ACF Fall 2006

Tossups by UC-Berkeley A (Paul Lujan, Juliana Froggatt, Andrew Lim, Brendan Shapiro)

1. He left Rome after losing his first case as prosecutor against the notable defense attorney Quintus Hortensius, leading to the acquittal of Gnaeus Cornellius Dolabella. He then sailed to Rhodes to study rhetoric under Molon, but he was captured by privateers. After being ransomed, he gathered a private army and crucified the entire band of pirates. Suetonius records that in this man’s first consulship, “he stole three thousand pounds of gold from the Capitol, replacing it with the same weight of gilded bronze,” and that Bibulus attacked him for an alleged homosexual relationship with Nicomedes IV, labeling him the “Queen of Bithynia.” He hosted the Lucca conference in his assigned sphere of Cisalpine Gaul to avoid a civil war, but those efforts proved unsuccessful, and this hero of the Gallic Wars met disaster on the steps of the Curia. FTP, name this victim of Cassius and Brutus’s conspiracy on the Ides of March.

ANSWER: Gaius Julius Caesar

2. The surreal numbers have the universal embedding property for ordered varieties of these objects. A finite one with n elements exists if and only if n is a prime or a power of a prime. One is called “algebraically closed” if univariate polynomials whose coefficients are elements of it also has a solution in it. FTP, identify these mathematical structures, examples of which include the reals and the complex numbers but not the quaternions, and which are defined as rings wherein every element has a multiplicative inverse.

ANSWER: Fields

3. Scott Nelson believes that a Virginian prisoner was the basis for this legendary figure, but John Garst believes his basis originated at OakMountain in Leeds, Alabama. An eight-foot tall bronze statue of this legendary figure can be found in Memorial Park above Big Bend Tunnel, which was built in the 1870s as part of the C&O Railroad. He was capable of progressing more than 10 feet in a single day with a 14-pound hammer, but in his most famous contest, he used two 20-pound hammers. FTP, name this African-American mythical figure who died of a heart attack after successfully defeating a steam hammer in a race.

ANSWER: John Henry

4. At one point in this work a group is trapped by a rock near Glenn’s Falls due to the theft of the boat containing their ammunition. One member of that group later sings wantonly to convince his enemies that he’s mad, which allows him to participate in a rescue mission involving a fake French doctor. A letter from Webb precipitates a long march during which the former occupants of a nearby fort are massacred, after which the garrison commander’s daughter is carried off despite the best efforts of David Gamut. The chase leads the novel’s protagonists to a Delaware camp, which is the site of an altercation with the Hurons at which Cora Munro dies and Magua kills Uncas, the son of Chingachgook. FTP name this second of James Fenimore Cooper’s Leatherstocking Tales, in which Hawkeye vows to remain with the title Native American.

ANSWER: The Last of the Mohicans

5. The cover for the single release of this song features a blue butterfly over a bouquet of flowers, which form the head of a man in a white suit. This song takes its bass line from “Nel Cimitero di Tucson,” a tune from the 1968 Western Preparati la Bata! After it remained #1 on the UK singles chart for nine weeks, the longest reign in more than a decade, its band pulled it from the UK market in May 2006 so it wouldn’t be too overplayed. It ends with the twice-shouted word “probably!” and begins with the narrator remembering when he lost his mind. FTP, name this hit from album St. Elsewhere by Cee-Lo Green and Danger Mouse, a.k.a. Gnarls Barkley.

ANSWER: “Crazy”

6. Required for synthesis of dopamine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine, it generally acts as an antioxidant, but it can be pro-oxidant in some circumstances. However, its most important function is hydroxylating proline and lysine in the production of collagen by the body. Discovered by Charles King and Albert Szent-Gyorgyi in 1932, James Lind conducted an experiment in 1747 that showed its importance, in the form of certain foods fed to sailors at sea to prevent scurvy. FTP, Linus Pauling advocated megadoses of what popular vitamin found in citrus fruits?

ANSWER: vitamin C or ascorbic acid

7. One piece of artwork with this name includes two figures blowing into seashell horns. Another piece of artwork with this name includes five puttos flying above the title figure, who has her hand on her forehead. The most famous piece of artwork with this title features spines of leaves and lines in tree trunks accented with gold, and a top-left section which features rose blossoms with a gold center falling around two interwind characters, Zephyrus and Chloris. The works by Bouguereau and Cabanel are not nearly as famous as one by an Italian, who painted a figure on the right holding a robe for the female title character, who is emerging from the water on a shell. FTP, name this common painting title, the most famous of which was created by Botticelli.

ANSWER: The Birth of Venus

8. One member of this titular group has reached above his caste to join them, a fact played upon in a running joke in which he has trouble mastering an unruly horse. Another class conflict is explored in the romance of the youngest member of the group with a girl pretending to be boy, daughter of the man who hired them. Another character in this film calls himself “a fencer of the wood cut school,” which is a moment of levity in stark contrast to the film’s final line, “The farmers have won, not us.” That line’s speaker, Takashi Shimura, was played by Kambei Shimada. FTP, name this eponymous band of Japanese swordsmen in a 1954 Akira Kurosawa film.

ANSWER: The Seven Samurai (Shichinin no samurai)

9. This man’s doctorate work examined The Family Among the Australian Aborigines, the success of which granted him the chance to study The Natives of Mailu. His second wife, Valetta Swann, aided his later studies in the Oaxaca Valley of Mexico, and was primarily responsible for the publication of his posthumous A Scientific Theory of Culture. His most famous work features chapters on “The Power of Words in Magic” and “Canoes and Sailing,” but it is mostly concerned with the Kula exchange of the Trobriand Islanders. Also the author of the Introduction to Facing Mount Kenya, FTP name this functionalist anthropologist most famous for Argonauts of the Western Pacific.

ANSWER: Bronislaw Malinowski

10. The two regiments involved in this event, the 14th West Yorkshire Fusiliers and the 29th Worcestershire, were immediately removed to Castle William, but governor Thomas Hutchinson delayed the trial of the participants for seven months until October. Following Robert Treat Paine’s prosecution, privates Hugh Montgomery and Matthew Kilroy were branded on the thumb for manslaughter, but the leading officer in this incident, Captain Thomas Preston, was acquitted. It occurred on the day the Townshend Acts were repealed and saw the deaths of Samuel Grey, James Caldwell, and Crispus Attucks, FTP, what was this 1770 event where British troops fired on an American mob in the namesake city?

ANSWER: Boston Massacre

11. Objects not at either edge of this region are known as “cubewanos,” from the name of the first object discovered in its class, 1992 QB1. Objects that have been found in this region include 2005 FY9, nicknamed “Easter Bunny,” and 28978 Ixion, while the Centaurs are believed to be “refugees” from this region. Its outer edge extends approximately to the 1:2 resonance, and the inner edge is defined by the 2:3 resonance at 48 AU. Populated by the likes of Sedna and the plutinos, including Pluto itself, FTP what is this region of astronomical objects lying beyond the orbit of Neptune, thought by some to be the source of short-period comets?

ANSWER: Edgeworth-Kuiper Belt [prompt on ‘trans-Neptunian objects’ or similar before ‘Neptune’]

12. Oddly named towns near its western border include OverflowingBay and a place presumably named in tribute to the Boer War, Mafeking. DuckMountain park contains its highest point, BaldyMountain, and its official coat of arms is a St. George’s Cross and a bison on a green shield, which is set next to a Union Jack against a red background on its flag. It is home to a lake where Black, Deer, and Hecla islands can be found near the town of Gimli and the source of the Nelson River, while its town of Brochet is on the east side of Reindeer Lake and York Factory and Churchill sit on its shore with Hudson Bay. The smallest territorial division of the Lake of the Woods is also found in this province which borders Minnesota and North Dakota. For ten points, name this home of Lake Winnipeg which lies between Ontario and Saskatchewan.

ANSWER: Manitoba

13. His animal-themed poems include one in which he buries his dead dog “in the garden/next to a rusted old machine” and another focusing on a “Cat’s Dream.” “Entrance into Wood,” “Hymn to Celery,” and “Statute of Wine” make up his three “Material Cantos,” which along with poems like “Dream Horse” and “Death Gallop” are included in the cycle Residence on Earth. An artichoke, a lemon, and Conger Chowder are among the subjects of his Elemental Odes. Better known are a cycle of amorous poems ending with the exclamation “In everything you sank!” in a “Song of Despair” and a long poem about an Incan ruin. FTP name this Chilean poet, whose “Heights of Macchu Picchu” is included in his Canto General.

ANSWER: Pablo Neruda

14. In one scene of Max Frisch’s The Chinese Wall, this character is interrupted in her bedroom by a tuxedo-wearing waiter. Miriam Rooth portrays this character on stage in Henry James’ The Tragic Muse, and Sibyl Vane’s acting as this character wins her the love of Dorian Gray. She is courted by a suitor called a “man of wax” by her caretaker, whose dead daughter Susan was, like her, born on Lammas eve. She is cousins with a character nicknamed “prince of cats” who is later killed by her lover to avenge the death of his best friend. As a result her lover is exiled to Mantua, but their plot for reunification fails due to miscommunication, leading to her suicide. FTP name this Shakespeare character, the Capulet lover of Romeo.

ANSWER: JulietCapulet

15. This man compared Goethe and James Watt in a chapter entitled “The Individual Versus the Citizen,” which can be found in his work Education and the Social Order. He asserted that more than one thing can be known from one experience and that the mind can attain negative knowledge through perception in his An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth. He described Vladimir Lenin as having “no love of liberty” after a trip to the USSR, which resulted in Theory and Practice of Bolshevism, and his other works include A History of Western Philosophy and Why I Am Not a Christian. His namesake paradox showed that some axioms used by Gottlob Frege were inconsistent, and stated that “the set of all sets must contain itself.” FTP, name this British philosopher who co-authored Principia Mathematica with Alfred Whitehead.

ANSWER: Bertrand Russell

16. The Huang-Minlon form of this reaction carries out the reaction in a high-temperature boiling solvent, avoiding the need for the use of multiple sealed tubes in the original procedure. The main step is a double-bond migration, catalyzed by a strong base, after the formation of a hydrazone intermediate, and the loss of nitrogen gas completes the reaction. Often used after a Friedel-Crafts acylation to produce an alkyl product, it is complementary to the Clemmensen reduction. FTP what is this reaction that uses hydrazine to reduce a ketone to an alkane, named for the German and Russian men who independently discovered it?

ANSWER: Wolff-Kishner reduction

17. His named his three daughters Jemimah, Keziah, and Keren-happuch, and lived long enough to see four generations of his descendants, according to the last chapter of his namesake book. Three of his friends are ordered by God to sacrifice seven bullocks and seven rams. Those friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, then give speeches to this resident of Uz, who had earlier stated “naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return.” Another of his friends, Elihu [EL-uh-hyoo], says that suffering is the way God communicates with human beings, after which God appears in a storm theophany. FTP, name this faithful Biblical character who losses his wealth, health, and family because of a bet between God and Satan.

ANSWER: Job

18. One character in this work is enthralled by Volney’s Ruins of Empires, which he hears Felix read to Safie. The protagonist of this work gazes upon the portrait of his mother as Caroline Beaufort kneeling by her father’s coffin, having come home to witness the trial of a woman who had been arrested for the murder of his brother after a locket was discovered in her coat. As a student he studies under M. Krempe and M. Waldman, who rid him of his fascination with Cornelius Agrippa and Albertus Magnus. After the title character flees from the Orkneys to Ireland the antagonist kills his closest friend, Henry Clerval. His nemesis then goes on to kill the title character’s wife, Elizabeth Lavenza, on their wedding night before fleeing to the polar regions. For ten points, name this novel about a doctor and his monstrous creation, a work of Mary Shelley?

ANSWER: Frankenstein

19. Effects that cause this device to deviate from ideal behavior include the Early effect, caused by the effective base width changing, and the Miller effect, which describes how its high frequency response is altered by a small input capacitance. The gain of one of these can be computed using the Ebers-Moll equation, and devices that one can build with these include a Darlington connection, a current mirror, an emitter follower, or a common-base amplifier. Coming in p-n-p and n-p-n varieties, FTP what is this ubiquitous integrated circuit element consisting of a base, collector, and emitter, which won Bardeen, Brattain, and Shockley the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics?

ANSWER: bipolar junction transistor [accept BJT]

20. He proudly labeled the territorial acquisitions he engineered the “epocha,” and he proposed a compromise solution to the slavery question, which would allow Florida to enter the union as a slave state but free all children born after 1842. He received the only electoral vote not to go to James Monroe in 1820, and he later nominated his Treasury Secretary Richard Rush as his new Vice-Presidential candidate in his re-election campaign after his former understudy bolted to his opponent’s ticket. Later, he presented up to twenty antislavery petitions a year in Congress in defiance of the gag rules. He was the chief U.S. negotiator for the Treaty of Ghent, the defender of the Amistad slaves, and the formulator of the Monroe Doctrine as Secretary of State, but he may be best known for the backroom dealing which defeated Andrew Jackson for this man’s one successful national election in 1824. FTP, name this man who won the White House under the “corrupt bargain.”

ANSWER: John Quincy Adams [prompt on Adams]

TB. Its latter part, beginning with the rule of Pankang, is known as the Yin period, and it had several early capitals such as Chengchou. The three-legged “li” cooking pot and “xien” steaming dish date from this era, as do symbols which Fu Xi discovered on the back of a tortoise and Wenwang compiled into the I Ching. Its longest-surviving government was centered in what is now northern Henan in the Yellow River valley, around Anyang. There, marble and jade relics as well as “oracle bones” provide solid evidence for this dynasty, which was succeeded after Wuwang’s uprising by the Zhou, and which followed the legendary Xia. FTP, name this Chinese dynasty which ruled from around 1760 to 1100 BCE, the first dynasty to be historically attested.

ANSWER:Shang Dynasty

ACF Fall 2006

Bonuses by UC-Berkeley A (Paul Lujan, Juliana Froggatt, Andrew Lim, Brendan Shapiro)

1. Answer these questions about coordination chemistry FTPE.

[10] This is an atom or molecule that is bound to the central metal in a coordination complex.

ANSWER: ligand

[10] From the Greek for “claw,” any ligand that coordinates to the central metal in multiple spots is known as this. EDTA is a common example used in a variety of labs to sequester unwanted metals.

ANSWER: chelate

[10] Another prominent example of a chelate, these rings are found extensively in organic complexes, coordinating with iron in heme complexes, magnesium in chlorophyll, and cobalt in vitamin B12.