Question
The narrator of an essay constructs a metaphor about this place to explain why he spends his time copying politically inoffensive ancient inscriptions instead of writing. For 10 points each:
[10h] Identify this indestructible, windowless, metaphorical place described in the preface to a story collection. It is the subject of a dilemma in which you could let its sleeping residents suffocate painlessly or shout to wake them up to an agonizing death.
ANSWER: the iron house [or the iron room; or tiě wū; prompt on house or room or wū]
[10e] This writer compared China’s “spiritual malaise” to an iron house in Call to Arms, which includes this author’s “The True Story of Ah Q.”
ANSWER: Lǔ Xùn (“loo shwin”) [or Lu Hsün; or Lu Sun; or Zhōu Shùrén or Chou Shu-jen]
[10m] Ah Q is arrested despite failing to become a revolutionary and asked to sign his confession with one of these things, but he is mortified by not drawing this thing perfectly.
ANSWER: a circle [or yuánquān; reject “sphere”; prompt on shape]
Data
| Team | Opponent | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Brown A | Georgia Tech B | 0 | 10 | 10 | 20 |
| Chicago A | Vanderbilt A | 10 | 10 | 10 | 30 |
| Chicago C | Georgia Tech A | 0 | 10 | 10 | 20 |
| Claremont A | Minnesota B | 0 | 10 | 10 | 20 |
| Columbia B | Toronto A | 0 | 10 | 0 | 10 |
| Cornell A | Chicago B | 0 | 10 | 10 | 20 |
| Duke A | Illinois A | 0 | 10 | 0 | 10 |
| Florida B | Michigan A | 0 | 10 | 0 | 10 |
| Harvard A | Houston A | 0 | 10 | 10 | 20 |
| MIT A | Penn State A | 10 | 10 | 10 | 30 |
| McGill A | Rutgers B | 0 | 10 | 10 | 20 |
| Northwestern A | Cornell B | 0 | 10 | 0 | 10 |
| Ohio State A | WUSTL B | 10 | 10 | 10 | 30 |
| Penn A | Maryland A | 0 | 10 | 10 | 20 |
| Rutgers A | Minnesota A | 0 | 10 | 10 | 20 |
| Stanford A | NYU A | 0 | 10 | 10 | 20 |
| UC Berkeley A | Iowa State A | 0 | 10 | 10 | 20 |
| UC Berkeley B | Texas A | 0 | 10 | 10 | 20 |
| Virginia A | North Carolina A | 0 | 10 | 0 | 10 |
| WUSTL A | Purdue A | 0 | 10 | 10 | 20 |
| Yale A | Columbia A | 10 | 10 | 10 | 30 |
| Yale B | Indiana A | 0 | 10 | 0 | 10 |