2004 Maryland High School Classic
Round 2
Questions by Kara Mohler
Tossups
1. His family name can be translated as “grocer,” after his family’s historical profession. His statue stands outside the Ferry Building in San Francisco. He advocated Satyagraha, often translated “way of truth.” He corresponded with Tolstoy and led the Dandi March and worked closely with the Indian National Congress. Name this leader, who advocated non-violent ahimsa, and helped gain independence for India.
ANSWER: Mahatma GANDHI
2. This name most often applies only to those organisms with blunt (lobose) or tapering (filose) pseudopods. These are found in sluggish waters, fresh and salt, all over the world, as well as in soils and as parasites. They readily make appearances in putrefying infusions, carried aerially, and are generally able to form protective cysts. When capitalized and italicized it refers to a particular genus that is found in freshwater, typically on decaying vegetation from streams, but is not especially common in nature. Name this descriptive term for various single-celled organisms which move about by means of temporary projections.
ANSWER: AMOEBAS
3. His mother committed suicide by drowning herself in the Sambre in 1912. He studied at the Academy des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, and produced his first surrealist painting in 1926. He practiced representational surrealism by challenging perceptions, and his paintings are often witty and amusing. Name this Belgian surrealist, one of who’s most famous works is a painting of a pipe, with the French words for “This is not a pipe” painted underneath.
ANSWER: Rene MAGRITTE
4. This work drew widespread attention to the problem of bioaccumulation and the effects of toxins on human health. It attracted hostile attention from certain industries, and claimed that its subject was extremely carcinogenic. It called for a ban on a certain insecticide in the United States. Name this environmental indictment, published in 1962, which actually did lead to a ban on DDT, the most famous work of Rachel Carson.
ANSWER: SILENT SPRING
5. This quantity describes the amount of children too young to work, plus the amount of people too old to work, divided by the productive sector of the population. As it increases, there is increased strain on the productive part of the population to support those who do not work. Name this economic quantity that has direct impacts on financial elements like social security.
ANSWER: DEPENDENCY RATIO
6. He is said to be the son of Oeagrus, King of Thrace, but he may be the son of Apollo. He joined the Argonauts, and was brutally killed and subsequently dismembered by bacchantes on the banks of the Hebrus. The most famous story about this man involves his wife, who died after being bitten by a serpent. He went into the lower world, softened Hades heart, and convinced Hades to allow him to take his wife back with him, but on the condition that he not look behind him. Name this lyre-playing figure in Greek myth, whose mother was Calliope and whose wife was Eurydice.
ANSWER: ORPHEUS
7. The son of a tanner, his early work in chemistry resolved a problem concerning the nature of tartaric acid. His doctorate thesis on crystallography helped him resolve the tartaric acid problem, and got him a job on the faculty at the University of Strasbourg. He helped to disprove the popular theory of spontaneous regeneration, but is most famous for his pioneering work in microbiology, which resulted in a namesake process for ridding liquids such as milk of bacteria by heating them.
ANSWER: Louis PASTEUR
8. It was ceded to France in 1697. This country made a commitment to end slavery everywhere, but slaveholding countries such as the U.S. implemented sanctions against it. It is now the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. Name this island nation, where the UN has recently sent in a peacekeeping force and whose Revolutionary Artibonite Resistance Front recently revolted against corrupt president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
ANSWER: HAITI
9. He was born in Mondovi, and his father Lucien died at the Battle of the Marne in 1914. He contracted tuberculosis in 1930, ending his hobby of playing soccer. He was denounced as a Trotskyite for forming an opposition Communist party in his home country in 1936, and his marriage ended because his wife was a morphine addict. Name this man, author of L’Expresse, The Rebel, The Plague, and the quintessential existentialist novel The Stranger.
ANSWER: ALBERT CAMUS
10. It formed part of Ptolemy's list of 48 constellations and is also one of the 88 modern constellations approved by the IAU. It is surrounded by the Dragon Draco, the Roman hero Hercules, the Little Fox Vulpecula and the Swan Cygnus. The “Ring Nebula” is also located inside it. Name this constellation, which contains the second brightest star in the northern hemisphere, Vega.
ANSWER: LYRA
11. He held the place of commander of the host of the Israelites at their great battle against the Amalekites in Rephidim. He became Moses' minister, and accompanied him part of the way when he ascended Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments. He is most famous, however, for fighting in Jericho in his wars of conquest and for bidding the sun to stand still.
ANSWER: JOSHUA
12. The losers in this conflict called it a “freedom war.” Conflict between the British and the losing group was intensified after the failed Jameson Raid, a coup d’etat. Lord Kitchener responded to guerrilla fighters by constructing blockhouses, destroying farms, and placing civilians in concentration camps. Name this conflict, whose eponymous losers were also called Voortrekkers or Afrikaners, and which took place in South Africa from 1899 to 1902.
ANSWER: Second BOER WAR
13. This opera takes place shortly after Christmas, and concerns a poor, crippled boy who loves to play the flute. Its composer studied at the Verdi Conservatory and founded the Festival of the Two Worlds and its American counterpart, Spoleto Festival U.S.A. Name this first opera ever broadcast on television in 1951, composed by Gian Carlo Menotti.
ANSWER: AMAHL AND THE NIGHT VISITORS
14. The scientist who performed it later worked on cosmic rays, after transitioning from classics to physics. It helped to win the scientist the Nobel Prize for Physics. Name this experiment, carried out by carefully balancing the gravitational and electric forces on tiny charged droplets of the namesake substance suspended between two metal electrodes, that sought to determine the value of the charge on the electron.
ANSWER: Millikan OIL-DROP Experiment
15. He was born into a wealthy family, but was terrified by his emotional, abusive mother. He studied in St. Petersburg, and then Berlin until 1841. He was not interested in religion, which strained his relationship with Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, though he was friends with Flaubert. For ten points, name this Russian novelist and poet who wrote First Love, A Month in the Country, and Fathers and Sons.
ANSWER: Ivan TURGENEV
16. Its hills only rise above the plains in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, and it straddles the tropic of cancer. Cyclone-driven tidal waves threaten it, and some of the heaviest rainfall on the planet causes annual flooding. Calcutta sits near its border, and it is essentially a huge delta formed around the Ganges and the Brahmaputra, and three other rivers. Name this nation with an exploding population and capital at Dhaka.
ANSWER: BANGLADESH
17. His early work spawned a new style of beat, characterized by a short snare and a non 4/4 time signature. In the late 1990s he incorporated Bhangra music into his beats, and is known for interjecting soft-spoken lyrics in between the verses of others. Name this hip hop producer, who has produced such songs as “Cry Me a River,” “Try Again,” and “Ugly,” but is most famous for his collaboration with Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliot.
ANSWER: TIMBALAND
18. This refers to a cultural exchange between the US and China. It led to a thaw between US-China relations and Richard Nixon’s visit to Beijing in 1972. Name this foreign policy that featured the US and Chinese table tennis teams, and let the first Americans set foot in China since Mao took over 32 years earlier.
ANSWER: PING PONG DIPLOMACY
19. Once two attitudes, emotions, beliefs or values are held and there is a conflict of interests between them, the individual falls into this state. It describes a conflict of perceptions in psychology, and can be resolved by seeking consonance, though this can be uncomfortable because one must admit that they are wrong. Name this state of individual imbalance.
ANSWER: COGNITIVE DISSONANCE
20. He was converted to Christianity after a stay in Norway, and he bought Bjarni Herjólfsson’s boat when he returned home. He sailed off, and named the first land he found Helluland (Land of the flat stones), and the second land he found Markland (Woodland). When one of his men, Tyrkir, found grapes on another piece of land, he dubbed it Vinland. Name this Viking explorer, son of Eric the Red.
ANSWER: Leif (Ur) ERIKSSON
21. She crossed the ocean 66 times during her life, and married a man 12 years older than her, whose first name was Teddy. She worked for the Red Cross in Paris, and her best known work won her a Pulitzer Prize in 1920. Two of her novels were on the American Modern Library Top 100 List. Name this author of the societal criticisms The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence.
ANSWER: Edith WHARTON
22. The author wrote this novel in confinement for 18 months. It chronicles an enduring family who almost daily has magical opportunities for transformation. but is also a philosophical reflection on the nature of time and isolation. It is often described as magical realism, but lacks the prerequisite folkloric content. Name this novel, whose main characters are the Buendia family, and which is the 1967 masterpiece set in Macondo, written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
ANSWER: ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE
23. This post-World War II conference decided on the administration of Germany after its unconditional surrender, attended by the victorious allies, represented by Truman, Stalin, and Churchill and later Atlee. Here Stalin devised a plan to give 15% of Poland to the USSR. Name this conference that was mostly concerned with the division of Germany and Austria into four occupation zones.
ANSWER: POTSDAM
24. This compound directly affects an important cycle that provides the earth with a sort of “sun screen.” Scientists once believed that this compound would only rise to the troposphere, but when research was being conducted on the safety of SSTs in the 1970s, scientists found large numbers of these compounds in the stratosphere. Name this molecule, whose one chlorine can react with ozone to destroy it thousands of times, and is thought to be mainly responsible for the hole in the ozone layer.
ANSWER: CHLOROFLUOROCARBONS (ACCEPT CFCs)
25. Within a few months of their beginning, they involved the neighboring areas of Andover, Salisbury, Haverhill, Ipswich, Charleston, Beverly, Reading, Woburn, and Boston. Increase Mather ended them by issuing a decree entitled “Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits.” Name this event, touched off by accusations from Betty Parris and Abigail Williams, that implicated townspeople in “evil” magical acts, the subject of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible.
ANSWER: SALEM WITCH(craft) TRIALS
Bonuses
1. Name these Chinese dynasties from descriptions FTP each.
[10] During this dynasty, a centralized, nonhereditary bureaucratic system was imposed on the Empire by Ying Zheng. It lasted from 221 BC to 206 BC.
ANSWER: QIN or CHIN Dynasty
[10] This dynasty saw the advent of Buddhism, block printing, and expanded territory. It was interrupted by the Zhou dynasty, but lasted from 618 to 907 AD.
ANSWER: TANG Dynasty
[10] This was the first alien rule of China, also called the Mongol Dynasty. It lasted from 1271 AD to 1368.
ANSWER: YUAN Dynasty
2. Given a description of a short story from James Joyce’s realist collection Dubliners, name it FTP.
[10] In this story, two young men wander the streets, and Joyce plays with double meaning when the men follow a girl around to ask her for “a favor,” which ends up being a little pocket money.
ANSWER: “TWO GALLANTS”
[10] The title character in this story faces the prospect of staying home with her old, threatening father, or beginning a new life outside of Ireland.
ANSWER: “EVELINE”
[10] This story revolves around Gabriel Conroy and his wife Gretta, whose old love Michael Furey died for her.
ANSWER: “THE DEAD”
3. FTP each, name these items from Aztec legend and mythology.
[10] He is part of one creation myth, which says that the earth formed with the creation of him and his twin brother, Tezcatlipoca, who lost his foot.
ANSWER: QUETZALCOATL
[10] He is the god who guided the Aztec down from Atlan in the north to found Tenochtitlan.
ANSWER: HUITZILOPOCHTLI
[10] According to legend, Tenochtitlan was founded when the wandering Aztec saw this type of bird perched on a nopal cactus eating a snake.
ANSWER: EAGLE
4. Given the definition of a legal term from Black’s Law Dictionary, name the term FTP.
[10] Latin: To stand by things decided, the doctrine of precedent, under which it is necessary for a court to follow earlier judicial decisions.
ANSWER: STARE DECISIS (stahr-ee)
[10] The doctrine that a criminal suspect in police custody must be informed of certain constitutional rights before being interrogated.