2007 Deep Bench
Questions by Iowa State (Eric Harrington, David Imberti, Benny Nelson, Scott Nystrom)
Edited by Rob Carson, Andrew Hart, and Quentin Roper
Quads Packet Tossups
1. One character in this work calls his horses "Long-ear'd lightning, tail'd tornado,/Griffin-hoof in hurricane" when they suddenly disappear, which leads to his encounter with a character who laments the "theatre of woe" in which he lives. The recognition of a long-lost sword saves the life of a cross-dressing muscovite, who eventually marries the cousin of Estrella. Estrella and Astolfo had been vying for the throne rightfully belonging to the protagonist, who is drugged by Clotaldo and placed upon it, leading him to believe he has experienced the titular phenomenon. King Basilius tries to justify bestowing the Polish throne on the long-imprisoned Segismundo in, FTP, what play by Pedro Calderon de la Barca?
ANSWER: La Vida es Sueño or Life is a Dream
2. The heroine of The Feather of Finist the Falcon meets and receives gifts from three characters of this name, while Vasilissa the Beautiful is forced to earn fire from this character. In that story, this character’s house was patrolled by three riders representing Day, the Sun, and Night. She gained an epithet meaning “bone legs” from her skinny frame, though her mouth is said to stretch from Earth to Hell. Her house, which was only accessible through a trapdoor, was fenced by human bones and stood on four chicken legs, and she flies through the air on a mortar, steering with her pestle and removing her tracks with a broom. FTP, name this wild old hag and magician of Slavic folklore.
ANSWER: Baba Yaga or Jezi Baba
3. Studies by Zukowski et al and Kenneth Ross have shown the advantages of using the “cuckoo” method for error-checking these. In 1987 Rabin and Karp developed an algorithm that uses arolling one of these to perform string searches, while HMACs make use of the cryptographic variety of these. Bloom filters make use of several of them at once, and ideal ones should be as close to being purely injective as possible. FTP, name this type of function, common examples of which include MD5 and LOOKUP3 and which are used to produce namesake tables.
ANSWER: hash functions
4. Nathanial Pitcher preceded this man as the governor of his homestate, and Edward Livingston succeeded him as Speaker of the House. He split his party on the idea of an "Independent Treasury," and this man was a member of a body Thurlow Weed said "possessed so much power and used it so well," the Albany Regency. He beat out William Person Mangum, who received only South Carolina's votes, in the year he was elected president, and he sent troops to the Canadian border as president during the Aroostook War. FTP, name this U.S. President nicknamed the "Little Magician" who initiated the "Trail of Tears" after succeeding Andrew Jackson.
ANSWER: Martin Van Buren
5. Joseph Juran and Kaoru Ishikawa popularized this man's namesake chart, which is a bar chart with the bars arranged in descending order. His namesake index is the alpha in the formula that sees the quantity x-sub-m over x taken to the power of alpha, and it measures breadth of wealth. His namesake distribution is also called the Bradford distribution, and it can be used to display his eponymous principle. That principle states that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes, and is naturally also known as the 80-20 rule. FTP, name this man who also has a namesake efficiency or optimality in economics.
ANSWER: Vilfredo Federico Damaso Pareto
6. In the author's note accompanying this work the author claims that it can only be fully realized "through an evocation of music from the abyss of transition." The title character is compared to a cockerel that leaves his tail behind, and he asks "Who does not know his rasp of reeds?" when telling the story of the Not-I bird. The phrase "eaters of left-overs" is used as a slur used in this play, the climax of which centers around the actions of Simon Pilkings upon the failure of Amusa to arrest the title character. That character's son, Olunde, ultimately takes his place as a messenger to the dead Alafin, leading to Elesin's jail cell suicide. FTP name this play by Wole Soyinka.
ANSWER: Death and the King's Horsemen
7. Contradictions arising from the classical Drude model of conduction led to one of the early discrepancies in this theorem, while studies by Dewar and Weber explained another discrepancy arising from the Dulong-Petit law. It’s not the virial theorem, though Sinai’s billiard is one of the few systems rigorously proven to actually meet this theorem’s requirement of ergodicity. It begins to show its weaknesses at low temperatures, and it notably fails for electromagnetic radiation, resulting in the ultraviolet catastrophe. FTP, name this theorem, which states that a system at equilibrium at absolute temperature T will have an average energy of one-half k T per degree of freedom.
ANSWER: Equipartition Theorem or Law of Equipartition or basically anything that mentions equipartition
8. Cornelius Nepos holds that his father Neocles disowned him, and after he was banished, this man was made a governor of Magnesia on the Maeander River by Artaxerxes I. This man vied for power with Aristides after Mitiades died, and he likely rose to power as an archon sometime around 485 BC. Herodotus reported that this man interpreted the oracle's call to defend his hometown with "wooden walls" as a sign to order the construction of 200 triremes, which fought indecisively at Artemisium. FTP, name this leader of the Athenian democracy during the Persian Wars who oversaw victory at Salamis.
ANSWER: Themistocles
9. The Arcadia Bluffs are the highest point along the shoreline of this body of water. Washington Island is the largest of a group of islands in this body that the French dubbed Porte des Morts, or death's door, because of all the shipwrecks that occurred there. The Big Sable Point lighthouse is located on this body of water, within Ludington State Park. Its northern end is home to Grand Traverse Bay, and at its southern tip rests Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. FTP, name this largest lake by surface area entirely within the United States, a body that is connected to Lake Huron by the Straights of Mackinac.
ANSWER: Lake Michigan
10. One of this band's songs posits that the addressee will "make the winter springtime and the [titular] sing time." Besides "Jingle Jangle," this band's hits include one in which the speaker wonders "How much do you love me," and upon hearing "This much," the speaker replies "Mmm heavy!" One of their songs begins tells of the speaker who's just trying to walk down the street and escape the city heat, when he sees a girl walking by and his heart undergoes the titular palpitations. In addition to "Bang Shang A Lang," this band put out a mega-hit in which the singer claims that "You are my candy girl / and you've got me wanting you." FTP, name this group comprised of Veronica Lodge, Reggie Mantle, Jughead Jones, and friends, the artists behind "Sugar Sugar."
ANSWER: The Archies
11. This work was depicted on a broadside poster designed by Cledie Taylor. In a reading of this monosyllabic trimeter work, its poet explained that she chose "a nice, gentle, uncontroversial, enjoyable, pleasant, fragrant [entity] that everybody loves" to represent "the establishment" but denied that the phrase has sexual overtones. Its epigraph explains that the speakers are seven youth "at the Golden Shovel," who "left school." The speakers lurk late, strike straight, sing sin, and thin gin at the pool hall, even though they realize they will die soon. FTP, name this work containing the line "We / Jazz June," an eight-line poem by Gwendolyn Brooks.
ANSWER: "We Real Cool"
12. The Goldman Equation is a generalized form of this equation for multiple ion species, and the last step in its proof of this equation is the fact that the Gibbs Free Energy change is equal to the opposite of the product of the number of electrons transferred per mole, the quantity related by this equation, and Faraday’s Constant, and one if its most important applications is finding the potential across a cell membrane. For ten points, name this equation from electrochemistry that states the change in electric potential of a chemical electrode is proportional to the log of the ratio of the concentrations of the reducing ion and the oxidating ion.
ANSWER: Nernst equation
13. One character in this work, due to his affection for vintage claret, prevents another character from visiting Lucy Darleton. Minor characters in this work include Harry Oxford, who disrupts the engagement announced at the beginning of the novel, and the central character's best man, Colonel de Craye. Several characters concern themselves with Crossjay’s opportunity to join the marines, which is facilitated by the tutelage of Laetitia Dale. The central character thwarts several attempts to flee to Europe by his betrothed, Clara Middleton, who eventually marries Vernon Whitford. FTP, name this novel about the selfish Sir Willoughby Patterne by George Meredith.
ANSWER: The Egoist
14. Troops under this man perpetrated the 228 massacre, during which thousands of civilian deaths resulted from military force used. Financial aid to this man's troops was stymied under the Harry Dexter White led IMF, and his country signed into effect a new constitution mandating a five-branch system of government in 1947. This man called for the Northern Expedition, and the Zhongshan Warship incident helped him overtake his political rival Wang Jingwei. FTP, name this leader of the KMT who took over for Sun Yat-Sen and led the Republic of China until 1975.
ANSWER: Chiang Kai-shek (prompt on "Kai shek")
15. This building was designed as a replacement for one that was destroyed in WWII bombing raids. The sloping roof of this building provides an overhang for outdoor shelter, and its designed said that its walls were "absurdly yet practically thin." Several pinhole windows perforate the east wall of this building, and the sloping, seemingly massive roof sits on small metal columns and allows a crack of light through. This building's most distinctive feature may be the silo-like projection on its east end. FTP, name this church on a hill outside of Ronchamp, a work of Le Corbusier.
ANSWER: Notre Dame du Haut
16. Immanuel Velikovsky put for the controversial theory that this man corresponded with Akhenaton, but Emmet Sweeney that the real contemporary to this man was Tutankhamen. The Biblical story of this man fighting the battle of Karkar is supported by writing on the Kurkh stela of Shalmaneser III, which says that this man send 2,000 chariots and 10,000 soldiers. This man didn't get punished because he humbled himself before Elijah, but his son Joram incurred the wrath of God. This man succeeded his father Omri when that man died, and this man married a worshiper of Malkart who plotted to kill Naboth to steal his vineyard. FTP, name this King of Israel who married Jezebel.
ANSWER: Ahab or Ach'av
17. When five of the perpetrators were hanged, the ropes frayed and broke before they died, but in lieu of tradition the five were hanged again. This event arose from the machinations of the Union of Salvation, a derivative of the Semyenov Guard. After the election of Prince Trubetskoy as interim dictator, and his failure to show to give a speech and Mikhail Miloradovich was assassinated by Peter Kakhovsky, sparking this event. Sergey Muravyov-Apostol was able to convert Vasilkov's soldiers, and this event saw the capture of St. Petersburg before it was suppressed. FTP, name these Russian revolters who took their name from a winter month.
ANSWER: Decembrist revolt
18. He suffered a high ankle sprain against Kansas State in 2005, sidelining him for parts of four games, and he injured himself on a celebratory dive into the end zone against Iowa State in 2006, an injury that cost him a chance at Billy Sims's yardage record. He slipped to seventh overall in the 2007 NFL draft because of concerns about his lingering collarbone injury, but his performance last week against the Bears yielded 224 yards and three touchdowns. He set a freshman record with 1925 yards as a freshman en route to finishing runner-up to Matt Leinart while playing for Oklahoma. FTP, name this running back nicknamed "A.D." for "all day," number 28 for the Minnesota Vikings.
ANSWER: Adrian Lewis Peterson
19. This work was created while the artist was staying in Cotswald Village, and it took several months to create because the painter refused to work at any time except at exact moments of sunset in between breaks of his tennis game. This work takes its name from a Joseph Mazzinghi song, and scattered red and orange globes illuminate the scene. The young brown-haired Polly and Dotty Barnard are up to their knees in foliage, and they wear frilly white dresses amidst giant white flowers. FTP, name this aesthetic study depicting two girls lighting Chinese lanterns in a garden at twilight, a work of John Singer Sargent.
ANSWER: Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose
20. Among this man's poems are two addressed to a woman who swims in water that "folded the wings of icarus" and a series describing a certain angel as a surveyor, a mechanic, and a telagraphist. Protagonists of his novels include a wireless radio operator aboard the Aldebaran, a WorldWar II gunner, and a machinist in a bicycle factory. In addition to The Widower's Son and The Lost Flying Boat, he wrote a novel in which Gyp's husband beats the crap out of the womanizing Arthur Seaton, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. Best known for a short story about the pensive athlete Smith, this is, FTP, what author of The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner?
ANSWER: AlanSillitoe
TB. Al-Umari reported that this man would not kiss the ground in Cairo before the local ruler until his minister whispered something in his ear. Leo Africanus claimed that his capital was the place of six thousand hearths and the most civilized people on earth. This man was a benefactor of the Sankore University, and his capital was at Niana. He was famed for his hajj, and he may have had to take out a loan just to pay his way back. He walked to Mecca giving away a vast fortune and causing hyperinflation in Egypt. FTP, name this grand-nephew of Sundiata Keita, ruler of the Mali empire when it controlled lots of gold.
ANSWER: MansaMusa (accept either)
2007 Deep Bench
Questions by Iowa State (Eric Harrington, David Imberti, Benny Nelson, Scott Nystrom)
Edited by Rob Carson, Andrew Hart, and Quentin Roper
Quads Packet Bonuses
1. Answer the following questions about amino acids FTPE:
[10] This mood-, appetite-, and temperature-regulating neurotransmitter is synthesized from the amino acid tryptophan.
ANSWER: serotonin (accept 5-hydroxytryptamine)
[10] Produced from an intermediate on the shikimate pathway, this amino acid features an aromatic ring and is naturally converted to tyrosine in the body.
ANSWER: phenylalanine
[10] Name either of the two nonstandard amino acids that are genetically coded for. One is encoded by a UGA codon in the presence of namesake insertion sequence elements, while the other is encoded by a UAG codon in some methanogens.
ANSWER: selenocysteine or pyrrolysine
2. Identify the following characters from Vanity Fair FTPE:
[10] At the beginning of the novel, this character and her friend Amelia Sedley have just graduated from Miss Pinkerton’s Academy for Young Ladies. This character later seduces and presumably kills Amelia’s brother Joseph.
ANSWER: BeckySharp (accept either)
[10] After leaving Russell Square, Becky is employed by Sir Pitt Crawley, and soon elopes with this character, Sir Pitt’s younger son.
ANSWER: Captain Rawdon Crawley (prompt on “Crawley”)
[10] After John Sedley goes bankrupt, this character is forbidden by his father from marrying Amelia. They get hitched anyway on the advice of this character’s friend William Dobbin.
ANSWER: Sir GeorgeOsborne (accept either)
3. Answer the following questions about the life and times of Alexander the Great FTPE:
[10] This dude ruled the Persian Empire during the beginning of Alexander’s conquests. He personally took the field against Alexander at Issus and was crushed, a pattern that would continue.
ANSWER: Darius III (accept Codomannus)
[10] At this 331 BC battle, Alexander advanced on the Persian army with the wings of his forces angled away from the advance, drawing away the Persian cavalry and allowing him to strike directly at his opponents’ middle.
fterwards, Bessus had Darius III assassinated, and the Persian empire was pretty much fucked.
ANSWER: Battle of Gaugamela OR Battle of Arbela
[10] Taking the field from the war elephants of King Porus, this battle was still a strategic defeat as it forced Alexander to retreat from India.
ANSWER: Battle of the Hydaspes River