Changes to NAQT's Official Rules

[rhentzel]

NAQT has made some changes to its rules for the 2008-2009 competition year.

Short descriptions of the changes may be found here:

http://www.naqt.com/2008-rules-changes.html

The full version of the new rules is here:

http://www.naqt.com/rules.html

The largest change, in terms of the movement of text, is that most of Section I (detailing what constitutes a correct answer) has been removed and placed in this document:

http://www.naqt.com/correct-answers.html

To make it easier for tournaments that use NAQT questions, but not NAQT rules, to distribute the guidelines to participating teams.

[AKKOLADE]

These rule changes are really, really good. Especially the "killing a question due to the buzzer" one.

[AKKOLADE]

Actually, I do have a question due to the wording of J.6. What type of situation is this intended to cover?

[rhentzel]

Actually, I do have a question due to the wording of J.6. What type of situation is this intended to cover?

The basic idea is that if a question begins, "This trigonal pyramidal molecule . . .", one can't buzz and say "ammonia" planning to make the argument that whatever we say the answer is, you can claim that "ammonia" was correct at the point of the buzz. You *can* make this argument if your answer was uniquely specified, but not otherwise.

That said, this rule should be made effectively moot by good question writing and good playing. NAQT shouldn't write questions that "sound unique" (but aren't) and induce people to buzz; at the same time, players should have a good enough understanding of the subject matter that they don't buzz on obviously incomplete clues ("This man was an ambulance driver during World War I.").

[dschafer]

If time expires during a tossup, that tossup will be read to completion and both teams given a chance to answer. If it is answered correctly, that team will earn a bonus. In other words, the clock can no longer "kill" a tossup at the end of a half.

This is awesome.

[Coelacanth]

You may want to tweak rule F.5:

If the official game clock is not visible to both teams, Rule (F.4.1) will not apply. Instead, the moderator will complete, in its entirety, any tossup-bonus cycle in progress.

Which refers to Rule F.4.1

(F.4) When the clock sounds the end of time, the half or game shall end with the conclusion of the current tossup-bonus cycle. In particular:

(F.4.1) If the moderator has just finished a bonus question or an unanswered tossup question and has not yet begun the next tossup, then the half or game is over.

I think the upshot of the new Rule F.4 is that F.5 is redundant, in that the tossup-bonus cycle is completed whether the clock is visible or not.

[Gautam]

Yeah the rule changes are great, and they will definitely make for better games.

Thank you.

[theMoMA]

What constitutes an "unsporting manner" of giving an answer?

[The Atom Strikes!]

I strongly approved of the timeclock nomorebuzzercuttoff rule.

[Auroni]

These are some solid changes

[ClemsonQB]

That said, this rule should be made effectively moot by good question writing and good playing. NAQT shouldn't write questions that "sound unique" (but aren't) and induce people to buzz; at the same time, players should have a good enough understanding of the subject matter that they don't buzz on obviously incomplete clues ("This man was an ambulance driver during World War I.").

There would be very few complaints about NAQT if good question writing were the case, but unfortunately its not and never has been. Miniscule tweaking of rules has little overall effect on the game, while writing decent+ questions has a much larger effect.

[rhentzel]

What constitutes an "unsporting manner" of giving an answer?

Basically, attempting to delay the game.

[theMoMA]

What constitutes an "unsporting manner" of giving an answer?

Basically, attempting to delay the game.

Ah, that's cool. I was a bit concerned that something like "Jane [expletive] Austen" was what the rule was targeting.

[rhentzel]

That said, this rule should be made effectively moot by good question writing and good playing. NAQT shouldn't write questions that "sound unique" (but aren't) and induce people to buzz; at the same time, players should have a good enough understanding of the subject matter that they don't buzz on obviously incomplete clues ("This man was an ambulance driver during World War I.").

There would be very few complaints about NAQT if good question writing were the case, but unfortunately its not and never has been. Miniscule tweaking of rules has little overall effect on the game, while writing decent+ questions has a much larger effect.

NAQT is always looking for new writers; if you'd like to contribute to our packets and believe that you write better questions than we currently do, we'd love to have you. Send us a sample of ten new questions at [email protected].

[ClemsonQB]

That said, this rule should be made effectively moot by good question writing and good playing. NAQT shouldn't write questions that "sound unique" (but aren't) and induce people to buzz; at the same time, players should have a good enough understanding of the subject matter that they don't buzz on obviously incomplete clues ("This man was an ambulance driver during World War I.").

There would be very few complaints about NAQT if good question writing were the case, but unfortunately its not and never has been. Miniscule tweaking of rules has little overall effect on the game, while writing decent+ questions has a much larger effect.

NAQT is always looking for new writers; if you'd like to contribute to our packets and believe that you write better questions than we currently do, we'd love to have you. Send us a sample of ten new questions at [email protected].

I may actually consider this as an option in the future, but at the time I am bogged down with school work and writing for HSAPQ and PACE (as stated in my signature).

Something I've always wondered: what happens to the sample questions sent in? If accepted, is the writer paid $19.95 for them, or how does this work?

[rhentzel]

NAQT is always looking for new writers; if you'd like to contribute to our packets and believe that you write better questions than we currently do, we'd love to have you. Send us a sample of ten new questions at [email protected].

I may actually consider this as an option in the future, but at the time I am bogged down with school work and writing for HSAPQ and PACE (as stated in my signature).

Something I've always wondered: what happens to the sample questions sent in? If accepted, is the writer paid $19.95 for them, or how does this work?

Basically, the writer is given some suggestions, asked to update them to conform to NAQT's style guide, and then uploads them as his or her first submission to NAQT. They are then paid for at whatever the going rate is (currently $2.05 per tossup or bonus, plus more for some premium categories).

[vcuEvan]

I think these are all good changes.

[AKKOLADE]

What constitutes an "unsporting manner" of giving an answer?

Basically, attempting to delay the game.

Ah, that's cool. I was a bit concerned that something like "Jane [expletive] Austen" was what the rule was targeting.

I admittedly am a bit concerned that something like this would happen by someone who isn't following the apparent "spirt" of the rule. Someone could take it upon themselves to be the morality police (or use it to advance a feud/whatever) and penalize a player for cursing out of frustration.

I don't think it's likely to happen, but I also don't think it's good to assume that this couldn't happen either.

[First Chairman]

If time expires during a tossup, that tossup will be read to completion and both teams given a chance to answer. If it is answered correctly, that team will earn a bonus. In other words, the clock can no longer "kill" a tossup at the end of a half.

This is awesome.

R may remind me, but wasn't this the original way NAQT rounds were run? Shows how much I've been involved with NAQT format to know that one could have had the clock kill a tossup until now. Thanks!

[rhentzel]

If time expires during a tossup, that tossup will be read to completion and both teams given a chance to answer. If it is answered correctly, that team will earn a bonus. In other words, the clock can no longer "kill" a tossup at the end of a half.

This is awesome.

R may remind me, but wasn't this the original way NAQT rounds were run? Shows how much I've been involved with NAQT format to know that one could have had the clock kill a tossup until now. Thanks!

Well, I wasn't a founding member of NAQT, but, to the best of my knowledge, NAQT rounds have (until now) always had the same end-of-half rules: the clock will end a tossup, but not a bonus. This is off the top my head, not a thoroughly researched answer.

It's possible that our very first year we stipulated that the game couldn't end by running out of tossups; if that happened, the moderator was instructed to stop the clock and fetch more from headquarters.

[Ike]

I'm very pleased to see these issues addressed, especially after the fracas I made earlier.

[STPickrell]

RIP clock-killing neg

[AKKOLADE]

RIP clock-killing neg

Things that will not be missed: those, and the occasional thread on the "best" thing to use as such a neg.

[Terrible Shorts Depot]

RIP clock-killing neg

This means that I can no longer unleash the full title of Moll Flanders or the official name of Libya.

On a more serious note, these rule changes are excellent. I think that they should do good things for that game. Good job, NAQT

[quizbowllee]

Alas poor Clock-Killing Neg. I knew him well....

Seriously, I'm somewhat bummed about this one. I loved that strategy - and was known to use it on occasion back in the day. But, nostalgia aside, it is probably for the best.

[Blackboard Monitor Vimes]

I have a question about J.6 ("I was correct when I buzzed"). Say a question about a Greek or Roman figure begins with a clue that applies to either canon, a player buzzes with the correct name from one tradition, but the name from the other tradition is on the paper and the question goes on to talk exclusively about that tradition. In this case the answer is not uniquely specified (i.e. the answer on the paper isn't wrong), but the clue is not uniquely identifying and the player may not have realized that. Is this protestable? Ideally, a question either have a lead-in unique to one tradition or an "accept x until y" in the answer line, but this doesn't always happen. In practice the other day, on either an old NAQT IS set or UMD's 07 set, as that's all we've read so far this year, a question began mentioning an important cult at Samos. Having just read the beginning of the Aeneid in which Juno's major cult at Samos is referenced, I buzzed with Juno and Dr. B. said no. I protested after hearing two more clues that were clearly about Hera/Juno, but I'm concerned this protest would be denied in a real game.

[yoda4554]

Ah, I'll miss the clock-killing neg. As someone who enjoyed quiz bowl in its game aspects more than a lot of people here, I'll miss it. Perhaps the proudest moment of my qb career came in the last round of the playoff brackets of ICT '06, in which I just barely beat out Andrew Uzzell of Yale's (correct) buzz on Dubai Ports World with a clock-killing neg, which preserved a 15-point win for us and ensured our place (and, as it turned out, one-game advantage) in the UG finals, where we beat Chicago for the title.

I'm curious--my guess is that there have been other, more clutch clock-killing negs in NAQT history. Anyone want to reminisce?

[Captain Sinico]

To be honest, I've never understood NAQT's (and, to a lesser extent, quizbowl at large's) penchant for not accepting names of analogues in one tradition for figures from another. For example, the most common instance in which this becomes an issue is the refusal to accept a Roman analogue for a Greek god. However, by Roman law, the Roman gods totally subsumed all the aspects of their Greek analogues, and translations almost certainly exist of any given work that use either set of names. Therefore, I don't understand how one can justify not accepting either name in all cases. What do you guys think?

MaS

[at your pleasure]

Possibly there are some variances in the roman and greek tradition(say, hypothetically having ulysses sail off into the sunset right after defeating the suitors.) and between other analogous traditons.

[Sen. Estes Kefauver (D-TN)]

But I don't think they are substantial enough to make penalizing players for knowing basically the same thing acceptable.

[Stained Diviner]

Three reasons not to adopt Sorice's proposal:
It would seem strange if the question mentioned a lot of interactions with Greek gods who were named in the question and the student answered with a Roman god.
Giveaways often say to name the Greek counterpart of _________.
It would be important for writers/editors to always mention the counterpart as an acceptable answer, or else this could lead to a number of protests, and writers/editors do slip up sometimes.

That being said, I don't have a strong opinion either way--I think the pros and cons have about equal weight in this case, and Mike's basic point is correct. It sounds like Sarah has a valid complaint about that question, but she also correctly explained how it could have been fixed without a rule change.

Also, I'll add to the chorus and state that the NAQT rule changes are good.

[Pilgrim]

To be honest, I've never understood NAQT's (and, to a lesser extent, quizbowl at large's) penchant for not accepting names of analogues in one tradition for figures from another. For example, the most common instance in which this becomes an issue is the refusal to accept a Roman analogue for a Greek god. However, by Roman law, the Roman gods totally subsumed all the aspects of their Greek analogues, and translations almost certainly exist of any given work that use either set of names. Therefore, I don't understand how one can justify not accepting either name in all cases. What do you guys think?

MaS

I'll add my voice as someone who has always agreed with this.

[Captain Sinico]

Three reasons not to adopt Sorice's proposal:
It would seem strange if the question mentioned a lot of interactions with Greek gods who were named in the question and the student answered with a Roman god.
Giveaways often say to name the Greek counterpart of _________.
It would be important for writers/editors to always mention the counterpart as an acceptable answer, or else this could lead to a number of protests, and writers/editors do slip up sometimes.

I'd like to refute these. Regarding the first one, all I can say is, while it may sound strange, I believe it to be actually correct.
Regarding the second, I think we can all agree that it's patently unfair and bad (because patently unfair) for a question to penalize players who have uniquely identified the figure in question by an ostensibly wrong name when they had no way of knowing, when they buzzed, that one name rather than the other is called for. For example, I don't think you'd defend a question on an author who employs a pseudonym but that only accepts the author's real name at every point because its giveaway suddenly says "name this author whose pseudonym is _____." Yet, I think these are exactly analogous situations; an identical figure has more than one name, and the question unfairly demands only one of these without uniquely specifying only one.
Finally, regarding the third, it seems that there already are a number of protests about this issue. Moreover, since it is evidently not well understood why some questions demand one name for a given figure rather than another, these protests are often very difficult to resolve. Thus, making some effort to accept names for identical analogues can only reduce the number of protests and make those that remain more straightforward to resolve.

MaS

[Captain Sinico]

Possibly there are some variances in the roman and greek tradition(say, hypothetically having ulysses sail off into the sunset right after defeating the suitors.) and between other analogous traditons.

I'm not exactly sure what you're talking about (I'm not certain what you mean by "tradition" in this context.) So, I'll challenge you to find me an example of what you're talking about.

MaS

[Skepticism and Animal Feed]

Outside of Classical Mythology, quizbowl is extremely liberal about accepting different names for the same deity. If there is a tossup on a Norse god, you can give the Germanic or Saxon name and be ruled correct without controversy. If there is a tossup on a Babylonian god, you can answer with the Akkadian, Assyrian, Sumerian, Hittite, Hurrian, Chaldean, or Ugaritic name, assuming that there were analogues in all those cultures. How many Quetzalcoatl tossups use clues from non-Aztec myth but end up accepting the Aztec name? Pretty much every Quetzalcoatl tossup I've seen does that.

The most respected book about mythology in the quizbowl community is probably Bulfinch's Mythology. It uses Roman names for Greek gods even when discussing stories that are found only in Greek. It even uses "Jupiter" to describe the statue of Zeus at Olympus that never left Greek soil.

There's no reason to be strict about Greek/Roman names of gods apart from "our quizbowl ancestors were strict about it" or "in 10th grade, I got negged for saying Hera instead of Juno, and now you will be too". I don't think either of those are particularly strong reasons.

[Matt Weiner]

Well, the fact is that, eg, Minerva was an independently conceived Roman deity (past the obviously similar Indo-European influence), who happened to syncretize aspects of Athena later on, and did not in fact serve exactly the same function to the Romans as Athena did to the Greeks. I always understood the rule to reflect that reality. However, I would like more information on this:

However, by Roman law, the Roman gods totally subsumed all the aspects of their Greek analogues

I have not heard it before and it would provide a fairly compelling case for changing the rule if it means what it appears to mean.

[harpersferry]

How about when the answer given is a more general class of something (like speciation) and the first few clues are all about a subset of that class and a player answers with that subset (like sympatric speciation) which is not listed as acceptable to a certain point in the question, even if some clues later on identify things that are in the larger class but outside the smaller subset (like "it can occur when a geographical divide occurs between populations")? Does that qualify as the player's answer being uniquely identified and the paper being wrong?

[Captain Sinico]

Well, the fact is that, eg, Minerva was an independently conceived Roman deity (past the obviously similar Indo-European influence), who happened to syncretize aspects of Athena later on, and did not in fact serve exactly the same function to the Romans as Athena did to the Greeks. I always understood the rule to reflect that reality. However, I would like more information on this:

However, by Roman law, the Roman gods totally subsumed all the aspects of their Greek analogues

I have not heard it before and it would provide a fairly compelling case for changing the rule if it means what it appears to mean.

I'm almost certain that what I said there is true. I'll see if I can locate the relevant information again.

MaS

[AKKOLADE]

I just wanted to say that I recall hearing something very similar to what Sorice has said, but unfortunately I can't recall any actual details. Anyway, I agree with what he's saying, especially if what he said is right.

[AlphaQuizBowler]

What constitutes an "unsporting manner" of giving an answer?

Basically, attempting to delay the game.

Ah, that's cool. I was a bit concerned that something like "Jane [expletive] Austen" was what the rule was targeting.

I admittedly am a bit concerned that something like this would happen by someone who isn't following the apparent "spirt" of the rule. Someone could take it upon themselves to be the morality police (or use it to advance a feud/whatever) and penalize a player for cursing out of frustration.

I don't think it's likely to happen, but I also don't think it's good to assume that this couldn't happen either.

This seems like a pretty ridiculous rule to me. If I say the correct answer, regardless of whether my intention is to delay the game, I should get the points. If someone's being "unsportsmanlike" and decide to say Puccini's entire name just to show how smart they (think they) are, if they say all the names correctly, and the answer is Puccini, don't they deserve points? If they try to delay with a neg, they'll be counted incorrect anyway.

I also second the point about the rule's intent. Most TD's won't have read this thread, and unsportsmanlike can be interpreted many ways.

[rhentzel]

I have a question about J.6 ("I was correct when I buzzed"). Say a question about a Greek or Roman figure begins with a clue that applies to either canon, a player buzzes with the correct name from one tradition, but the name from the other tradition is on the paper and the question goes on to talk exclusively about that tradition. In this case the answer is not uniquely specified (i.e. the answer on the paper isn't wrong), but the clue is not uniquely identifying and the player may not have realized that. Is this protestable? Ideally, a question either have a lead-in unique to one tradition or an "accept x until y" in the answer line, but this doesn't always happen. In practice the other day, on either an old NAQT IS set or UMD's 07 set, as that's all we've read so far this year, a question began mentioning an important cult at Samos. Having just read the beginning of the Aeneid in which Juno's major cult at Samos is referenced, I buzzed with Juno and Dr. B. said no. I protested after hearing two more clues that were clearly about Hera/Juno, but I'm concerned this protest would be denied in a real game.

The answer should be accepted outright until the question makes clear which tradition is under discussion. If it's rejected, that would be grounds for a protest.

[Skepticism and Animal Feed]

Matt,

Two responses to you:

(1) Ishtar and Inanna, and most other non-Classical gods for whom quizbowl accepts names from all cultures, were probably also originally different gods who got combined when one state or culture became more powerful than the rest.

(2) Who writes tossups on Roman mythology from before the time it was combined with Greek?

[rhentzel]

What constitutes an "unsporting manner" of giving an answer?

Basically, attempting to delay the game.

Ah, that's cool. I was a bit concerned that something like "Jane [expletive] Austen" was what the rule was targeting.

I admittedly am a bit concerned that something like this would happen by someone who isn't following the apparent "spirt" of the rule. Someone could take it upon themselves to be the morality police (or use it to advance a feud/whatever) and penalize a player for cursing out of frustration.

I don't think it's likely to happen, but I also don't think it's good to assume that this couldn't happen either.

This seems like a pretty ridiculous rule to me. If I say the correct answer, regardless of whether my intention is to delay the game, I should get the points. If someone's being "unsportsmanlike" and decide to say Puccini's entire name just to show how smart they (think they) are, if they say all the names correctly, and the answer is Puccini, don't they deserve points? If they try to delay with a neg, they'll be counted incorrect anyway.

I also second the point about the rule's intent. Most TD's won't have read this thread, and unsportsmanlike can be interpreted many ways.

I don't see the issue as as cut-and-dried as "the correct answer earns you the points"; at the very least, just how quickly does the player have to say the answer? I would imagine that even relatively short answers could be drawn out considerably with the proper drawl. For that matter, NAQT allows a response to include as much verbiage as the player wants (but only the first response is considered). That can't be allowed to go on indefinitely.

Quiz bowl has a longstanding tradition of allowing players to show away by giving hypercorrect, ultraprecise answers; NAQT is not interested in changing that. I'm sure our members have even been guilty of it in the past. The idea here is to provide a rule to cut off an unsportsmanlike attempt to end the game prematurely by wasting time.

I agree that "unsportsmanlike" is somewhat vague and might be interpreted differently by even experienced tournament directors; on the other hand, at some point, you just have to start trusting the people that run tournaments or you end up with rules that are 50 pages long that nobody wants to read.

I have to say that my impression of this issue isn't a major one; if a player is really concerned about being counted wrong for (rapidly) giving the full name of Puccini, he or she should ask the tournament director for his or her interpretation of "unsporting" at the opening meeting. Or over e-mail in advance.

That said, if you want to suggest a better wording of the rule, NAQT would certainly consider adopting it.

[rhentzel]

What constitutes an "unsporting manner" of giving an answer?

Basically, attempting to delay the game.

Ah, that's cool. I was a bit concerned that something like "Jane [expletive] Austen" was what the rule was targeting.

I admittedly am a bit concerned that something like this would happen by someone who isn't following the apparent "spirt" of the rule. Someone could take it upon themselves to be the morality police (or use it to advance a feud/whatever) and penalize a player for cursing out of frustration.

I don't think it's likely to happen, but I also don't think it's good to assume that this couldn't happen either.

The question of whether or not swearing is permitting at quiz bowl tournaments is not really one that NAQT's rules seek to address; beyond basic quiz bowl ethics ("don't cheat") we consider rules on conduct to be the purview of the host school. If somebody wants to run a tournament that imposes heavy penalties for cussing, we won't refuse to sell them questions just as we'll happily sell questions to hosts that plan to excuse any and all profanity as mere frustration.

The rule as quoted is not intended to address swearing at tournaments, but that shouldn't be interpreted as a statement that "NAQT's official rules condone any amount of swearing at tournaments" or anything like it. That's a question for the host and the relevant quiz bowl community to decide.

[AndyShootsAndyScores]

How about when the answer given is a more general class of something (like speciation) and the first few clues are all about a subset of that class and a player answers with that subset (like sympatric speciation) which is not listed as acceptable to a certain point in the question, even if some clues later on identify things that are in the larger class but outside the smaller subset (like "it can occur when a geographical divide occurs between populations")? Does that qualify as the player's answer being uniquely identified and the paper being wrong?

In that situation, the question writer should make a note that the smaller subset (in this case, sympatric speciation) should be acceptable up to a certain point. If a player answers with the small subset early enough for it to be correct and is counted incorrect, then it is definitely grounds for protest. Even so, if the answer was not a specific form of speciaiton, I would probably accept any specific form of speciaiton anywhere in the question.

Another possibility: suppose that, during a tossup on the character Huck Finn, a player buzzes in with "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" before it specifically asks for the character. The pronoun "he" rather than "it" has been used a few times. Would you count it correct or not?

[quizbowllee]

Another possibility: suppose that, during a tossup on the character Huck Finn, a player buzzes in with "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" before it specifically asks for the character. The pronoun "he" rather than "it" has been used a few times. Would you count it correct or not?

"He" definitely identifies the character. However, the character's name is in the title. At the very least, it should be correct as a blitz (but with only one piece of information).

However, if the question was about the character of Huck Finn and the tossup was describing his involvement in the plot of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and the pronoun "he" has been used to identify the answer - then answering with "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" should be incorrect, even if "Huckleberry Finn" is the answer.

I think...

I just gave myself a migraine.

[Gautam]

Another possibility: suppose that, during a tossup on the character Huck Finn, a player buzzes in with "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" before it specifically asks for the character. The pronoun "he" rather than "it" has been used a few times. Would you count it correct or not?

A bad tossup was written and unfortunately it was also read to you. Hope you have a mod. with some common sense. If "IT'S NOT ON THE PAPER" is advanced by moderator, protest or something.

[AndyShootsAndyScores]

Another possibility: suppose that, during a tossup on the character Huck Finn, a player buzzes in with "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" before it specifically asks for the character. The pronoun "he" rather than "it" has been used a few times. Would you count it correct or not?

A bad tossup was written and unfortunately it was also read to you. Hope you have a mod. with some common sense. If "IT'S NOT ON THE PAPER" is advanced by moderator, protest or something.

It was actually in an NAQT IS, but I'll get the exact text of the tossup to clarify things. It occured in practice and, while I protested that I was right, my teammates were not sympathetic.

[rhentzel]

Another possibility: suppose that, during a tossup on the character Huck Finn, a player buzzes in with "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" before it specifically asks for the character. The pronoun "he" rather than "it" has been used a few times. Would you count it correct or not?

A bad tossup was written and unfortunately it was also read to you. Hope you have a mod. with some common sense. If "IT'S NOT ON THE PAPER" is advanced by moderator, protest or something.

It was actually in an NAQT IS, but I'll get the exact text of the tossup to clarify things. It occurred in practice and, while I protested that I was right, my teammates were not sympathetic.

I might be missing something, but I don't immediately see why the tossup is called "bad" given this description. It's about the character Huckleberry Finn and it uses the pronoun "he" (and not the pronoun "it"), which, by the so-called "Pronoun Rule," means that the answer being sought is a person/character. A player who buzzes with the name of a book has not been paying close attention.

I'm sympathetic to the idea that "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" should be acceptable, at least in some contexts, but I don't see what part of that makes the question bad.

[Gautam]

You are correct. I completely read that the opposite way (that the tossup was on the book and implying it was a character was said a few times.)

Also, I should probably clarify that one can listen to the first pronoun (he/she/it/them) and be reasonably sure that the answer is going to fit the pronoun. If it does not, then the phrasing of the question is bad. That is what I meant to say in my previous post.

EDIT: emphasis