commuting - Main Site

Round 2: Tossup 16

Note to moderator: Read answerline carefully. Note to players: Description acceptable. The presumption of a “neuter” person named for this activity is criticized by feminist planning scholars like Robin Low. Reid Ewing and Robert Cervero found that individual factors had little effect on this activity as measured by “VMT” but the “built (10[1])environment” overall did. Jonah Lehrer (10[1])popularized a “paradox” that this activity lowers well-being, since its variability is “Stress That Doesn’t Pay.” Marchetti’s constant (10[1])measures (10[1])this activity. (10[1])The USDA Economic Research Service defines “zones” named for this activity from Census Bureau data (10[1])on its “flows” (10[1])and then aggregates (10[1])those zones into labor market areas. (10[1])A worker that spends more than three hours on this (10[1])activity (10[3])a day (10[1])is said to be (10[2])a “super” (10[2])type (10[2])of person named for it. (10[1])For 10 points, describe this activity that stereotypically starts in a suburb and ends in a business district. ■END■

ANSWER: commuting [or word forms; accept “neuter commuter”; accept descriptions of traveling to work, transit to a job, driving to work, or going to work by any other means; accept travel, transit, driving, or car or vehicle use until “variability” is read and prompt thereafter by asking “for what purpose?”; prompt on walking; prompt on answers that describe going to a city instead of to work; prompt on answers describing being stuck in traffic] (“VMT” is “vehicle miles traveled”; “Stress That Doesn’t Pay” is the phrasing of Alois Stutzer and Bruno Frey, whose study of the “commuting paradox” Lehrer popularized.)

<Northwestern A, Social Science> | B. Prelims 2 - Northwestern A + Virginia Tech + Brown + Penn State

= Average correct buzzpoint

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Buzzes

Player	Team	Opponent	Buzzpoint	Value
Jacob Hardin-Bernhardt	NYU B	Waterloo	51	10
John John Groger	WashU	Georgia Tech A	56	10
Ian Parsons	Maryland B	Toronto A	74	10
Adam Fine	Chicago A	Ohio State	75	10
Robert Wang	Columbia A	UCF	77	10
Joseph Chambers	Virginia	Cambridge	92	10
Ryan Rosenberg	NYU A	Stanford B	95	10
Vivian Malouf	UC Berkeley A	Rutgers	98	10
Jakob Myers	Indiana	MIT	104	10
Ved Muthusamy	Northwestern B	Johns Hopkins	114	10
John Chen	British Columbia	North Carolina	115	10
Kevin Peng	Cornell	Columbia B	115	10
Andrew Wang	Illinois A	Vanderbilt	115	10
Owen Steele	Swarthmore	Texas	117	10
Todd Maslyk	Michigan	Georgia Tech C	121	10
Jiping Fang	Illinois B	Toronto B	121	10
Andrew Zeng	Stanford A	Bruin	123	10
Yash Tiwari	Minnesota	Georgia Tech B	123	10
Cole Hartung	Georgetown	Harvard	124	10
Mattias Ehatamm	Maryland A	Pittsburgh	124	10
Evan Gniadek	Purdue	UCLA	129	10

Summary

Tournament	Edition	Match	Heard	Conv. %	Neg %	Avg. Buzz
Main Site	2026-04-17	✓	21	100%	0%	103.00