BARGE 2012
Edited by Chris Ray
Packet by No Eric, No Crown (Aaron Rosenberg and Eric Mukherjee)
1. It's not salt, but this substance can be thrown at the Aswang, a winged demon from Filipino folklore in
order to cause its skin to become irritated. In Zoroastrian legend, the death of Gayomart caused this
substance to fall to the ground which after forty years of exposure to sunlight gave rise to two rhubarb plants.
In Hindu myth, the exchange of this substance between Mitra and Varuna results in the waxing and waning
of the moon. Enki once ate plants contaminated with this substance causing his mouth and lips to swell up
until this substance was taken by Ninhursag resulting in the (*) birth of eight gods. In order to best Set, Horus
once dressed a lettuce leaf with this substance and got Set to consume it. In another myth, Pasiphae cursed her
husband Minos to produce scorpions and spiders instead of this substance in order to curb his adulterous ways. For
10 points, identify this natural substance which mixed with sea foam to create Aphrodite, presumably after coming
from Uranus’ severed testicles.
ANSWER: semen or sperm [accept any and all hilarious equivalents] Editor's Note: Jeremy Eaton has struck
againe!
2. One industrial method of liberating this compound along with carbon black from biogas utilizes a plasma
burner and known is the Kvarner process. Bioreactors for producing this compound use genetically altered
Chlamydomonas reinhardtii that’s deprived of sulfur, while dark fermentation using Rhodobacter spheroides
on wastewater is another promising method. The half-reaction for producing this compound is set as the zero
of the (*) table of standard reduction potentials. A particularly energetically intensive method of producing this
compound is the electrolysis of water, which is the basis behind the basic fuel cell. The addition of this compound to
unsaturated hydrocarbons is used to create saturated ones. For 10 points, identify this compound with atomic mass
2.02 grams per mol, a diatomic molecule containing two atoms of the lightest element.
ANSWER: Hydrogen gas or H2
3. A Harper’s Weekly cartoon about this event shows a devil standing behind a man holding a piece of paper
that says “ruined”. Horace Porter’s refusal to participate in this scandal managed to tip off the president.
One perpetrator of this event was killed by Edward Stokes after he and Josie Mansfield attempted to extort
him. The perpetrators of this scandal approached Abel Corbin to help them get closer to the (*) president, who
agreed to appoint Daniel Butterfield to a very high post in order to tip them off. The perpetrators of this event had
also won the Erie War against Cornelius Vanderbilt. James Garfield led the investigation into this scandal, though
first lady Julia Grant was not allowed to testify. For 10 points, identify this scandal in which James Fisk and Jay
Gould attempted to corner the market on gold, leading to a massive stock market crash on the last day of the
working week.
AN SWER: Black Friday [accept the Gould-Fisk scandal before mention]
4. In one of this man’s novels, the protagonist takes up lodging with Dick and Martha Thompson, and gets
raped while drunk towards the end but decides to continue her relationship with her attacker. In another, a
poet returns to his native Wales to join three aging couples before that man, Alan Weaver, drinks himself to
death. This author of The (*) Green Man wrote about Patrick Standish, who attempts to seduce the attractive but
prudish primary school teacher Jenny Bunn, in Take a Girl Like You. In the first novel by this author of The Old
Devils, the title character dumps Margaret for Christine and gets a well-paying job in London from Christine’s uncle,
far better than his previous job as a junior lecturer in medieval history under the uptight Professor Welch. For 10
points, name this father of xenophobic lunatic Martin, the English author Lucky Jim..
ANSWER: Kingsley Amis
5. The first movement of this man’s flute sonata features the slightly oxymoronic tempo marking “Allegro
malinconico,” while his clarinet sonata opens with a similarly odd “Allegro tristamente.” The influence of the
cabaret is illustrated by such piano works as his Mouvements perpetuels. Following the death of his friend
Pierre-Octave Ferroud in an auto accident he entered a more religious phase marked by such works as the (*)
Litanies a la Vierge Noire. He first rose to prominence with the music for a ballet based on the paintings of Watteau,
which depicted the sexual games of loose young women, and though he’s not Manuel de Falla, he composed the
Concert champetre for harpsichord for Wanda Landowska. For 10 points, name this member of Les Six who
composed Les Biches, best known for the operas The Breast of Tiresias and Dialogue of the Carmelites.
ANSWER: Francis Poulenc
6. The Sathon business district in this city is home to the ‘Robot Building.’ This city’s main shopping district
is known as Slam Square, and in the city’s center is the recreational area Lumphini Park. The country’s
Truth and Reconciliation commission has recently approved large compensation for those involved in a recent
major protest in this city. That protest began after a military leader gave the first of many impromptu street
interviews and declared he would be teaching the (*) “throwing a hand grenade dance,”and saw “red shirts” turn
this city's central market district into a fortified bunker. Though prostitution is officially illegal, this city is home to
the red light district Soi Cowboy, while its more mainstream landmarks include the home of a giant reclining
Buddha, Wat Pho, as well as Wat Arun, or “The Temple of Dawn.” For 10 points, name this city located on the Chao
Praya wracked by major floods in 2011, the capital of Thailand.
ANSWER: Bangkok or Krung Thep Maha Nakon
7. One song of this title was requested, along with the song “409,” by kids during a concert accompanied by
the Maharishi. In another with this title, the speaker laments that “they come on like squares/then get off like
squirrels” and has “planned my grand attacks/I will stand behind their backs/With my brand-new battle
ax/Then they will taste my wrath.” A more famous song with this title was conceived during an (*) LSD trip
and describes how a certain group’s kisses “keep[s] their boyfriends warm at night.” The Magnetic Fields wrote a
song whose speaker hates the title figures, who prove a class above the “Mid-West farmers' daughters” in another
song . For 10 points, name these females from a Beach Boys song, who have “daisy dukes/bikinis on top” and “sunkissed skin” in more recent song by Katy Perry.
ANSWER: “California Girls”
8. The axiom of choice indicates that each of these mathematical objects has an algebraic closure which
contains it, and For a polynomial over one of these, the “splitting” one is the smallest extension to one of these
that allows the polynomial to factor into linear factors. Finite ones must have order equal to a power of a
prime, and the fact that the constructible numbers form one of these structures is used to prove that (*)
doubling a cube and trisecting an angle are impossible. These objects by definition have a Krull dimension of zero,
and the fact that polynomials of degree higher than four have no closed solutions is proved using extensions of these
objects, which are the subject of Galois theory. These objects are closed, associative, and commutative over both
addition and multiplications, and are thus less general than rings. For 10 points, name these algebraic structures.
ANSWER: Fields
9. The principal biography of one saint with this name was written by Raymond of Capua. Another saint with
this name had a vision of the Virgin Mary crushing a snake underfoot as she stood atop a globe, which
inspired her to create the Miraculous Medal. The first saint with this name won a series of debates with
scholars of Emperor Maxentius, converting them in the process. That figure was then (*) beheaded after an
attempt to execute her on a breaking wheel caused the wheel to shatter. In addition to one surnamed Laboure, this
name is held by a saint who convinced Pope Gregory XI to move the papacy back to Rome, and along with St.
Francis of Assisi is the patron saint of Italy. For 10 points, give this name shared by several saints, including one
from Alexandria and one from Siena.
ANSWER: St. Catherine
10. This man’s brother Rifaat attempted to overthrow him in a 1984 coup, fifteen years before this leader
killed a bunch of Rifaat’s supporters in Lataika. After an assassination attempt on this man, one of his
defense companies massacred several occupants of Tadmor Prison. This man’s government constructed the
strategically vital Thrawa dam. After serving as defense minister and participating in the 8th of May coup,
this man finally came to power after defeating (*) Salah Jadid in the Corrective Revolution. After a series of
assassinations at an artillery school and three-year uprising, this man quashed the Muslim Brotherhood in the bloody
Hama Massacre. This head of the Ba’ath party was succeeded in 2000 by his son, whose recent exploits have been
so horrible that even the Arab League has turned its back on him. For 10 points, name this figure who in 1971 came
to power in Syria, where his son Bashar still holds power.
ANSWER: Hafez al-Assad
11. In one story by this man, the expert marksman Silvio rushes off to finish a duel he started years ago only
to call it off yet again when the Count’s wife stumbles onto the scene, shooting a painting instead. This author
of “The Shot” also wrote a novel in which Pyotr Andreyich is rescued from a blizzard by a mysterious man
who turns out to be the historical leader of a rebellion against the Empress. In addition to The (*) Captain’s
Daughter, he wrote a short story in which the protagonist writes fake love letters to Lizaveta Ivanovna in order to
gain access to her house; he then causes an elderly countess to die of fright but later acquires a secret gambling trick
from her ghost, only to go insane when it fails. For 10 points, identify this Russian author of The Tales of Belkin,
“The Queen of Spades,” and Eugene Onegin.
ANSWER: Alexander Pushkin
12. One museum designed by this man consists of three intersecting “volumes”: one of wood, one of concrete,
and one of metal, corresponding to different periods of the artist whose work is displayed there. He
collaborated with artist Barbara Weil to create a studio for her in Majorca, and designed another museum
based around the concept of a globe shattered into three and then (*) reassembled. This architect of the Felix
Nussbaum Haus and the Imperial War Museum North also designed a building whose main exit leads to 49 pillars
comprising the “Garden of Exile,” while the building itself is permeated by a large “Void” and is shaped like a
warped Star of David. For 10 points, name this American architect who designed the Jewish Museum of Berlin and
won the competition to redesign the World Trade Center
ANSWER: Daniel Liebeskind
13. A “deep boom, like the rolling of an ocean wave” is heard after this novel’s protagonist recognizes a wink
as a symbol of solidarity. Near the end, the protagonist goes through “My Best Bread” and other writings by
her mother while trapped inside a house with a bird. That character opens a cupboard to find a cigarette butt
burned breadboard, which she raises above her head as a weapon. The protagonist of this novel, in which Dr.
(*) Courtland fails to keep his patient alive, is named for the state flower of West Virginia and is upset with the
idiotic Texan relatives that show up to her father’s funeral at Mount Salus. That father dies during an operation to fix
his detached retina and has his belongings desecrated by his widow Fay. Laurel McKelva Hand is the title character
of, for 10 points, what novel by Eudora Welty?
ANSWER: The Optimist’s Daughter
14. This battle began after one side refused to allow the opposing commander to make a sacrifice at the
temple of Melkart. The tactics used in this battle were used in the same year against Batis at the Battle of
Gaza. 2000 members of the defeated army were nailed to crosses on the beach at the end of this battle, though
King Azemilcus was spared. During this battle a ship full of (*) combustible materials were launched against two
gigantic towers with catapults on top and ballistas on the bottom. The victorious side in this battle created a onekilometer long causeway upon which gigantic siege engines bombarded the target city. For 10 points, name this 6month battle in 332 BCE in which Alexander the Great besieged and captured a Phonecian city.
ANSWER: Siege of Tyre
15. Though not atheism, the experiments of John Needham were cited extensively as evidence for this theory
in The System of Nature by Baron d’Holbach. William James coined the idea of a “soft” version of this view in
his book The Dilemma of this. One thought experiment that relies on this theory involves an entity that knows
the momentum and position of every particle, though the (*) Heisenberg uncertainty principle refutes that
possibility in favor of a fundamental probability. Exemplified by Laplace’s Demon, the “hard” form of this view
holds that free will is false, while compatabilism attempts to reconcile free will with this view. For 10 points,
identify this philosophical position which holds that future events are entirely dependent on prior events.
ANSWER: determinism
16. The causative agent of this disease contains the HPI pathogenicity island, which codes for a protease that
activates plasminogen and phospholipase D. Its causative agent uses the yadBC adhesin to attach to cells, and
uses a type three secretory system to inject a series of Yop factors into the cytoplasm. Hemochromatosis or
high iron levels increase susceptibility to this disease, which uses a murine toxin and a hemin storage system
to live inside the (*) GI tract of its reservoir species. Prairie dogs are the primary reservoir of this disease, which is
cause by a gram-negative, intracellular rod-shaped bacterium. The hallmark of this condition is a series of swollen
lymph nodes, especially in the inguinal areas and the armpits. For 10 points, name this disease caused by Yersinia
pestis, which killed millions in the Black Death.
ANSWER: plague [accept bubonic plague, pneumonic plague, septicemic plague or black plague; accept
Yersinia pestis before mentioned]
17. Rumours about one of this author's title characters have him sleeping with a whip beside a telephone, or
even claim that he never sleeps at all. This author’s son took his war name from a character in a work which
also sees the postman Nicho go searching for his lost wife. Catalina and Yumi become sorceresses with the
intent of controlling the moon spirit in this author’s (*) Mulata de Tal, while an aforementioned work opens with
the rebellion of Gaspar Ilom against big capitalists who exploit a food staple. In his most famous novel, a character
called ‘the Zany’ or ‘the Idiot’ murders a top Colonel, and Angel Face falls in love with Camila, choosing her over
his boss, the country’s dictatorial ruler. For 10 points, name thi author of Men of Maize and El Señor Presidente, a
writer from Guatemala.
ANSWER: Miguel Angel Asturias
18. A lone caper flower lies at the bottom of this painting, while in the lower-left, a gold urn inscribed with the
artist’s signature lies on a manila-colored sheet or garment. On the right, a figure reminiscent of Laocoon
struggles to throw off a snake. The first title character is followed by an (*) entourage including a woman
wielding cymbals and a satyr dragging the head of a calf. Two cheetahs pull the chariot of the first title character,
who is leaping off after having just thrown a crown into the sky to become the constellation Corona. Prior to the
events of this painting, the second title character had just been deserted by her love on the island of Naxos. For 10
points, identify this painting which depicts the god of wine absconding with the lover of Theseus, a work by Titian.
ANSWER: Bacchus and Ariadne
19. JC Jongens designed a monument to these people located in Franschhoek, South Africa. One member of
this group led the expedition that founded Fort Caroline in Jacksonville. The Rohan Wars are a series of
uprisings led by these people, who also were the primary members of the Black Camisards. Another member
of this group had a daughter named Louisa, who became the fourth wife of William the Silent. Voltaire’s (*)
Sermon Cinquante was written in response to an incident in one of these people was falsely accused of killing his
son, known as the Calas Affair. Two days after an assassination attempt on one of their leaders, Gaspard de Coligny,
Marie de Medici instigated a massacre against these people on St Bartholomew’s Day. For 10 points, name these
people given limited religious freedoms by the Edict of Nantes, who are also known as French Protestants.
ANSWER: Huguenots [accept French Protestants before mention, prompt on partial]
20. A quantity of this type is computed approximately by the Swamee-Jain equation, or implicitly by the
Colbrook equation, and is graphed on the left axis of the Moody diagram. For laminar flow in fluid
mechanics, this quantity is equal to 64 divided by the Reynolds number, and chemical engineers employ a
quantity of this type named for Fanning. The product of this quantity and the angle of (*) wrap is
exponentiated it the equation relating the tension in two ends of a belt going around a pulley. For many solid
materials, the kinetic type of this quantity is approximated as 75 percent of the static type. For 10 points, identify
these numbers which quantify the effect of materials rubbing against each other, and for solids is commonly labeled
“mu.”
ANSWER: friction coefficients or friction factors or reasonable equivalent (accept Darcy friction factor before
“solid mechanics;” prompt on just “friction”]
Tiebreak 1. The speaker of this poem asks himself which pictures he should hang on the chamber walls, and
he later experiences a sequence of bizarre visions before musing: “Passing the visions, passing the night.” The
speaker contrasts the knowledge of death with the thought of death and imagines them as companions
walking beside him. This poem shifts into italics to demarcate the song of a (*) hermit thrush, which opens:
“Come lovely and soothing death, Undulate round the world.” This poem closes as the speaker stands amid “the
fragrant pines and the cedars dark and dim” after placing a sprig on a coffin during a funeral procession. For 10
points, identify this poem which describes how “the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night,” an
elegy for Abraham Lincoln by Walt Whitman featuring a purple flower.
ANSWER: “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”
Tiebreaker 2. King Peter I appointed many of these people to his court, which led his opponents to nickname
him ‘The Cruel,’ and members of this group serving in the military were at one time distinguished by their
black-and-yellow turbans. The Cortes of Soria forbade leaders of these people from inflicting death or
mutilation penalties, and Raymond de Penyafort organized a disputation in which (*) Nachmanides
represented this group against Pablo Christiani. After their religious practices were banned, those who continued to
practice in secret were known as Marranos. For 10 points, name this ethnic group whose members spoke Ladino and
were forced to flee their country following their expulsion by Ferdinand and Isabella’s Alhambra Decree.
ANSWER: Spanish Jews (accept Sephardic Jews since ‘Sephardic’ literally means ‘Spanish’, I guess)
Tiebreaker 3. This thinker claimed that social classes are only brought into conflict by the intervention of
government in his essay “The Clash of Group Interests.” He argued that a socialist government can never set
rational prices for goods because all transactions in such a system are internal in his “Economic Calculation
in the Socialist Commonwealth.” This thinker used the action axiom as the foundation for his deductive study
of human behavior or (*) praxeology, and one of his students further developed his theory that uncontrolled
expansion of credit is the cause of the business cycle. Also known for The Theory of Money and Credit, for 10 points
name this teacher of Friedrich von Hayek, idol of Ron Paul, and author of Human Action, a leading member of the
Austrian School of Economics.
ANSWER: Ludwig von Mises
1. In this novel, it is implied that the protagonist’s grandmother Eva Peace threw her own leg under a train to collect
health insurance. For 10 points each:
[10] Identify this novel set in the black community of ‘The Bottom,’ in which the title character befriends Nel but is
reviled by the other townspeople for her disregard of social convention.
ANSWER: Sula
[10] Sula is a work by this author of Song of Solomon who narrated Sethe’s struggle against the ghost of her baby in
Beloved.
ANSWER: Toni Morrison
[10] In Morrison’s Beloved, this character is a former chain gang worker who becomes Sethe’s lover and tries to get
124 Bluestone Road back on track by driving out the ghost.
ANSWER: Paul D
2. In static situations, the Lorentz gauge is a popular one for finding this quantity because it simply sets the
divergence to zero. For 10 points each:
[10] Identify this quantity symbolized A which gives rise to the Aharonov-Bohm effect.
ANSWER: vector potential
[10] Taking the curl of the vector potential gives this quantity, which according to Maxwell’s equation is
divergenceless; that is, it cannot arise from a monopole.
ANSWER: magnetic field
[10] The Lorentz gauge is often preferred over the Coulomb for dynamic cases because then equations for both
potentials contain this operator, symbolized ‘square-squared’, equal to the Laplacian minus the permeability times
permittivity times the second time derivative.
ANSWER: d’Alembertian
3. Near the end of this battle, the Albion and Magdalena battalion managed to stop the royalist Aragon battalion
from having any effect. For 10 points each:
[10] Identify this battle fought on the slopes of the namesake volcano, in which Antonio Jose de Sucre defeated the
forces of Melchor Aymerich.
ANSWER: Battle of Pichincha
[10] The Battle of Pichincha was the final battle in the independence struggle of this nation, which then joined
Bolivar’s Republic of Gran Columbia. Pichincha is located near its capital of Quito.
ANSWER: Ecuador
[10] This president of Ecuador, who inspired the name of a terrorist group whose name states that he “lives,
dammit!”, took power in the 1895 Liberal Revolution. He contributed greatly to the secularization of the country.
ANSWER: Eloy Alfaro
4. This work’s second movement is a limping waltz in 5/4 time. For 10 points each:
[10] Identify this B minor symphony, its composer’s last, whose third movement is a spirited march which is often
mistaken for the end of the piece, only to be followed by a haunting “Adagio lamentoso” fourth movement.
ANSWER: Symphony No. 6 or Pathetique
[10] The Pathetique symphony is often referred to as this composer’s suicide note. Some of the motives in that work
harken back to his Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture, and he also created The Nutcracker.
ANSWER: Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky
[10] This other Tchaikovsky work, in the key of F minor, opens with a blaring ‘fate motif’ in the horns and bassoons,
which recurs throughout the work. The second movement features a plaintive oboe melody of steady eighth notes,
while in the third movement, the string section plays entirely pizzicato.
ANSWER: Symphony No. 4
5. Literary dueling: Not just for Russians anymore! For 10 points each:
[10] Armand de Varville duels Armand Duval over the titular prostitute in this author's Camille, originally published
as Our Lady of the Camellias. Like his father, his literary works were sometimes informed by his Creole heritage.
Alexandre Dumas, Fils [just “Dumas” is fine here but do not accept “the elder” or “Dumas, Pere”]
[10] Geert von Innstetten murders the crap out of Major Crampus after discovering his wife, the title character, had
an affair with him like two decades earlier in this novel, the magnum opus of Theodor Fontane.
ANSWER: Effi Briest
[10] The title figure rhetorically asks “Milord Edward” if he hopes to kill truth along with the person who uttered it
in this author's epistolary masterpiece, Julie, or the New Heloise. He's better known for philosophical works like The
Social Contract.
ANSWER: Jean-Jacques Rousseau
6. One method of using this approximation is to remove the off-diagonal elements from coupled equations derived
from nuclear coordinates. For 10 points each:
[10] Name this useful approximation in physics in which the nuclei are taken to move much more slowly than the
electrons in a multi-atomic system.
ANSWER: Born-Oppenheimer approximation
[10] This other molecular dynamics method uses extra fictitious dynamic variables to avoid having to perform a
minimization at each step to keep the system in the ground state. It’s computationally easier than Born-Oppenheimer
dynamics.
ANSWER: Car-Parrinello method
[10] If you like lattice calculations, you won't want to miss Dynamic Theory of Crystal Lattices, widely considered
the definitive work on the genre and written by Born and a Chinese theorist with this surname. A chemist with this
surname developed an eponymous one-pot modification to the Wolff-Kishner reaction.
ANSWER: Huang [accept “Huang-Minlon” since organic chemists appear to have trouble understanding that
sometimes things are just singly-eponymous]
7. This man reflected on the My Lai massacre and Elizabeth Anscombe's Mr. Truman's Degree in his “War and
Massacre,” which defended absolutist restrains on wartime action. For 10 points each:
[10] Name this American thinker who discussed the interplay of direct and detached perspective in The View from
Nowhere and considered morality and motivation in The Possibility of Altruism.
ANSWER: Thomas Nagel
[10] Nagel is best known for this essay, which rejects reductionist explanations of the mind body problem by
highlighting the subjective nature of consciousness as exemplified by the title creature.
ANSWER: “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?
[10] In his disappointingly mundane “Sexual Perversion,” Nagel begins by reversing this much earlier thinker's
conclusion that sexual norms must be defined by humanity's overlap with animals and, thus, procreation. When this
guy wasn't writing about dog sex, he found time to knock out Summa Theologica.
ANSWER: Thomas Aquinas
8. During this event, one party made a speech stating that no one should try to “open the floodgates of civil discord
and deluge our rising empire in blood.” For 10 points each:
[10] Identify this event in which the Continental Army threatened the newly formed United States government due
to uncertainty over them receiving their pensions. George Washington managed to quell it with a good short speech.
ANSWER: Newburgh Conspiracy
[10] John Armstrong, Jr wanted to replace Washington with this general during the Newburgh Conspiracy. This
figure was also the choice of the Conway Cabal to replace Washington, indicating his popularity despite posting a
Millen-esque win-loss record as a field general.
ANSWER: Horatio Gates
[10] The Newburgh letter, which implored Washington to become king of the United States after the war was over,
was written by this army Colonel. He later wrote a pamphlet stating that Jesus’ divinity couldn’t be inferred from the
Bible.
ANSWER: Lewis Nicola
9. This artist painted a work showing a harp-wielding Muse about to crown a grumpy-looking Luigi Cherubini. For
10 points each:
[10] Name this Neoclassical French artist, who gave a harem woman a vertebra or two too many in his Grande
Odalisque.
ANSWER: Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres
[10] Ingres also painted this depiction of a bunch of harem women lounging, playing instruments, and drinking
coffee while nude in the title location.
ANSWER: The Turkish Bath
[10] Ingres painted standing and seated paintings of this woman, who in the former wears a black dress vaguely
resembling that of Madame X and in the latter wears a floral white dress while touching her cheek.
ANSWER: Madame Marie-Clotilde-Inès Moitessier
10. A common assay for this process is to surgically create a micropocket in a rabbit cornea and add the test
substance to it. For 10 points each:
[10] Identify this process in which new blood vessels are created from existing ones. It differs from vasculogenesis
in that the vessels aren’t created de novo.
ANSWER: angiogenesis
[10] The A and B forms of this growth factor protein are important regulators of angiogenesis. Their transcription is
triggered by hypoxia-inducible factors, and avastatin inhibits their A-type.
ANSWER: VEGF [pronounced VEG-eff, or Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor]
[10] These versatile, contractile cells are found surrounding endothelial cells in the capillaries of the brain. During
angiogenesis, they are involved in communicating the current maturation state of the new vessel and help
endothelial cells differentiate.
ANSWER: pericytes
11. This figure’s chariots are pulled by a pair of dragons, and this son of Metanira was almost killed by the king of
the Scythians, Lyncus. For 10 points each:
[10] Identify this figure whom Demeter taught the secrets of agriculture.
ANSWER: Triptolemus
[10] Triptolemus is an important figure in the Eleusinian Mysteries, which was the cult of Demeter. Another key
figure in the cult was this daughter of Demeter who was kidnapped by Hades.
ANSWER: Persephone or Proserpina or Kore
[10] This father of Triptolemus and wife of Metanira was an important figure in the Eleusinian Mysteries. This king
takes Demeter into his home while she wanders the earth looking for Persephone.
ANSWER: Celeus
12. A mentally-handicapped child enraptures the audience with a performance from Orpheus and Eurydice in the
title story in this author's collection Dance of the Happy Shades. For 10 points each:
[10] Name this female Canadian author who wrote about Del Jordan in Lives of Girls and Women and won the 2009
Booker International Prize for short story collections like The View from Castle Rock and The Moons of Jupiter.
ANSWER: Alice Munro
[10] Lauren discovers that Delphine isn't her birth mother in “Trespasses,” part of this 2004 collection that also sees
Juliet lose track of her daughter and Carla abort an attempt to flee from her abusive husband Clark in the title story.
ANSWER: Runaway
[10] This other female Canadian author of The Blind Assassin and Cat's Eye created Offred in The Handmaid's Tale.
ANSWER: Margaret Atwood
13. This man rejected the idea of tabula rasa, instead claiming that we inherit the experiences of our ancestors
throughout their evolution. For 10 points each:
[10] Name this Swiss psychologist who proposed the idea of the collective unconscious and its constituent elements
called ‘archetypes’.
ANSWER: Carl Jung
[10] According to Jung, this component of the personality represents the male component of the female
consciousness or the female component of the male consciousness, and thus serves to balance out both sexes. Either
gendered form is acceptable.
ANSWER: the anima or animus
[10] Though not one of Jung’s major works is a book titled “Psychology and” this practice, which is not “religion,”
but which he viewed as a metaphor for the individuation process or the growth of the soul, and which has led some
critics to label him as too concerned with weird, whacked-out shit.
ANSWER: alchemy
14. After gathering his followers at Anadpur, he founded the Khalsa order after asking five men to enter his tent and
emerging each time with blood on his sword. For 10 points each:
[10] Identify this successor of Tegh Bahadur, who declared that after his passing, the eternal leader of his religion
would be the Adi Granth.
ANSWER: Guru Gobind Singh [prompt on partial answer]
[10] Gobind Singh was the 10th and final human guru of this religion, whose followers are compelled to wear a
dagger and a turban as part of the five Ks.
ANSWER: Sikhism
[10] It was during this Sikh holiday that Gobind Singh created the Khalsa order. This harvest festival also marks the
beginning of the Hindu solar calendar in Eric Mukherjee’s home of West Bengal.
ANSWER: Vaisakhi
15. The gravitational lensing caused by one of these would create two exact images of an object behind it. For 10
points each:
[10] Identify these long one-dimensional topological defects in the universe. They’re thought to create cusps and
kinks during oscillations.
ANSWER: cosmic string
[10] Cosmic strings would have been created after this process, posited by Alan Guth. In this process, a scalar field
caused a faster-than-light expansion of the universe a fraction of a second after the big bang.
ANSWER: cosmic inflation
[10] The parameters of the cosmic inflation scenario, along with a whole host of other cosmological questions, are
likely to be answered in the next few years by this satellite launched in 2009, which takes really accurate pictures of
the CMB.
ANSWER: Planck
16. Amusing variations on this problem involve adding a loop to the track, or considering whether pushing a fat
person off a bridge is permissible. For 10 points each:
[10] Identify this problem in ethics, which asks whether someone should throw a switch so that the title out-ofcontrol conveyance hits one person instead of five.
ANSWER: Trolley problem
[10] This virtue ethicist and author of Natural Goodness is the originator of the Trolley Problem. In that work, she
stated that our notions of morality arise from practical human reasoning on justice.
ANSWER: Philippa Foot
[10] Another hypothetical vehicle in philosophy is the Ship of Theseus, whose continuously-replaced planks were
discussed at length by this English thinker and author of Leviathan.
ANSWER: Thomas Hobbes [accept WHAT IS THAT THAT'S NOT ANYTHING]
17. After forcing King Carol II to abdicate, this man declared a “National Legionary State.” For 10 points each:
[10] Name this conducator who forged a pro-German military dictatorship in his country through a coalition with
Horia Sima and the paramilitary Iron Guard.
ANSWER: Ion Antonescu
[10] In 1944, this king overthrew Antonescu with the help of the army, though he would be forced to abdicate 3
years later under pressure from the Soviets and Prime Minister Petru Groza.
ANSWER: King Michael
[10] These events took place in this European country on the Black Sea, which would later be ruled by Nicolae
Ceaucescu from Bucharest.
ANSWER: Romania
18. In a story from this collection named “The Battler,” the protagonist is thrown from a train and takes refuge at a
campfire. For 10 points each:
[10] Identify this collection of short stories which also includes “Indian Camp” and “The End of Something,” both
of which feature Nick Adams.
ANSWER: In Our Time
[10] In Our Time is a short story collection by this American writer, who also described the slow death of the
melancholy writer Harry in “The Snows of Kilamanjaro” and a host of other works inspired by his time hunting in
Africa.
ANSWER: Ernest Hemingway
[10] This two-part story is the culmination of In Our Time. In it, Nick returns to his old fishing grounds and reflects
on his past experiences, noticing how the grasshoppers have become black to blend in with their surroundings.
Hemingway described this story as “trying to do the country with Cezanne.”
ANSWER: Big Two-Hearted River
19. This leader was sent to live with Thomas Seymour, who later married the widowed Catherine Parr, before being
appointed Edward VI’s successor on his deathbed. For 10 points each:
[10] Identify this great-granddaughter of Henry VII who ruled England for nine days, but was then imprisoned in the
Tower of London and executed.
ANSWER: Lady Jane Grey
[10] Jane Grey was ousted from power when this body of advisers to the monarch changed their mind about her
succession. This body is actually still around, as you may have learned when Elliot Morley was recently expelled for
“accounting irregularities.”
ANSWER: Privy Council
[10] This rebellion, which opposed Mary’s plans to wed Phillip II of Spain, was partly led by Lady Jane Grey’s
father Henry. Because of this, she was executed after the rebellion was put down.
ANSWER: Wyatt’s rebellion
20. The male lead in this opera is intrigued by Caspar’s offer and resolves to go with him to the Wolf’s Glen. For 10
points each:
[10] Identify this singspiel, considered the first German Romantic opera, in which Max tries to win an archery
contest by making a deal with the devil for some magic bullets.
ANSWER: Der Freischutz or The Free-Shooter
[10] Der Freischutz is a work of this German composer, who by infusing his operas with folk tales laid the
groundwork for future operas in his language.
ANSWER: Carl Maria von Weber
[10] In this other Weber opera, Eglantine tries to tear the title character away from her betrothed, Count Adolar.
Though rarely staged due to the weak libretto, it foreshadowed Wagner in its use of leitmotif and continuous music
without spoken dialogue.
ANSWER: Euryanthe
EXTRA. This data structure implements all operations in big O of the log of log of n time, which is exponentially
faster than a self-balancing binary search tree. For 10 points each:
[10] Name this type of tree in which the root node stores a list of values, along with specific elements storing the
minimum and maximum values of the three. Its named for a Dutch computer scientist and are created using values
drawn from a universe.
ANSWER: van Emde-Boas tree or vEB tree
[10] van Emde-Boas trees work by implementing the root node as an associative type of these data structures, which
are a multidimensional grid of variables sharing the same name. They are often looped through via their indices.
ANSWER: array
[10] This operation on a tree moves one node up and one node down, and decreases the height of the tree.
ANSWER: tree rotation [accept word forms]