Illinois Open 2007: Spite of the Long Knives
Playoff 3
Illinois
Tossups
1. Its name translated into English means “the Vanquisher” and was once known as Babylon in Roman times. 6th of October City, located in its suburbs, is the center of its media production. Tahrir Square is at the center of the downtown area, and Garden City, Heliopolis and Zamalek are upscale residential areas of the city. The recently renovated Coptic Museum is a tourist attraction, along with an eponymous tower in, FTP, this city which is most famous for some big hulking pyramids in its suburbs.
ANSWER: Cairo
2. The Kabat numbering scheme is a widely adopted standard for numbering the residues in these, however, the Chothia scheme is considered to be more accurate. The Coombs Test screens for these molecules in blood transfusions, and ELISA is a biochemical technique used to find them in any sample. Gerald Edelman and Joseph Gally discovered the light chain portion of these molecules, of which lambda and kappa varieties exist in mammals. In the genes coding for these, a site-specific recombinase called RAG mediates recombination between V and J sites in VDJ recombination, creating over 2 million unique N-termini for these molecules, known as binding sites, that adhere to Pauling’s “lock and key” mechanism.. FTP, identify these biological molecules composed of two light chains and two heavy chains that are produced in B-cells and recognize antigens.
ANSWER: antibodies
3. Edward Hastings Chamberlain put forth two key assumptions used when analyzing it, known as uniformity and symmetry, or the “Heroic assumptions”, and British economist Joan Robinson originally described it as “imperfect.” Firms do not react to each other, but instead only react to perceived changes in the market, and in order for it to exist, firms must be able to enter freely, though in the long run, the profit of firms in it is reduced to zero, as the demand curve will shift to where average revenue equals average cost. In it, firms produce goods that are close substitutes, and the main method firms can use to gain a leg up is through product differentiation. FTP, identify this market structure made up of many buyers and many sellers, but is not perfect.
ANSWER: monopolistic competition (prompt on “imperfect competition”)
4. According to the Scholiast, one of them, also known as Aegaeon, is seen as a marine god and son of Poseidon, and one of them is referred to as “one of the titans who attacked Jove on Olympus” and is “in the pit in the ninth circle of hell.” Typhon is sometimes included in this group, and in the Iliad, Thetis gets one of them to help Zeus quell a revolt against him. Upon their birth, their father had them imprisoned in Tartarus, and it is their imprisonment that set off Gaea's plan to overthrow Uranus. One of them serves as the personal bodyguard of Zeus, while the other two are assigned to guard the Titans in the underworld. Able to hurl three hundred stones at once, FTP, identify the collective name for Gyges, Cottus, and Briarieus, whose name means “hundred-handed.”
ANSWER: Hecatonchires (accept Centimani)
5. Late in this novel, a group of Minute Men sing a song that notes that they’ll all get stewed when Johnny Come Marching Home Again, while another song in this work replaces “Parlez-vous“ with “Habla-Oo“. The protagonist of this work is sentenced to seventeen years in a concentration camp in lieu of one hundred lashes, due to his age and senility, by commissioner Swan. One character is based on stereotypical 1930‘s radio evangelists. That character, Peter Paul Prang, endorses the message and goals of the antagonist, Berzelius “Buzz” Windrip who is opposed by the protagonist and journalist Doremus Jessup. For ten points, identify this Sinclair Lewis novel about the rise of an American police state.
ANSWER: It Can’t Happen Here
6. His coat of arms is a many-colored wolf, which was displayed after he killed Erastes Fulmen and slept with his severed head for weeks until an old superior came by and threw it out a window; his blood debt to that old commander led to his rehabilitation. Frequently reminding his children that they come from a highly respected clan, he first rose to prominence by recovering Caesar’s eagle standard, which started his rise to the rank of Senator. He abandoned that to go to Gaul and then to Egypt as Antony’s confidant. FTP, name this major badass, Titus Pullo’s homeboy in the HBO series Rome.
ANSWER: Lucius Vorenus
7. He was captured in Bukovina and sent to a work camp in the Urals, where he was selected as the camp's leader. Eventually, he broke out, and made his way to St. Petersburg and eventually to Omsk where he joined the Red Guard. After the revolution he made his way back to his native land where he became a member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. He was a faithful ComIntern member until after World War II, when he was elected Prime Minister of his country, and eventually became dictator. Refusing to cave to Stalin's demands on how to run his country, he began to emphasize neutrality from both the USSR and the US and became a prominent leader in the non-aligned movement. For ten points, name this man who ruled Yugoslavia from the end of World War II until his death in 1980 and formulated an adaptation of communism named for him.
ANSWER: Josip Broz Tito
8. One reactant for this reaction is best prepared by an S N 2 nucleophilic addition of a triphenyl compound, followed by elimination of the hydrogen halide by an organolithium reagent. This reaction itself proceeds through a rather unique intermediate formed when the pi electron from the reagent’s carbon-oxygen double bond migrates to the positively charged pole of one reactant; this intermediate is called a an oxaphosphetane, from which a triphenyl oxide is eliminated to complete the reaction. The aforementioned positively charged pole is on phosphorous because the aforementioned prepared reactant is a phosphorous ylide. For ten points, name this reaction that produces selectively double-bonded alkenes from aldehydes and phosphorous ylides and that is named for the German 1979 Chemistry Nobel winner.
ANSWER: the Wittig reaction
9. In the left hand side of this painting, an arched bridge crosses a river, and under one of the arches, a dark spot that may be a person stands. The bridge in this painting is identified as being the Maidenhead, which crosses the Thames, and the view to the east of this painting is probably that of London. While the edges of the train tracks in this painting are rendered in dark color, in contrast to the rest of the painting, the space in between the tracks is hazy and indeterminate. The general haziness of this painting can probably be attributed to precipitation, and the puffs of steam from the train heading toward the foreground are far apart, suggesting fast motion. Subtitled “The Great Western Railway”, for ten points, name this oil painting of JMW Turner.
ANSWER: Rain, Steam, and Speed, The Great Western Railway
10. This poem is based on the same legend as a work of Joseph Glanville, The Vanity of Dogmatizing, and lines thiry-one through forty-six recount the most substantive parts of that legend. It begins with an exhortation of a shepherd to go forth and “unite the wattled cotes” and continues to ask him to “begin the quest.” In the last two stanzas of this poem, the narrator uses an analogy of a Tyrian trader to encourage a character in this poem to flee contact with ordinary mortals. Unlike most pastoral poems, which use generalized locales, this poem is set specifically in the countryside around Oxford. The aforementioned legend tells of two of the title group who “had arts to rule as they desired/ the workings of men’s brains/ and they can bind to them what thoughts they will.” For ten points, identify this poem by Matthew Arnold.
ANSWER: “The Scholar-Gypsy”
11. The Leibniz formula expresses this in terms of permutations, and a theorem of Hadamard provides an upper bound for these with entries in the unit disk. Defined as an alternating, n-linear function, this can be proven unique by fixing the value at the identity. While there does exist a closed formula, cofactor expansion often makes calculating this easier. The characteristic polynomial of a matrix is defined using this, and matrices with this equal to zero are known as singular. For ten points, identify this mathematical function employed in Cramer's rule that assigns a scalar value to a square matrix.
ANSWER: determinant
12. Some legends claim he was a male-line descendent of one of the Three Magi, while others believed that he was an early Mongol khan who had been converted by Byzantine heretics. One of Marco Polo’s goals was to find this man’s “Kingdom of the Three Indies.” Supposedly a Nestorian, his plan to sweep through Mesopotamia to liberate Jerusalem was foiled by his failure to cross the Tigris river, as well as the fact that he was a product of wishful thinking by Western bishops. FTP, name this supposed Central Asian Christian potentate, who supposedly sent a letter to the Pope seeking help in his struggle against the Muslims.
ANSWER: Prester John (accept Presbyter John; prompt on “John”)
13. This artist’s shorter literature-inspired works include Paa Vidderne, after Ibsen; the tone poem Hiawatha; and an Nietzschean Requiem, though he based better-known works on Cable’s The Grandissimes and a play of Gottfried Keller’s. He parlayed his time as a citrus picker into a suite which, like his opera Irmelin, went long unpublished. His Two Small Pieces are Summer Night on the River and On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring. An early tiff in the recording industry arose over the rights to his Sea Drift, though his namesake trust later issued authoritative versions of Paris and Brigg Fair under the baton of his greatest exponent, Sir Thomas Beecham. For ten points, name this iconoclastic British composer of Koanga, the Florida suite, and A Village Romeo and Juliet.
ANSWER: Frederick Theodore Albert Delius
14. In a lesser known work by this author, he draws on a section from Plato’s Republic to write about a potter who finds no more market for his goods; instead, retires to a apartment building/strip mall called The Center. This author’s first really international recognition came after a translation of his work Memorial do convent appeared, Balisario I Blimunda. In a well-known work, this author writes about the barking of the silent dogs of Cebere, which may foretell the end of the universe, and the peninsula of Iberia breaking off and floating around in the Atlantic. In a better known work, a strange illness sweeps the land, leaving people seeing only blank whiteness. For ten points, identify this Portugese author of The Stone Raft and Blindness.
ANSWER: Jose Saramago
15. Delaware and Georgia were not included, and there was no plan to form a judicial branch. The legislative branch was to be called the Grand Council, and representation was to be apportioned not on the basis of population, but rather it was to be based on how much each colony paid into the treasury. The executive was to be called the President-General and was to be appointed by the Crown. The Iroquois, though present at the assembly from which this plan was produced, were definitely not included and in fact one of the reasons for this plan was defense and war against the Indian tribes. For ten points, name this plan, proposed by Benjamin Franklin at a New York congress in 1754, which was to unify the American colonies under one government.
ANSWER: Albany Plan
16. This was a popular subject for research in the 1800s, but the rise of behaviorism, and its refusal to acknowledge internal experiences, meant that it was not formally studied again until the 1980’s. Personification, lexical-gustatory, music-color and grapheme-color are types of it. Some people are born with this condition, while others attain it through use of LSD, psilocybin mushrooms or other hallucinogens. FTP, what is this mental condition in which stimulation of one sense automatically triggers another one, exemplified by "seeing" music?
ANSWER: synesthesia
17. Recent research has shows that phosphatidylinositol 3- and 4-phosphate are important in the operation of these structures, which may explain certain previously poorly understood aspects of their behavior. They depend on companion cells with large numbers of radial microfibrils and potassium pumps. Tending to cluster in downward-facing depressions in xerophytes, they are controlled by the turgidity of two structures that are either bean- or dumbbell-shaped, depending on whether the plant is a dicot or monocot; these are the guard cells. For ten points, name these circadian leaf pores, small holes through which water is transpirationally shed.
ANSWER: stomata (prompt on “guard cells” before they’re mentioned)
18. One character in this work instructs an ironically named character to speak using only sign language, or a speaking tube in emergencies. This play opens with two characters discussing natural beauty and the use of cosmetics. In one episode in this play, Dauphine and another character encourage Sir John Daw to boast of his romantic prowess and expound upon his poetry. Sir John and Sir Amorous hide from each other late in this play after being terrorized. One character in this play is astounded to hear of a woman who speaks softly and seldom. That character, Truewit, is a good friend of Morose, who is the protagonist of this play. For ten points, identify this play by Ben Jonson that centers on the titular woman, who putatively does not speak, but actually turns out to be a man.
ANSWER: Epicene,or The Silent Woman
19. This person’s first forays into art came at Prato, where he studied with Botticelli under Lippi. This artist’s workshop was run by the eventually overseer of his estate, Lorenzo di Credi. Among his most titillating marbles are his bust of a Lady with Primroses, executed about the same time as his terra cotta bust of his patron. The resemblance of the early work of this artist to Rossellino’s seems to belie the traditional claim that he studied under Donatello, whose influence is apparently nowhere to be found in Putto with Dolphin. For ten points, name this notable recipient of Medici patronage; a Renaissance sculptor known for his Bartolomeo Colleoni and a bronze David, but perhaps best known for being the teacher of Perugino and Leonardo.
ANSWER: Andrea del Verrocchio
20. He created a Supreme Court, as well as a permanent Treasury, Admiralty and War Office. He inherited wars with three of his neighbors, one of them a complete disaster that was to cost him the port of Alvsborg. The other two, however, gave him Ingria and Kexholm, which allowed him to link what had been two separate parts of his empire into one. He rearmed and rebuilt his army and resumed fighting with Poland before sending a expedition to relieve Stralsund. This would enmesh, FTP, this supposedly savior of Protestantism and ruler of Sweden into the Thirty Years War.
ANSWER: Gustavus II Adolphus
21. It was an ancient commercial hub, with beds, cushions and mattresses from this city being regarded as luxuries. Gaius Gracchus and Marcus Fulvius Flacchus were charged with establishing a colony on this site. Tertullian and Cyprian were leading Christian theologians from this city. After the decline of the Romans, the Vandals established a kingdom centered around this city under Gaiseric, which lasted for a century until Gelimer, its final king, was defeated by Belisarius, who established a Byzantine Exarchate. FTP, name this city, which was reduced to insignificance under Arab rule as Tunis rose to take its place.
ANSWER: Carthage
Bonuses
1. Name some French cities that aren’t Paris, FTPE:
[10] This Mediterranean city located by the Rhône River estuary was originally founded as a Greek colony.
ANSWER: Marseilles
[10] Joan of Arc was tried and burnt in this city on the Seine. It was occupied by Prussians in 1870, and Guy de Maupassant wrote a short story about a fat prostitute trying to escape the city.
ANSWER: Rouen
[10] This city has been France’s major Atlantic naval base throughout history. It used to be the center of the Duchy of Brittany before France took it over.
ANSWER: Brest
2. Identify the following about Indians in the 19th century, FTPE.
[10] This rival of Black Hawk gave the government advance warning of a planned attack, and was named Sauk chief. He then became the government's bitch by continuing to give them land until he ended up on a reservation in Kansas.
ANSWER: Keokuk
[10] The first two of them were derived from Wodziwob and Wovoka, and its spread to the Sioux by the 1890s led to the massacre at Wounded Knee.
ANSWER: Ghost Dance
[10] A force left from Ft. Kearny up the Bozeman Trail to come to the aid of wood-cutters being attacked by Indians, but the entire force was slaughtered in this 1866 massacre.
ANSWER: Fetterman Massacre