  We study the ability of efficient quantum verifiers to decide properties of
exponentially large subsets given either a classical or quantum witness. We
develop a general framework that can be used to prove that QCMA machines, with
only classical witnesses, cannot verify certain properties of subsets given
implicitly via an oracle. We use this framework to prove an oracle separation
between QCMA and QMA using an "in-place" permutation oracle, making the first
progress on this question since Aaronson and Kuperberg in 2007. We also use the
framework to prove a particularly simple standard oracle separation between
QCMA and AM.
