Tossup
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A tossup is a question that more than one team can answer. During a game, any player who believes they know the answer to a tossup can use their buzzer to interrupt the question and only they can deliver an answer to score points for their team. Tossup questions are the staple of game play for virtually all contemporary quizbowl. (what)
A tossup typically contains several sentences describing the answer and ends with a "giveaway" clue about the answer. Players can buzz in anytime they think they know the answer. Good Quizbowl advocates writing in pyramidal style, with the intent being that more knowledgeable teams should answer before less knowledgeable teams. Points are awarded to the team of the person that answered the tossup correctly. (structure and writing)
Tossups are usually worth 10 points. Variations on tossup rules include neg penalties, meaning that a team that buzzes in first with an incorrect while the question is being read has points deducted from their score, and powers, meaning that a team that buzzes in during an early part of the question with a correct answer received more than the standard number of points. (scoring)
Players have a finite amount of time after buzzing to provide and answer. In ACF, PACE, and NHBB gameplay, players have five seconds to begin their answer. In NAQT rules, players have two seconds. Additionally, if nobody buzzes in of the end of a tossup, it is disregarded and the next tossup is read. This time limit is within five seconds in ACF and PACE rules and three seconds in NAQT rules.
Example tossup
From ACF Fall 2012, Buffalo packet
Nicolas Poussin painted this figure being helped by a faun onto a goat while looking at a putto attacking a young satyr. Four paintings also by Poussin depict this figure presenting weapons forged by Vulcan to her son. Jacques-Louis David's last painting shows this figure disarming Mars. Two paintings by Rubens depict this figure gazing into a mirror held by another son who has wings. Titian made a depiction of this goddess reclining on a couch in a painting commissioned by the Duke of Urbino. Botticelli painted the birth and arrival on a seashell of, for 10 points, what figure, the Roman goddess of love?
ANSWER: Venus [do not accept “Aphrodite”]