2019 Fall Open Specific Question Discussion

[aseem.keyal]

Please post any thoughts about specific questions in this thread.

[jameshadleyg]

I thought this set was great fun to play and enjoyed how interesting many of the questions were. (Funerals in music was something I thought was fun to be asked for.) The only thing I could point out, and this may be very minor, is that in round 10, bonus 15 and tossup 16 both have the answerline of Nigeria, albeit in different categories. Other than that, I'll let more experienced players comment.

[Votre Kickstarter Est Nul]

I'll add actual thoughts later, but Jason the Big Pimpin' clue in the Egypt TU was awesome and made my day

[naan/steak-holding toll]

I liked this set's attempts to use adventurous answerlines and think this worked particularly well in literature, i.e. An Lushan rebellion, Nicolas Poussin, etc. However, some of them felt like they made it hard to easily understand what the question wanted. A few examples:

• The tossup on death that used the pronoun "this purpose" seems fairly clear in retrospect, but was a bit frustrating to play because I felt like there were many conceivable "purposes" that some of the pieces individually could be used for and it took a while to draw the threads together. I think using an answer like funerals/burials and saying "these events" might alleviate this.
• The tossup on "bombing Libya" seems like it could have been made on Libya or Gaddafi with few or no changes - it took me a while to figure out what exactly the question wanted me to say, particularly since it said "description acceptable" and I was wondering "what are we trying to describe - some kind of anti-Gaddafi initiative?" Maybe that's my fault for overthinking.
• Rafael said he knew what the question on the EPR paradox was talking about, but wasn't sure how specific the question was going to be and thought the clues also would apply to quantum eraser experiments (I do see that the question said "thought experiment" but I take it there are quantum eraser thought experiments as well).

Also, we were a bit miffed about the tossup on electroweak theory - the t'Hooft clue seems like it doesn't uniquely apply to electroweak theory, for example, as I think it applies to many different gauge theories.

[VSCOelasticity]

Rafael said he knew what the question on the EPR paradox was talking about, but wasn't sure how specific the question was going to be and thought the clues also would apply to quantum eraser experiments (I do see that the question said "thought experiment" but I take it there are quantum eraser thought experiments as well).

Double checking the question, I think the early clues before the paper itself are discussed (Bohr's response, the Alain Aspect experiment, and Bohm's version of EPR) all uniquely point to EPR. The delayed-choice quantum eraser and EPR are both similar entanglement/correlation thought experiments, which can be hard to distinguish at game speed. I think his experience points out that the question could be more precise and evocative (especially the Aspect experiment clue), so I will work on that for the upcoming mirror.

Also, we were a bit miffed about the tossup on electroweak theory - the t'Hooft clue seems like it doesn't uniquely apply to electroweak theory, for example, as I think it applies to many different gauge theories.

Yeah, my bad. Sorry for any frustration this caused! The clue was meant to reference their Physics Nobel, but definitely was not unique because their work was on Yang-Mills theories in general. I edited the clue to be more straightforward for upcoming mirrors. It now reads:

The 1999 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Veltman and ‘t Hooft (“teh hooft”) for showing that this theory is (*) renormalizable.

(Power was also moved down to be slightly more forgiving. It was originally before 't Hooft.)

Thank you for the feedback! I'm glad you enjoyed playing the set.

[Deepika Goes From Ranbir To Ranveer]

I would suggest that the lead-in of the Diwali tossup be changed for future mirrors. It's rather fraudable, might not be uniquely identifying (I'm sure that the burning of Ravana during Dashehra causes spikes in pollution too, though Diwali is definitely the worst for that), and stubble-burning is being actively discussed because of Delhi's ongoing pollution crisis, even in Western media:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/ ... ak-the-law
https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/04/india/de ... index.html

[gerbilownage]

Maybe other lit players can provide a more expert opinion, but I thought that tossing up "New Orleans" with hellman clues was a bit rough since she's not usually known for being a new orleaner. The Little Foxes is set in Alabama and The Children's hour doesn't have a specific setting, which may confuse some people as well. Changing it to just a Hellman tossup or using more streetcar clues might help playability.

[Subotai the Valiant, Final Dog of War]

The first line of the Taiwan tossup made it very fraudable; I'm not sure how many islands are theorized to have had proto-languages on them, but the number is definitely quite small. More generally, using "this island" as a pronoun often in this set made many tossups easier to narrow down than they perhaps should have been. But otherwise, I really loved that question; Austronesian content is great.

[csheep]

I thought the music was done very well and liked the balance of clues/approaches.

Bruch - Joachim seems to be a negbait for Brahms given his close association with Brahms. I think it'd be better if the phrasing of the clue placed the actual text of the clue (the description of the Bruch VC) before the Joachim namedrop to eliminate. Alternatively if you just want to punish people for reflex buzzing Joachim-Brahms, that's a different issue.

Piano concertos (from Shosty/Prokofiev) - felt like a very transparent question (acknowledging recent discussions of not abusing this term). An orchestral genre with soloists was nailed down pretty early in the question. My personal experiencing was arriving at PCs very very early in the question and hesitating to buzz because it felt too obvious.

[naan/steak-holding toll]

The first line of the Taiwan tossup made it very fraudable; I'm not sure how many islands are theorized to have had proto-languages on them, but the number is definitely quite small. More generally, using "this island" as a pronoun often in this set made many tossups easier to narrow down than they perhaps should have been. But otherwise, I really loved that question; Austronesian content is great.

After some reflection, I'd have to agree with this - while many islands are linguistically notable, Taiwan and New Guinea are the only ones I can think of that are thought to be the locations of multiple proto-languages. That definitely struck me as easier than the subsequent clues about orthography of indigenous Taiwanese languages and made me hesitate to buzz.

[Marcion of Sinope]

Some of the text in the Morales & Bolsonaro tossup from round 6 might need to be adjusted slightly since, as of yesterday, Evo Morales is no longer the leader of Bolivia.

The slide guitar tossup seemed to play poorly, from what I heard, although this may be in part because of the failure of at least one of the moderators at the NYU site to give the directed prompt. In any case, I'm not convinced that "instrument" is the most ideal pronoun for the question, although I also don't know what I would propose replacing it with.

(In general, though, kudos to the editors of this set for very thorough answerlines and pronunciation guides!)

[Eddie]

I liked this set's attempts to use adventurous answerlines and think this worked particularly well in literature, i.e. An Lushan rebellion, Nicolas Poussin, etc. However, some of them felt like they made it hard to easily understand what the question wanted. A few examples:

• The tossup on death that used the pronoun "this purpose" seems fairly clear in retrospect, but was a bit frustrating to play because I felt like there were many conceivable "purposes" that some of the pieces individually could be used for and it took a while to draw the threads together. I think using an answer like funerals/burials and saying "these events" might alleviate this.

This is a good point and, in accordance, I have changed all instances of "this purpose" (and word forms) to "this event" (and word forms).

***

I thought the music was done very well and liked the balance of clues/approaches.

Bruch - Joachim seems to be a negbait for Brahms given his close association with Brahms. I think it'd be better if the phrasing of the clue placed the actual text of the clue (the description of the Bruch VC) before the Joachim namedrop to eliminate. Alternatively if you just want to punish people for reflex buzzing Joachim-Brahms, that's a different issue.

Piano concertos (from Shosty/Prokofiev) - felt like a very transparent question (acknowledging recent discussions of not abusing this term). An orchestral genre with soloists was nailed down pretty early in the question. My personal experiencing was arriving at PCs very very early in the question and hesitating to buzz because it felt too obvious.

This is a good point and, in accordance, I have made the following edit:

This composer’s aforementioned Violin Concerto No. 1 in (*) G minor has a first-movement prelude titled Vorspiel (“FOR-sh’peel”), and was described by Joseph Joachim as “the richest, most seductive” by a German composer.

This composer’s aforementioned Violin Concerto No. 1 in (*) G minor has a first-movement prelude titled Vorspiel (“FOR-sh’peel”), and was described as “the richest, most seductive” by one of four German Romantic composers.

As for the Shostakovich TU, below is a revision of the TU with preliminary edits; I've removed the "solo trumpet" clue in the first sentence, and I've changed "finale" to "Presto third movement" in the second sentence. Are there any other early clues that you felt were transparent?

Dmitri Shostakovich’s first piece in this genre begins with a fast descending C major scale, which lands on an unexpected D-flat. In Shostakovich’s second piece in this genre, a C minor Andante second movement leads attacca into a Presto third movement that alternates 2/4 time and 7/8 time. In Sergei Prokofiev’s second piece in this genre, the first movement climaxes with markings such as precipitato, colossale, and tumultuoso. Prokofiev’s third piece in this genre begins with a (*) clarinet solo, and is in C major. Of Prokofiev’s five pieces in this genre, four were premiered with himself as the soloist, and one was written for the World War I veteran Paul Wittgenstein, who never performed it. Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini is often considered to be in, for 10 points, what genre for orchestra and keyboard soloist?

***

The first line of the Taiwan tossup made it very fraudable; I'm not sure how many islands are theorized to have had proto-languages on them, but the number is definitely quite small. More generally, using "this island" as a pronoun often in this set made many tossups easier to narrow down than they perhaps should have been. But otherwise, I really loved that question; Austronesian content is great.

After some reflection, I'd have to agree with this - while many islands are linguistically notable, Taiwan and New Guinea are the only ones I can think of that are thought to be the locations of multiple proto-languages. That definitely struck me as easier than the subsequent clues about orthography of indigenous Taiwanese languages and made me hesitate to buzz.

This is a good point and, in accordance, I have changed all in-power occurrences of "this island" to "this region".

[Majin Buu Roi]

The slide guitar tossup seemed to play poorly, from what I heard, although this may be in part because of the failure of at least one of the moderators at the NYU site to give the directed prompt. In any case, I'm not convinced that "instrument" is the most ideal pronoun for the question, although I also don't know what I would propose replacing it with.

This tossup's answerline has been changed to just "guitar," all though the clues are pretty much the same (just replaced the Indian classical music clues with more Elmore James and the diddley bow clue with Carter Family picking). The original logic of the pronoun is players quite simply refer to it as an "instrument" in its own right (e.g. in interviews with Derek Trucks or Ry Cooder), but it clearly did not, to put it lightly, play as well as I expected. The lead-in to the Diwali tossup has also been removed, with the second clue simply becoming the new lead-in.

[Iain.Carpenter]

I had a lot of fun at this tournament, but I noticed a couple of slight issues. In the bonus that mentions Ocean Vuong, it calls "On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous" a poem, when its actually his debut novel. Additionally, in the number theory/prime bonus, the bonus says "in the field of integers", but integers are a ring. Finally, I was confused by the "kernel/image" tossup's clue on the 1st isomorphism theorem. It's a very good idea, but as written, it confused me because the tossup essentially said "the image is isomorphic to a group mod the kernel" when the theorem is almost always stated the opposite way, since we're mapping into the image by the homomorphism. I think my mod also may have misspoke, because it seemed like I ruled out kernel/image since it made me think you were asking for the two isomorphic objects rather than the kernel/image.

[Banana Stand]

In the bonus that mentions Ocean Vuong, it calls "On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous" a poem, when its actually his debut novel.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetry ... y-gorgeous

And here’s what that title’s from!

[VSCOelasticity]

Additionally, in the number theory/prime bonus, the bonus says "in the field of integers", but integers are a ring.

Oof, good catch! That part now is changed to refer to the class number of the field of rational numbers.

Finally, I was confused by the "kernel/image" tossup's clue on the 1st isomorphism theorem. It's a very good idea, but as written, it confused me because the tossup essentially said "the image is isomorphic to a group mod the kernel" when the theorem is almost always stated the opposite way, since we're mapping into the image by the homomorphism. I think my mod also may have misspoke, because it seemed like I ruled out kernel/image since it made me think you were asking for the two isomorphic objects rather than the kernel/image.

First wanna shout out Nick for writing this excellent toss up. I thought it was a good idea too! Pasting the clue here for reference:

The First Isomorphism Theorem states that for a homomorphism out of a group G, one of these objects is isomorphic to G modulo the other of these objects.

I think the latter issue is due to the moderator or mishearing at game speed, but the former issue is valid and can be easily fixed to fit the normal convention of the theorem. I've swapped the order to:

The First Isomorphism Theorem states that for a homomorphism out of a group G, G modulo one of these objects is isomorphic to the other one of these objects.

[Daedalus]

Two minor-ish comments on the bio (which was overall, like all of the science, quite good IMO):

First, I'm surprised I'm the first to comment on the dephosphorylation tossup, given that it was negged in 62.5% of rooms across all sites. The lead-in has a number of problems: CheY can autophosphorylate; most of phospho-CheY's dephosphorylation is catalyzed by CheZ; linguistically, CheY isn't ever dephosphorylated, only phospho-CheY is; at game speed, it was hard to parse the clue as anything other than "in E. Coli chemotaxis, this modification happens to CheY". After talking to others, it seems like other clues in the tossup (e.g. Wee1) also suffer from similar playability problems. This probably would have worked better as a tossup on "phosphate groups" with clues about dephosphorylation.

Second, I think the tossup on lysis needs more prompts/acceptable answers - I think it's weird that the tossup prompts on the complement system (which isn't even a process), but not on things like "activation of the membrane attack complex" or "poking holes in cell membranes", which is what's actually happening.

[VSCOelasticity]

Two minor-ish comments on the bio (which was overall, like all of the science, quite good IMO):

First, I'm surprised I'm the first to comment on the dephosphorylation tossup, given that it was negged in 62.5% of rooms across all sites. The lead-in has a number of problems: CheY can autophosphorylate; most of phospho-CheY's dephosphorylation is catalyzed by CheZ; linguistically, CheY isn't ever dephosphorylated, only phospho-CheY is; at game speed, it was hard to parse the clue as anything other than "in E. Coli chemotaxis, this modification happens to CheY". After talking to others, it seems like other clues in the tossup (e.g. Wee1) also suffer from similar playability problems. This probably would have worked better as a tossup on "phosphate groups" with clues about dephosphorylation.

Second, I think the tossup on lysis needs more prompts/acceptable answers - I think it's weird that the tossup prompts on the complement system (which isn't even a process), but not on things like "activation of the membrane attack complex" or "poking holes in cell membranes", which is what's actually happening.

1) I agree that some of those clues are a little loose/unclear in the way they reference the answerline, especially with your critique of the lead-in and the neg stats! I will be working with Itamar to clean that TU up this week

2) The complement system is not a process, but most of the clues refer to it, so I prompted on it even though it doesn't really fit the pronoun. As for the second bit, I think adding prompts like "activating the membrane attack complex" or "poking holes in cell membranes" is probably fair for similar reasons, since some of the clues refer to proteins inhibiting the former or the MAC carrying out the latter. I hope this didn't cause too much confusion/frustration.

[rdc20]

Can someone post the Allan Bloom/Republic bonus? Thanks.

[VSCOelasticity]

Can someone post the Allan Bloom/Republic bonus? Thanks.

This writer rebutted H. D. P. Lee’s insistence that translators of Plato must “discover what he means,” because “if one hurries too quickly “behind” Plato’s speech, one loses the sense of the surface.” For 10 points each:
[10] Identify this scholar who thus produced an acclaimed 1968 “literal translation” of Plato’s Republic. He provided commentary on Seth Benardete’s translation of the Symposium in a 2001 book.
ANSWER: Allan Bloom [or Allan David Bloom]
[10] In the preface to the second edition of his translation of The Republic, Bloom observed that, to modern audiences, the “allegory” of this subterranean place represents “truth substituted for myth.”
ANSWER: the cave [or the Allegory of the Cave]
[10] Bloom argued that this character’s “blush” is “as important as any of his theoretical arguments.” In Book One of The Republic, Socrates completely demolishes this Sophist’s definition of justice as the “advantage of the stronger.”
ANSWER: Thrasymachus
<INB, Philosophy>

For reference, all the web packets are here

[Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Dreams]

The "classical complement pathway" is very reasonably interpretable as a process. Almost all the MAC clues that apply to lysis also apply equally or close to equally to the answer of "classical complement pathway."

[vinteuil]

For an easy part, I think the packet 1 bonus on Janissaries is pretty rough; since they're more famously kidnapped Christian children, hearing the word "hereditary" was enough to make us second-guess ourselves and miss the answer.

[jsingh]

Just two things off the top of my head:
1. The Troubles are universally acknowledged to have started in the 1960s, so that giveaway should probably be changed to say "the first full decade of the troubles".
2. The "Three Days in the River" part in the Sikhism bonus doesn't really have a name. Descriptions of "Guru Nanak disappearing into a river" should be accepted.

Other than that, I really enjoyed the set!

[Majin Buu Roi]

Just two things off the top of my head:
1. The Troubles are universally acknowledged to have started in the 1960s, so that giveaway should probably be changed to say "the first full decade of the troubles".
2. The "Three Days in the River" part in the Sikhism bonus doesn't really have a name. Descriptions of "Guru Nanak disappearing into a river" should be accepted.

Other than that, I really enjoyed the set!

Will definitely make this change. A bunch of secondary sources and Sikh material I found used that name so I guess I over-estimated the reification there. Re: Troubles I'm just an idiot. Correction will be made.

[Bensonfan23]

The "classical complement pathway" is very reasonably interpretable as a process. Almost all the MAC clues that apply to lysis also apply equally or close to equally to the answer of "classical complement pathway."

Yeah, I think this question would benefit greatly from just expanding the space of explicitly acceptable answers to include things like "forming the membrane attack complex" or "pore formation" before mentioned, though the directed prompt on complement activation is nice. With that said, despite my mixing up the roles of C5a and C5b at game speed and not getting to answer the great MHC cross-presentation bonus, I really enjoyed the biology in this set and particularly thought the immunology-adjacent content was well-executed.

[touchpack]

First, I'm surprised I'm the first to comment on the dephosphorylation tossup, given that it was negged in 62.5% of rooms across all sites. The lead-in has a number of problems: CheY can autophosphorylate; most of phospho-CheY's dephosphorylation is catalyzed by CheZ; linguistically, CheY isn't ever dephosphorylated, only phospho-CheY is; at game speed, it was hard to parse the clue as anything other than "in E. Coli chemotaxis, this modification happens to CheY". After talking to others, it seems like other clues in the tossup (e.g. Wee1) also suffer from similar playability problems. This probably would have worked better as a tossup on "phosphate groups" with clues about dephosphorylation.

I'll have more to say about the set later (and most of the questions were really good!), but I think this was the worst science question in the set. However, I disagree with the scope of Adam's argument. In the language of biochemistry, the term "modification" evokes the phrase "post-translational modification", which describes the ~addition~ of functional groups, sugars, lipids, etc. to a protein immediately after processing in the ribosome. While it's technically semantically correct, the use of the pronoun "modification" will, to any player knowledgeable about biochemistry, confuse them into buzzing with the common post-translational modification "phosphorylation". It's not just the wording of individual clues, the entire question is fundamentally flawed and punishes players for having real knowledge. "This process" might have been better, but I think this is just an unfixable answerline that should have been changed to "phosphate" or "phosphorylation".

[Bensonfan23]

First, I'm surprised I'm the first to comment on the dephosphorylation tossup, given that it was negged in 62.5% of rooms across all sites. The lead-in has a number of problems: CheY can autophosphorylate; most of phospho-CheY's dephosphorylation is catalyzed by CheZ; linguistically, CheY isn't ever dephosphorylated, only phospho-CheY is; at game speed, it was hard to parse the clue as anything other than "in E. Coli chemotaxis, this modification happens to CheY". After talking to others, it seems like other clues in the tossup (e.g. Wee1) also suffer from similar playability problems. This probably would have worked better as a tossup on "phosphate groups" with clues about dephosphorylation.

I'll have more to say about the set later (and most of the questions were really good!), but I think this was the worst science question in the set. However, I disagree with the scope of Adam's argument. In the language of biochemistry, the term "modification" evokes the phrase "post-translational modification", which describes the ~addition~ of functional groups, sugars, lipids, etc. to a protein immediately after processing in the ribosome. While it's technically semantically correct, the use of the pronoun "modification" will, to any player knowledgeable about biochemistry, confuse them into buzzing with the common post-translational modification "phosphorylation". It's not just the wording of individual clues, the entire question is fundamentally flawed and punishes players for having real knowledge. "This process" might have been better, but I think this is just an unfixable answerline that should have been changed to "phosphate" or "phosphorylation".

I actually enjoyed the idea behind this tossup, and didn't find it particularly confusing at game speed. Perhaps a reasonable fix would be simply changing the answerline to "phosphatases" and making the pronoun "these enzymes". This could help iron out the earlier clues while also being an equally if not more concrete answerline.

[Bosa of York]

I'll also say that I liked the dephosphorylation tossup, and didn't think that that answerline was excluded by the question referring to it as a "modification."

[VSCOelasticity]

First, I'm surprised I'm the first to comment on the dephosphorylation tossup, given that it was negged in 62.5% of rooms across all sites. The lead-in has a number of problems: CheY can autophosphorylate; most of phospho-CheY's dephosphorylation is catalyzed by CheZ; linguistically, CheY isn't ever dephosphorylated, only phospho-CheY is; at game speed, it was hard to parse the clue as anything other than "in E. Coli chemotaxis, this modification happens to CheY". After talking to others, it seems like other clues in the tossup (e.g. Wee1) also suffer from similar playability problems. This probably would have worked better as a tossup on "phosphate groups" with clues about dephosphorylation.

I'll have more to say about the set later (and most of the questions were really good!), but I think this was the worst science question in the set. However, I disagree with the scope of Adam's argument. In the language of biochemistry, the term "modification" evokes the phrase "post-translational modification", which describes the ~addition~ of functional groups, sugars, lipids, etc. to a protein immediately after processing in the ribosome. While it's technically semantically correct, the use of the pronoun "modification" will, to any player knowledgeable about biochemistry, confuse them into buzzing with the common post-translational modification "phosphorylation". It's not just the wording of individual clues, the entire question is fundamentally flawed and punishes players for having real knowledge. "This process" might have been better, but I think this is just an unfixable answerline that should have been changed to "phosphate" or "phosphorylation".

I would encourage people to give criticisms that don't amount to insulting the question writer. Given that academic works and Wikipedia refer to it as a post-translational modification, and that deamidation and deimination/citrullination are commonly considered PTMs, I think this kind of "takedown" of a singular question is unjustified. For example, Adam was able to articulate what was wrong with the question (confusing, the leadin is wrong, bad playability) without resorting to essentially accusing people of not having any knowledge of biochemistry.

That being said, I think the overall criticism of this question here has pointed out that a change in the answerline (along with adjusting some clues of course) would be make the question more clear, and, in the case of the lead-in, address a factual error! The question will be modified (hehe) to either be on phosphatases or phosphate groups (more likely imo).

[VSCOelasticity]

Thanks for the feedback on lysis! I modified the answerline to say:

ANSWER: lysis [accept hemolysis; accept cytolysis; accept osmotic lysis; prompt on activation of the membrane attack complex or activation of the MAC with “What process is the MAC responsible for?”; prompt on descriptions of disrupting the cell membrane; prompt on descriptions of creating holes in the cell membrane; prompt on complement system before mentioned with “what process carried out by the complement system?”; do NOT accept “autolysis”, “oncolysis”, “radiolysis”, or “plasmolysis”]

It's kind of bloated now, but I think it addresses the concerns raised in the discussion here. Let me know if I missed something, or you think the answerline could be phrased better!

[VSCOelasticity]

The dephosphorylation tossup has been very straightforwardly modified to be on phosphate. Hopefully this improves playability, reduces negs, and removes any factual errors. Again, let me know if you still have any concerns with this! Thanks to everyone who suggested improvements.

In E. coli chemotaxis, the addition and removal of this group is self-catalyzed by the response regulatory protein CheY. A deficiency in an enzyme that removes this group occurs in Von Gierke’s disease. The removal of this group is catalyzed by cdc25 to reverse the inhibitory action of Wee1 (“wee-one”) at the G-sub-two/M-phase checkpoint. During T cell activation, calcium binding enables the calmodulin-dependent enzyme calcineurin (“KAL-see-neurin”) to remove this group from the transcription factor NF-AT, which can then localize to the nucleus. The removal of this group from both domains of a regulatory “bifunctional enzyme” indirectly leads to the increased activity of (*) PFK-1. PP1 removes this group to activate glycogen synthase. In the final step of gluconeogenesis (“gluco-neo-genesis”), this group is removed from a glucose derivative. This group is removed by a class of hydrolytic enzymes to reverse the action of protein kinases. For 10 points, cellular reactions are driven by the energy released by the removal of what group from ATP?
ANSWER: phosphate [accept phosphoryl; accept PO4; accept PO4-3-minus; accept PO3; accept PO3-2-minus; do NOT accept “phosphite”]

Edit: fixed a remaining use of 'this modification' as a pronoun

[Mike Bentley]

Just two things off the top of my head:
1. The Troubles are universally acknowledged to have started in the 1960s, so that giveaway should probably be changed to say "the first full decade of the troubles".
2. The "Three Days in the River" part in the Sikhism bonus doesn't really have a name. Descriptions of "Guru Nanak disappearing into a river" should be accepted.

Other than that, I really enjoyed the set!

Hrmm we didn't hear that Troubles question (I don't think), but it did feel like there were an awful lot of decade questions in this tournament. I think sometimes these questions can be good ways to ask about topics that are hard to ask about in other ways. However, in some cases it can fall flat. Is it really important to remember that the Salem Witch Trials took place in the 1660s rather than the 1650s or 1670s? And sometimes these questions can be easy to figure out. For instance, if I was a smarter person I would have buzzed very early on the Australia/New Zealand 1970s question because once you've figured out we're in that region, that's the most interesting one to ask about (constitutional crisis and so forth). Sure, someone could write a tossups in the 1990s in this region but in practice this rarely happens. It also is complicated when you're not writing about events in the middle of the decade. Testing people's knowledge of whether something happened in 1969 vs. 1970 to me starts getting pedantic. I'm not sure any questions in this tournament actually did that, but it's something to watch out for as more and more of these decade questions come up.

[touchpack]

First, I'm surprised I'm the first to comment on the dephosphorylation tossup, given that it was negged in 62.5% of rooms across all sites. The lead-in has a number of problems: CheY can autophosphorylate; most of phospho-CheY's dephosphorylation is catalyzed by CheZ; linguistically, CheY isn't ever dephosphorylated, only phospho-CheY is; at game speed, it was hard to parse the clue as anything other than "in E. Coli chemotaxis, this modification happens to CheY". After talking to others, it seems like other clues in the tossup (e.g. Wee1) also suffer from similar playability problems. This probably would have worked better as a tossup on "phosphate groups" with clues about dephosphorylation.

I'll have more to say about the set later (and most of the questions were really good!), but I think this was the worst science question in the set. However, I disagree with the scope of Adam's argument. In the language of biochemistry, the term "modification" evokes the phrase "post-translational modification", which describes the ~addition~ of functional groups, sugars, lipids, etc. to a protein immediately after processing in the ribosome. While it's technically semantically correct, the use of the pronoun "modification" will, to any player knowledgeable about biochemistry, confuse them into buzzing with the common post-translational modification "phosphorylation". It's not just the wording of individual clues, the entire question is fundamentally flawed and punishes players for having real knowledge. "This process" might have been better, but I think this is just an unfixable answerline that should have been changed to "phosphate" or "phosphorylation".

I would encourage people to give criticisms that don't amount to insulting the question writer. Given that academic works and Wikipedia refer to it as a post-translational modification, and that deamidation and deimination/citrullination are commonly considered PTMs, I think this kind of "takedown" of a singular question is unjustified. For example, Adam was able to articulate what was wrong with the question (confusing, the leadin is wrong, bad playability) without resorting to essentially accusing people of not having any knowledge of biochemistry.

That being said, I think the overall criticism of this question here has pointed out that a change in the answerline (along with adjusting some clues of course) would be make the question more clear, and, in the case of the lead-in, address a factual error! The question will be modified (hehe) to either be on phosphatases or phosphate groups (more likely imo).

Sorry if my post came off as insulting the question writer or insinuating they don't know biochemistry--the question contains well-selected clues arranged in an order that produces a very effective difficulty curve, and that's not something the writer could do without understanding biochemistry! I simply mean to point out that there was a lack of forethought in how players will process the question without the advance knowledge of what the answerline is, and this produced a frustrating experience in many rooms where the team with more knowledge of biochemistry was awarded with a neg. (and I can also produce sources whose wording supports my argument--I hold that calling "dephosphorylation" a "post-translational modification" is pedagogically an incredibly non-standard use of the term and academically uncommon usage.) I posted with a perhaps condescending level of detail not because I think the writer doesn't know things, but because I think this is a generalizable writing lesson for any budding science players/writers reading this forum: For all questions, but especially when writing a creative/innovative tossup idea like this, it's important to consider how players are going to parse and interpret individual clues and even individual words.

[naan/steak-holding toll]

Not sure if this supports Billy's argument or not, but my teammate Noah negged very early with "phosphorylation" - he said he should have waited a clue, but clearly knew exactly what was going on.

[Make sure your seatbelt is fastened]

Just two things off the top of my head:
1. The Troubles are universally acknowledged to have started in the 1960s, so that giveaway should probably be changed to say "the first full decade of the troubles".
2. The "Three Days in the River" part in the Sikhism bonus doesn't really have a name. Descriptions of "Guru Nanak disappearing into a river" should be accepted.

Other than that, I really enjoyed the set!

Hrmm we didn't hear that Troubles question (I don't think), but it did feel like there were an awful lot of decade questions in this tournament. I think sometimes these questions can be good ways to ask about topics that are hard to ask about in other ways. However, in some cases it can fall flat. Is it really important to remember that the Salem Witch Trials took place in the 1660s rather than the 1650s or 1670s? And sometimes these questions can be easy to figure out. For instance, if I was a smarter person I would have buzzed very early on the Australia/New Zealand 1970s question because once you've figured out we're in that region, that's the most interesting one to ask about (constitutional crisis and so forth). Sure, someone could write a tossups in the 1990s in this region but in practice this rarely happens. It also is complicated when you're not writing about events in the middle of the decade. Testing people's knowledge of whether something happened in 1969 vs. 1970 to me starts getting pedantic. I'm not sure any questions in this tournament actually did that, but it's something to watch out for as more and more of these decade questions come up.

I'm not sure about the Salem Witch Trials, but all of the clues in the literature tossup on the 1660s pertained to the Great Plague of London, which coincided with the Great Fire.

[Mike Bentley]

Just two things off the top of my head:
1. The Troubles are universally acknowledged to have started in the 1960s, so that giveaway should probably be changed to say "the first full decade of the troubles".
2. The "Three Days in the River" part in the Sikhism bonus doesn't really have a name. Descriptions of "Guru Nanak disappearing into a river" should be accepted.

Other than that, I really enjoyed the set!

Hrmm we didn't hear that Troubles question (I don't think), but it did feel like there were an awful lot of decade questions in this tournament. I think sometimes these questions can be good ways to ask about topics that are hard to ask about in other ways. However, in some cases it can fall flat. Is it really important to remember that the Salem Witch Trials took place in the 1660s rather than the 1650s or 1670s? And sometimes these questions can be easy to figure out. For instance, if I was a smarter person I would have buzzed very early on the Australia/New Zealand 1970s question because once you've figured out we're in that region, that's the most interesting one to ask about (constitutional crisis and so forth). Sure, someone could write a tossups in the 1990s in this region but in practice this rarely happens. It also is complicated when you're not writing about events in the middle of the decade. Testing people's knowledge of whether something happened in 1969 vs. 1970 to me starts getting pedantic. I'm not sure any questions in this tournament actually did that, but it's something to watch out for as more and more of these decade questions come up.

I'm not sure about the Salem Witch Trials, but all of the clues in the literature tossup on the 1660s pertained to the Great Plague of London, which coincided with the Great Fire.

Oh whoops. I didn't know the clues and someone buzzed with 1660s and I thought they said it was based on Witch Trials. But the point still stands about requiring you to remember the date of the Great Plague

[warum]

In Packet 8, TU 20, I think this clue

When this quantity is high for magma, explosive eruptions occur. (*)

should be moved out of power; it's something that comes up in introductory geology courses. Also, one could argue that the clue also applies to "amount of dissolved gases/volatile content" although that probably makes little sense with the earlier clues.

In packet 8, TU 1,

Part Two of the St John Passion features an aria in this key for alto soloist and viola da gamba obbligato, and is titled “Es ist vollbracht”ESS ist foll-brahk’t A solo violin piece in this key

the "and" should be changed to "which" so as not to imply that the title applies to all of Part Two. Also there is no period between the first two sentences.

[VSCOelasticity]

In Packet 8, TU 20, I think this clue

When this quantity is high for magma, explosive eruptions occur. (*)

should be moved out of power; it's something that comes up in introductory geology courses. Also, one could argue that the clue also applies to "amount of dissolved gases/volatile content" although that probably makes little sense with the earlier clues.

Yeah, it could apply to the concentration of dissolved gases, but I was hoping players would be able to reason that the question was asking about how high viscosity means more gases get trapped in the magma. I went ahead and mentioned that to avoid any confusion.

I don't mind power mark being a little late on this question, but I have moved explosive eruptions out of power. This might make the power difficulty of this question more in line with the rest of the set.

The build up of gas content in magmas with a large value for this quantity leads to (*) explosive eruptions.

Thanks for the suggestion!

[Mike Bentley]

I wasn't the biggest fan of using Book of Laughter and Forgetting as a clue for the books tossup: "In a novel titled for one of these objects, Michelle and Gabrielle agree that the title creature of Ionesco’s Rhinoceros was picked for “comic effect.”" I recognized that the clue about The Rhinoceros came from Book of Laughter and Forgetting but hesitated because I couldn't think of a plausible title object. Maybe I'm forgetting the novel, but I don't seem to recall there being a physical "Book of Laughter and Forgetting" in it. Yes, the word "book" does appear in the title, but that seems more of a word describing the contents.

I liked the bonus part on birth trays even though I was too tired to recall what was being asked for.

[ryanrosenberg]

I wasn't the biggest fan of using Book of Laughter and Forgetting as a clue for the books tossup: "In a novel titled for one of these objects, Michelle and Gabrielle agree that the title creature of Ionesco’s Rhinoceros was picked for “comic effect.”" I recognized that the clue about The Rhinoceros came from Book of Laughter and Forgetting but hesitated because I couldn't think of a plausible title object. Maybe I'm forgetting the novel, but I don't seem to recall there being a physical "Book of Laughter and Forgetting" in it. Yes, the word "book" does appear in the title, but that seems more of a word describing the contents.

I strongly agree with this -- I feel like there have been a number of tournaments recently where the writers/editors take "this word appears in the title of a given book" to mean "this word titles that book." That is not true and can be very confusing, as Mike notes above. Fall Open was far from the worst offender in this regard, but all editors should strive to make sure that they're being precise moving forward.

[Banana Stand]

I wasn't the biggest fan of using Book of Laughter and Forgetting as a clue for the books tossup: "In a novel titled for one of these objects, Michelle and Gabrielle agree that the title creature of Ionesco’s Rhinoceros was picked for “comic effect.”" I recognized that the clue about The Rhinoceros came from Book of Laughter and Forgetting but hesitated because I couldn't think of a plausible title object. Maybe I'm forgetting the novel, but I don't seem to recall there being a physical "Book of Laughter and Forgetting" in it. Yes, the word "book" does appear in the title, but that seems more of a word describing the contents.

I strongly agree with this -- I feel like there have been a number of tournaments recently where the writers/editors take "this word appears in the title of a given book" to mean "this word titles that book." That is not true and can be very confusing, as Mike notes above. Fall Open was far from the worst offender in this regard, but all editors should strive to make sure that they're being precise moving forward.

Eh, this just leads to very awkward phrasing like "this is the first title noun of a book, etc." which can actually be harder to figure out at game speed (if you don't agree, I urge you to read the RILKE discussion thread!) Itamar chose a slightly more imprecise phrasing, but one that's very easy to follow at game speed. I'm sorry, if you hear "title object" and can't figure it out a plausible title object between "book", "laughter", and "forgetting", I don't have much sympathy. Conceptually, it may not be the strongest link on an "object", but it tied together different Czech novels in a way that wasn't an absolute mess to listen to.

[Mike Bentley]

I wasn't the biggest fan of using Book of Laughter and Forgetting as a clue for the books tossup: "In a novel titled for one of these objects, Michelle and Gabrielle agree that the title creature of Ionesco’s Rhinoceros was picked for “comic effect.”" I recognized that the clue about The Rhinoceros came from Book of Laughter and Forgetting but hesitated because I couldn't think of a plausible title object. Maybe I'm forgetting the novel, but I don't seem to recall there being a physical "Book of Laughter and Forgetting" in it. Yes, the word "book" does appear in the title, but that seems more of a word describing the contents.

I strongly agree with this -- I feel like there have been a number of tournaments recently where the writers/editors take "this word appears in the title of a given book" to mean "this word titles that book." That is not true and can be very confusing, as Mike notes above. Fall Open was far from the worst offender in this regard, but all editors should strive to make sure that they're being precise moving forward.

Eh, this just leads to very awkward phrasing like "this is the first title noun of a book, etc." which can actually be harder to figure out at game speed (if you don't agree, I urge you to read the RILKE discussion thread!) Itamar chose a slightly more imprecise phrasing, but one that's very easy to follow at game speed. I'm sorry, if you hear "title object" and can't figure it out a plausible title object between "book", "laughter", and "forgetting", I don't have much sympathy. Conceptually, it may not be the strongest link on an "object", but it tied together different Czech novels in a way that wasn't an absolute mess to listen to.

Well as far as I can tell this novel is not actually titled "for" a book and thus was not easy to follow at game speed. Although I agree that things like first title noun can also be hard to keep track of. I'd suggest changing the wording of this tossup for future mirrors although the inspiration isn't striking me on how to do it for this specific case.

[naan/steak-holding toll]

For an easy part, I think the packet 1 bonus on Janissaries is pretty rough; since they're more famously kidnapped Christian children, hearing the word "hereditary" was enough to make us second-guess ourselves and miss the answer.

The devshirme system ended some time into the Ottoman empire and the Janissaries were by then a hereditary class. Given that the bonus was about the disbanding of the Janissaries (and that Auspicious Incident was the first part, I believe) I don't find this unreasonable, and it doesn't seem like this affected other teams.

Personally, I think the tournament could have gone even further to avoid extra-easy 10s but in the grand scheme of things that's not the first thing I'd change (probably would go after some of the rougher middle parts first, I.E. Qiyas).

[csa2125]

I wasn’t a huge fan of the “interest and inflation rates” TU: both Kai and I knew none of the specific papers or what but knew “we’re in Econ, talking about or around monetary policy, and two related measures that seem to work in opposite directions (likely rates),” which was enough for Kai to guess and power.

There was a similar problem with the hard part on Mankiw in a Packet 5 bonus; sure, he writes a ton of highly-cited papers worth knowing, and it seemed the question wanted you to specifically know his thought on the issue at hand, but you could have gotten this hard part from knowing “he’s somewhat recent (active in 2002) and I’m supposed to be able to get him from his lesser-known papers” (plus or minus “this sounds a bit New Keynesian or Bush-era-like”) without a care in the world for sticky-information. Maybe just dropping the “2002” date would make this less fraudable?

May be worth nothing that Kai and I are / were Econ majors, but in both cases you only need to recognize a couple pretty low-level phenomena coinciding in these questions to have a rather high-confidence fraud.

[aseem.keyal]

There was a similar problem with the hard part on Mankiw in a Packet 5 bonus; sure, he writes a ton of highly-cited papers worth knowing, and it seemed the question wanted you to specifically know his thought on the issue at hand, but you could have gotten this hard part from knowing “he’s somewhat recent (active in 2002) and I’m supposed to be able to get him from his lesser-known papers” (plus or minus “this sounds a bit New Keynesian or Bush-era-like”) without a care in the world for sticky-information. Maybe just dropping the “2002” date would make this less fraudable?

Disclaimer: Even though I wrote this bonus to fill a slot, my economics knowledge is very limited. However, I feel like a player who has enough knowledge to get this much from the bonus part is probably at or near the top 10% of the field in terms of economics knowledge. Regardless, dropping "2002" is a pretty easy change to make, so I'll go ahead and do that.

[a bird]

I found the curvature question a little confusing since it's basically a common link talking about different types of curvature (mean curvature, principal and Gaussian curvature of a manifold, total curvature of a curve). The total curvature/unknot clue is talking about a global property, while the other quantities mentioned are local properties of manifolds. I realized the unknot clue was describing a global property, so I ruled out Gaussian curvature as a possible answer because I assumed the question was talking about a specific quantity. The clues in this question all seem good on their own, but the question was confusing since it's talking about several different (but closely related) quatifites.

My broader point is that it should be clear when a question is a common link.

[warum]

In Packet 14, Bonus 10 mentions "brit milah" and then Tossup 12 is asking for "covenant" or "brit." There is nothing wrong with either question, but it's possible that hearing the bonus might make it easier to buzz on the tossup. If you think this is an issue, you could change the order of the questions in that packet.

[Evan Lynch]

I feel like the haem TU would have benefitted from a directed prompt on the various types of haemoprotein - whilst using the identifier “this complex” is not incorrect, the binding of the haemoprotein to the haem cofactor is essentially forming a complex itself, which caused a bit of confusion.

[Good Goblin Housekeeping]

I feel like the haem TU would have benefitted from a directed prompt on the various types of haemoprotein - whilst using the identifier “this complex” is not incorrect, the binding of the haemoprotein to the haem cofactor is essentially forming a complex itself, which caused a bit of confusion.

Piggybacking onto this, was also kind of confusing since the word complex could additionally plausibly be interpreted as a "protein complex" which would be an apt descriptor for hemoglobin (or whatever the hell haemogoblin is I guess?)

[cwasims]

I really enjoyed this set, but I just wanted to point out something I thought was somewhat problematic with some of the music questions: the fact that a few times very early clues would narrow the answer space considerably even if the clues weren't themselves that easy.

Two obvious examples of this to me were the tossups on Mendelssohn and Bruch. The very first clue of the Mendelssohn tossup mentions a chamber work that has a second cello in it, which (at least at game speed) narrowed it down for me to "name a composer who composed a string sextet or octet that could reasonably be clued at this level", which isn't all that many. I think this problem could be mostly avoided by just saying "a cello enters" or something, which definitely does not narrow the answer space down in this way.

For the Bruch, it mentioned a "violin concerto no. 1" quite early and, importantly, after Mozart, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and some Bach had already come up. Since most tossup-able composers only wrote one violin concerto if they wrote any at all, and most of the major composers who'd composed multiple had already come up, I was pretty much certain that it must be referring to one of Paganini or Bruch, and was able to get a quick buzz by recognizing the musical description of the Vorspiel. I might have instead phrased the question to just say "a concerto" or "a violin concerto".

The piano concerto tossup had this problem to some extent, since there aren't that many genres that Shostakovich wrote a famous 1st piece in other than his concertos and symphonies (I don't think his SQ 1 is especially important), and I had mostly ruled out symphonies because this isn't usually how questions on symphonies are asked in my experience. That being said, that bit of reasoning was moot when my opponent got an excellent first-line on the score clue.

I also was not a fan of the B minor tossup - having sung the St. John Passion twice, the key of the aria "Es ist vollbracht" is entirely unmemorable, as are the keys of a lot of the Baroque pieces mentioned. Once you knew it was themed around Baroque music, it also seemed somewhat obvious that the later clues would probably have to be about the Mass in B minor.