Tossups by Tulane and Williams

ACF Regionals 2005

1. The title character gets the idea of opening a hotel on Lake Como, but nothing comes of the plan. Another character tells her that he lay under an elder bush in an oat-bin as a child to win her affections, but that was a lie. After the title character’s pet finch is decapitated in the kitchen, Christine enters to take her fiancé to church. The action takes place in the Count’s home on midsummer night, and with the Count’s return home the title character feels compelled to kill herself, since she stole money from her father to finance her escape. FTP, name this “naturalistic tragedy” written in 1888, whose three characters include a valet named Jean and the aristocratic woman with whom he has sex, a work of August Strindberg.

Answer: Miss Julie

2. Walter Munk headed a project to drill to the bottom of it in 1961, but this plan was discontinued five years later. It results in refraction and the increased speed of seismic waves, both of which indicated its presence, and it lies as low as 75 kilometers underneath the continents and as high as five kilometers below the ocean floor. Discovered in 1909, a year after the recording of an earthquake in the Kulpa Valley in Zagreb, FTP, name this large boundary between the Earth’s crust and upper mantle, named for its Croatian discoverer.

Answer: Mohorovicic discontinuity (or Mohorovicic layer; prompt on “crust” in the first sentence)

3. He ousted Ilyas-Khoja and Tughlugh, the Jagataite khans of the Ili River region. A duumvirate formed with his brother-in-law, Mir Husain, proved short-lived, as he assassinated Husain after besieging the city of Balkh to secure his control over the rebellious Afghans. Successive victories followed over Mogholistan, the Kipchak khanate, and the Egyptian Mamlukes. After capturing the Ottoman sultan Bayezid the Lightning-bolt at Ankara, he massacred the Knights of Rhodes at Smyrna. Vowing to undertake the conquest and conversion to Islam of Ming China, he died of disease near Otrar before his departure. FTP, name this Central Asian leader, whose warlike exploits inspired a blank verse drama by Christopher Marlowe.

Answer: Tamerlane (or: Timur lenk)

4. This author’s plays include one written in collaboration with Charles Maude about Hortensia Bavvel, the Mistress of Briony, while another is set in the castle at Tzern of Prince Dmitri of Kedaria. In addition to The Watched Pot and The Death-Trap, he wrote three novels, including The Westminster Alice, but is better known for the short stories collected in such volumes as The Toys of Peace and The Square Egg. He wrote about “The Jesting of Arlington Stringham,” “The Secret Sin of Septimus Brope,” and “Tobermory” in a collection of “chronicles” of one of his best known characters. FTP, name this author of The Unbearable Bassington and The Chronicles of Clovis.

Answer: Saki (Accept: Hector Hugh Munro)

5. PEVD largely works by the dissociative version of this phenomenon, so its balance with its associative inverse provides the reaction isotherm for such deposition reactions with the occupancy fraction as a parameter. The coefficient for this type of process is generally a decreasing function of the fractal dimension of a surface, and the coefficient of loss to the walls of a device is generally given as a product of a diffusion coefficient and coefficient for this process. This bonding process has in chemi- and physi- varieties, which correspond to different types of wells in a surface’s potential. FTP, identify this sticking of atoms onto a surface, which may be contrasted with absorption.

Answer: adsorption (accept desorption in the first sentence; prompt on “sorption”)

6. It is based on a French work which was translated into the composer’s language by Richard Genée, who took over the translation from Haffner. At the beginning of Act 3, the tired Frank listens to the “Audition Aria” performed by Adele, who is really a maid. In Act 1, Falke persuades one of the main characters to bring his fancy watch to a ball, after which another character is arrested in a case of mistaken identity. In the end, Gabriel von Eisenstein has to serve his own jail sentence after his wife Rosalinde defends herself from an accusation of infidelity. FTP name this comic opera by Johann Strauss, whose name refers to a costume worn by one of the characters.

Answer: Die Fledermaus (accept The Bat)

7. He was chosen by Vespasian to serve as the latter’s fellow consul in 71, six years after he was honored by Nero for helping to suppress the conspiracy of Piso. At the lowest point of his reign, he was imprisoned in the palace by the commander of the Praetorian Guard, Casperius Aelianus, who executed Parthenius and Petronius, the men who were chiefly responsible for the assassination of this man’s predecessor. Two months before he died of fever he adopted his successor, who was serving as governor of Upper Germany at the time. According to Suetonius, this man in his younger days molested his predecessor in office, but upon the murder in 96 of Domitian this man was asked to replace him. FTP, name this emperor who ruled for a mere 28 months before being succeeded by Trajan.

Answer: Marcus Cocceius Nerva

8. The ninth one of them discusses the immunity from sin of poisonous minerals and lecherous goats, and wishes that blood and tears could make a “heavenly Lethean (leh-thee-an) flood” to drown the author’s “sins’ black memory.” The fifth notes that the author is a “little world made cunningly Of elements, and an angelike sprite,” while the seventh alludes to Revelation 7:1 with its image of angels blowing trumpets at “the round earth’s imagined corners.” There are 19 of them in all, the 14th of which compares the author to a “usurped town” in the course of asking that the “three-personed God” batter his heart. FTP, name this group of devotional poems, the tenth of which famously begins “Death, be not proud,” a work of John Donne.

Answer: the Holy Sonnets

9. An important 1968 paper illustrated how an integer-preserving form of this procedure may be implemented using the Sylvester identity. This procedure has the unfortunate property of instability unless pivoting is included in its operations. Originally mentioned by Liu Hui in The Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art, it may be used to invert a matrix by augmenting with the identity, then reducing the unaugmented portion to the identity. It may generally be used to solve a matrix equation by appending augmenting the coefficient matrix by the inhomogeneous vector. FTP, name this algorithm for solving systems of linear equations named for one or two German mathematicians.

Answer: Gauss-Jordan elimination (or: Gauss-Jordan method or Gaussian elimination or Gaussian method)

10. He argued that the media serve the needs of the powerful in his 1988 Massey Lectures, which were published as a book about “thought control in democratic societies.” He compared colonialist genocides with contemporary treatment of Third World nations in a 1993 book subtitled “the conquest continues.” In addition to Necessary Illusions and Year 501, a series of his interviews with David Barsamian have been published, including Keeping the Rabble in Line and The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many. In one of his first ventures into political writing, he attacked the Vietnam War in American Power and the New Mandarins. FTP, name this longtime professor at MIT and leftist agitator, who also did some work in linguistics.

Answer: Noam Chomsky

11. She is at the center of Anne Parish’s novel Clouded Star, while Sarah Hopkins Bradford wrote one of the first books about her. She suffered narcolepsy throughout her life as a result of a blow to the head she suffered at the age of 12. Until her death in 1913, she ran a shelter in Auburn, New York, where she lived down the road from her friend William Seward. During the Civil War she worked as a nurse at Fortress Monroe, where Jefferson Davis would later be imprisoned, having ceased to perform a task that required her to go from Maryland to Ontario. FTP, name this African-American woman, who helped hundreds of slaves escape to freedom as a conductor on the underground railroad.

Answer: Harriet Tubman

12. In a 1985 play by this author, we learn how one of the titular women came to admire Nazism, while a 1978 play shows us a day in the life of a married couple who loathe each other. In addition to Aunt Dan and Lemon and Marie and Bruce, he has written a play in which a male actor is called upon to have three orgasms in the same scene, rendering A Thought in Three Parts difficult to produce. Jack withdraws from a society that is turning to a police state in The Designated Mourner, while a 1980 work by this man consists entirely of a conversation with a director. FTP, name this author of My Dinner with André, better known for such acting roles as Rex in Toy Story and Vizzini in The Princess Bride.

Answer: Wallace Shawn

13. He killed his foster-father after killing his foster-father’s brother, which took place after his foster-grandfather, Hreidmar, had been killed by them. After killing his foster-father, he went to Hindfell on his horse Grani, where he impersonated a man named Gunnar to get into a tower. All that killing was due to a hoard of gold which had belonged to Andvari the dwarf, which was coveted by both Regin and his brother Fafnir. FTP, name this hero of the Volsung Saga, whose sword Gram was forged from the broken pieces of his father Sigmund’s sword and who freed the Valkyrie Brunhilde.

Answer: Sigurd

14. This process’s distinguishing fluctuation is governed in part by the permeability of inositol 1,4,5 P-gated tonoplastic calcium channels, which control the phosphorylation of PEPC through PEPC Kinase, and thus, sensitivity to allosteric inhibiters like isocitrate. Isocitrate, along with the more common malate, must be stored in this process, explaining the large vacuoles of the cells that employ it prior to decarboxylation to OAA. Its low transpiration rate is achieved through nocturnal activation of stomata. FTP, name this water-efficient biological process common in cacti, named for the acid to which CO2 is appended in storage.

Answer: crassulacean acid metabolism photosynthesis

15. His major work began as a commentary on a compendium by Peter of Spain, but became a standard logic textbook in its own right. He became so famous that legends spread about him, including one which claimed that he competed with the future Pope Clement VI for the affections of a shoemaker’s wife. In his Compendium Logicae he offered a lengthy account of the way to find the middle term of a demonstration, which came to be known as a certain type of “bridge” for traversing a syllogism. He is best known for arguing that will and intellect are not distinct faculties, which led him to conclude that the will is always determined by the stronger motive, and that when presented with equally desirable alternatives we cannot choose. FTP, name this scholastic philosopher of the 14th century, who is associated with an indecisive ass.

Answer: Jean Buridan

16. In this author’s second novel, the Spanish prince Consalve falls in love with the title character, but complications ensue because he doesn’t speak her language. This author’s Memoirs of the Court for the years 1688 and 1689 were published posthumously in 1731. In addition to Zayde, she also wrote novels about the Countess of Tende and the Princess of Montpensier, but is best known for a novel whose title character falls in love with, but refuses to marry, the Duke of Nemours. FTP, name this French author, a longtime companion of La Rochefoucauld who is best known for her novel The Princess of Cleves, who shares her name with a French aristocrat who fought in the American Revolution.

Answer: Marie-Madeleine Pioche de La Vergne, Countess de Lafayette

17. Ian Hodder, who has directed the excavations here since 1993, has accommodated the pilgrimages of Goddess worshippers who claim spiritual kinship with a woman buried here with three boar jawbones. Material remains found at this center of the obsidian trade include flint daggers, friezes of deer hunters, clay figures that may be pregnant women or serpents, and model heads that may indicate bull worship. James Mellaart was the first to excavate the rectangular mud-brick dwellings at this site in the Konya Plain, whose population may have been as high as five thousand. FTP, name this Neolithic city in present-day Turkey whose name means "fork mound."

Answer: Çatal Hüyük

18. The first to liquefy chlorine, this scientist’s namesake rotator is useful in optical isolators. He discovered and named “diamagnetism” prior to his work in electrochemistry, where his namesake constant gives the number of coulombs in a mole of electrons. He had to take five years off in the early 1840s due to headaches that may have been caused by mercury poisoning, but he came roaring back and gave an 1846 lecture on “Ray Vibrations” that became the basis for Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory of light. The discoverer of benzene, he argued that equal currents gave rise to equal amounts of decomposition, which summarizes his first law of electrolysis. FTP, name this British scientist, best known for his work in physics indicating that a change in magnetic flux induces an electromotive force.

Answer: Michael Faraday

19. A year after it, a commission led by Mikhail Speransky came together to consider legal reforms. When five of its leaders were supposed to be hanged, three of the ropes broke, leading Ryleyev to quip that a country where they don’t even know how to hang you is unhappy indeed. The factions led by Nikita Muraviev hoped to bring about a constitutional monarchy, while the one led by Pavel Pestel aimed for a republic. They were encouraged by the dissension which resulted when Constantine refused the throne, and occupied Senate Square shortly after the brother of Alexander I took power, only to be fired upon by loyal soldiers. FTP, name this uprising of 1825 which opposed the autocratic rule of Nicholas I, whose name refers to the winter month in which it took place.

Answer: the Decembrist Uprising (accept equivalents like the Decembrist Revolt, etc.)

20. This work was created in the aftermath of the artist’s failed affair with Anna Landolt, the niece of Johann Casper Lavater. It was the inspiration of Charles Nodier’s story Smarra, while it became more popular in England after a version of it appeared in The Botanical Garden. In the same year it was painted, its artist created The Oath of the Ruttli. In the painting, a small wooden table on the lower left supports several vials. In the upper left, an open-mouthed black horse stands next to some red curtains, though the unconscious blond woman sprawled upon the bed doesn’t notice it, anymore than she notices the troll-like figure seated on her chest. FTP, name this 1781 painting by Henry Fuseli.

Answer: The Nightmare

21. Lough Foyle and the River Finn mark parts of its eastern boundary. On the other side of the Inishowen Peninsula is Lough Swilly, where Wolfe Tone was captured in October 1798. The bay of the same name almost separates it from the rest of the country, except for a narrow strip near the town of Ballyshannon and the road south to Sligo. Until the sixteenth century it was called Tyrconnell, but it acquired its present name, meaning "fort of the foreigners," after the flight of the O'Donnell earl in 1607 and the subsequent arrival of Scottish planters. FTP, name this Ulster county, one of three in the Republic of Ireland, whose Mailin Head is the Emerald Isle's northernmost point.

Answer: County Donegal

22. In a painting by Lorenzo Lotto, this figure appears between Saint Rocco and the arrow-pierced Saint Sebastian. While in prison, he converted two women who were assigned to seduce hime, and when one of his tormentors tried to shoot him the arrow rebounded and struck his attacker in the eye. After he performed his most famous act, he was told to plant his staff in the ground, and the next day it grew flowers. Martyred in Lycia during the persecutions of Decius, after he was beheaded his huge body was dragged through the city where he had preached, though before becoming a preacher he worked carrying people across a river. FTP, name this patron saint of travellers, who famously carried the Christ child across the river.

Answer: Saint Christopher

23. He wrote about the time he spent on Bob Dylan’s 1975 tour in Rolling Thunder Logbook. He collaborated with Antonioni on the screenplay for Zabriskie Point, but got his start in the theater. His play The Tooth of Crime premiered in London, while earlier works premiered in New York, such as The Rock Garden and Cowboys. He won four Obie awards for a 1983 work which was made into a movie in which he starred, Fool for Love. However, he is best known for a group of plays about families in crisis, including True West and Curse of the Starving Class. FTP, name this author of Buried Child, who has also appeared as an actor, including a performance as Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff.