -6s). Anybody else have that issue as well, or just me?
Also, another question that stood out was the Nasser and Suez Canal in first sentence for nationalization.
Last edited by Hobbie Klivian on Tue Mar 11, 2014 12:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by remake20 »

This Urn Is So Grecian wrote:"This Romanian sculptor"
Out of curiosity, how many people got this one after the first three words?

Another one that stood out to me was the Wagner tossup. He changed opera houses was about the only meaningful clue until the giveaway (well and the whole 19th Century German)
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by the return of AHAN »

remake20 wrote:
This Urn Is So Grecian wrote:"This Romanian sculptor"
Out of curiosity, how many people got this one after the first three words?

Another one that stood out to me was the Wagner tossup. He changed opera houses was about the only meaningful clue until the giveaway (well and the whole 19th Century German)
Pranav scored Brancusi after the first three words, and got the Wagner toss-up on the opera house clue.
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by Emil Nolde »

So yeah, I would've started this topic, but I was hesitant to initiate the hate. I guess Andrew Salij is now the unofficially designated OP on statewide events that can be difficult to bring up? EDIT: Never mind, it was Alston.
the return of AHAN wrote:
remake20 wrote:
This Urn Is So Grecian wrote:"This Romanian sculptor"
Out of curiosity, how many people got this one after the first three words?

Another one that stood out to me was the Wagner tossup. He changed opera houses was about the only meaningful clue until the giveaway (well and the whole 19th Century German)
Pranav scored Brancusi after the first three words, and got the Wagner toss-up on the opera house clue.
Yeah, I got it at "This Romanian sculptor" as well, that was a particularly egregious example of how terribly terrible the questions were. I was thinking the next question would probably be "This Finnish composer". Jonathan got the Wagner question, mostly because I was choking and annoyed by the subjective wording used by the question (namely, "revolutionized", I mean, come on, that was unnecessary and not well-supported within the question)

Mahir got the nationalization TU after Nasser because I (and maybe Jonathan) was thinking things like "hostile takeover", or "being a historical jerk" (Mahir got the "jerk" TU as well) and things like that, and thus my hose radar was going wild.

Other dubious science questions that I got:
-"Feldspar": My mother REALLY likes crystals, and I also play far too much Dwarf Fortress. Anyone who reflex-buzzed "quartz" on Bowen's reaction series really needs to rely less on word association, though that's a mostly-understandable mistake.
-"Möbius strip": I'm pretty sure the latter half, or maybe more, of the question was just a rephrasing of the first sentence of the Wikipedia article. Which, to be fair, I've read, and gathered much of my knowledge of weird topological things from.
-"Necrosis": They might as well have said: "Hey, guys, why does it suck to be bitten by a brown recluse spider?" For some dumb reason, after saying the correct answer first, I added "gangrene", I guess, because that's also really gross. For anyone who got it on that line about plant stems, congratulations, you might have a future in botany or something.

Anyway, whoever converted the following
has earned my undying enmity
needs to go outside more
was really prepared:
-I, too, sing America buzzed "Cahokia" for the Dickson Mounds thing.
-The question that ended up being about Chester Arthur's (or some other late 19th-century president's, aside from I suppose Garfield) VP. I suppose it could be pertinent to someone who goes to school in Lincolnshire. There are two Adlai Stevensons?
-The question on the guy who was apparently commissioner of the MLB in 1919. I guessed Charles Comiskey, because even though I know he was simply the owner of the White Sox at the time, at least I was temporally in the ballpark (pun totally intended). On the way home, my mother chastised me for not paying closer attention when watching Eight Men Out. I told her to be quiet. Sigh.
-The cough medicine question. I was about to give JHuh a pat on the back for being able to pull "codeine", when they said it was wrong. Moral of the story is: before abusing OTC medication, read the label, guys. It might come up. You never know.
-That thing on "Willow glass"? Even in retrospect, I have no idea what they were talking about or why it ever has or will matter to anyone. It sounded like they use it in HD televisions?

Also, I guess I'm pretty good at lateral thinking/being a fraud, because I got the majority of these terribly-written questions that, had they been handled differently, could've been appropriate, e.g. Brancusi, Dali, Ella Fitzgerald (because, y'know, scat singing), and almost certainly others.
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by Maxwell Sniffingwell »

For those keeping score at home, there are 64 teams left in this monstrosity:

Uni-High Normal, Champaign Centennial, Bloomington, Normal Community
Macomb, Springfield, Rock Island, Dunlap
Jerseyville, Carbondale, O'Fallon, Belleville West
St. Charles East, IMSA, Metea Valley, Wheaton Warrenville South
Marian, Auburn, Kaneland, Cary-Grove
Homewood-Flossmoor, Chicago Christian, Providence Catholic, UC-Lab
Stevenson, Fremd, Grayslake Central, Barrington
Fenton, Hinsdale Central, OPRF, LaGrange Lyons

Williamsville, Mendon Unity, Athens, Riverton
Warrensburg-Latham, U-High Urbana, Maroa-Forsyth, Tri-Valley
Carterville, Belleville Althoff, Hamilton County, Nashville
Seneca, Gardner-South Wilmington, Westmont, Lisle
Keith, Galena, Morrison, Sterling Newman
Toledo Cumberland, Fairfield, Marshall, Newton
Litchfield, Mater Dei, Carrollton, Piasa Southwestern
Peoria Christian, Port Byron Riverdale, Mercer County, Elmwood


If you see any of these teams around in the next week, make sure to offer them your condolences.
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by heterodyne »

thyringe_supine wrote:
-"Möbius strip": I'm pretty sure the latter half, or maybe more, of the question was just a rephrasing of the first sentence of the Wikipedia article. Which, to be fair, I've read, and gathered much of my knowledge of weird topological things from.
This was true of plenty of the questions. Ones that I noticed included Buber and Treaty of Lodi, as I looked those up immediately after the match, having only vaguely heard of Buber and having never heard of Treaty of Lodi. (I'm no history or philo player, but jeez.) Sure enough, large portions of the wording were ripped directly. In addition, the quote in the Brâncuşi TU was the very first one listed on the quote section of his wikipedia page. If only we weren't required to immediately destroy the questions, perhaps we could find more. This, in my opinion, is a bigger problem then bad question writing itself. Plagiarism from wikipedia of all places implies not only a lack of respect for other's work but a lack of effort put into the questions, which would help explain some of the more egregious faults. I was hoping that after the events of last year the IHSA would get its writers under control.

edit: diacritical
Last edited by heterodyne on Tue Mar 11, 2014 5:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by jonah »

Feel free to ask me for the exact wording of any questions. Not that I have the set or anything.

The IHSA does not define "plagiarism" the same way the dictionary does. That stance is about the only thing Sister John has been consistent about.
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by Harpie's Feather Duster »

@James: The more famous and high school namesake Adlai Stevenson is the guy that lost to Eisenhower twice. The other quizbowl-notable one who was Cleveland's VP is his much less famous grandfather.
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by Southern Double-collared Sunbirb »

Dylan: There's also a third one, who barely lost to Thompson as Illinois Governor and ended up in the Senate. And a 4th and 5th of no importance.

A lot of the extremely obscure answer lines are stuff that even I barely know or not know at all. And I'm usually good at the non-canon stuff. Dextromethorphan I heard a few times but I wouldn't have gotten it off the acronym. Same with "indirect rule". George Magazine is apparently well known by people somehow knowing 1995 current events, but has no historical relevance since then. Some older person probably wrote the question, as knowledge of it is probably shared by a lot of people over 40. WIllow Glass is a "nope"-I negged it with Gorilla Glass. Ella Fitzgerald's clues were not really that descriptive and based more about perception than her work (Pechi got it at the end), etc etc

There seemed to be a lot of "cargo cult question making"--they knew the appearance of pyramidal questions, but not their structure. A lot of bonus leadins could be summarized as "true", giving no indication as to the three parts of the bonus. The frequent use of quotations also contributed to this. Additionally, there was a non-trivial number of almanac clues.

Finally, I'd like to see the text for the "acephalous rule" and "Dickson Mounds" questions (and maybe a few others that were particularly bad), because when looking them up on Wikipedia I noticed they may have used similar key words.
(edit: Probably coincidental).
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by Rococo A Go Go »

Ydiwa wrote: George Magazine is apparently well known by people somehow knowing 1995 current events, but has no historical relevance since then.
It barely had any relevance in 1995!
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by jonah »

Ydiwa wrote:Finally, I'd like to see the text for the "acephalous rule" and "Dickson Mounds" questions (and maybe a few others that were particularly bad), because when looking them up on Wikipedia I noticed they may have used similar key words.
According to my perfect memory and extremely acute hearing, IHSA regionals round 3 bonus 6 wrote:Answer these questions about British colonialism in Nigeria.
[snip]
This term, meaning "headless society", describes a pre-colonial traditional Nigerian village or clan governed by committee or consensus because it did not have a structured governing leader. The Igbo are an example.
According to my remarkable eyesight that allowed me to see the misspelled answer line from miles away, IHSA regionals round 3 tossup 12 wrote:Among the active sites of this archaeological museum is the Eveland Village, whose three main structures are believed to be the main ceremonial buildings for the local Mississippian culture. Also on the grounds is the Ogden-Fette site which was one of six major gathering points for the local Havana Hopewell settlements. Name this Illinois archaeological museum whose main exhibit, which displays 248 Native American graves unearthed in 1927 on a family farm by the site's namesake chiropractor, was closed to public viewing in 1992.
Answer: [Accept either] Dixon Mounds Museum / Dixon Mound Museum
Yes, the main exhibit at this allegedly important thing was closed before current high school students were born. Also, thanks to the idiocy of calling archaeology a science, this was a science question.
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by Birds2013 »

The fact they didn't accept "Downfall of Matt Schaub's Career" for the title of the book on concussions was easily the most tragic moment of the night.
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by Irreligion in Bangladesh »

Ydiwa wrote:There seemed to be a lot of "cargo cult question making"--they knew the appearance of pyramidal questions, but not their structure.
This is, by far, the best phrasing of the vague emotion that I've been feeling for years about all of the bad questions, and that I felt last night about *every* question.
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by snacksinthebasement »

I think I went to Dickson Mounds when I was in elementary school, so I don't think it closed in 1992. We also converted DXM on the cough syrup clue, thanks to our team's deep NyQuil knowledge.
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by jonah »

snacksinthebasement wrote:I think I went to Dickson Mounds when I was in elementary school, so I don't think it closed in 1992.
It's not entirely closed, but what was once the main exhibit closed. (I'm assuming Wikipedia is correct here, since the IHSA set seems to mostly be based on it—at least for the writers who have computers.)
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by JHuh33 »

Does anybody remember the bonus series on "something-something short stories by Clark"?
Is that trash lit?
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by Birds2013 »

Maybe it was just me, but I think world lit was not invited to the party.
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by Maxwell Sniffingwell »

JHuh33 wrote:Does anybody remember the bonus series on "something-something short stories by Clark"?
Is that trash lit?
The Bret Harte bonus? That's regular lit, and a completely acceptable bonus topic - just unbelievably, ridiculously hard. Outcasts of Poker Flat/character from Outcasts of Poker Flat/character from Outcasts of Poker Flat... it was insane.

If there was a bonus on Arthur C. Clarke's short stories, though? Wikipedia has just taught me the word "Twerms", but that's equally stupid.



This tourney may have been written by Twerms*.


*Donald, your myth was just fine - thanks for a bright spot.
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by remake20 »

cornfused wrote:
JHuh33 wrote:Does anybody remember the bonus series on "something-something short stories by Clark"?
Is that trash lit?
The Bret Harte bonus? That's regular lit, and a completely acceptable bonus topic - just unbelievably, ridiculously hard. Outcasts of Poker Flat/character from Outcasts of Poker Flat/character from Outcasts of Poker Flat... it was insane.
I didn't think it was that difficult. TOoPF comes up frequently enough (We've had it at least twice this year) to not be obscure. The first part was the state in which it takes place (which I cannot think of any "this state" lit questions that haven't been California), then the main character of the story, and then a minor character. The last part was a bit of a stretch, but it was much easier than many of the other bonuses.

EDIT: Punctuation
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by heterodyne »

remake20 wrote:
cornfused wrote:
JHuh33 wrote:Does anybody remember the bonus series on "something-something short stories by Clark"?
Is that trash lit?
The Bret Harte bonus? That's regular lit, and a completely acceptable bonus topic - just unbelievably, ridiculously hard. Outcasts of Poker Flat/character from Outcasts of Poker Flat/character from Outcasts of Poker Flat... it was insane.
I didn't think it was that difficult. TOoPF comes up frequently enough (We've had it at least twice this year) to not be obscure. The first part was the state in which it takes place (which I cannot think of any "this state" lit questions that haven't been California), then the main character of the story, and then a minor character. The last part was a bit of a stretch, but it was much easier than many of the other bonuses.

EDIT: Punctuation
Mother Shipton is not too bad, but a standard OoPF bonus would go something like Harte/Poker Flat/Shipton.
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by dtaylor4 »

cornfused wrote:
JHuh33 wrote:Does anybody remember the bonus series on "something-something short stories by Clark"?
Is that trash lit?
The Bret Harte bonus? That's regular lit, and a completely acceptable bonus topic - just unbelievably, ridiculously hard. Outcasts of Poker Flat/character from Outcasts of Poker Flat/character from Outcasts of Poker Flat... it was insane.

If there was a bonus on Arthur C. Clarke's short stories, though? Wikipedia has just taught me the word "Twerms", but that's equally stupid.



This tourney may have been written by Twerms*.


*Donald, your myth was just fine - thanks for a bright spot.
Thanks.

I wrote the entirety of the myth, and still have the questions I submitted. If anyone has any questions/issues, I'm all ears.
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by Emil Nolde »

Yeah, by the way, I'm pretty sure the thing Jonathan meant was not the Bret Harte thing (I'm not sure why people thought it was). He 20'd that by himself, and got prompted on the third part after saying " . . . the prostitute?" Anyway, I don't remember for sure, but I don't think Clarke came up in the Hugo/Nebula award winners bonus. I honestly have no idea what he was meaning to say.

Anyway, our sectional site is done, but as soon as all of them are over, there's at least one thing I need to bring up.
Last edited by Emil Nolde on Sat Mar 15, 2014 10:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by JHuh33 »

I probably misheard something for whatever the Clark questions actually were.

Sectionals:
1. Is the "Battle of Karnal" even a college answer-line?
2. All three parts to a comp. math bonus were "3"
3. Replacement tossup on "Also Sprach Zarathustra"... after dropping "wanderer above the sea of fog" earlier.

"Also Sprach Zarathustra" was the Strauss work, but I still found it weird.

Could I see the second part of the Schoenberg bonus and the entire Willa Cather bonus?
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by jonah »

All the sectional scores are posted except for Mount Vernon, which I independently know to be over (not least because you were there), so go ahead.
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by Stained Diviner »

JHuh33 wrote:Is the "Battle of Karnal" even a college answer-line?
The only example I could find was it being used as the answer to the hard part of a bonus at the 2013 VCU Closed. The only mention I could find in a high school tournament was as an early clue in a 2008 HFT tossup.
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by Southern Double-collared Sunbirb »

The sectionals had, as a rule, lots of left turns and Really Hard parts. There are too many to count, but one good example of both was the "light" bonus. Getting "yellow" off its wavelength range was my proudest moment of the day.
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by Auroni »

yellow?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by jonah »

ether a go-go wrote:
JHuh33 wrote:Is the "Battle of Karnal" even a college answer-line?
The only example I could find was it being used as the answer to the hard part of a bonus at the 2013 VCU Closed. The only mention I could find in a high school tournament was as an early clue in a 2008 HFT tossup.
I also have it used in the intro to a bonus at the 2013 ICT, early-middle clue at 2009 Penn Bowl, bonus part clue in 2009 THUNDER, bonus part clue in 2011 ACF Regionals, middle clue at 2010 Chicago Open, middle clue at 2012 Chicago Open history doubles, and second clue at 2013 PACE NSC. Needless to say (I would have thought), it is far too hard an answer line for high school packets (except that Sister John doesn't believe in the concept of difficulty or that anyone can credibly assess it).
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by Southern Double-collared Sunbirb »

Kenneth Widmerpool wrote:yellow?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
Yes. It is apparent that the wavelengths for the different colours of light (visible 380 to 750 nm, blue 450-495, yellow 570-590) were taken from this graph on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Linea ... ectrum.svg. Other sources give slightly different values for each, of which I found at least one that gave orange a value of 590 nm, so that question might even have been ambiguous, depending on which values you had.

EDIT: They might not have, they needed to put indigo somewhere. Could someone post that question text if they have it?
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by the return of AHAN »

Anton, Anton, Anton, no one is supposed to hang on to IHSA questions. You need someone with a perfect memory to get those posted here...
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by Birds2013 »

I found it odd that the Satre TU didn't mention No Exit or "hell is other people", I was able to get it at the end, but it seemed to be cut short a line or two.
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by Emil Nolde »

Birds2013 wrote:I found it odd that the Satre TU didn't mention No Exit or "hell is other people", I was able to get it at the end, but it seemed to be cut short a line or two.
You were expecting pyramidality? Seriously, though a Sartre question doesn't need anything from No Exit. It's fine to put it in, but if that's the only thing you're going to get Sartre on, then, you know, study or something.
Ydiwa wrote:The sectionals had, as a rule, lots of left turns and Really Hard parts. There are too many to count, but one good example of both was the "light" bonus. Getting "yellow" off its wavelength range was my proudest moment of the day.
It wasn't that hard to me, because they gave the wavelength range for blue, and since there was a gap between the maximum of the blue light wavelength and the minimum of the range we were looking for, I figured it couldn't be green, and thus was probably yellow. This didn't keep Prerak from saying green and getting it wrong, though. Oh well.
jonah wrote:
ether a go-go wrote:
JHuh33 wrote:Is the "Battle of Karnal" even a college answer-line?
The only example I could find was it being used as the answer to the hard part of a bonus at the 2013 VCU Closed. The only mention I could find in a high school tournament was as an early clue in a 2008 HFT tossup.
I also have it used in the intro to a bonus at the 2013 ICT, early-middle clue at 2009 Penn Bowl, bonus part clue in 2009 THUNDER, bonus part clue in 2011 ACF Regionals, middle clue at 2010 Chicago Open, middle clue at 2012 Chicago Open history doubles, and second clue at 2013 PACE NSC. Needless to say (I would have thought), it is far too hard an answer line for high school packets (except that Sister John doesn't believe in the concept of difficulty or that anyone can credibly assess it).
I, for one, welcome our new, completely legitimate and really knowledgeable IHSA overlords.

Anyway, that totally wrong thing I was talking about earlier. That Charlie Parker question. Unless I have some hearing issues, it sounded like they said he wrote "Embraceable You". I happen to be playing that right now. The sheet music says it was written by George and Ira Gershwin. I checked when I got home. Besides, last time I checked, Parker wasn't a vocal performer/composer anyway. I guess their fact-checker and does-this-even-really-make-sense guy was out to lunch. I guess it doesn't really matter anymore, but still, anyone who was also very confused/angered by that question can totally high-five me in Peoria.


Seriously, though, I feel that overall, this was at least marginally better than the Regional set. Maybe by Friday I will no longer feel a significant desire to feign physical illness.
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by Ubermensch »

Apart from the rest of the entire set, there were issues with non-specific clues in questions. The two that come to mind are the Argon and Local Minimum tossups which described having a full octet (any noble gas) and being found at critical points (could be local maximum or global min/max).

The giveaway for Vitamin A, according to Siva, did not actually give it away and the clues before could apply to Vitamin C as well.

Having the '3' bonus be given to the other team was particularly annoying as they were obviously guessing towards the end.

The Jung tossup seemed like they were trying to get you to neg with Freud and then were just like "jk, synchronicity"

Date fraud was abundant in just about all categories.

WHO TOSSES UP CASTRATI?

The Chagall third part was disgusting, but we have a Belarussian on our team, so it's all good.

The Federalism bonus was definitely not high school difficulty.

Was there an easy part on Willa Cather? Andrew was able to get Letour and I got Thea Kroneberg, but I feel other teams probably would have struggled with it.

Also, the bonus that had My Antonia as a part was incredibly hard. You would think that they would not have to have an entire bonus on Willa Cather characters after either. Which reminds me, two transcendentalists? Really?

Speaking of which, Emerson, imo, had a crazy difficulty cliff.

Gulag Archipelago is certainly gettable off of the initials clue, but definitely not high school difficulty.

Chromosome did not get accepted for chromatin.

Lit in general was either hit or miss, there were some things I felt were OK and others where I could only sit there and wait for them to get through a useless quote, not even from a work, but about a work.

And, last but not least, MATH. I think in general, this was the most poorly done as not only were patterns abundant, but the answerlines were blatantly wrong. And I would have been fine if maybe an answerline or two were wrong, but it honestly felt like the majority of it was incorrect.

There's probably a lot more that I'm missing. By the end of the third round, I was kind of nauseous. Whether that's because of the questions or the pizza the night before remains to be seen.
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by Harpie's Feather Duster »

thyringe_supine wrote: Anyway, that totally wrong thing I was talking about earlier. That Charlie Parker question. Unless I have some hearing issues, it sounded like they said he wrote "Embraceable You". I happen to be playing that right now. The sheet music says it was written by George and Ira Gershwin. I checked when I got home. Besides, last time I checked, Parker wasn't a vocal performer/composer anyway. I guess their fact-checker and does-this-even-really-make-sense guy was out to lunch. I guess it doesn't really matter anymore, but still, anyone who was also very confused/angered by that question can totally high-five me in Peoria.


Seriously, though, I feel that overall, this was at least marginally better than the Regional set. Maybe by Friday I will no longer feel a significant desire to feign physical illness.
"Embraceable You" is indeed written by the Gershwins, but Parker played a version of it with his quintet on the album Cool Bird. I can see this neg happening for 2 reasons: 1 being that the question was just straight up wrong, and 2 being that you misheard the exact wording of the question.

Even if 2 is true, the question suffers from an issue that I find in a lot of jazz tossups: popular jazz standards were frequently performed by multiple ensembles containing many famous jazz musicans (the Parker quintet I was referring to also contained Miles Davis, for example.) Therefore, you have to be really careful about wording in order to make sure your jazz tossups are full of non-clues since you might not be able to be sure if they're referring to, say, Parker's recording of "Embraceable You" or Herbie Hancock's.
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by heterodyne »

Ubermensch wrote: The Federalism bonus was definitely not high school difficulty.
On the contrary, it, like many other questions (Treaty of Lodi, Nigerian colonial things) appears to be taken directly from AP flashcards. In this case, US Gov. Layer cake federalism is something that is straight from that curriculum. The last part was weird, in that we learned it only as marble cake federalism.

EDIT: And, here it is! http://www.apstudynotes.org/us-governme ... ederalism/
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by Irreligion in Bangladesh »

The questions seemed epsilon better than Regionals, but we still nearly sent the wrong team out of our sectional. 8 tossups went dead in the first half of the Newman/Keith game, and it went to overtime. Newman's like 3-5 PPB better than Keith on regular sets this year; there's no way that we should combine for less than half of the tossups in a game, and there's no way it should be that close (especially when they're better at comp math than we are). Parents from each school at our site complained to me that the questions seemed far worse than last year.

Here are the Members Poll rankings (as of just before Masonic State) of teams in the IHSA pools:

Class A:
7: Urbana University
8: Carterville
UR: Athens
UR: Lisle

1: Litchfield
2: Cumberland
5: Newman
10: Elmwood

(In my opinion, and in Masonic results, Newman and Carterville are underranked in the February poll.)

Class AA:
1: IMSA
4: Bloomington
5: Springfield
6: Carbondale

2: Stevenson
3: Auburn
15: UChicago Lab
23: OPRF
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by AKKOLADE »

Ydiwa wrote:Dextromethorphan I heard a few times but I wouldn't have gotten it off the acronym.
Since this is pertinent to my interests: how did this work exactly?
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Re: 2014 IHSA

Post by Irreligion in Bangladesh »

Grams's Go-Go Boots wrote:
Ydiwa wrote:Dextromethorphan I heard a few times but I wouldn't have gotten it off the acronym.
Since this is pertinent to my interests: how did this work exactly?
It was basically 6 lines of "don't do drugs; these are street names for this drug." It was not a science question, and would infuriate you greatly if you saw it. I don't have the questions, though.

While I'm here, did anyone else get annoyed by the "name the differentiation rule" bonus? In retrospect, had I been playing, I would have just said "logarithmic implicit differentiation" to all parts and protested my way to 30 points.
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