Re: ACF Nationals Commentary


> The usual complaints about questions are relevant here.  The 
> difficulty varied uncomfortably both among packets and within 
> packets.  A tossup on sisplatin, a biochemical compound with a 
> central platinum atom our moderator, a biochemistry Ph.D, had never 
> heard of, proceeded Camp David Accords, something a high school 
> player should know. 

I'm not going to defend or attack the questions here, but I find this 
statement rather surprising. Cisplatin (one of the chemotherapy drugs 
Lance Armstrong took) gets over 100,000 hits on Google; by contrast, 
the Camp David Accords gets less than 15,000--which may not mean that 
cisplatin is better known, but that it's at least important enough to 
be question-worthy.

[I can also add that I first learned about cisplatin in my AP chem 
class junior year, and that I've learned about it in at least three 
college classes since then.]

--STI

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