Valencia Delta Burke Invitational 2004
Round 8—Questions by CB with Science by Raj Dhuwalia (and one by Illinois)
1. Its first chapter, “Variation under Domestication,” uses the example of, among other things, the Italian Greyhound and the Codlin apple to illustrate its central point. In the third chapter, “Struggle for Existence,” the author describes the “economy of nature” in which individuals and species compete for resources that will sometimes be insufficiently abundant. It is also in this chapter that the author first uses the term “natural selection.” FTP this is what 1859 work first describing the evolutionary theory of Charles Darwin?
A. On the Origin of Species
2. In one of this author’s novels, Macon Dead Jr., nicknamed Milkman, has an Aunt Pilate who has no navel, and who is thus much feared. In another, the title character, whose last name is Peace, betrays her friend Nel by sleeping with Nel’s husband. In yet another, the protagonist, who is raped by her father, Cholly, wishes for an eye color usually associated with a Caucasian ideal of beauty. FTP who wrote of these things in the novels Song of Solomon, Sula, and The Bluest Eye, a Nobel Prize winner probably best known for Beloved.
A. Toni Morrison
3. In some myths, this god was the father of Theseus by his rape of Aethra. He was also amorous enough to mate with Medusa, leading to the births of Chrysaor and Pegasus. Polyphemos was another son, and he did have one legitimate son in Triton, whom he fathered with his wife, Amphitrite. Identify this major Greek god, FTP, the master of the sea.
A. Poseidon
4. While a soldier in the Austro-Hungarian army in WWI, he was first imprisoned by his own superiors for spreading anti-war propaganda, and later was imprisoned by the Russians after his battalion was captured. After organizing demonstrations by the prisoners, he escaped, joined the St. Petersburg demonstrations, and applied for membership in the Russian Communist party. He then returned to his native Croatia, where his brave service and organization of resistance to the Nazis made him a hero. FTP name this man named president for life of Yugoslavia in 1953.
A. Josip Broz Tito
5. This state’s highest point is MountMagazine, near its western border, part of the Boston Mountain chain. The state is also home to towns called Stuttgart and Paris, though a better known small town in Bentonville, where the Wal-Mart scourge began. FTP name this state bordered by Missouri on the north and Louisiana on the south, also home to Hope, Hot Springs, and Little Rock.
A. Arkansas
6. Mourning her father, this character says “Oh, I was fond of misery with him! Even what was most unlovely grew beloved when he was with me.” Her betrothed, Haemon, kills himself after his father’s sentence on her is carried out. She is punished after she ignores the edict of the king, despite the entreaties of her sister, Ismene. FTP what title character buries her brother Polynices and is condemned to live burial in a Sophocles drama?
A. Antigone
7. Born in Italy around 1882, he arrived penniless in the U.S. in 1903. In 1919, he realized that, on paper at least, international trading of postal reply coupons could yield 400% returns, so he began to canvass his friends for funds, offering them a 50% return on their money in 45 days. By July 1920, he was raking in millions from new investors, while paying out most of the proceeds to earlier investors. Eventually, the bubble burst and he was sent to prison for fraud. FTP, name this scoundrel whose name is synonymous with the pyramid investment scheme. A. Carlo Ponzi
8. This term was first used in a campaign speech by the incumbent at the University of Michigan in May, 1964. Its formulator said achieving it“demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time.” Encompassing civil rights legislation and the war on poverty, FTP what was this two-word catch phrase for the domestic agenda of Lyndon Johnson’s second term as president?
A. Great Society
9. This polyatomic ion is part of both Glauber’s salts and Epsom salts. In a common gravimetric analysis procedure, barium chloride is added to a solution to test for this ion. Consisting of 5 atoms from group 6A, it has a charge of -2, and its acid is often found in acid rain. FTP, name this ion with formula SO4. A. sulfate (accept “SO4" before it is read)
10. His latest album features collaborations with Stevie Wonder, Bette Midler, and Eric Clapton, among others, on songs like “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” “Embraceable You,” and “Blue Moon.” This comes 41 years after he sang for Jimmy Powell and the Five Dimensions, after which he fronted bands like Cactus and The Small Faces. He really hit it big with his third solo album, Every Picture Tells a Story, which featured his best known hit, “Maggie May.” FTP name this classic rocker who currently has the #1 album with his Great American Songbook Volume III.
A. Rod Stewart
11. As a young man he was an artist-correspondent for Harper’s Weekly in Civil War battles in Virginia. That experience led to his famous painting of a one-armed man cutting wheat with a scythe, “The Veteran in a New Field.” Later he focused on American rural scenes in works like “Snap the Whip” and “Weaning the Calf.” Best known for sea paintings, FTP name this American artist of “Breezing Up” and “Gulf Stream.”
A. Winslow Homer
12. Much of what is known about this group comes from the Rhind Papyrus, along with excavation of their capital at Avaris. The people of that city were called “aamu” by the locals, a term that is usually translated by Egyptologists as “Asiatics.” According to Josephus, it was the Greek Manetho who first used the term by which they are referred today, probably a corruption of the phrase “hikau khausut,” meaning “foreign rulers.” Taking control of Lower Egypt early in the Second Intermediate Period, FTP who were these “shepherd kings” who introduced the chariot to Egypt?
A. Hyksos
13. In order to remove this poet from the bohemian life of the Latin Quarter, his stepfather sent him on a voyage to India, but he jumped ship in Mauritius and found his way back to opium and writing. He took up with the mixed-race woman Jeanne Duval, about whose hair he wrote the erotic poem “La Chevelure.” His later prose poems were collected in 1868’s Petits Poemes en Prose, the only book he published besides his 1857 masterwork. FTP name this French Decadent poet, who wrote of his spleen in Les Fleur du Mal.
A. Charles Baudelaire
14. Notes that he took while serving Austria as a soldier in WWI provided the basis for the 1922 book that, along with a single article, is the only thing he published in his lifetime. Feeling that with that work he had solved all philosophical problems by showing their root in difficulties with language, he became a grammar school teacher. Later deciding he might have been hasty, he joined the faculty at Cambridge, where many of his lectures and discussions were published posthumously in the Blue and Brown Books. FTP name this influence on logical positivism, author of Tractatus-Logico-Philosophicus.
A. Ludwig Wittgenstein
15. Like its predecessor, it was launched from an R7 rocket, but its mass was just over 500 kilograms. Its 4-meter-high cone-shaped capsule included a sealed separate compartment and a TV camera, but its inefficient temperature control system led to the early death of its passenger. Launched in November 1957, this was, FTP, what Soviet satellite which carried the dog Laika into space?
Answer: Sputnik 2 [do not accept or prompt on “Sputnik” alone]
16. Pencil and paper ready. A hiker walks 12 miles due west, then 5 miles due north, then walks in a straight line back to his starting point. FTP, what is the total distance he walks, in miles?
Answer: 30 [using 5-12-13 right triangle]
17. After over a year of semi-coordinated harassment of federal tax collectors in the Monongahela valley, this event crystallized in August when several thousand armed men gathered to show their defiance of the nine-cent-per-gallon tax on the namesake commodity. Invoking the militia law of 1792, 13,000 troops were called up, leading to the only time in American history when a sitting president led troops in the field. FTP name this Pennsylvania insurrection put down by forces under Washington and Harry Lee, named for the distilled spirit that was being taxed.
A. Whiskey Rebellion
18. In Ezekiel 14:14, this Old Testament figure is lauded, along with Daniel and Job, for his righteousness. Tenth in descent from Adam, he was the grandson of Methuseleh. Oddly, he cursed his grandson Canaan because Canaan’s father saw this man naked while he was sleeping off a bender. FTP name this Christian figure who slaughtered one of every clean animal to give Yahweh a pleasing smell after he landed his ark.
A. Noah
19. For a rotating body, this quantity equals the time derivative of angular velocity times the moment of inertia. Power in a rotating system equals this quantity times angular velocity. If it equals zero in a system, then the angular momentum of the system is conserved. FTP, this is what quantity symbolized by the letter tau, the rotational analog of force?
Answer: torque
20. One victim, found in the titular location, had been beaten and decapitated; the other, the first victim’s daughter, was found strangled and stuffed feet-first up the chimney. Though the apartment’s safe was found open with cash strewn about, nothing seemed to have been stolen. A clerk named Adolphe Le Bon is charged, but the detective protagonist is certain Le Bon is innocent, and he seeks to find the killer by placing a lost-animal ad in a Paris newspaper. Thus is caught, FTP, the murderous orangutan in what short story about detective C. Auguste Dupin (doo-PAN) by Edgar Allan Poe?
A. “Murders in the Rue Morgue”
Valencia Delta Burke Invitational 2004—Round 8 Bonuses
1. Aren’t you sick of Ragnarok questions? Instead, hit these about Norse creation myths FTPE, yo.
A. When the heat from Muspellheim met the cold from Nifleheim, this giant, the first sentient being, was created.
A. Ymir (EE-meer)
B. This cow created spontaneously from some melting frost fed Ymir from the four rivers of milk coming from her teats.
A. Audhumbla
C. Along with his brothers Vili and Ve, this leader of the Aesir killed Ymir.
A. Odin
2. Stuff about the presidency of that dude on the $20 bill FTPE.
A. After Jackson was elected he placed many of his supporters in federal jobs, a process that came to be known as this system.
A. spoils system
B. Jackson rarely ever called meetings of his departmental secretaries, relying instead on an informal circle of cronies known by this derisive term.
A. kitchen cabinet
C. Jackson appointed a whole new official cabinet in 1831 after the scandal involving this woman, wife of his defense secretary.
A. Peggy Eaton
3. Stuff about a certain poetic form FTPE.
A. This Italian term describes stanzas of three lines with rhyme scheme aba, bcb, cdc, etc.
A. terza rima
B. The term is Italian because of the popularization of the form in this 14th-century epic poem.
A. The Divine Comedy
C. Percy Shelley used terza rima in this famous ode, which could be written for Zephyrus.
A. “Ode to the West Wind”
4. Answer the following about Three Laws of Planetary Motion, for the stated number of points:
A. F5P, this German guy formulated the three laws between 1608 and 1620.
Answer: Johannes Kepler
B. F5P, according to the first law, planetary orbits have what shape?
Answer: ellipse or elliptical
C. FTP, the third law says that the square of the period is proportional to what power of the semimajor axis of the orbit?
Answer: third power (or 3)
D. FTP, from the second law, the radial line from sun to planet sweeps out equal areas in equal time. This is another expression of the conservation of what specific quantity?
Answer: angular momentum [do not prompt on “momentum”]
5. ID these characters from The Simpsons based on stuff from their recent Treehouse of Horror episode FTPE.
A. This character suddenly gained the power to see people’s deaths.
A. Ned or Flanders
B. At the end of the Ned episode, this character’s hand appears briefly; he is the only character on The Simpsons ever shown with five fingers.
A. God
C. In Treehouse of Horror II, this man’s head was grafted onto Homer, but in this last episode Homer expands to full size inside this man’s body.
A. Monty Burns
6. Stuff about Antarctica FTPE.
A. This point, named for a 20th-century Georgia politician, is Antarctica’s highest point.
A. Vinson Massif
B. This massive sheet of ice, the size of France, is the largest ice shelf on Earth.
A. Ross Ice Shelf
C. This largest sea abutting the continent lies between Graham Land and Queen Maud Land.
A. Weddell Sea
7. Find the following derivatives FSNP.
A. (5 pts.) The first derivative of f(x) = x3 – 10x2 + 1;
Answer: 3x2 - 20x
B. (10 pts.) The second derivative of g(x) = sin x + cos x [g of x equals sine of x plus cosine of x]
Answer: –sin x – cos x (negative sine of x minus cosine of x)
C. (15 pts.) The first derivative of ln (cos x). [natural log of cosine of x]
Answer: - tan x (negative tangent of x)
8. Identify the American poets who wrote the following lines FTPE; if you need the name of the poem, you’ll accept your shame and earn five.
A. (10 pts.) “I like to think some boy’s been swinging them./But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay/As ice storms do.”
(5 pts.) “Birches”
A. Robert Frost
B. (10 pts.) “And he was rich—yes, richer than a king,--/And admirably schooled in every grace:”
(5 pts.) “Richard Cory”
A. Edwin Arlington Robinson
C. (10 pts.) “Jesus/he was a handsome man/and what i want to know is/how do you like your blueeyed boy/Mister Death”
(5 pts.) “Buffalo Bill’s (defunct)”
A. e.e. cummings
9. Identify the composers of these operas on a 10-5 basis.
A. (10 pts.) Idomeneo; Abduction from the Seraglio
(5 pts.) The Magic Flute; Cosi Fan Tutte
A. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
B. (10 pts.) Elektra; Arabella
(5 pts.) Salome; Der Rosenkavalier
A. Richard Strauss
C. (10 pts.) Daughter of the Regiment; Don Pasquale
(5 pts.) The Elixir of Love; Lucia di Lammermoor
A. Gaetano Donizetti
10. Answer the following about results from the recent 2004 presidential election FTPE.
A. This was the only state with a Pacific coastline to go for Bush.
A. Alaska
B. This state can lay a claim to being the reddest, with nearly 70% going for Bush, his strongest support.
A. Oklahoma
C. Not surprisingly, this state was Kerry’s strongest, with 62%.
A. Massachussetts
11. FTP each, answer the following about the elements of period 6 on the periodic table:
A. The lighter of the two rare earth series, elements 57-71 are collectively known by what name?
Answer: the lanthanides
B. The two most dense elements are elements 76 and 77. Name either of them.
Answer: osmium or iridium
C. The high density of osmium and iridium is due to this phenomenon, in which weak electron shielding causes the valence electrons to be drawn closer to the nucleus.
Answer: lanthanide contraction
12. Show your knowledge of the English Stuarts and the end of their rule FTPE.
A. This son of James I, the second Stuart ruler, was ordered beheaded by the Rump parliament.
A. Charles I
B. This grandson of Charles was driven out of England in the Glorious Revolution after his Catholic second wife had a son who could succeed him.
A. James II
C. This husband of James’s oldest daughter was called from The Netherlands to rule England by protestant nobles.
A. William of Orange
13. Answer the following regarding the concepts of the Great Dane Soren Kierkegaard FTPE.
A. Kierkegaard’s master’s thesis was an investigation into this titular concept.
A. irony
B. This massive, two-volume work, perhaps K’s best known, explores the “aesthetic” phase of existence in the first book and the “ethical” in the second.
A. Either/Or
C. Kierkegaard’s great work Fear and Trembling involves a deep meditation on the Old Testament story about this patriarch’s near sacrifice of his own son.
A. Abraham
14. Answer the following about a 20th-century play FSNOP.
A.(10 pts.) First performed in 1953, this absurdist drama features a stage with only a bare tree, from which the two main characters think about hanging themselves, but choose to remain in the spot.
A. Waiting for Godot
B. (5 pts. each) These are the two characters who wait for Godot in the play.
A. Vladimir (acc. Didi) and Estragon (acc. Gogo)