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Monday, November 23, 2009

Quiz Review - Sphinxed at IIM-I

Some time back, Quizmaster Gautam Bose conducted a Business Quiz at IIM-I. The quiz though well organized [full marks to the organizers for ensuring everything ran smoothly] was disappointing on many counts.

One can forgive Gautam Bose for having a bad sense of humour [one of his jokes was, “There are no negatives, since I’m a positive person except when it comes to HIVs”, or some such] however it is difficult to understand why a professional quizmaster would have multiple questions on the same brand/company in the finals with as much as 50 points riding on questions with the answer - Absolut. Apart from the repeats and multiple questions on the same brand there was also a problem that does seem to plague Business Quizzes more than General Quizzes – most of the questions were the either-you-know-it-or-you-don’t and there was very little room for working out the answers.

The quizmaster requested the participants not to put up the questions on any blog therefore they haven’t been added here even though I believe a open-source model for quizzing shall go a long way in weeding out the oft-repeated chestnuts and shall lead to more effort being put into research and coming up with new questions.

Of course, anyone who has been quizzing for some time is bound to come across a badly done quiz now and then and quizzers tend to develop a thicker skin and greater tolerance levels for bad quizmasters. That is why I am not terribly annoyed at Quizmaster Gautam Bose even though it was arguably one of the worst quizzes I have attended in a long while.

4 comments:

jollyrover said...

invaluable opinion.. considering we got an offer from him..

Anonymous said...

Very true. Apart from multiple Qs on same company, there were some repeats as well (the mega connect on IBM)
Even in previous quizzes of Gautam Bose I've seen 3-4 repeats which considering Gautam Bose's claim (his intro invariably includes "He has never repeated a quiz question") is quite inexcusable.

Anonymous said...

Many would not agree with me, but I believe that Corporate quiz is doing the same thing to Quiz, as T20 is doing to cricket. Big money, no fundas, no art. Where does all the controversies of people faking I cards and coming to quizzes come from? All are from Corp. quizzes. B Schools are ruining the very fabric of this art. Not all quiz for money, not all. Bose is a good quiz, a general quiz. Even he showed what happens when corp. quiz happens! Arul Mani is brought all the way from down south, for what? To do a Corp. quiz, when there was a Gen quiz in that same B School and Arul Mani is the most experienced QM when it comes to gen quizzes, if not most experienced, then the best, may be.

Debasish said...

@Anon
"Bose is a good quiz, a general quiz"

I assume you mean Bose is a good Quizmaster for General Quizzes.
Well, he did do a General Quiz as well which was equally sucky, and riddled with repeats. So not sure, I agree with you there.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Quiz Review - Sphinxed at IIM-I

Some time back, Quizmaster Gautam Bose conducted a Business Quiz at IIM-I. The quiz though well organized [full marks to the organizers for ensuring everything ran smoothly] was disappointing on many counts.

One can forgive Gautam Bose for having a bad sense of humour [one of his jokes was, “There are no negatives, since I’m a positive person except when it comes to HIVs”, or some such] however it is difficult to understand why a professional quizmaster would have multiple questions on the same brand/company in the finals with as much as 50 points riding on questions with the answer - Absolut. Apart from the repeats and multiple questions on the same brand there was also a problem that does seem to plague Business Quizzes more than General Quizzes – most of the questions were the either-you-know-it-or-you-don’t and there was very little room for working out the answers.

The quizmaster requested the participants not to put up the questions on any blog therefore they haven’t been added here even though I believe a open-source model for quizzing shall go a long way in weeding out the oft-repeated chestnuts and shall lead to more effort being put into research and coming up with new questions.

Of course, anyone who has been quizzing for some time is bound to come across a badly done quiz now and then and quizzers tend to develop a thicker skin and greater tolerance levels for bad quizmasters. That is why I am not terribly annoyed at Quizmaster Gautam Bose even though it was arguably one of the worst quizzes I have attended in a long while.

4 comments:

jollyrover said...

invaluable opinion.. considering we got an offer from him..

Anonymous said...

Very true. Apart from multiple Qs on same company, there were some repeats as well (the mega connect on IBM)
Even in previous quizzes of Gautam Bose I've seen 3-4 repeats which considering Gautam Bose's claim (his intro invariably includes "He has never repeated a quiz question") is quite inexcusable.

Anonymous said...

Many would not agree with me, but I believe that Corporate quiz is doing the same thing to Quiz, as T20 is doing to cricket. Big money, no fundas, no art. Where does all the controversies of people faking I cards and coming to quizzes come from? All are from Corp. quizzes. B Schools are ruining the very fabric of this art. Not all quiz for money, not all. Bose is a good quiz, a general quiz. Even he showed what happens when corp. quiz happens! Arul Mani is brought all the way from down south, for what? To do a Corp. quiz, when there was a Gen quiz in that same B School and Arul Mani is the most experienced QM when it comes to gen quizzes, if not most experienced, then the best, may be.

Debasish said...

@Anon
"Bose is a good quiz, a general quiz"

I assume you mean Bose is a good Quizmaster for General Quizzes.
Well, he did do a General Quiz as well which was equally sucky, and riddled with repeats. So not sure, I agree with you there.