Specific Questions Discussion (2014 Penn Bowl)

Old college threads.
Locked
User avatar
Sima Guang Hater
Auron
Posts: 1958
Joined: Mon Feb 05, 2007 1:43 pm
Location: Nashville, TN

Specific Questions Discussion (2014 Penn Bowl)

Post by Sima Guang Hater »

If that question you're itching to discuss isn't by Will or Rob, feel free to talk about it here.
Eric Mukherjee, MD PhD
Brown 2009, Penn Med 2018
Instructor/Attending Physician/Postdoctoral Fellow, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Coach, University School of Nashville

“The next generation will always surpass the previous one. It’s one of the never-ending cycles in life.”
Support the Stevens-Johnson Syndrome Foundation
User avatar
vinteuil
Auron
Posts: 1454
Joined: Sun Oct 23, 2011 12:31 pm

Re: Specific Questions Discussion

Post by vinteuil »

A nitpick in the music: I think that the Haydn question should use "The Seasons" instead of the german title, just to help readers who can't do German (and people who have to hear the question through them). This was the only other music question I had any strong feelings about: "eleventh keyboard concerto" needs "D Major" to really get people to Haydn (in my experience, at least), and the next clue was a combination of a good score clue (that I should have known) and a Brahms anecdote that I can't imagine helped anyone.
Jacob R., ex-Chicago
gustavadolf
Lulu
Posts: 34
Joined: Tue Jan 22, 2013 10:18 pm
Location: Austin

Re: Specific Questions Discussion

Post by gustavadolf »

"Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons" seemed like an unforgiving answerline, although that might be my lack of upper-level orgo experience speaking. We said 'arenes' and weren't prompted or anything.
Corin Wagen
Kealing '12
LASA '16
MIT '20
User avatar
#1 Mercury Adept
Wakka
Posts: 240
Joined: Mon Jan 28, 2008 11:18 pm
Location: Ithaca, NY

Re: Specific Questions Discussion

Post by #1 Mercury Adept »

The "requiems" tossup also had a quote which I assume must be from Brahms' German Requiem (something about "die, die in dem Herrn sterben"), which gave me a "wait, wait, it couldn't just be THAT?" moment.
M(ir)ia(m) Nussbaum
Former player for Ithaca High School, Cornell, MIT
User avatar
Sima Guang Hater
Auron
Posts: 1958
Joined: Mon Feb 05, 2007 1:43 pm
Location: Nashville, TN

Re: Specific Questions Discussion

Post by Sima Guang Hater »

gustavadolf wrote:"Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons" seemed like an unforgiving answerline, although that might be my lack of upper-level orgo experience speaking. We said 'arenes' and weren't prompted or anything.
That should have been a prompt
Eric Mukherjee, MD PhD
Brown 2009, Penn Med 2018
Instructor/Attending Physician/Postdoctoral Fellow, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Coach, University School of Nashville

“The next generation will always surpass the previous one. It’s one of the never-ending cycles in life.”
Support the Stevens-Johnson Syndrome Foundation
User avatar
Gonzagapuma1
Tidus
Posts: 543
Joined: Tue May 02, 2006 5:02 pm
Location: Chicago, IL

Re: Specific Questions Discussion

Post by Gonzagapuma1 »

The film tossups I remember were pretty awful. The FMJ tossup went from a lead-in probably taken from Wikipedia to one of the most famous scenes in the movie. The Bunuel lead-in was basically, "this guy did Surrealist stuff!".
Dan Puma
Alum: Gonzaga, Montgomery College, University of Maryland
Currently Unaffiliated
MAQT President-ish, 2014-2015
Champion of the Modern World, 2014
Former Member, PACE
User avatar
vinteuil
Auron
Posts: 1454
Joined: Sun Oct 23, 2011 12:31 pm

Re: Specific Questions Discussion

Post by vinteuil »

Urban Jarnik wrote:The "requiems" tossup also had a quote which I assume must be from Brahms' German Requiem (something about "die, die in dem Herrn sterben"), which gave me a "wait, wait, it couldn't just be THAT?" moment.
I think you heard "Selig sind" and buzzed (the next word is German for "dead," and yeah "sterben" is "to die")--I think the actual quote was from the Schütz. I agree that that clue might be unwittingly easier because the texts for the Schütz and Brahms are so similar.
Jacob R., ex-Chicago
User avatar
#1 Mercury Adept
Wakka
Posts: 240
Joined: Mon Jan 28, 2008 11:18 pm
Location: Ithaca, NY

Re: Specific Questions Discussion

Post by #1 Mercury Adept »

Right -- my point was that I know German, but neither of those pieces.
M(ir)ia(m) Nussbaum
Former player for Ithaca High School, Cornell, MIT
User avatar
Doga (Dog Yoga)
Lulu
Posts: 48
Joined: Wed Jun 04, 2014 7:12 pm

Re: Specific Questions Discussion

Post by Doga (Dog Yoga) »

Could I see the tossup on genetic drift?
Rohith Nagari
Brown '17
User avatar
samus149
Wakka
Posts: 128
Joined: Fri Dec 28, 2012 10:36 pm

Re: Specific Questions Discussion

Post by samus149 »

Could I see that tossup on Tahiti? I think the first clue was pretty transparent, seeing how it's one of the most famous features of Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?, which is definitely the most famous of his Tahitian paintings.
Sean M.
HTHS '14
Cornell University '18
UCSB '23

The opinions presented in this user's posts have not been approved by HTHS Quizbowl Team. Viewer discretion is advised. - Patrick LeBlanc, Captain
User avatar
UlyssesInvictus
Yuna
Posts: 845
Joined: Thu Feb 10, 2011 7:38 pm

Re: Specific Questions Discussion

Post by UlyssesInvictus »

supervillin wrote:Could I see the tossup on genetic drift?
To speak up for Sriram, since I don't think he visits the forums, was evolution / natural selection promptable? He buzzed on the second or so clue and was denied.
Raynor Kuang
quizdb.org
Harvard 2017, TJHSST 2013
I wrote GRAPHIC and FILM
User avatar
Doga (Dog Yoga)
Lulu
Posts: 48
Joined: Wed Jun 04, 2014 7:12 pm

Re: Specific Questions Discussion

Post by Doga (Dog Yoga) »

UlyssesInvictus wrote:
supervillin wrote:Could I see the tossup on genetic drift?
To speak up for Sriram, since I don't think he visits the forums, was evolution / natural selection promptable? He buzzed on the second or so clue and was denied.
The same thing happened to me. I buzzed on Kimura and said evolution because his theory is called the Neutral Theory of Molecular Evolution and got negged. I feel like evolution should at least be promptable at that point.
Rohith Nagari
Brown '17
User avatar
Cody
2008-09 Male Athlete of the Year
Posts: 2891
Joined: Sun Nov 15, 2009 12:57 am

Re: Specific Questions Discussion

Post by Cody »

Evolution is probably promptable; natural selection is wrong. (I didn't write the question; I just know this from MFT last year).
Last edited by Cody on Sun Oct 19, 2014 3:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Cody Voight, VCU ’14.
User avatar
UlyssesInvictus
Yuna
Posts: 845
Joined: Thu Feb 10, 2011 7:38 pm

Re: Specific Questions Discussion

Post by UlyssesInvictus »

Alright--he said evolution initially and then when Will looked hesitant, started trying to figure out what the question wanted. Could you post the tossup and point out exactly where evolution might have stopped being promptable (if ever?) My research is sort of in this thing, so I'm also interested in figuring out what was going on.
Raynor Kuang
quizdb.org
Harvard 2017, TJHSST 2013
I wrote GRAPHIC and FILM
User avatar
Victor Prieto
Auron
Posts: 1192
Joined: Tue May 08, 2012 5:15 pm
Location: New York, NY

Re: Specific Questions Discussion

Post by Victor Prieto »

supervillin wrote:
UlyssesInvictus wrote:
supervillin wrote:Could I see the tossup on genetic drift?
To speak up for Sriram, since I don't think he visits the forums, was evolution / natural selection promptable? He buzzed on the second or so clue and was denied.
The same thing happened to me. I buzzed on Kimura and said evolution because his theory is called the Neutral Theory of Molecular Evolution and got negged too. I feel like evolution should at least be promptable at that point.
I also negged with evolution at this point.

The Chinese Exclusion Act bonus part referred to it as a "treaty" in the second half of the question, which actually induced us to discard Chinese Exclusion Act as a possible answer.

I would like to take the science bonuses from a single packet to highlight the wonkiness in difficulty that I referred to in the other thread. I'll select packet 6, because through a weird set of circumstances, it's the only one I have access to right now.
Penn Bowl 2014, Packet 6 wrote:Physics: general relativity/Einstein field equations/perfect fluid
Math: Taylor series/cosine/annulus
Chemistry: chirality/Cahn-Ingold-Prelog rules/Troger's base
Biology: hemophilia/ovary/protein C
I'm not really qualified to speak to the difficulty of the math bonus, but it seems okay, as in, regular difficulty. Meanwhile, the other three bonuses are all over the place. The physics bonus is appropriate for ACF Fall, the chemistry bonus has perfectly fine easy and medium parts, while the hard part is really, really hard, and the biology bonus seemed to be okay (I just forgot that BRCA is linked to both breast and ovarian cancer).

Finally, I'll also note that while I was very happy to thirty the buckyballs bonus, there's just no way that either purple or Curl/Smalley/Kroto could fly as a middle part at regular difficulty.
Victor Prieto
Secretary, PACE
Tower Hill School '11 | Rice University '15 | Penn State University '21
Writer: NAQT (2019-present) | Writer, Editor: HSAPQ (2013-2016)
Member (and lots of other stuff): PACE (2015-present)
User avatar
Ike
Auron
Posts: 1063
Joined: Sat Jul 26, 2008 5:01 pm

Re: Specific Questions Discussion

Post by Ike »

Corner Grocery Store wrote:Could I see that tossup on Tahiti? I think the first clue was pretty transparent, seeing how it's one of the most famous features of Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?, which is definitely the most famous of his Tahitian paintings.
I don't think the word transparent is the right word - it seems like what your saying is that the lead-in may have been too easy, we covered Gauguin's "suicide" in class, so I thought Will Alston had selected a particularly juicy clue.

In regards to genetic drift:
Evolution is probably promptable; natural selection is wrong. (I didn't write the question; I just know this from MFT last year).
The question wrote:One theory posits that most instances of fixation are actually due to this phenomenon; that theory, which was developed by (*) Motoo Kimura, is called the neutral theory
I pretty much disagree with accepting either other answer, natural selection is definitely wrong, and evolution is what the theory is trying to explain - the question is explicitly asking for what causes evolution / fixations. I'd basically site Jerry's "attention must be paid" mantra in this spot.

Next:
I would like to take the science bonuses from a single packet to highlight the wonkiness in difficulty that I referred to in the other thread. I'll select packet 6, because through a weird set of circumstances, it's the only one I have access to right now.

Penn Bowl 2014, Packet 6 wrote:Physics: general relativity/Einstein field equations/perfect fluid
Math: Taylor series/cosine/annulus
Chemistry: chirality/Cahn-Ingold-Prelog rules/Troger's base
Biology: hemophilia/ovary/protein C

I'm not really qualified to speak to the difficulty of the math bonus, but it seems okay, as in, regular difficulty. Meanwhile, the other three bonuses are all over the place. The physics bonus is appropriate for ACF Fall, the chemistry bonus has perfectly fine easy and medium parts, while the hard part is really, really hard, and the biology bonus seemed to be okay (I just forgot that BRCA is linked to both breast and ovarian cancer).

Finally, I'll also note that while I was very happy to thirty the buckyballs bonus, there's just no way that either purple or Curl/Smalley/Kroto could fly as a middle part at regular difficulty.
I briefly looked over all of the set, chemistry is by far my worst category in quizbowl, so I'm hardly qualified to speak about it, but there were times I thought that the chemistry bonuses were really hard, so I get what you're saying. But I think what you're saying is misguided, you begin by saying something akin to "here's an example of something really wrong with Penn Bowl's approach to science bonuses." You then cite four bonuses and end up saying "I don't know anything about math" and "this bonus on biology is okay," leaving only really two as the subject of criticism. So why not just saying the "chemistry hard parts in this set were too hard" or "physics bonuses seemed liked they had ACF Fall hard parts" as opposed to making a bunch of claims about the entirety of science?
Ike
UIUC 13
User avatar
naan/steak-holding toll
Auron
Posts: 2515
Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2011 11:53 pm
Location: New York, NY

Re: Specific Questions Discussion

Post by naan/steak-holding toll »

Corner Grocery Store wrote:Could I see that tossup on Tahiti? I think the first clue was pretty transparent, seeing how it's one of the most famous features of Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?, which is definitely the most famous of his Tahitian paintings.
Round 7 wrote:10. One artist said he would commit suicide after completing a painting of this place which he claimed should be read from right to left, thus ending at the left with an “old woman approaching death” who is “resigned to her thoughts.” The background of a self-portrait of an artist in this place shows one of that artist’s paintings in which an old woman in black looks at a nude girl who is imagining ghosts. Another painting showing people from this place shows a child eating an apple in the foreground while a woman listens to a large (*) blue idol. Spirit of the Dead Watching depicts this place, whose natives are shown in three groups representing three existential questions in Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? For 10 points, name this Pacific Island whose women are the subject of numerous Gauguin paintings.
ANSWER: Tahiti [accept any location within Tahiti or anything mentioning Tahiti] <WA>
Since actual art history doesn't seem that well-ingrained into the quizbowl canon, I think it's completely fine to place this clue where it is. As Ike says, it's definitely not transparent, and I like the idea of rewarding people learning about the context of art in an academic tournament.
Will Alston
Dartmouth College '16
Columbia Business School '21
User avatar
UlyssesInvictus
Yuna
Posts: 845
Joined: Thu Feb 10, 2011 7:38 pm

Re: Specific Questions Discussion

Post by UlyssesInvictus »

If I had to guess, I'd assume people are referring by "first" clue in the Tahiti tossup to the right-left viewing, not the suicide. Either way, I agree that clue is too early.
Raynor Kuang
quizdb.org
Harvard 2017, TJHSST 2013
I wrote GRAPHIC and FILM
User avatar
Victor Prieto
Auron
Posts: 1192
Joined: Tue May 08, 2012 5:15 pm
Location: New York, NY

Re: Specific Questions Discussion

Post by Victor Prieto »

Ike wrote:I briefly looked over all of the set, chemistry is by far my worst category in quizbowl, so I'm hardly qualified to speak about it, but there were times I thought that the chemistry bonuses were really hard, so I get what you're saying. But I think what you're saying is misguided, you begin by saying something akin to "here's an example of something really wrong with Penn Bowl's approach to science bonuses." You then cite four bonuses and end up saying "I don't know anything about math" and "this bonus on biology is okay," leaving only really two as the subject of criticism. So why not just saying the "chemistry hard parts in this set were too hard" or "physics bonuses seemed liked they had ACF Fall hard parts" as opposed to making a bunch of claims about the entirety of science?
Sorry, I worded that poorly. What I meant by "all over the place" is that I felt that the questions were inconsistent in testing levels of knowledge across science categories. I used the bonuses from packet 6 as an example of the range of knowledge tested for each category. It's true, there were a couple chemistry hard parts that I thought were too hard (Benedict-Webb Rubin, calixarenes) and a physics bonus that was at ACF Fall level (tennis racket/torque/parallel axis), but I wasn't trying to claim either of those assertions were true for the whole set. Sometimes, it was the biology or physics that had the impossible third parts (I don't recall any other ACF Fall level bonuses in categories other than physics).

Also, why is there a symbol for two hearts inserted halfway through the "Glarus thrust" answerline in packet 4?
Victor Prieto
Secretary, PACE
Tower Hill School '11 | Rice University '15 | Penn State University '21
Writer: NAQT (2019-present) | Writer, Editor: HSAPQ (2013-2016)
Member (and lots of other stuff): PACE (2015-present)
User avatar
Auks Ran Ova
Forums Staff: Chief Administrator
Posts: 4295
Joined: Sun Apr 30, 2006 10:28 pm
Location: Minneapolis
Contact:

Re: Specific Questions Discussion

Post by Auks Ran Ova »

UlyssesInvictus wrote:If I had to guess, I'd assume people are referring by "first" clue in the Tahiti tossup to the right-left viewing, not the suicide. Either way, I agree that clue is too early.
This seems correct--I didn't notice this when I was glancing over the painting during editing, for which I apologize, but the right-to-left clue is probably too early.
Rob Carson
University of Minnesota '11, MCTC '??, BHSU forever
Member, ACF
Member emeritus, PACE
Writer and Editor, NAQT
User avatar
UlyssesInvictus
Yuna
Posts: 845
Joined: Thu Feb 10, 2011 7:38 pm

Re: Specific Questions Discussion

Post by UlyssesInvictus »

For the Michael question, a teammate buzzed in around Eastern Orthodoxy with Saint Michael. At first the mod took it, then realized he said Saint instead of Archangel and negged him. At the time, everyone agreed that was the right decision, and Yale was handily beating us anyways, so it didn't matter.

However, after looking it up on wikipedia, it seems Saint Michael also does refer to the Archangel. Is this a promptable/acceptable answer? (and if so, the editors should add prompt/accept alternate answers to the question, i guess)
Raynor Kuang
quizdb.org
Harvard 2017, TJHSST 2013
I wrote GRAPHIC and FILM
User avatar
Sima Guang Hater
Auron
Posts: 1958
Joined: Mon Feb 05, 2007 1:43 pm
Location: Nashville, TN

Re: Specific Questions Discussion

Post by Sima Guang Hater »

UlyssesInvictus wrote:For the Michael question, a teammate buzzed in around Eastern Orthodoxy with Saint Michael. At first the mod took it, then realized he said Saint instead of Archangel and negged him. At the time, everyone agreed that was the right decision, and Yale was handily beating us anyways, so it didn't matter.

However, after looking it up on wikipedia, it seems Saint Michael also does refer to the Archangel. Is this a promptable/acceptable answer? (and if so, the editors should add prompt/accept alternate answers to the question, i guess)
That is an acceptable answer, and I accepted it in my room. My mistake for not putting it in the answerline.
Eric Mukherjee, MD PhD
Brown 2009, Penn Med 2018
Instructor/Attending Physician/Postdoctoral Fellow, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Coach, University School of Nashville

“The next generation will always surpass the previous one. It’s one of the never-ending cycles in life.”
Support the Stevens-Johnson Syndrome Foundation
User avatar
UlyssesInvictus
Yuna
Posts: 845
Joined: Thu Feb 10, 2011 7:38 pm

Re: Specific Questions Discussion

Post by UlyssesInvictus »

PennBowl 2014 Round 6 wrote:[10] This creator and trickster god was said to have freed people from a clamshell on the beach. This black bird was a deity to the people of the Pacific Northwest like the Haida.
ANSWER: Raven [do not accept “Crow”]
So what's the accepted thing to do about raven/crow answerlines? This question was prompted by looking at this specific question, but I kind of want to expand the discussion if there's debate. I don't know about the specific figure described in the question, but raven/crow are definitely conflated elsewhere, right? I guess this could be treated on a case by case basis, but I'm of the opinion that they're conflated so often* that players should be given the benefit of the doubt. Thoughts?

(*Not to mention that North American myth systems, where crow and raven show up considerably, overlap a huge amount anyways.)
Raynor Kuang
quizdb.org
Harvard 2017, TJHSST 2013
I wrote GRAPHIC and FILM
User avatar
Auks Ran Ova
Forums Staff: Chief Administrator
Posts: 4295
Joined: Sun Apr 30, 2006 10:28 pm
Location: Minneapolis
Contact:

Re: Specific Questions Discussion

Post by Auks Ran Ova »

This specific figure is definitely a raven and as far as I know is always referred to as such. In other mythologies or common links or whatever it might be worth being a little laxer, though writers should also be careful and take into account what things are usually referred to as so as not to confuse players: Huginn and Muninn are basically always called ravens, while the yatagarasu is almost always called a (three-legged) crow, for example.
Rob Carson
University of Minnesota '11, MCTC '??, BHSU forever
Member, ACF
Member emeritus, PACE
Writer and Editor, NAQT
User avatar
Gonzagapuma1
Tidus
Posts: 543
Joined: Tue May 02, 2006 5:02 pm
Location: Chicago, IL

Re: Specific Questions Discussion

Post by Gonzagapuma1 »

This is an incredibly minor thing, but it seems like the Braque Triptych was van der Weyden's only work for private display, while the question says public display.
Dan Puma
Alum: Gonzaga, Montgomery College, University of Maryland
Currently Unaffiliated
MAQT President-ish, 2014-2015
Champion of the Modern World, 2014
Former Member, PACE
User avatar
naan/steak-holding toll
Auron
Posts: 2515
Joined: Mon Feb 28, 2011 11:53 pm
Location: New York, NY

Re: Specific Questions Discussion

Post by naan/steak-holding toll »

Gonzagapuma1 wrote:This is an incredibly minor thing, but it seems like the Braque Triptych was van der Weyden's only work for private display, while the question says public display.
Oh whoops, seems like I got that backwards.
Will Alston
Dartmouth College '16
Columbia Business School '21
Rococo A Go Go
Auron
Posts: 2248
Joined: Sat Jan 10, 2009 1:08 am
Location: Kentucky

Re: Specific Questions Discussion

Post by Rococo A Go Go »

Can I see the bonus on voting?
Nicholas C
KQBA member
User avatar
Lefty734
Lulu
Posts: 35
Joined: Mon Apr 29, 2013 10:50 pm
Location: Georgia

Re: Specific Questions Discussion

Post by Lefty734 »

Can you post the toss up on oxygen evolution? I remember buzzing in with light reactions halfway through because I was unfamiliar with the term.
Nick Pinto
Flowery Branch High School '15
"Rappaccini's Daughters"
User avatar
Sima Guang Hater
Auron
Posts: 1958
Joined: Mon Feb 05, 2007 1:43 pm
Location: Nashville, TN

Re: Specific Questions Discussion

Post by Sima Guang Hater »

Lefty734 wrote:Can you post the toss up on oxygen evolution? I remember buzzing in with light reactions halfway through because I was unfamiliar with the term.
The PsbP protein and PsbQ protein are required for this process. This reaction turns the dye DCIP colorless. The mechanism of this process was elucidated using periodic discharges of a Joliot electrode by Bessel Kok, who proposed that the complex responsible for catalyzing it oscillated between five different S-states. Sometimes named for Robert Hill, this reaction is catalyzed by a complex that contains a single calcium and four manganese atoms in a (*) cluster. Four products of this process are later used to reduce two molecules of plastoquinone. The complex responsible for this reaction lies on the lumen side of the thylakoid membrane, and it’s driven by the oxidizing power of P680 For 10 points, name this reaction which immediately precedes the entry of electrons into photosystem II, in which water is oxidized.
ANSWER: oxygen evolution [or water oxidation until "water" is read; or Hill reaction until "Robert Hill" is read; prompt on “photosynthesis” or “electron transport”] <EM>
You should have been prompted, my mistake.
1. Morris Fiorina theorized a retrospective version of this political action while Anthony Downs thought people acquired information about doing this as the by-product of everyday life. For 10 points each:
[10] Identify this action that V.O. Key argued could successfully be used to hold politicians accountable in a “reward-punish” model of it.
ANSWER: voting [or obvious equivalents, such as casting a vote; do not prompt on “elections”]
[10] This trait, the psychological identification of a person with a political faction, is one of the strongest determinants of vote choice for individuals. The Michigan Model puts this trait at the forefront of its “funnel of causality.”
ANSWER: partisanship [or word forms, such as partisan]
[10] Experiments have found that the threat of revealing that a person did not vote to neighbors is more effective than appeals to civic-mindedness at increasing this measure, which is often depressed in campaigns with many attack ads.
ANSWER: voter turnout <CC>
Eric Mukherjee, MD PhD
Brown 2009, Penn Med 2018
Instructor/Attending Physician/Postdoctoral Fellow, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Coach, University School of Nashville

“The next generation will always surpass the previous one. It’s one of the never-ending cycles in life.”
Support the Stevens-Johnson Syndrome Foundation
adamsil
Wakka
Posts: 225
Joined: Wed Feb 09, 2011 6:20 pm

Re: Specific Questions Discussion

Post by adamsil »

Could you post the tossup on diffusion coefficient? Last week, I was legitimately sitting in class, wondering if it would be possible to write a tossup on that answerline, so I'm curious what some of the earliest clues were.

I've personally never heard that dye abbreviated as DCIP--I've always heard it as DCPIP, and Wikipedia says maybe DPIP too? You also ought to prompt on photosystem II. I wrote a similarly-incomplete answerline for a tossup on oxygen evolution for NASAT a few years ago, which was the only reason I'd heard the term "oxygen evolution" before. It wasn't a term we really used in my classes.

All in all, I really enjoyed the bio and chem. There were a few difficulty outliers, like the Ames test, or sodium hypochlorite, but I thought this tournament did a great job of making the easy parts of bonuses gettable even for not-very-experienced teams.

My only other feeling was that the leadin to stem cells that mentioned "feeder layer" was awfully easy--I didn't recognize another clue until tumor stem cells. It seems to me like the one of the first things someone's likely to learn about stem cells is how they're cultured.

Thanks for an enjoyable set!
Adam Silverman
BS Georgia Tech '16
PhD Northwestern '21
Rococo A Go Go
Auron
Posts: 2248
Joined: Sat Jan 10, 2009 1:08 am
Location: Kentucky

Re: Specific Questions Discussion

Post by Rococo A Go Go »

The Quest for the Historical Mukherjesus wrote: 1. Morris Fiorina theorized a retrospective version of this political action while Anthony Downs thought people acquired information about doing this as the by-product of everyday life. For 10 points each:
[10] Identify this action that V.O. Key argued could successfully be used to hold politicians accountable in a “reward-punish” model of it.
ANSWER: voting [or obvious equivalents, such as casting a vote; do not prompt on “elections”]
[10] This trait, the psychological identification of a person with a political faction, is one of the strongest determinants of vote choice for individuals. The Michigan Model puts this trait at the forefront of its “funnel of causality.”
ANSWER: partisanship [or word forms, such as partisan]
[10] Experiments have found that the threat of revealing that a person did not vote to neighbors is more effective than appeals to civic-mindedness at increasing this measure, which is often depressed in campaigns with many attack ads.
ANSWER: voter turnout <CC>
Thanks! I really enjoyed this bonus despite botching the middle part by confusing ideology and partisanship.
Nicholas C
KQBA member
User avatar
Sima Guang Hater
Auron
Posts: 1958
Joined: Mon Feb 05, 2007 1:43 pm
Location: Nashville, TN

Re: Specific Questions Discussion

Post by Sima Guang Hater »

adamsil wrote:Could you post the tossup on diffusion coefficient? Last week, I was legitimately sitting in class, wondering if it would be possible to write a tossup on that answerline, so I'm curious what some of the earliest clues were.
It’s not inductance, but this quantity’s “self” variety can be measured using pulsed-field gradient spin echo sequence in NMR. Converting between its tracer and chemical forms can be found using an expression including the derivative of the natural logs of the activity coefficient and the mole fraction. This constant appears in the div term of an equation that relates its namesake process to advection. It is reduced by the product of tortuosity, porosity and (*) hindrance in a porous material. This quantity is the product of Boltzmann’s constant, temperature, and mobility according to the Einstein relation. For 10 points, name this constant that multiplies the negative grad of the concentration in Fick’s first law, a constant which describes a process in which particles move from areas of high concentration to low concentration.
ANSWER: diffusion constant [or mass diffusivity; or diffusion coefficient] <EM>
The leadin was originally about the Maxwell-Stefan Law but I couldn't get it to work.
adamsil wrote:I've personally never heard that dye abbreviated as DCIP--I've always heard it as DCPIP, and Wikipedia says maybe DPIP too? You also ought to prompt on photosystem II. I wrote a similarly-incomplete answerline for a tossup on oxygen evolution for NASAT a few years ago, which was the only reason I'd heard the term "oxygen evolution" before. It wasn't a term we really used in my classes.
http://people.hsc.edu/faculty-staff/ede ... page_4.htm was my source. Seems like you're right that it's more generally known as DCPIP though.
adamsil wrote:My only other feeling was that the leadin to stem cells that mentioned "feeder layer" was awfully easy--I didn't recognize another clue until tumor stem cells. It seems to me like the one of the first things someone's likely to learn about stem cells is how they're cultured.
One type of these cells form cobblestone areas when plated on a feeder layer, while another type can be sorted using the marker STRO-1 and is isolated from the stromal vascular fraction. Reynolds and Weiss isolated another population of these cells from the subventricular zone, which form a characteristic spherical shape in vitro. John Dick proposed a subpopulation of these cells that exist within tumors, which, if not killed, will lead to (*) recurrence of the tumor. One variety of these cells, whose subtypes include mesenchymal and hematopoietic, can be artificially created by transfecting Klf4 and Sox2. Another type can be isolated from the inner cell mass of a blastocyst. For 10 points, name this general category of undifferentiated cells, whose embryonic variety can be induced to differentiate into any cell type.
ANSWER: stem cells [accept more specific answers such as “embryonic stem cells” as “ES” or “induced pluripotent stem cells” as “iPS cells”] <EM>
Are feeder layers unique to ESCs? I don't do cell culture so I wasn't sure. The clue was actually about the Cobblestone Area Forming Assay for hematopoetic stem cells (http://link.springer.com/protocol/10.13 ... 40-X%3A143), but I may have flubbed the execution there.
Eric Mukherjee, MD PhD
Brown 2009, Penn Med 2018
Instructor/Attending Physician/Postdoctoral Fellow, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Coach, University School of Nashville

“The next generation will always surpass the previous one. It’s one of the never-ending cycles in life.”
Support the Stevens-Johnson Syndrome Foundation
Edmund
Wakka
Posts: 176
Joined: Sun Feb 07, 2010 8:25 pm

Re: Specific Questions Discussion

Post by Edmund »

Eric Mukherjee wrote:This constant appears in the div term of an equation that relates its namesake process to advection.
What do you mean by "relates its namesake process to advection"? What equation are you even referring to? Something appearing in a div term of an equation just means that it's a conserved quantity which doesn't exactly narrow it down in chemical physics - as I see it this clue applies just as well to heat flux as to mass flux. I don't think calling it a "constant" helps narrow down what is being spoken of either, because the diffusivity is frequently not constant through space: this is precisely why it usually finds itself on the inside of div when we write equations carefully.

edit: Just realised this thread was a month cold - didn't mean to necro the discussion. Having read this set in the UK today, the above was one question I particularly felt 'lost its way' in the middle and as it happens to have already been mentioned, I'd be interested in the author's thoughts.
Edmund Dickinson
UK Quizbowl
University of Oxford '11
Locked