| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| David Blair was responsible for the lack of binoculars in the lead-up to this event. John Jacob Astor IV helped Madeline Force escape this event but failed to do so himself. The indecisiveness of Captain Edward (*) Smith exacerbated this event, although he eventually ordered his crew to “put women and children in and lower away.” For ten points, name this event, during which an “unsinkable” ship was proved to be otherwise when it hit an iceberg. | sinking of the RMS Titanic (accept descriptions like destruction of the Titanic or Titanic disaster; prompt on “Titanic”) |
| Old Glory has inspired numerous works. For ten points each, Name the man whose experience from watching the siege of Fort McHenry, inspired him to compose The Star Spangled Banner while aboard the HMS Tonnant. | Francis Scott Key Joe Rosenthal captured the image of several soldiers raising a US flag on Iwo Jima, an image which was later turned into a war memorial for what branch of the military? During the battle itself, this branch of the military suffered the heaviest casualties. ANSWER: United States Marine Corps (accept USMC) Francis Scott Key would have had a much harder time composing if not for this legendary figure who apocryphally made the first flag of the United States. ANSWER: Elizabeth Phoebe “Betsy” Ross (accept Elizabeth Griscom; accept Elizabeth Ashburn; accept Elizabeth Claypoole) |
| This man died before he could complete The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Charles Darnay trades places with Sydney Carton at the guillotine in a novel by this author set during the French Revolution. The ghost of (*) Jacob Marley appears before three spirits representing the past, present, and future haunt Ebenezer Scrooge. For ten points, name this Victorian-era author of A Tale of Two Cities and A Christmas Carol. | Charles Dickens |
| At John F. Kennedy’s inauguration, this man recited his poem in which America’s “land was ours / before we were the land’s.” For ten points each, Name this American poet, who wrote “The Gift Outright,” “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” “Fire and Ice,” and a poem in which “two roads diverged in a yellow wood.” | Robert Lee Frost The speaker of this Robert Frost poem acknowledges that the pair of paths in the woods “both that morning equally lay,” but admits that he will claim that he “took the one less traveled by” in this poem. ANSWER: The Road Not Taken In another Frost poem, a pine tree farmer claims that “good fences make good neighbors” while mending this title structure, which stands between his and Frost’s property. Frost describes the stones that make up this structure as “loaves” and “balls.” ANSWER: Mending Wall (accept stone wall) |
| Members of this kingdom reproduce through alternation of generations and use RuBisCO for carbon fixation, a process that helps members of this kingdom convert carbon dioxide to food. (*) Cellulose makes up the cell walls of most of these organisms, which take up nutrients from the soil with their roots and perform photosynthesis. For ten points, name this kingdom of organisms that convert sunlight to food with their leaves. | plants (accept Plantae) |
| For ten points each, answer the following about a precious metal. Iron pyrite is the “fool’s” variety of this metallic element with atomic symbol Au [A-U]. | gold Because the electrons flow freely around gold nuclei, gold exhibits this physical property that allows it be drawn into wires. Gold is also very malleable, meaning it can be pounded into sheets. ANSWER: ductility (accept word forms like ductile) Precious metals like gold can be found in this central block of the periodic table, making up Groups 3 through 12. ANSWER: transition metals |
| In this city, the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain stands in a “Circus” between Haymarket and Regent Street. This city contains buildings called the “Gherkin” and the “Shard.” An observatory in this city’s (*) Greenwich [GREN-itch] district marks the Prime Meridian, and this city’s “Eye” is a large Ferris Wheel on the banks of the River Thames. The Queen lives in Buckingham Palace in, for ten points, what capital city of England? | London |
| In a February 2016 debate, a Republican Presidential candidated noted that he’d love to release his tax returns, but can’t because the IRS is performing this action. For ten points each, Name this action, in which tax returns or any official financial accounting is inspected, either by an authority or an independent body. | auditing (accept word forms and any additional information) This Republican presidential candidate and real estate mogul made that claim a few days after winning the Nevada caucus, his third victory in the first four primary contests. ANSWER: Donald John Trump In the last Presidential election, the tax returns of this 2012 Republican nominee for President, the first Mormon nominee for a major party, were highly scrutinized. ANSWER: (Willard) Mitt Romney |
| This artist painted his wife, Camille, on her deathbed and in a field near this man’s house in Giverny, where he created many paintings of an arched green bridge and (*) Waterlilies. This man painted shadowy boats and a low sun over Havana Harbor in a work that accidentally named the Impressionist movement: Impression, Sunrise. For ten points, name this French Impressionist painter. | (Oscar-)Claude Monet |
| Marius Petipa revived the choreography of this work in 1895. For ten points each, Name this 1875 ballet in which the same ballerina performs the roles of Odette and Odile. | Swan Lake In this other ballet by the composer of Swan Lake, Clara receives the title toy, which transforms into a prince. Marius Petipa also choreographed this ballet, which includes the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. ANSWER: The Nutcracker This Russian composed the music for Swan Lake and The Nutcracker. ANSWER: Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky |
| One leader of this movement burned a copy of the Constitution, calling it a “covenant with death.” Another leader led an execution of settlers north of Pottawatomie Creek and later led a raid on Harper’s Ferry. Works promoting this movement include (*) The North Star and William Lloyd Garrison’s The Liberator. John Brown violently advocated for, for ten points, what movement that reached its conclusion with the 13th Amendment after the end of the Civil War? | abolitionism (accept descriptions of the abolition of slavery; prompt on anti-slavery) |
| This set of fortifications was built to defend against northern Mongol threats. For ten points each, Name this defensive structure, which was lengthened by both the Qin [chin] and Han dynasties. | Great Wall of China The Great Wall was started by this first emperor of the Qin Dynasty. This emperor supposedly died after ingesting mercury pills that he believed would grant him immortality. ANSWER: Qin Shi Haungdi (accept Qin Shi Haungdi, or Ying Zheng, or Zhao Zheng) In 1974, Qin Shi Huangdi’s tomb was discovered along with an army of thousands of soldiers made out of this type of clay. ANSWER: Terracotta |
| This author described a conflict with Nellie Oleson in These Happy Golden Years, in which she competes for the affection of Almanzo. She described life in Minnesota and South Dakota in (*) On the Banks of Plum Creek and By the Shores of Silver Lake, where she lived with Carrie, Grace, and her blind sister, Mary, in cabins built by Ma and Pa. For ten points, name this pioneer author of Little House on the Prairie. | Laura Ingalls Wilder |
| Ship captain Robert Walton writes letters to his sister Margaret in this novel’s frame story. For ten points each, Name this Gothic novel, subtitled “The Modern Prometheus,” in which the title scientist, Victor, creates a monster out of stolen body parts. | Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus Robert Walton encounters both Victor Frankenstein and the monster while his ship is trapped between ice sheets on the way to this cold location, where he writes “the sun is forever visible” during summer months. ANSWER: The North Pole (prompt on “Arctic” or “Arctic circle”) This woman wrote Frankenstein, and was married to Percy, the English poet of “Ozymandias.” ANSWER: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (prompt on “Shelley”) Halftime The categories are ... 1. To Kill a Mockingbird 2. Alaska 3. Removable Body Parts 4. Heracles To Kill a Mockingbird To Kill a Mockingbird is a great Southern novel of the twentieth century. Name... |
| its author. | (Nelle) Harper Lee |
| the profession of Atticus Finch, who defends Tom Robinson from rape accusation charges in a trial. | Lawyer |
| the daughter of Atticus who narrates the novel. | Scout Finch (accept Jean Louise Finch; prompt on “Finch”) |
| the U.S. state where the novel is set. The fictional city Maycomb is in this state, and Mobile and Birmingham are real cities in it. | Alabama |
| the character whose father, Bob, claims that Tom Robinson raped her. | Mayella Ewell (prompt on “Ewell”) |
| its sequel, which was released in 2015. | Go Set a Watchman Alaska Concerning the history and geography of Alaska, name... |
| its capital city. | Juneau |
| its most populous city, the ceremonial start of the annual Iditarod dogsled race. | Anchorage |
| the end city of the Iditarod, to which Balto brought needed medicine in 1925. | Nome |
| the natural disaster that struck Prince William Sound in 1989 when the Exxon Valdez ran aground. | oil spill (accept descriptions; prompt on answers like “pollution” that don’t specifically mention oil) |
| the country from which the US purchased Alaska in 1867 for $7.2 million. | Russia (do not accept Soviet Union) |
| the U.S. Secretary of State whose purchase of Alaska was deemed a “Folly.” | William Seward (accept Seward’s Folly) Removable Body Parts Some human organs can be safely removed or replaced. Name the organ that... |
| has valves that can be replaced with cow or pig tissue to control the flow of blood through its ventricles. | heart |
| is a vestigial tube between the small and large intestines that is removed when it becomes dangerously inflamed. | appendix |
| consists of masses of lymphoid tissues near the tongue and throat that are sometimes removed in childhood. | tonsils |
| consists of a pair of bean-shaped, blood-filtering organs, one of which can be donated safely by a living person. | kidneys |
| is a large, lobed organ that processes toxins, secretes bile, and can regenerate removed sections of itself. | liver |
| was historically partially removed to treat peptic ulcers, and which connects to the duodenum at the pyloric sphincter. | stomach Heracles In the life of the hero Heracles, what mythological figure or animal was... |
| Heracles’s father, which greatly angered Hera? | Zeus Pater |
| slain by Heracles, after which the hero wore its skin? | Nemean lion |
| killed by Heracles when he was an infant? | a pair of snakes (accept serpents) |
| a monster that grew two heads when one was cut off, until Heracles killed it? | Hydra |
| the ancestor of Heracles who slew Medusa? | Perseus |
| Heracles’s first wife, a Theban princess who was killed when Hera drove Heracles insane? | Megara |
| This holiday occurs during the month of Kislev and makes use of the shamash. This holiday celebrates a miracle from the Septuagint, in which the Maccabees found that a single day’s worth of sacred (*) oil burned for eight days. Dreidels are spun and a special menorah with nine candles is lit during this Festival of Lights. For ten points, name this Jewish winter holiday. | Chanukah (or Hanukkah) |
| Loki borrows a feathered coat to help this god recover his lost weapon. For ten points each, Name this son of Odin, the Norse god of thunder who carried a short-handled hammer called Mjolnir [MYOLL-neer]. | Thor To recover his stolen hammer, Thor disguised himself as this goddess of love and beauty, who received half of those who died in battle at her mead-hall, F´olkvangr. ANSWER: Freyja In another adventure, Thor went out in a boat with Hymir and attempted to capture this enormous creature, who circled the entire earth. ANSWER: Midgard Serpent (accept J¨ormungandr) |
| This team’s coach said “It’s the No Fun League for a reason” after its practice squad player, Marcus Ball, pointed a bat at Odell Beckham, Jr in week fifteen. In 2015, Jared Allen was traded from the Bears to this team, which lost its star wide receiver, (*) Kevin Benjamin, to an ACL tear in the preseason. Linebacker Luke Kuechly [kee-klee] plays for this team. For ten points, name this team, quarterbacked by 2015 NFL MVP Cam Newton, which lost Super Bowl 50 to the Denver Broncos. | Carolina Panthers (accept either underlined name) |
| This song describes “streetlights” and “people living just to find emotion.” For ten points each, Name this song by Journey, in which “for a smile, they can share the night” while “the movie never ends.” | Don’t Stop Believin’ A cover of “Don’t Stop Believin’” was produced for the 2009 first episode of this Fox series, which followed a high school choir in Lima, Ohio. ANSWER: Glee The 2008 album Undeniable features a performance of “Don’t Stop Believin’” by this fictional band, whose high-pitched, sped-up sound was first recorded in 1958. ANSWER: Alvin and the Chipmunks |
| Playfair’s axiom and Euclid’s fifth postulate concern this property, which does not exist in spherical geometry. Two tangent lines to a circle will have this property if they meet at endpoints of a (*) diameter, not a chord. Unlike skew lines, lines that have this property exist in the same plane. For ten points, name this property of lines that are always the same distance away from each other, and therefore never intersect. | parallel lines |
| Examples of shapes that cannot be described by this term include the crescent and circle due to their curving arcs. For ten points each, Give this mathematical term, from the Greek for “many corners,” which describes any shape formed by line segments that complete a closed figure. | polygon This type of polygon exists if all the sides are of equal lengths and all the angles are congruent. ANSWER: regular polygon (prompt on equilateral and/or equiangular polygon) This type of polygon exists if all of its interior angles are less than 180 degrees. As a result, any line segment drawn between two points on the edges of the polygon will either coincide with a side of the polygon or will pass through the interior of the polygon, but can not exit and re-enter the interior. ANSWER: convex polygon |
| In this novel, Sister Gudule is reunited with her daughter, Agn`es, who is in love with Phoebus [FEE-bus], the captain of the King’s Archers. Claude (*) Frollo takes in a deformed infant in this novel, but is killed by the title man when he kills the gypsy Esm´eralda. For ten points, name this Victor Hugo novel about Quasimodo, the bellringer of a Paris cathedral. | The Hunchback of Notre Dame (or Notre-Dame de Paris) |
| This man wrote the Divine Comedy, in which he passes through a doorway that says “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” For ten points each, Name this Italian poet, whose Divine Comedy represents portions of the Christian afterlife in the sections Purgatorio and Paradiso. | Dante Alighieri Dante’s Divine Comedy begins with this long poem, in which the poet Virgil guides Dante through the nine circles of Hell. ANSWER: Inferno Virgil cannot guide Dante through Heaven because he was unbaptized. Instead, this woman, Dante’s contemporary, shows him the celestial spheres. ANSWER: Beatrice Portinari |
| This measurement, which was developed by Soren Sorensen, can be found by titrating a solution that has an unknown concentration of the substance measured by this scale in the presence of an indicator like (*) phenolphthalein [FEE-noh-THAY-leen], which turns pink when this scale is higher than seven. For ten points, name this logarithmic measurement of how basic or acidic a substance is. | pH |
| For ten points each, answer the following about how water droplets form. This term refers to the tendency of similar molecules to stick together, as opposed to adhesion, in which molecules of different materials stick together. | cohesion Water is highly cohesive – it would rather stick to itself than anything else – so this phenomenon occurs. Water striders are able to walk on water due to this effect, as they exert less force on the top of the water than the water itself exerts to keep its shape. ANSWER: surface tension Surface tension allows the formation of water droplets, as well as this curved surface of a liquid in a container, commonly seen in graduated cylinders. ANSWER: meniscus |
| One of these systems was introduced by Sejong the Great of the Joseon dynasty and is known as Hangul. Saints Cyril and Methodius created another of these systems, which evolved into Cyrillic, so they could translate the Bible into Slavic (*) languages. A six-dot matrix is used to write one of these systems invented by Louis Braille. Phi, delta, and omega belong to the Greek example of, for ten points, what sets of letters used to write languages? | alphabet |
| This man fought in the same 12th century conflict in which Frederick Barbarossa died. For ten points each, Name this English king, whose nickname reflects his courage. He led forces against the armies of Saladin in the 12th century. | Richard I (accept Richard the Lionhearted; accept Richard Coeur de Lion; prompt on “Richard”) Richard I was a key participant in the third of these religious conflicts, whose goal was to reclaim the Holy Land in the name of Christianity. ANSWER: the Crusades During the Third Crusade, Frederick Barbarossa died while attempting to cross the Saleph, one of these geographical features. ANSWER: river |
| This body was the first discovered Kuiper Belt [KYE-pur Belt] object. Percival Lowell began the effort to find this object, whose presence he predicted from offsets in planetary orbits, but it was discovered later by Clyde Tombaugh. The (*) New Horizons probe visited this body in 2015, studying Nix, Kerberos, and its other satellites. Charon is the largest moon of, for ten points, what Solar System body that was demoted to “dwarf planet” status in 2005? | Pluto |
| Eukaryotic cells are surrounded by a phospholipid cell membrane. For ten points each, give the following about what’s inside. This term refers to any of the specialized subunits within a cell, such as the vacuoles and lysosomes. | organelles This jelly-like substance fills up space between the organelles in a cell and is found in both eukaryotes and prokaryotes. ANSWER: cytoplasm (accept cytosol) Protein synthesis takes place in these non-membrane-bound organelles, which can float in the cytoplasm. ANSWER: ribosomes |
| This novel’s protagonist kills a giant who asks him to drink one of two cups, which allows him to advance to Fairyland. After being attacked in the showers, a character in this novel kills Bonzo, the commander of (*) Salamander Army. This novel’s protagonist is transferred to Eros, where he meets Mazer Rackham. For ten points, name this Orson Scott Card novel in which the title character trains to kill the “buggers” in Battle School. | Ender’s Game |