7. Tudor politics: not actually as sexy as you think! Answer some questions about it anyway. For ten points each:
[10] Variously described as the son of a blacksmith, a brewer, or a sheep farmer, this courtier to Henry VIII and eventual Master of the Rolls, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Chief Secretary, and Lord Privy Seal was born in Putney around 1485.
ANSWER: Thomas Cromwell
[10] Cromwell was granted this noble title in April 1540, but forfeited it upon his execution two months later. A subsequent creation by Elizabeth I passed to Robert Devereux, stepson of her favourite Robert Dudley; Devereux also forfeited the title upon his execution for treason in 1601.
ANSWER: Earl of Essex
[10] Named for the country seat of the Seymour family, Hilary Mantel's award-winning 2009 novel chronicles Cromwell's rise to power in the years following Cardinal Wolsey's disgrace. A planned sequel, tentatively entitled The Mirror and the Light, will cover the period from 1535 until Cromwell's execution.
ANSWER: Wolf Hall
8. Sets and groups, for ten points each.
[10] All or nothing: a relation R on a set S is an equivalence relation if and only if, for all x, y and z in S, R possesses these three properties.
ANSWERS: reflexivity, transitivity, and symmetry [accept other word forms, e.g. "reflexive", "transitive", "symmetric"]
[10] A Rubik's cube is a group of this kind, whose elements are bijections of a set S to itself and whose group operation is the composition of those bijections.
ANSWER: permutation group
[5,5] Like all groups, a permutation group must satisfy four elementary conditions. Give any two of them for five points each.
ANSWERS: closed; associative; existence of an identity element; existence of a unique inverse element for each element [be generous in accepting equivalents, other word forms, etc.]
9. Answer some questions about a recent US military-political scandal, for ten points each.
[10] This four-star general stepped down as Commander of U.S. Forces Afghanistan and leader of the International Security Assistance Force on June 23rd, 2010, following a controversy over comments about Vice President Joe Biden and other senior White House officials.
ANSWER: Gen. Stanley Allen McChrystal
[10] The controversy which led to Gen. McChrystal's resignation stemmed from comments attributed to him and his aides in an article entitled "The Runaway General", which appeared in this magazine.
ANSWER: Rolling Stone
[10] Gen. McChrystal has been replaced in his Afghan command by this former Commanding General, Multi-National Force Iraq, who was reassigned from his position as Commander, U.S. Central Command, assuming his new role on July 4th.
ANSWER: Gen. David Howell Petraeus
10. Answer questions about some not-quite-states, 5-10-15.
[5] Boundaries vary, but most if not all proposals for the secession of this entity would incorporate substantial portions of British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon; some include parts of Alaska, Idaho, Montana, California, Alberta and the Yukon.
ANSWER: Cascadia
[10] This polity declared its intention to secede from North Carolina in 1784, and in 1785, seven states voted to admit it to the union -- a simple majority, but not the required two-thirds. Its government had collapsed entirely by 1790, and its territory today forms the easternmost portion of the state of Tennessee.
ANSWER: Franklin or Frankland [accept "Territory of," "State of", etc.]
[15] This short-lived "Republic" declared independence in 1827, but was never formally recognized, and ceased to exist after the Webster-Ashburton Treaty clarified the border in 1842. Its name persists in the name of the county commonly known as the New Brunswick Panhandle, a tributary of the Saint John River which flows through the county, and a town in Aroostook County, Maine, near the rivers' confluence.
ANSWER: Republic of Madawaska
11. [MODERATOR: Distribute visual bonus sheet.] Visual bonus! For ten points each, identify the naval battle from maps of the action. You have fifteen seconds.
ANSWERS: #1: Battle of Trafalgar; #2: Battle of Leyte Gulf; #3: Battle of Hampton Roads
12. More than a dozen cultivars of the cruciferous vegetable species Brassica oleracea are produced and consumed by humans; though sharing high levels of fibre, Vitamin C and various nutrients, these cultivars display a far greater morphological diversity than is normally associated with members of the same species. For five points each, identify any six vegetables which are cultivars of B. oleracea. You have fifteen seconds.
[5 each] ANSWERS: broccoflower; broccoli; broccolini; brussels sprouts; cabbage; cauliflower; gai lan [accept "kai lan", "Chinese broccoli", "Chinese kale"]; collard greens [accept "collards"]; kale; kohlrabi; red cabbage; Romanesco broccoli [accept "Roman cauliflower"]; spring greens; wild cabbage [DO NOT accept Chinese cabbage, Napa cabbage or bok choy, which are cultivars of B. rapa]
13. Answer some questions about a region in Central Asia, for ten points each.
[10] China's largest and northwesternmost administrative division, this region contains vast oil and natural gas reserves and borders nearly every other country in Central Asia, giving it great strategic importance. It also contains the point on Earth which is furthest from any ocean, located about 320 km north of the region's capital at Ürümqi.
ANSWER: Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region or Xinjiang Province [accept Sinkiang]
[10] Located on the border between Xinjiang and Pakistan, this peak is sometimes called the "Savage Mountain" due to the extreme difficulty and high mortality rate involved in climbing it. It was first summited by an Italian team in 1954, making it the fourth of the "eight-thousanders" to be successfully climbed.
ANSWER: K2
[10] Xinjiang is bisected by the Tian Shan mountain range, south of which lies this large and rapidly-expanding desert. The discovery of 4,000-year-old mummies near the now-buried city of Loulan attest to the region's long history of occupation, and oasis towns such as Kashgar and Dunhuang served as crucial waypoints along the Silk Road.
ANSWER: Taklamakan Desert
14. The fifth installation in this series is slated for North American release on September 21st, 2010. For ten points each, answer the following about a long-running game franchise.
[10] The fourth incarnation of this series included a new "religion" structure, voiceover content by Leonard Nimoy, and the ability to build new "Wonders" including The Internet (symbolized by an Al Gore icon). The fifth version will feature a shift from square to hexagonal tiles and new playable factions including the Iroquois and the Songhai.
ANSWER: Civilization [accept "Sid Meier's Civilization"]
[10] This sequel, released in 1999 and quickly followed by the Alien Crossfire expansion pack, picks up where Civilization's "space race" victory condition leaves off, chronicling mankind's attempts to colonize an alien world.
ANSWER: Alpha Centauri [accept "Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri"]
[10] The Civilization franchise, like Alpha Centauri, Colonization, Gettysburg!, Antietam!, and Pirates!, is marketed under the name of this game designer, a native of Sarnia, Ontario.
ANSWER: Sidney K. Meier
15. Byzantine women, for ten points each.
[10] Despite her common birth and early career as an actress and courtesan, she came to exercise unparalleled power as consort and political ally of Justinian I, who overturned a substantial body of law in order to marry her.
ANSWER: Empress Theodora
[10] Noted for her role in ending the "First Iconoclasm", this woman served as regent during the minority of her son, Constantine VI; as he matured and began to pose a threat to her rule, she ordered him captured and his eyes gouged out, and after he died from his wounds, had herself crowned emperor. She ruled for five years before being unseated and exiled.
ANSWER: Empress Irene of Athens (accept Irene Sarantapechaina)
[10] This 12th-century princess completed the Alexiad, a chronicle of her father's reign, which saw a substantial restoration of the Empire's fortunes and the establishment of an important army, both of whom bear their family name.
ANSWER: Anna Komnene or Anna Komnena
16. Identify some Faulkner novels from characters, for ten points each.
[10] Cash, Darl, and Dewey Dell Bundren, Vernon Tull and Reverend Whitfield are among this novel's fifteen narrators.
ANSWER: As I Lay Dying
[10] The first section of this 1929 novel is notoriously challenging, being narrated by Benjy Compson, who suffers from severe mental disabilities. His brothers Quentin and Jason narrate the second and third portions of the novel, respectively.
ANSWER: The Sound and the Fury
[10] Joanna Burden, Byron Bunch, Reverend Gail Hightower and Joe Christmas feature prominently in this work's exploration of events surrounding Lena Grove's pregnancy.
ANSWER: Light in August
17. Answer some questions about the Christian Apocrypha, for ten points each.
[10] Although frequently published in conjunction with non-canonical texts in a single gathering of "Apocrypha", these books of the "second canon" are considered by most Catholic and Orthodox Christians to be a part of the canonical Old Testament, despite not appearing in the Hebrew Torah.
ANSWER: deuterocanonical books
[10] The stories of Bel and the Dragon and of Susanna and the Elders, and the Song of the Three Children, appear in the Septuagint and the Vulgate, but not in the original Hebrew/Aramaic text of this book, which also features the interpretation of several dreams and some mysterious writing.
ANSWER: Book of Daniel
[5,5] Several texts now considered canonical books of the New Testament were not widely accepted by early Christians, and their inclusion in the canon remained controversial even through the Reformation. Martin Luther was particularly skeptical of four New Testament books, which are still placed last in modern-day German Lutheran Bibles. Identify any two of these four books for five points each.
ANSWERS: Book of James; Book of Jude; Epistle to the Hebrews; Revelation of St John the Divine [or Apocalypse of John, or Revelation of John, or Revelation of the Theologian, or Book of Revelation, or similar equivalents]
18. Answer some questions related to a certain place for ten points each.
[10] This first novel by Canadian playwright Ann-Marie MacDonald follows the lives of the four Piper sisters -- Kathleen, Mercedes, Frances and Lily -- through the first half of the twentieth century, as boom and bust see a new town grow up around their once-remote house on the "Shore Road".
ANSWER: Fall on Your Knees
[10] Set in the same town as Fall on Your Knees, and featuring Nicholas Campbell, Mary Walsh, Brat Packer Andrew McCarthy (of Sixteen Candles fame) and a cameo by Ashley MacIsaac, this 1999 film stars Liane Balaban as a fifteen-year-old who resorts to desperate measures to escape her provincial life.
ANSWER: New Waterford Girl
[10] New Waterford, like Glace Bay, Port Hawkesbury, and Sydney, is located on this Canadian island.
ANSWER: Cape Breton Island
19. Identify some extraterrestrial features with mythical names, for ten points each.
[10] At roughly three times the height of Everest, this Martian mountain is the highest in the solar system. Studies to detect the presence of Greek gods have been inconclusive.
ANSWER: Olympus Mons
[10] We're reasonably sure this region on Venus wasn't named for the staggeringly bad 1987 film starring Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman.
ANSWER: Ishtar Terra
[10] This bright region on Saturn's moon Titan, probably comprised of highly reflective ice fields, borders a dark region called Shangri-la, and shares its name with Charles Foster Kane's mansion in Citizen Kane.
ANSWER: Xanadu (accept Xanadu Regio)
20. Given the name of a recently deceased president, identify the current president for 15 points each. If you need the country, you'll get 5.
[15] Umaru Musa Yar'Adua
[5] Nigeria
ANSWER: Goodluck Ebele Jonathan
[15] Lech Kaczyński
[5] Poland
ANSWER: Bronisław Maria Komorowski
21. A disenchanted woman struggles with changes to her lifestyle after marrying beneath her social class.
[5] Name the 1890 play by Henrik Ibsen.
ANSWER: Hedda Gabler
[10] Name Hedda¹s husband, the cuckolded academic.
ANSWER: George Tesman or Jørgen Tesman [accept first or last name]
[15] What heart-broken character from Hedda Gabler fills the blank in the title of Scottish band Broken Records' 2009 song: "If ___ Wrote a Song, it Would Sound Like This"?
ANSWER: Eilert Løvborg
22. Everyone's favourite kind of organic chemistry: the kind with funny names. Identify some molecules from descriptions for ten points each.
[10] This simple heteroaromatic compound features a pnictogen in a five-membered ring, and is named by analogy to its lighter congeners, pyrrole and phosphole.
ANSWER: arsole
[10] This reagent is best known for its application in the Mitsunobu reaction, where it undergoes attack by triphenylphosphine to form a zwitterion and ultimately a phosphonium species, which is then attacked by an alcohol, ultimately yielding an SN2-type substitution. Its stabler diisopropyl analogue is often substituted for this toxic and potentially-explosive compound.
ANSWER: DEAD or diethyl azodicarboxylate
[10] A triterpene sourced from certain species of mistletoe and sumac, derivatives of this organic acid demonstrate potent antiviral activity, particularly against HIV. Apparently not quite as foolish and dull as the Attic Greeks might have thought!
ANSWER: moronic acid