--- In quizbowl_at_yahoogroups.com, jp_lien <no_reply_at_y...> wrote: > In the name of balance let me say that the question on surjective > mappings was mmm, tasty. augh. i appreciated the existence of such a question on a theoretical level, but the actual question was rather grieviously flawed. it began with something like "On the real line, this property applies to the functions x cubed minus x and tangent of x, but not to e to the x." this lead-in caused an opponent to buzz in and say "oddness," which is a very good answer at this point. (actually he may have buzzed before e to the x, but that's irrelevant.) why was x^3-x chosen instead of saying "any cubic polynomial" (since all cubics are surjective)? it definitely wasn't 100% clear that the answer was "oddness" at the point where he buzzed, but the functions chosen did have that property in common and it jumped out a little more than surjective. certainly it wasn't incorrect, but it was misleading, and qualified as a hose nevertheless. i felt bad for my opponent, but then they won the match anyway, and i felt worse. :) Earlier, Steve Kaplan wrote: > 5) Patrick Friel was robbed of the Tommy LaSorda bobblehead doll. tough to say. after the initial round robin, pat was ahead of me in P/G and i was ahead of him in P/TU heard. there seems to be no consensus across the various SCTs on which metric is used to rank individuals. naqt as an organization doesn't seem to care how (or even if) individuals are ranked, but they require the use of P/TU heard to break ties between teams for ranking purposes. i think i'm justified in claiming legitimate possession of the doll. if pat really wants it badly, he should bid on it when it goes up on e-bay next week. :) joon
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