He Was Imprisoned in 1918 for Actions Harmful to British-American Relations, and Again

Seventh Annual

WashingtonUniversityHigh School Academic Challenge

Round 2

Edited by Lori Currier, Sean Phillips, Jon Pinyan, and Jay Turetzky

Written by Andrew Brantley, Danny Bravman, Lori Currier, Joel Gluskin, Ryan Jacobson,

Alex Jeffrey, Sean Phillips, Jon Pinyan, Matt Schneider, Jay Turetzky, and Matt Weiner

1. In 1913, he became Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson, but resigned in 1915 over the push towards World War I. He received his first nomination for President at the age of 36, and managed to unite not only Democrats but Populists and Free-Silverites as well, though he still lost the election. FTP, identify this advocate for the ban on teaching evolution in the Scopes trial, a three-time Presidential candidate who also delivered the 1896 “Cross of Gold” speech.

ANS: William JenningsBryan

2. Recent cast additions include Annie Potts as the father’s new boss. Another new character, Judith, was introduced this year but was brutally murdered in time for November sweeps, sending the title character into a tailspin of emotions. Other storylines include the title characters growing relationship with her boyfriend, Adam. FTP, what is this series starring Amber Tamblyn in which God speaks to the title character?

ANS: Joan of Arcadia

3. There are two commonly used scales of this chemical quantity. The Mulliken variety is expressed directly in electron volts, while the more common Pauling scale ranges from 0 to 4. In general, the higher values are found on the right and top of the periodic table, thus fluorine tops the charts with one of 4.0, while cesium and francium have the lowest value of any elements, 0.7. FTP, name this quantity that measures the attraction of covalently bonded electrons to an atom.

ANS: electronegativity

4. The action in this novel precipitated when the main character discovers a girl he grew up with named Jane Gallagher is dating his roommate Stradlater at Pencey Prep. After being kicked out of there, the main character spends some days in New York City where he sees a play despite his aversion to phonies. FTP, what is this novel whose main character is Holden Caufield and was written by J.D. Salinger?

ANS: The Catcher in the Rye

5. Located on the line between Inyo and Tulare counties, it was first climbed by Johnson, Lucas, and Begole in 1873. The Washboard, Tower Traverse, and Grand Staircase are routes to the top of this peak, which overlooks OwensValley and the Kern RiverCanyon from the east of SequoiaNational Park in the Sierra Nevadas. For 10 points, what mountain, named for a nineteenth-century chief geologist of California, is the tallest in the contiguous forty-eight states?

ANS: Mount Whitney

6. PENCIL AND PAPER READY. Sam is looking for the value of the variable x, where x equals a plus b plus c. Sam also knows that a equals b plus two c, b equals a minus one, and three a equals five c. FTP, what is the value of x?

ANS: 7/6 (accept equivalents; a = 5/6, b = -1/6, c = ½)

7. He was imprisoned in 1918 for actions harmful to British-American relations, and again in 1961 for his involvement in a campaign for nuclear disarmament. Not what you’d expect from a philosopher born to an aristocratic family in Wales. He wrote social and political philosophy in Roads to Freedom and Authority and the Individual. However, he was best known for his work on logic. FTP, identify this British philosopher and mathematician who, with Alfred North Whitehead, wrote Principia Mathematica.

ANS: Bertrand Arthur William Russell

8. After running away from his work as an undertaker’s apprentice, the title character falls in with a group of child thieves. Unable to steal, he is taken in by Mr. Brownlow, but the gang of thieves steals him back. After another aborted robbery, he is taken in by Mrs. Maylie and her niece, who turns out to be his aunt. FTP, identify this work of Charles Dickens in which the thieves are led by Bill Sikes, Fagin, and the Artful Dodger.

ANS: Oliver Twist

9. After his death, his widow Ankhesenamen tried to engineer a Hittite invasion. He succeeded his brother Smenkhkare, and his rule was controlled by the general Horemheb and the vizier Ay (“eye”). After returning the court to Memphis, he rejected the “Amarna revolution” of Akhenaton, ordering the restoration of traditional worship before dying at age eighteen. For 10 points, name this fourteenth century BCE king of Egypt whose membership in the condemned Eighteenth Dynasty kept his tomb preserved until 1922.

ANS: Tutankhamen [or Tutankhaten]

10. Examples of them include xanthine and caffeine. Liver, scallops, and bacon all contain high concentrations of them. It is important that these molecules are capable of forming hydrogen bonds with their complimentary pyrimidines. For ten points, name this class of organic molecules that includes two of the DNA bases, adenine and guanine.

ANS: purines

11. She was encouraged to become a writer by Langston Hughes’s note in praise of her story “To Hell With Dying.” An article she published in 1975 is credited as being responsible for renewing interest in Zora Neale Hurston’s works. Her first novel was The Third Life of Grange Copeland, and she drew on her experience in the civil rights movement for Meridian. For 10 points, name this author of the epistolary novel about abuse survivor Celie, The Color Purple.

ANS: Alice Malsenior Walker

12. In November 2004, the National Institutes of Health announced that the protein mBDNF stimulates the growth of structures involved in this function. Many optical illusions rely on its use of top-down processing to influence sense perception. Organized as a network of linked schemas, it has episodic and semantic types. For 10 points, identify this encoding and recall function which retains information for several hours to many years.

ANS: long term memory [prompt on “memory”]

13. Some of its 63 articles granted the church freedom from royal interference, some guaranteed rights to the new middle class, some limited the king's ability to tax the English barons, and some were designed to ensure that the king obeyed the rest. FTP, name this document signed at Runnymede in 1215 by King John.

ANS: Magna Carta or Magna Charta

14. Their name is a transliteration from the Greek of a silver-gold alloy and was invented by G. Johnstone Stanley, who suggested it as a unit for charge. Its cousins the muon and tauon (TOW-ahn) are hundreds of times more massive, but decay within a microsecond. Equivalent to a beta particle and discovered by J. J. Thomson, FTP name this particle, the negatively charged component of atoms.

ANS: electron (accept beta particle before given)

15. The witch of Endor summoned this man’s spirit to foretell the deaths of Saul and his heirs. Before his conception, his previously barren mother, Hannah, pledged him to Eli so that he might be taught how to serve God. Name FTP, the last of the biblical judges who appears only in the first of the two books of the Bible named for him.

ANS: Samuel

16. PENCIL AND PAPER READY. In the dice game Yahtzee, five standard die are thrown at once. A person may choose to save certain rolls of the dice, and roll a second and a third time. However, five of a kind, called a Yahtzee, is the best possible outcome. With only one roll, FTP, what is the probability that a person will roll a Yahtzee?

ANS: 1 in 1296 (accept equivalents)

17. The current one boasts the first thatch roof permitted in London since the Great Fire of 1666. The original burned to the ground in 1613 after its thatch roof caught fire from a cannon shot during a performance. The wooden building is circular, and has a raised stage for performances, and galleries built into the walls. FTP, identify this theater, the original staging ground of many of the works of William Shakespeare.

ANS: Globe Theater (accept Shakespeare’s Globe)

18. The lawyer Komarovskii causes the title character’s father to kill himself, leaving him to the care of the Gromenkos. After having a child with Tonia, the protagonist falls in love with Pasha Antipov’s wife but eventually becomes an alcoholic and dies on the trolley. Condemned by Novye Mir as a “nonacceptance of the socialist revolution,” its author was ordered to decline the Nobel Prize. For 10 points, name this novel about a brokenhearted doctor by Boris Pasternak.

ANS: Doctor Zhivago

19. The Giotto space probe found that this celestial object is 80 percent water and 10 percent carbon monoxide, and the rest is methane, ammonia, hydrocarbons, iron, sodium, and cyanogen. It was in the sky when Mark Twain was born in 1835 and again when he died in 1910. FTP, identify this giant ball of ice that passes by the earth every 76 years.

ANS: Halley’s Comet

20. The last time he played himself on a scripted show, he lent his voice in the “Krusty Gets Kancelled” episode of The Simpsons. Also in that episode, Krusty and Bette Midler lampooned his last broadcast with guests, though in real life Bette sang to him “One More For the Road.” The replacement for Jack Parr in 1962, this is, FTP, what comedian, the longest serving host of The Tonight Show?

ANS: Johnny Carson

21. The attack on this island was designed to draw U.S. carriers into a trap, and included a feint at the Aleutians. Unfortunately for the Japanese, the Americans had broken the code, and made supreme efforts to get the Yorktown repaired after the damage it had taken at Coral Sea. Even though Yorktown was lost, the additional carrier helped in the destruction of three Japanese carriers. FTP, identify this site of the turning point of the War in the Pacific, fought in June of 1942.

ANS: Midway

1. The Crusades consisted of a number of expeditions sent out from Europe with the goal of taking Jerusalem from the Muslims. Identify the name of the expedition FTSNOP.

a) [5] In this Crusade in 1212, none of the thousands of boys and girls who set out from France and Germany reached Jerusalem, and many died or were sold as slaves.

ANS: Children’s Crusade

b) [10]This Crusade consisted primarily of French and Norman knights, and set out in 1096, at the behest of Pope Urban II. It was the only Crusade that won a battle to take Jerusalem (though in the Sixth Crusade, Frederick II of the Holy Roman Empire signed a treaty to receive the city).

ANS: FirstCrusade (Do not accept Peasant’s Crusade)

c) [15]Louis IX of France decided to attack Egypt in order to gain the Holy Land in this Crusade, which lasted from 1248 to 1254. He was captured and only freed in exchange for a huge ransom.

ANS: Seventh Crusade

2. Given a compound and an atom in the compound, give that atom’s oxidation state.

a) The carbon in carbon dioxide.

ANS: +4

b) The iron in Fe2O3

ANS: +3

c)The xenon in XeO3

ANS: +6

3. Identify the following female denizens of HogwartsSchool for Witchcraft and Wizardry FTSNOP.

a) [5] This clever Gryffindor founded the Society for the Protection of Elvish Welfare (or SPEW), the only real member of which is herself. Harry and Ron just play along to keep her quiet.

ANS: Hermione (her-my-ah-nee) Granger

b) [15] This insipid Slytherin is described as “pug-faced,” and was escorted to the Yule Ball by Draco Malfoy.

ANS: Pansy Parkinson

c) [10] This rather ditsy Ravenclaw student’s father is the editor of the magazine The Quibbler.

ANS: Luna “Loony” Lovegood

4. Name the Christian saint FTPE.

a) Leader of the early Christians, his original name was Simon, but Jesus gave him this name, meaning "rock".

ANS: St. Peter

b) According to the Acts of the Apostles, he caused an argument between Paul and Barnabas, then went to Crete with the latter as a missionary. He is also said to have written the second Gospel.

ANS: St. Mark

c) This Italian was born to a merchant family, but renounced his wealth after seeing a vision of Jesus. He founded an order that got its name from his, and traveled the Mediterranean as a missionary.

ANS: St. Francis of Assisi

5. And the Losers Are….answer the following about the recent Razzie nominations FTPE.

a) Though his status as an actor is debatable, he is up for Worst Actor and Worst Screen Couple with Condi Rice or his pet goat for the film Fahrenheit 9/11.

ANS: George W. Bush (they either need it all or some way to distinguish from Daddy that isn’t Jr. which would be wrong)

b) Leading the pack this year with seven nominations is this HalleBerry spinoff from the Batman franchise. Me-OW-OW-OW IT HURTS TO WATCH!

ANS: Catwoman

c) [5 each] Ben Stiller is nominated for Worst Actor for an impressive five films. Five points each, name any two of those five.

ANS: Along Came Polly, Anchorman, Envy, Dodgeball, Starsky & Hutch (guess they liked Meet the Fockers)

6. After George W. Bush was reelected, more of his Cabinet members left than stayed behind. FTPE, given a Cabinet Department, name the person set to replace him or her.

a) State

ANS: Condoleeza Rice

b) Justice

ANS: Alberto Gonzales

c) Commerce

ANS: Carlos Gutierrez

7. PENCIL AND PAPER READY. FTP each, answer the following questions regarding a 45 degree angle.

a) What is the tangent of a 45 degree angle?

ANS: 1

b) What is the secant of a 45 degree angle?

ANS: square root of 2

c) What is the equivalent of 45 degrees in terms of radians?

ANS: pi / 4 radians

8. The rise and fall of dinosaurs occurred during the Mesozoic era, which consisted of three periods. Respond with the correct one FTPE.

a) This first period of the Mesozoic saw the evolution of the first flying vertebrates, the pterosaurs.

ANS: Triassic Period

b) This middle period was named after the European mountains in which many of the fossils from it were found.

ANS: Jurassic Period (named after the Juras mountains)

c) The end of this final period of the Mesozoic about 65 million years ago coincided with the demise of the dinosaurs. Tyrannosaurus rex and Ankylosaurs, among others, were unique to this period.

ANS: Cretaceous Period

9. Given a Vice President of the United States, identify the President or Presidents under whom he served FTPE.

a) Schuyler (Sky-lur) Colfax

ANS: Ulysses S. Grant

b) Elbridge Gerry

ANS: James Madison

c) Spiro Agnew

ANS: Richard Nixon

10. Name these no-good Beatniks for 10 points each.

a)Doctor Sax and The Dharma Bums feature more of the same after his rambling exercise in “typing,” On the Road.

ANS: Jean-Louis “Jack” Kerouac

b) He once swam naked with right-wing radio host Michael Savage, and he also wrote the long poems Reality Sandwiches, Kaddish, and Howl.

ANS: Allen Ginsberg

c) This owner of the City Lights bookstore, where the Beat movement gestated, wrote his own poetry such as Pictures of the Gone World and A Coney Island of the Mind.

ANS: Lawrence Monsanto Ferlinghetti

11. Give these terms from a subfield of economics for 10 points per part.

a) This term refers to goods such as national defense and clean air that are difficult or impossible to parcel out to individual owners and are not consumed with use.

ANS: public goods

b) This extension of the prisoner’s dilemma refers to the problem of managing and conserving public goods when no one has ownership or authority over them. A common example is a plot of grass made available to all animal owners.

ANS: tragedy of the commons [or free rider problem]

c) Related to the tragedy of the commons is this phenomenon, which refers to an unexpected benefit or harm to a third party by one actor’s economic activity.

ANS: externalities

12. Identify the following about the ratification of the U.S. Constitution FTPE.

a) This was the first state to ratify the Constitution, doing so on December 7, 1787.

ANS: Delaware

b) This was the critical ninth state to ratify the Constitution, on June 21, 1788, making it the law of the land in all states in which it had been previously ratified.

ANS: New Hampshire

c) This was the last of the thirteen colonies to ratify the Constitution, doing so on May 29, 1790.

ANS: Rhode Island

13. Answer the following about a South American lake for the stated points.

a) [10] For 10, this is the world’s highest navigable lake, found twelve thousand feet into the Andes Mountains and divided in two by the Strait of Tiquina.

ANS: Lake Titicaca

b) [5 each] Lake Titicaca forms part of the border between these two countries.

ANS: Republic of Peru [or República del Perú] and Republic of Bolivia [or República de Bolivia]

c) [10] Lake Titicaca is the second largest lake in South America by surface area. For 10 points, name the largest, found on the Caribbean coast of Venezuela.