| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| In this play, one character’s appearance is summed up as “everybody ought to sit down and hate each other with good Christian fellowship.” That character in this play is Karl Lindner from the Clybourne Park Improvement Association, who tried to present Ruth, Walter, and Beneatha with a buyout deal. The Younger family uses a life insurance windfall to move from Chicago’s South Side to a white neighborhood in, for the point, what 1959 play by Lorraine Hansberry whose title is taken from a poem by Langston Hughes? | A Raisin in the Sun |
| For any three consecutive numbers, a, b, and c in this type of sequence, a times c is equal to b squared. These sequences are considered alternating if r is a negative value, as the terms will alternate between positive and negative. A convergent example of these sequences is 4, 2, 1, one-half, one-fourth, and so on. For the point, name this type of sequence whose terms are found by multiplying a common ratio, a name that indicates a picture-based interpretation of their terms. | geometric sequence |
| Cuprate-perovskite ceramics are this type of material at high temperatures. In these objects, Cooper pairs of electrons create a superfluid Bose-Einstein condensate that flows without dissipating energy, as described by the BCS theory. In the Meissner effect, these objects expel magnetic fields. When these objects are cooled below their critical temperature, their resistance drops abruptly to zero. For the point, name these objects that have no electrical resistance. | superconductors |
| The decision in this case was applied to Bolling v. Sharpe a year after it was decided. During this case, children were asked to identify the “nice doll.” This case’s decision was to be enforced with “all deliberate speed,” a vague term that was exploited by Southern states unwilling to create intra-city busing programs or, generally, undo the legacy of Plessy v. Ferguson. For the point, name this 1954 court case which forced the desegregation of public schools. | Brown v. Board (of Education of Topeka, Kansas) |
| An author from this continent, wrote about a character who faces a firing squad while remembering his father taking him to “discover ice” near the village of Macondo, the home of the Buend´ıa family. In addition to One Hundred Years of Solitude, this continent’s literature includes a collection of Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair and the works of Isabel Allende [ah-YEN-day]. For the point, name this continent, home to Gabriel Garcia Marquez and the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. | South America (accept Latin America; prompt on “America”) |
| General description acceptable. This ongoing process is considered by some as subject to the Thurmond Rule, using Abe Fortas as a precedent. Though this process technically began on February 13th after an event at the Cibolo Creek Ranch, one party has refused to continue with the “advise and consent” portion of this process until after November’s election. For the point, name this task, begun by President Obama with the selection of Merrick Garland, which became necessary after the death of Antonin Scalia. | filling the vacant seat on the Supreme Court (or filling Antonin Scalia’s seat on the Supreme Court before “Scalia” is said; accept descriptions of confirming Merrick Garland, or of adding Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, before “Garland” is read; accept any answer indicating that a ninth Justice of the Supreme Court will be hired, confirmed, installed, or equivalents; prompt on any answer indicating the nomination of a ninth Justice) |
| During the Iliad, this man is nearly slain by Diomedes, but is saved by his mother. A disguised Iris convinced a crowd to burn this man’s ships during the funeral games for his father, Anchises [an-KY-sees]. This man abandoned the Carthaginian queen Dido while setting sail for Italy. This man was conceived after Aphrodite fell in love with his father. For the point, name this Trojan prince, the subject of an epic by Virgil in which his descendants became the founders of Rome. | Aeneas |
| An event in this city is the subject of Leni Riefenstahl’s film Triumph of the Will; that event was a rally of over 700,000 people. In this city, a group of 23 doctors was tried for unlawful experimentation and other crimes against humanity; that trial followed one in which Hermann G¨oring and others were sentenced to death. For the point, name this German city where the post-World War II Nazi war crime trials were held. | Nuremberg (or Nurnberg) |
| The flag of this nation legendarily fell out of the sky during a war against Estonia. This nation’s ruler Gorm the Old raised the first of the Jelling [yelling] stones, the second of which was placed by his son Harald Bluetooth. This nation’s king apocryphally wore a yellow star to show solidarity with Jews during World War II, during which almost the entire Jewish population of this country was saved by being smuggled to Sweden. For the point, name this country ruled by Christian X during the Nazi occupation, with capital at Copenhagen. | Denmark |
| This city’s baseball team forfeited a game due to the disastrous Ten Cent Beer Night. Its football team has wasted draft picks on Brady Quinn and Brandon Weeden. This city’s NBA team fired head coach David Blatt, replacing him with Tyronn Lue, in 2016 even though it had the best record in the Eastern Conference, thanks to Kevin Love, Kyrie Irving, and a player who grew up in nearby Akron. For the point, name this seemingly cursed Ohio city, the home of the Indians, Browns, and LeBron James’ Cavaliers. | Cleveland, Ohio |
| This event led to the temporary banning of the RSS and the hanging of Narayan Apte. It caused one person to allegedly utter “Hey ram,” or “Oh, god.” This event, which took place in Birla House during a prayer ceremony, was followed by a report that “Bapu is finished.” This 1948 event was carried out by Nathuram Godse, a Hindu nationalist, in New Delhi. For the point, name this fatal attack on the leader of India’s independence movement. | the assassination of Mahatma (or Mohandas) Gandhi (accept death, shooting, or other synonyms for assassination; prompt on “the assassination of Gandhi”) |
| This state’s town of Yeppoon is found on Keppel Bay as part of its tourist-friendly Capricorn Coast, which includes Emu Park. To the north, the eastern shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria lie on this non-American “Sunshine State’s” Cape York Peninsula. This state’s tropical city of Cairns is a common point of access for tourists visiting the Great Barrier Reef. For the point, name this northern Australian state, whose capital is Brisbane. | Queensland |
| This artist depicted dead souls surrounding a ship in The Barque of Dante. He painted a failed mass breakout during a siege of Missolonghi in Greece. On the right side of another work by this man, a turban-wearing man on a rearing horse looks down in disgust at victims of another Ottoman atrocity, The Massacre at Chios. His most famous painting depicts a barebreasted woman waving the tricolour in inspiration over a barricade. For the point, name this French artist of Liberty Leading the People. | (Ferdinand Victor) Eugene Delacroix |
| This author used her aunt as the model for the Methodist preacher Dinah Morris. In one work by this author, a lost pile of gold is found with the skeleton of Dunstan Cass. The title character of that novel adopts Eppie and is a “weaver from Raveloe.” In another work by this author, Edward Casaubon changes his will in an attempt to prevent his younger brother Will Ladislaw from marrying Dorothea Brooke. For the point, name this English novelist of Adam Bede, Silas Marner, and Middlemarch. | George Eliot (or Mary Ann Evans) |
| This molecule phosphorylates proteins in a cell’s signal transduction pathways. The enzyme that makes this neurotransmitter acts as a proton pump in the mitochondria inner membrane space, and two of these molecules are used in glycolysis’s energy investment phase. 38 of these nucleosides are produced in cellular respiration, and they are required for active transport. For the point, name this coenzyme made of a sugar, nitrogenous rings, and three phosphate groups, the energy currency of the cell. | ATP (or adenosine triphosphate) |
| Before a character in this play leaves to Paris for his education, his father gives him the advice “neither a borrower or a lender be” and “to thine own self be true.” Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are childhood friends of the title character of this play, and are told to spy on him. Ophelia goes mad and drowns herself in this play, whose the title character dies after stabbing his uncle Claudius, who had in turn murdered the former king. For the point, name this Shakespeare play about a Danish prince. | The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark |
| This man argued for mechanized warfare in his book The Army of the Future. After negotiations with the FLN, this man signed the E´vian Accords, resulting in Algerian independence. Student protests in the Sorbonne started a series of protests in May 1968 that caused this man to flee his country. During World War II, this man led his country’s resistance to the Vichy regime. This ruler, who was succeeded by Georges Pompidou, was the first president of the Fifth Republic. For the point, name this leader of Free French forces during World War II. | Charles de Gaulle |
| Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being opens with a discussion of this philosopher’s idea of “eternal recurrence.” This author contrasted the “master” morality of Rome with the “slave” morality of Christianity. He described how Apollonian and Dionysian themes were best combined by the ancient Greek playwrights in The Birth of Tragedy. This philosopher described an “overman,” or Ubermensch, in another work. For the point, name this German philosopher and author of Also Sprach Zarathustra and who famously declared “God is dead.” | Friedrich Nietzsche |
| An early recipient of this punishment for simony was Simon Magus, and Cerularius and Leo IX mutually performed this action in 1054 as part of the Great Schism. Adoptionism and arianism are causes for this punishment. This punishment can be invoked for violating the privacy of confession or for committing heresy, and was applied to Martin Luther and Henry VIII for breaking away from the Catholic church. For the point, name this act of removing a person from membership or privileges in a church. | excommunication (accept word forms like excommunicate) |
| This singer wrote about “sailors fighting in the dance hall” in a song on the album Hunky Dory. This man, who starred as Jareth the Goblin King in the 1986 film Labyrinth, released the song “Lazarus” and the album Blackstar in 2016. The transmission “Major Tom to Ground Control” is heard in “Space Oddity” by, for the point, what British rocker who created the character Ziggy Stardust and passed away in January 2016? | David Bowie (or David Robert Jones) |
| Except for mycoplasma and thermoplasma, these organisms have cell walls. They replicate via binary fission and can exchange plasmids via conjugation and lateral gene transfer, but most genetic information is centered in the nucleoid surrounded by ribosomes, their only organelle. For the point, name these single-celled organisms in Archaea and Eubacteria that lack a true nucleus, in contrast with eukaryotes. | prokaryotes (accept Prokarya) |
| One aria in this work describes “a strand of smoke/over the far horizon on the sea” that will appear “one beautiful day,” or “Un bel di.” In this opera, Sorrow is born to the protagonist after her husband leaves aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. The matchmaker Goro had married that couple, but was unable to convince the husband to not marry an American girl as well. For the point, name this Giacomo Puccini opera about Cio-Cio San, who Lieutenant Pinkerton married in Japan. | Madame Butterfly (or Madama Butterfly) |
| A character in this story explains his interpretation of a cryptogram that begins, “A good glass in the bishop’s hostel in the devil’s seat.” In this short story, Jupiter drops a creature that strangely resembles a death’s-head through the eye of a skull on the orders of his employer, William Legrand, who is both literally and figuratively bitten by the title insect before searching for Captain Kidd’s treasure. For the point, name this short story by Edgar Allan Poe about a gilded scarab. | The Gold Bug |
| These geographical features are called meromictic when their layers don’t mix; if that status persists, a limnic eruption may occur, as happened at Nyos in 1986. One of these bodies under Antarctica is named Vostok. Like basins, these features are called endorheic if they do not have an outflow, and the “oxbow” type of these structures is formed when a meander is cut off from a river. For the point, name these bodies of water, such as five “Great” ones in North America. | lakes (prompt on general descriptions of bodies of water; do not accept ponds or other specific types) |
| Eric Foner describes this time period as America’s Unfinished Revolution. A compromise that recalled federal troops and secured the election of Rutherford B. Hayes ended this period, during which carpetbaggers vied for easy political office by migrating south. For the point, name this period of American history in which the rights of newly-freed slaves were developed as the defeated Confederacy was reincorporated into the Union following the Civil War. | Reconstruction |
| One character in this play tells an orphan that losing both parents “looks like carelessness.” The title of this work serves as its last line, spoken to Aunt Augusta. At the end of this play, after one character is revealed to have been left in a train station as a baby, Miss Prism, Cecily, and Gwendolen all finally land in happy relationships. For the point, name this play in which Algernon Moncrief and Jack Worthing each lie to their beloved about their first name, a comedy written by Oscar Wilde. | The Importance of Being Earnest |
| Numbers of the form a plus bi [”a plus b i”], where a and b are integers, are called this man’s integers. He developed a computational process expanded by Wilhelm Jordan that solves systems of equations using row-echelon form matrices. According to legend, this mathematician stumped his teacher as a child by quickly calculating the sum of all integers from 1 to 100. For the point, name this highly influential German mathematician and physicist. | Carl Friedrich Gauss |
| An artist from this country painted The Vampyre and Death in the Sickroom, and created a poster for a play in this country that featured the characters Aase [AH-zuh] and Solveig [SOHL-vyg]. This nation’s play Peer Gynt, written by Henrik Ibsen, features incidental songs like “Morning Mood” and “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” which were written by this nation’s composer Edvard Grieg [greeg]. The painter of The Scream, Edvard Munch [moonk], is from, for the point, what European country with capital at Oslo? | Kingdom of Norway (or Kongeriket Norge or Kongeriket Noreg) |
| This location is glorified in a song by Minimus. A leader of this location offers a half bushel of apples for the capture of a traitor who destroyed a windmill. A building here contains an inscription of the Seven Commandments and the lyrics to “Comrade Napoleon,” a song that transplants the anthem “Beasts of England.” “Four legs good, two legs bad” is a mantra of the sheep of this place, which represents the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin. The pigs Snowball and Napoleon live in, for the point, what title location of a George Orwell novel? | Animal Farm (accept Manor Farm; prompt on “farm”) |
| In 2007, a bridge over this river’s Saint Anthony Falls, carrying Interstate 35, collapsed. In 1812, a fluvial tsunami caused this river to run backward for several hours, while efforts to control its 1927 flood led the Army Corps of Engineers to construct a system of levees. This river’s largest distributary, the Atchafalaya, takes roughly 30 percent of its water, though the rest continues southeast to the Gulf of Mexico. For the point, name this river stretching from Lake Itasca in Minnesota to a delta in Louisiana. | Mississippi River |
| The Haynes-Shockley experiment measured a constant for this process for charges creating current. Adolf Fick created laws for the direction and duration of this process. As heat gives particles more kinetic energy, this form of passive transport speeds up. When this process occurs across a semipermeable membrane, it is called osmosis. For the point, name this process in which a solute travels from areas of high concentration to low concentration. | diffusion (accept word forms) |
| This scientist’s namesake cage is a mesh conductor that shields equipment from electric fields, which he and Hans Oersted separately realized created magnetic fields. This scientist discovered that a magnet exerts force on a current-carrying wire, and his law states a change in magnetic flux will create an induced voltage in a loop of wire. For the point, name this English chemist and physicist who names the SI unit of capacitance. | Michael Faraday |
| This location is located at the end of the known world, on the far shores of the river Oceanus. Hermes uses his golden wand to bring people here in his role as the psychopomp. This location contains the Meadows of Asphodel and the Elysian fields. A river whose waters cause forgetfulness, named Lethe, is found here, and its primary river is Styx. Those who come to this location must pay the ferryman Charon. For the point, name this location from Greek mythology ruled by a brother of Zeus and Poseidon, where people go after death. | Hades (accept the Greek underworld; accept Erebus; accept Tartarus) |
| Until 1959, the only portions of this specific region that had been seen were the edges, visible due to libration. Scientists have proposed putting radio telescopes on this region, as it is shielded from Earth’s radio communications. The first photos of this region were taken by the probe Luna 3, showing that this region contains significantly fewer maria [mah-ree-ah] than its counterpart. For the point, name this heavily cratered region of our natural satellite that tidal locking guarantees will always face away from the Earth. | dark side of the moon (or far side of the moon; do not prompt on the Moon alone) |
| This man was initially nominated to replace the retiring Sandra Day O’Connor, then re-nominated for another post two months later. During his confirmation hearing, this man described the judge’s role as “to call balls and strikes.” Donald Trump claimed that this man, in the court case NFIB v. Sebelius, saved Obamacare despite knowing it was unconstitutional. This man ascended to his current position after the death of William Rehnquist in 2005. For the point, name this current Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. | John (Glover) Roberts (Jr.) |
| This building features an atrium with a popular, gigantic skylight, though its operators complained about the curvature of the walls. The architectural design of this “Temple of the Spirit” intended for arriving visitors to ride an elevator to the top. The foundation that operates this museum also operates a Frank Gehry-designed museum of the same name in Bilbao, Spain. For the point, name this New York City art museum whose iconic winding ramp gallery was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. | Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (in New York City, though accept descriptions of the Guggenheim Bilbao after “Frank Gehry” is read) |