1. One author from this country described Del Jordan’s time in the town of Jubilee in Lives of Girls and Women. In addition to Alice Munro, an author from here wrote of Percy Staunton’s suicide and Dunstan Ramsay’s dubbing himself “fifth business” in the (*) Deptford Trilogy. A novel from this country ends with Marian MacAlpin leaving her fiance, while another features Serena Joy arranging an affair between Nick and Offred. FTP, name this home country of Robertson Davies and of The Handmaid’s Tale author Margaret Atwood.
ANSWER: Canada
2. The seventeenth of these describes a trip on the horse Buraq, the Night Journey. Others include "The Father of Flame," "The Night of Power," and "Those Who Reject Faith." The first one is “The Key” and the longest one is “The (*) Cow.” They can be grouped into thirty clusters, known as Juz, and most of the 114 of these begin with the Bismillah, which states that each one is written “in the name of” a “most graceful” and “most compassionate” figure. FTP, name these chapters, ordered mostly by length, which comprise the Quran.
ANSWER: Suras
3. This man ordered the rebuilding of Pisaurum after that city's destruction by Witigis and won the battle of Decimum against Gelimer. He led campaigns to depose Pope Silverius and to desecrate the mausoleum of Theodoric. One of his missions in (*) Italy was undermined by the spying of his colleague Narses, and his wife Antonina was among the figures attacked in the Secret History by his former advisor Procopius. FTP, name this general who fought such groups as the Vandals and Ostrogoths on behalf of the Byzantine emperor Justinian.
ANSWER: Belisarius
4. A passage from Paradise Lost inspired this artist's depiction of Hecate riding through the air to attend an infant sacrifice in northern Scandinavia, The Night-Hag Visiting Lapland Witches. An enormous foot and a hand with one finger held up are behind a man holding his head in his hand in his drawing The (*) Artist Overwhelmed by the Grandeur of Ancient Ruins. A painting by him shows a white-eyed horse's head jutting through a red curtain as an incubus squats on a sleeping woman's chest. FTP, name this creator of The Nightmare.
ANSWER: Henry Fuseli [or Johann Heinrich Füssli]
5. GABAgeric parvalbumin neurons in the striatum are prime receptors for this compound, and those receptors were depleted in rats in an experiment that demonstrated a lack of this compound can destroy the will to consume food. Most of the production of this compound occurs in the ventral tegmental area and the substancia nigra, and its main hormonal function is to inhibit the release of prolactin from the pituitary. Because it cannot cross the blood-brain barrier, COMT must be used to synthesize it from tyrosine-derived compounds when (*) shortages of this compound in the brain must be treated. FTP, identify this phenethylamine neurotransmitter, key in reward learning functions in the brain, whose levels are too low in cases of Parkinson's disease.
ANSWER: Dopamine
6. One controversy in this country centered around the recognition given to Meliton Manzanas, who was venerated despite his propensity to torture dissidents. The prime minister of this country was confused with Venezuelan Hugo Chavez in September 2008 by John McCain, who said he wouldn't meet that man despite this country's troop presence in Afghanistan. That prime minister, of the PSOE, won an election in 2004 after Jose Aznar tried to disguise the (*) Muslim roll in a bombing in this country's capital, which Aznar blamed on the ETA, the Basque separatist group. FTP, name this European country whose reigning king Juan Carlos I hangs out in Madrid.
ANSWER: Kingdom of Spain
7. William of Malmesbury claimed that this man dueled with the brother of Hengist. He is later said to have been killed by Lancelot and to have feuded with Pellinore and Lamorak over their role in the death of this man’s father. Said to be brought up in the court of the Pope, this son of (*) Morgause and Lot increased in strength throughout the morning but weakened after noon, which didn’t help him when Bercilak challenged him to a game. FTP, name this Round Table member who beheaded the Green Knight.
ANSWER: Sir Gawain
8. John Grigg’s three-volume biography of this man discusses such events as his legal battle on behalf of Welsh Nonconformists to oversee their own burials and his time at the Exchequer, where he issued the the People’s Budget. He frequently clashed with Douglas Haig over military strategy, and he later agreed to the independence of (*) Ireland after compromising between Wilson and Clemenceau at Versailles. FTP, name this man who was in office until 1922 after succeeding Herbert Asquith as British prime minister during World War I.
ANSWER: David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, Viscount Gwynedd of Dwyfor
9. At one point in this novel, the mention of Aunt Martha Pierce causes the title character to recall wasting twenty dollars on an “electric battery.” In another scene, the protagonist mentions that he saw Ned Hale kissing Ruth Varnum. The narrator is an (*) engineer who hires the main character to transport him around Starkfield, hearing about such incidents as the breaking of a pickle dish by a visiting cousin. FTP, Mattie Silver fails to run off with Zenobia’s husband, instead crashing a sled into a tree with him, in what novel by Edith Wharton?
ANSWER:Ethan Frome
10. Because a region bordering this one was first confirmed by Inge Lehmann, a boundary between those areas was once named for her. When PKJKP waves exit this area, they convert to shear waves before returning, and the upper bound of this region is denoted D''(“d double prime”), and marked by the Gutenberg discontinuity. S-waves (*) cannot travel through this region because of its composition, and is located beneath the mantle. FTP, identify this iron-nickel region, a liquid layer of the earth that surrounds the inner core.
ANSWER: Liquid Outer Core(prompt on “core)
11. During this conflict, rival governments were set up under Elias Sarkis and Kamal Jumblatt. It was worsened when Suleiman Franjieh invited Hafez Assad to intervene, and its participants included a Spanish-modeled Phalange which sought to maintain Maronite Christian supremacy. Nominally ended by the (*) Taif Accords, this war had long before become a proxy fight between Palestinian groups and Israel, who invaded in 1982. FTP, identify this conflict which led to the creation of Hezbollah and Syrian domination of a certain country.
ANSWER: the Lebanese civil war [or civil war in Lebanon or other equivalents]
12. This man rejected the Neo-Hegelian ideas of Sylvester Morris when he collaborated on Studies in Logical Theory, which William James marked as the founding text of the Chicago philosophical school. His idea of the (*) “reflex arc” began functional psychology, and his last public action was to hear evidence from Leon Trotsky in Mexico rebutting Stalin. FTP, name this “instrumentalist,” who applied pragmatism to educational theory in The Child and the Curriculum, The School and Society, and Democracy and Education.
ANSWER: John Dewey
13. Electric and magnetic wave components accelerate a charged particle in the scattering named for this man, often seen in plasmas. Hist best-known work inspired his students Aston and Dempster, and led him to build on Wien's investigation of canal rays. Rutherford's demonstration of positive charge concentration in the (*) nucleus disproved a conclusion this scientist reached by examining charge-to-mass ratios using cathode ray tubes, a conclusion that imagined corpuscles floating in a sea of positive charge. FTP, identify this British scientist who created the mass spectrometer, put forth the plum pudding model, and discovered the electron.
ANSWER: Joseph John Thomson
14. A failed attempt to arrange a marriage to Lord Fellamar is one episode of this novel, while a man in this story who lives by poaching is named for the deep color of his beard as “Black George Seagrim.” The title character is tutored by the violent Roger Thwackum and wins a (*) duel with Fitzpatrick before finding out that Mr. Summer and Bridget are his true parents. Then, he is able to marry Sophia Western and become the heir of Squire Allworthy. FTP, name this novel about “a foundling,” written by Henry Fielding.
ANSWER: The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling
15. This man’s son of the same name was the author of Beyond the Breakers and The Wrong of Slavery,whocollaborated with Fanny Wright at Nashoba and, as a Congressman, introduced the bill to create the Smithsonian. This man made his fortune with American Sea Island cotton at the New Lanark mills, and in addition to Queenwood, Orbiston, and Ralahine, his (*) ideas were enacted on land bought from George Rapp in Indiana. FTP, name this utopian socialist, who established a community to educate poverty away at New Harmony.
ANSWER: RobertOwen
16. In one of this team’s seasons, they made a 12.5-game comeback and beat the Angels in a tiebreaker playoff, then won a five-game ALDS against the (*) Yankees. They have made three more playoff appearances since that 1995 year, losing the ALCS to the Yankees in both 2000 and 2001. In addition to the thirteen-year tenure of Jay Buhner and the career of outstanding DH Edgar Martinez, this was also the first Major League team for Alex Rodriguez and Ken Griffey, Jr. FTP, name this Safeco Field occupant from the Pacific Northwest.
ANSWER: SeattleMariners
17. The opera Bánk bán was composed by a native of this country, while the Dances of Galánta were composed by a man who chronicled this country’s folk music and also wrote the comedic opera Hary Janos. A composer who was not from this country, Johannes (*) Brahms, wrote twenty-one “dances” named for it, while composers who were from here wrote the Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta, the Transcendental Etudes, and Duke Bluebeard's Castle. FTP, name this homeland of Zoltan Kodaly, Bela Bartok, and Franz Liszt.
ANSWER: Hungary
18. The small Pita Island is located just south of this city’s Flour Bluff district. The Koch refinery and Saxtet oil field are in the metro area of this city, while the resort centers of Mustang and (*) Padres Islands separates this city's namesake bay from the Gulf of Mexico proper. It is found at the southeast terminus of Interstate 37, which begins in San Antonio. FTP, name this port on the Nueces River, a Texas coastal city whose name means “body of Christ.”
ANSWER: Corpus Christi
19. Each of the “Five Tiger Warriors” die by the end of this book. Figures who cause trouble in this work include the aggressive governor Guan Yü ad the mentally feeble king served by Zhuge Liang. A man who had declared himself the King of (*) Wei after putting down the Yellow Turban rebellion, Cao Cao, loses the Battle of Red Cliff in this novel by Luo Guanzhong, which ends with Sima Yan's unification of China under the Jin dynasty. FTP, name this novel in which the Wei, Shu, and Wu factions battle for supremacy during the namesake historical period.
ANSWER: The Romance of the Three Kingdoms [or San kuo chih yen-i]
20. An alternative to the Standard Model centers around the “condensate” of this entity, and posits that this particle and its anti-particle replace the Higgs Field. Both the Feynman Diagram and Yukawa coupling predict that the Higgs boson will likely decay to this particle and its anti-particle, and it was almost referred to as “truth” prior to its discovery at Fermilab's Tevatron, the (*) only location capable of producing this particle. Possessing a positive charge of 2/3, it interacts mainly via the strong interaction and at 173 GeV, is the most massive elementary particle. FTP, identify this quark which usually decays into a W boson and its counterpart, the bottom quark.
ANSWER: Top Quark
1. He throws himself into the Seine after his quarry saves his life during an anti-police riot. FTPE:
[10] Name this obsessed inspector who spends twenty years chasing Jean Valjean.
ANSWER: Monsieur Javert
[10] Javert and Valjean appear along with the apple thief Champmathieu and the revolutionary Enjolas in this novel by Victor Hugo.
ANSWER: Les Miserables [I guess accept “The Miserable Ones” or whatever if someone really insists on it]
[10] Francis I is a thinly disguised satire of Louis-Philippe and Monsieur de Saint-Vallier curses the hunchbacked Triboulet in this Hugo play, the basis for Verdi’s Rigoletto.
ANSWER: The King Amuses Himself [or The Fool’s Revenge; or Le Roi S’amuse]
2. Answer these questions about stromatolites, FTPE:
[10] Stromatolites form when sediments are trapped and bound in shallow water by bacteria, most often by this phylum, named for its color and thought to have played a central role in oxidizing early earth.
ANSWER: Cyanobacteria or Cyanophyta or Blue-Green Algae
[10] The photosynthesis conducted by bacteria in stromatolites often has a byproduct in the form of a thin layer of this sedimentary rock, which is composed largely of calcite.
ANSWER: Limestone
[10] Bedrock composed of rocks like limestone or dolomite undergoes dissolution and produces sinkholes and dolines in this kind of landscape, named for a Slovenian region.
ANSWER: Karst Topographyb
3. Name these enchanting females from mythology, FTPE.
[10] Aglaope and Thelxiepia are some of the names given to these bird-legged women in Greek myth, who lured sailors to their doom with songs.
ANSWER: sirens
[10] The novel Godwi by Clemens Brentano and a namesake poem by Heinrich Heine address the German legend of this siren-like figure who lives on a namesake rock in the Rhine.
ANSWER: Die Lorelei
[10] This whirlpool found under a fig tree in the Strait of Messina may have seemed like an attractive alternative to the six-headed monster on the other side, but was just as deadly.
ANSWER: Charybdis
4. Name these indigenous cities of Mexico, FTPE.
[10] The Street of the Dead, Pyramids of the Sun and Moon, and Temple of Quetzalcóatl are found in this city of unknown ethnic origin, about thirty miles from Mexico City.
ANSWER: Teotihuacan
[10] Sacrifices to Cenote were performed at this Mayan city of the Yucatán. It housed the largest court for the Mayan ball game and, along with Uxmal, was a member of the League of Mayapán.
ANSWER: Chichen Itza
[10] Alberto Ruz Lhuillier proved that the Maya used pyramids for burial when he found the jade tomb of king Pakal in the Temple of the Inscriptions at this site in Chiapas.
ANSWER: Palenque
5. Name these philosophical schools, for 10 points each.
[10]The skeptic Arcesilaus and the such Hellenistic figures as Carneades and Antiochus of Ascalon were later leaders of this actual school founded by Plato.
ANSWER: the Academy
[10] Taught at the Garden by such figures as Philodemus of Gadara, and later by such Romans as Lucretius, this Greek philosophy advocated the individual pursuit of rational happiness.
ANSWER: Epicureanism
[10] Rudolf Carnap, Friedrich Waismann, and Kurt Gödel were among those who promoted verificationism and logical positivism as members of this group, which met in the namesake city.
ANSWER: Vienna Circle [or Wiener Kreis]
6. This character becomes fluent in Spanish and seeks battles with Turks and Moors in 1918 in order to completely live the life of Miguel Cervantes. FTPE:
[10] Name this “author of the Quixote,” a fictional Frenchman who rewrites Don Quixote word-for-word in a 1942 short story.
ANSWER: Pierre Menard
[10] “Pierre Menard, author of the Quixote” is a short story by this Argentinean author of “The Aleph,” who included “Tlon Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” in his collection Ficciones.
ANSWER: Jorge Luis Borges
[10] In this Borges story, men live their entire lives in the apparently limitless title building, attempting to explain where the infinite number of books came from.
ANSWER: “The Library of Babel” [or “La biblioteca de Babel”]
7. Identify these kidney structures named for people, FTPE:
[10] Filtrate from the glomerulus immediately drains into this structure at the head of the nephron, where it undergoes ultrafiltration. It is bounded by the vascular and urinary poles.
ANSWER: Bowman's Capsule
[10] Bowman's capsule and the glomerulus form a “renal corpuscle” sometimes named for this Italian, who also names nudules in the white pulp of the spleen and excretory tubules found in many insects.
ANSWER: Marcello Malpighi
[10] Proximal and distal convluted tubules make up this structure, named for the fact that it turns upward after descending.
ANSWER: Loop of Henle