Round 11: Tossup 10
In the last paragraph of one book, this character imagines skating “under the yellow floodlights [...] across the surface of my own history.” This character rents a cabin at the Tip Top Lodge from Elroy Berdahl while contemplating fleeing to Canada. A man’s killing of a baby water buffalo is used by this character to describe “How to Tell a True War Story.” (*) Kiowa attempts to stop this character from obsessing over a disfigured corpse in the chapter “The Man I Killed.” Letters from a girl named Martha are collected by this character’s commander Jimmy Cross. For 10 points, name this narrator and author of the short story collection The Things They Carried. ■END■
ANSWER: Tim O’Brien [accept either underlined portion; accept answers describing the narrator of The Things They Carried before “narrator”]
<Literature - American, Khang Le> | VAULT II Packet 11
= Average correct buzzpoint
Buzzes
| Player | Team | Opponent | Buzzpoint | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shishir Bharadwaj | Lexington A | Belmont B | 35 | 15 |
| Josh Heppner | Mansfield A | Mansfield B | 67 | 10 |
| Andrew Gao | Belmont A | Waltham A | 93 | -5 |
| Willow Bhargava | Waltham A | Belmont A | 113 | 0 |
| Vito Hsueh | Lexington B | Waltham B | 113 | 10 |
Summary
| Tournament | Edition | Match | Heard | Conv. % | Power % | Neg % | Avg. Buzz |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VAULT II at Georgia Tech | 2026-01-24 | ✓ | 6 | 100% | 17% | 67% | 95.00 |
| VAULT II at UCSB | 2026-03-13 | ✓ | 4 | 50% | 0% | 75% | 113.00 |
| VAULT II at Harvard | 2026-04-30 | ✓ | 4 | 75% | 25% | 25% | 71.67 |
| VAULT II Stanford Online | 2026-07-17 | ✕ | 8 | 88% | 50% | 13% | 68.14 |