TASK DEFINITION: In this task you will be given a text passage from a trivia quiz. You should choose the category this question belongs to from these categories: History, Science, Social Science, Fine Arts, Literature. You can only choose one category, so if in doubt, please choose the closest match.
PROBLEM: The elimination mechanism by which the dehydration of its major product occurs necessarily involves the abstraction of an acidic hydrogen and displacement of the leaving group. The catalyst in this reaction itself is regenerated from the deprotonation of water in its final step, which results in the conversion of its intermediate, an alkoxide. An aldehyde or ketone had originally undergone a nucleophilic-addition-type process to produce that alkoxide, which had converted it from a nucleophilic enolate using a hydroxide ion catalyst. Producing a final product known as a beta-hydroxyaldehyde, FTP, name this condensation reaction whose name combines that of its two final products.

SOLUTION: Science

PROBLEM: When these devices exploit their voltage-dependent variable capacitance they are known as varactors. Barring the creation of local hot spots, a non-destructive avalanche current is produced by electron-hole pair propagation when the electric field within the (*) depletion region of these devices reaches a critical value. Majority carriers exist in an energy state greater than the Fermi energy in the Schottky barrier variety and those that operate in reverse breakdown are named after Zener. For 10 pointsname these devices that allow current to pass in only one direction.

SOLUTION: Science

PROBLEM: The work of this composer was often jazz-influenced, for example the Blues movement from his Violin Sonata. He had some Basque ancestry, and drew on Basque sources for his Piano Trio in A Minor. Neoclassical influences are seen in a work commemorating friends that had died in WWI, Le Tombeau de Couperin. In his final years, he wrote two piano concertos, one for the one-armed pianist Paul Wittgenstein. He is, however, best known among the musically tasteless for his intolerably repetitive piece Bolero. For 10 points, name this 20th-century French composer.

SOLUTION:
Fine Arts