Cal’s Mid-Spring Tournament 2018
Written by members of the Berkeley Quizbowl Club, Weijia Cheng, Ryan Humphrey, Ike Jose, Eddie Kim, Will Nediger, and Jennie Yang
Edited by Weijia Cheng, Michael Coates, Aseem Keyal, Bruce Lou, Will Nediger, Ryan Humphrey, Eddie Kim, and Jennie Yang
Tossups
1. Robert Browning’s line “Saint Praxed’s ever was the Church for peace” provides the epigraph for a poem in this form, whose speaker asks to be buried in the Hills because he “could never stand the Plains.” A satirical poem in this form describes how “an ancient foe” is boarded by the crew of the sinking “Clampherdown.” A collection of these poems largely written in vernacular is dedicated to Tommy Atkins and opens with a poem about a soldier who’s (*) “hangin’ … in the mornin’!” A poem in this form, which claims a certain action won’t occur “Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat,” describes the eventual friendship between the son of an English Colonel and the Afghan horse-thief Kamal. The collection containing “Mandalay” and “Gunga Din” is titled “Barrack-Room [these works].” For 10 points, name this form Rudyard Kipling used for a poem that opens “East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.”
ANSWER: ballads [prompt on songs]
<RK, Poetry>
2. Karel Vasak is known primarily for arguing that this area of the law went through three historical generations. The 1990 Cairo Declaration was an attempt to develop an interpretation of this area of law in accordance with sharia principles. A set of 1966 “Covenants” that split this area of the law into two attempted to formulate a set of binding commitments relating to it; those Covenants were invoked in the opening lines of Charter (*) 77’s Declaration. The 1950 European Convention on this subject was one of the earliest binding treaties in this area of law; that treaty provides the legal basis for a Court serving the Council of Europe dedicated to thsi subject. In a controversial 1995 speech in Beijing, Hillary Clinton invoked this area of the law in relation to women. A foundational document in this area of the law was drafted by a committee headed by Eleanor Roosevelt; that is the Universal Declaration on this subject. For 10 points, identify this area of international law, which aims at defining and protecting certain privileges or freedoms common to all.
ANSWER: international human rights law [accept more specific answers like women’s rights]
<MC, Other History>
3. A chapter of one of this author’s novels describes its title character’s mind, which “pictured itself as a large hollow sphere, hermetically closed to the universe without.” In that novel by this author, a character who is often told that “all life is figure and ground” and who enjoys rocking in a chair while tied to it naked burns to death when someone accidentally turns on the gas to his room instead of flushing the toilet. The narrator of a novel by this author thinks that unknown people have taken over his (*) mouth and won’t let it go until he does his “pensum,” and hopes that by constantly babbling he’ll accidentally hit upon it. A story about a legless, armless, and speechless character named Mahood is told in a novel by this author which ends with the lines “You must go on. I can’t go on. I’ll go on.” For 10 points, name this author of Murphy, whose namesake trilogy includes Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable.
ANSWER: Samuel Beckett
<WN, Long Fiction>
4. The transcription factor FoxL2 is a marker for cell differentiation in one layer of these structures. Deficiency in the protein GDF-9 prevents the development of these structures beyond the one-layer stage. The degradation and resorption of these structures over time is known as their namesake atresia, and these structures contain clusters of cumulus cells. One type of abnormal growth in these structures can result from their growth being arrested at the (*) antral stage in a condition affecting the organ in which they appear. A low basal body temperature characterizes a phase named for these structures that ends with a spike in LH. That phase is followed by a phase during which a ruptured one of these structures develops into the corpus luteum. The ratio of LH to a hormone named for these structures regulates menstruation. For 10 points, name these structures consisting of a theca, granulosa, and an oocyte, whose growth is stimulated by FSH.
ANSWER: ovarian follicles [or follicle-stimulating hormone; or de Graafian follicles; prompt on ovaries; anti-prompt on oocytes, ovum, or egg cells by asking “what are they a part of?”; do not accept hair follicles]
<AK, Biology>
5. This author argued that writers should be concerned with what he called “non-ratioid” knowledge, which is not subject to rational inquiry. One of this author’s characters pursues a realm he calls the Other Condition through an incestuous relationship with his sister Agathe in a section subtitled “The Criminals.” That protagonist wonders about the fate of a psychopathic carpenter on trial for murdering a prostitute, and detests the mogul Arnheim for loving his cousin (*) Diotima. In an autobiographical novel by this man, the title character witnesses the abuse of Basini at the boarding school W., inspiring his title “confusions.” This author used Kakania as the setting for a lengthy novel set during Count Leinsdorf’s Collateral Campaign to honor the 70th jubilee of Emperor Franz Josef I. For 10 points, name this Austrian author who created the mathematician Ulrich in his unfinished The Man Without Qualities.
ANSWER: Robert Musil
<RK, Long Fiction>
Note: Description Acceptable
6. South Carolina delegate William Henry Drayton opposed this policy in his Letters of Freemen. George Mason and George Washington drafted a series of “resolutions” at the Raleigh Tavern supporting this policy. Penelope Barker organized a women’s protest in Edenton in support of this policy following resolutions passed by North Carolina’s First Provincial Congress. Boston merchants helped draft the first “Agreement” supporting this policy in 1768 with help from the Sons of Liberty. An increased support for this policy was the most notable result of John (*) Dickinson’s Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania. An organization in charge of this policy called the Continental Association was formed following the passage of the Intolerable Acts. The success of this policy led to the eventual repeals of the Stamp Act and Townshend Acts. For 10 points, what sort of policy opposed increased taxation on imported goods by the British?
ANSWER: boycotting British goods [or embargo, or non-importation, or stopping or banning trade with Britain]
<RK, American History>
7. An object from this region was analyzed in 2012 by Bockelée-Morvan et al., who found that D/H ratios of some populations in this region are lower than previously thought. NASA’s proposed Whipple mission aimed to detect objects in this region by observing their transits of distant stars. In 2014, the WISE infrared telescope ruled out the existence of an object in this region proposed by Matese, Whitman, and Whitmire. A 1997 paper by Weissman and Levison suggested that asteroids make up 1 percent of objects in this region; that paper analyzed 1996 PW, the first discovered (*) damocloid. Unlike a related region, the primary inhabitants of this region do not follow the ecliptic plane. Objects named for McNaught and Hyakutake are believed to originate from this spherical region, which may also contain the trans-Neptunian object Sedna. For 10 points, name this outermost region of the solar system, thought to be the source of long-period comets.
ANSWER: Öpik-Oort cloud
<PS, Other Science (Astronomy)>
8. A history of these places by Lena Lenček and Gideon Bosker charts their evolution from a place of danger to a place where we “reinvent ourselves.” Martha Gunn was the most famous member of a profession that involved rolling walled wooden carts for people at these places. A street on one of these places where the Diário Novo was headquartered lends its name to an 1848 Brazilian revolt in support of universal suffrage. In Victorian England, machines for women at these places were operated by (*) “dippers”. In 1870, a long wooden walkway was built to connect hotels on Absecon Island to one of these places. The Singaporean government hires “mafias” to steal a natural resource from these places on Indonesian islands, which it uses to expand its land area. A speech commonly named after these places described the recently completed Dunkirk evacuation as a “miracle of deliverance” before vowing to repel any German invasion. For 10 points, name these places that Winston Churchill famously vowed to “fight on”, five of which the Allies landed on during D-Day on the coast of Normandy.
ANSWER: beaches [or seashores, seasides, coasts until “coast” is read, or equivalents; accept The Beach: The History of Paradise on Earth; accept Praia]
<EC, Other History>
Bonuses
1. Answer the following about soccer stadium disasters, for 10 points each:
[10] In the deadliest ever soccer stadium disaster, at least 328 people were killed in the Estadio Nacional in this capital city during a qualifier for the 1964 Olympics. Police sprayed tear gas to prevent fans from rushing the field following a disallowed goal, and fans who tried to escape were crushed against closed steel shutters.
ANSWER: Lima, Perú
[10] In 1989, 96 people died in this stadium after police superintendent David Duckenfield opened a gate allowing more fans to enter overcrowded standing-only pens. The Sun notoriously reported that “Some fans picked pockets of victims” and “urinated on the brave cops” during that disaster in this stadium.
ANSWER: Hillsborough Stadium
[10] Most of the victims of the Hillsborough disaster were fans of a team from this city known as The Reds. Hooligans of that team from this city instigated the Heysel Stadium disaster by charging at Juventus fans, causing English clubs to be banned from European competitions for five years. The Beatles were also from this port city.
ANSWER: Liverpool
<EC, European History>
2. One of Horace’s Odes provides the Latin title of a poem about this person. For 10 points each:
[10] Name this woman whose shadow startles the speaker of that poem while he is kissing another woman. The speaker defends himself by saying “I was desolate and sick of an old passion.”
ANSWER: Cynarae [or “Non sum qualis eram bonae sub regno Cynarae”]
[10] That poem about Cynara, which is the source of the title Gone with the Wind, is by this Decadent poet, who also coined the phrase “the days of wine and roses.”
ANSWER: Ernest (Christopher) Dowson
[10] The Decadent movement flourished during the fin de siècle, a French term for the end of this century during which Ernest Dowson was active.
ANSWER: 19th century [or 1800s]
<RK, Misc Literature>
3. Answer some questions about the Vlasov equation. For 10 points each:
[10] The Vlasov equation is a collisionless form of an equation named for this physicist, whose namesake constant equals the ideal gas constant over Avogadro’s number.
ANSWER: Ludwig Boltzmann
[10] Integrating the Vlasov equation over the velocity space gives one of these equations describing the change in plasma density over time. These equations describe the transport of a particular physical quantity and are local forms of conservation laws.
ANSWER: continuity equations
[10] The frozen-in approximation, which assumes that a plasma is tied to a magnetic field, can be applied to the Vlasov equation by setting the speed scale V equal to the quotient of these two quantities. Name both.
ANSWER: gyrofrequency (or cyclotron frequency) and gyroradius [accept radius of gyration, Larmor radius or cyclotron radius]
<PS, Physics>
4. Answer the following about literary appearances of the legendary water spirit Melusine, for 10 points each:
[10] Christabel LaMotte writes a poem about Melusine in this A. S. Byatt novel about two academics researching the lives of two Victorian poets.
ANSWER: Possession: A Romance
[10] Melusine narrates The Wandering Unicorn, a novel by this Argentine author of the best-seller Bomarzo. The film The Hour of the Furnaces argues that his works exemplify European cultural imperialism in Argentina.
ANSWER: Manuel Mujica Láinez
[10] Melusine may have inspired this character from an 1893 symbolist play who falls in love with Golaud’s brother.
ANSWER: Mélisande
<WN, Misc Literature>
5. Answer some questions about former French colonies in the Indian Ocean. For 10 points each:
[10] This former French possession was ruled in the 17th century by Ranavalona I. It is currently governed from Antananarivo.
ANSWER: Madagascar
[10] In 2017, Pravind Jugnauth succeeded his father Anerood as prime minister of this island country, whose population is 51 percent Hindu. It was known as Isle de France from 1715 to 1810.
ANSWER: Mauritius
[10] This man, known as “The Boss,” ruled Seychelles for almost 30 years after overthrowing James Mancham. Mike Hoare led an attempted coup against him in 1981.
ANSWER: France-Albert René
<PS, World History>
6. During World War II, this chemist advised the Norwegian heavy water-production facility that would later be targeted by the British in Operation Gunnerside. For 10 points each:
[10] Name this Austrian-born chemist who also worked with Harold Urey to perform elemental analysis on meteorites. Those experiments by this scientist would provide a fundamental basis for the physical explanation of “magic numbers” that led his collaborator Hans Jensen to develop the shell model of the nucleus.
ANSWER: Hans Suess
[10] One of Suess’ earliest notable papers was an analysis of the kinetics of thermal polymerization in the dissolved form of this compound. This benzene-derivative with an attached -vinyl group is an oily liquid at room temperature.
ANSWER: styrene [prompt on ethenylbenzene or phenylethane; generously accept polystyrene since it is a polymer of styrene monomers]
[10] Hans Suess also discovered the effect in which heavy isotopes of this element are diluted in the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels. This element’s heaviest isotope has a 5,700-year half-life that is used in radiometric dating.
ANSWER: carbon
<RH, Chemistry>
7. Leyding and Dromi were precursors to this object. For 10 points each:
[10] Name this object anchored in the ground by the rock Gjöll on the island of Lyngvi. It is made of six ingredients, including the roots of a mountain and the beard of a woman, and will snap at the beginning of Ragnarök.
ANSWER: Gleipnir
[10] After binding Fenrir with Gleipnir, the gods did this to Fenrir with a sword, causing the river Ván to flow. At Ragnarök, Víðarr will kill Fenrir by doing this to him very forcefully.
ANSWER: holding his mouth open [accept tearing open his mouth or obvious equivalents]
[10] Fenrir bit off the hand of this god of war, who was previously the only one brave enough to raise Fenrir. He will fight with the dog Garm at Ragnarök.
ANSWER: Týr
<JK, Legends>
8. The progenitors of this group watched the first sunrise from the mountain Jacawitz, where they stayed to establish their first citadel. For 10 points each:
[10] Name this group whose mythological origins are told in the Popol Vuh. They defeated their enemies’ invasion of Jacawitz with hornets and wasps given to them by their gods.
ANSWER: K’iche’ Maya [accept either underlined part]
[10] The four progenitors of the K’iche’ first traveled to this place in the east, where they received their patron gods. Their sons also traveled to this place to receive symbols of their authority.
ANSWER: Tollan
[10] At Tollan, this god was received by Balam Quitze, and the three gods were sometimes referred to collectively by the name of this god. The K’iche’ were instructed not to give this god’s fire to any other tribe without something in return.
ANSWER: Tohil
<JK, Legends>