Quiz Review- MLNC Event Horizon

Warning: This is going to be a long post.

As mentioned in the earlier post by Roshan, quizzing season is at its fag end. And at the fag end came today's quiz at Motilal Nehru College. The quiz today was so remarkable that there was a unanimous decision at its end to post a review on this blog.

First the Good things:

1) Discovering that all participants were being treated to a fairly sumptuous lunch, (so what if the canteen looked like an ammunition depot).

2) Being given pens and even a college physics magazine that made us think that the quiz would be likewise- meticulously arranged and well coordinated.

3) The Coordinator himself. Though he made a few bloopers, which shall be described subsequently, this was one guy who kept his calm throughout and seemed keen to help out.

Now the Bad things:

1) The Quiz Prelims: Questions included:

• What is the alternative name of RDX?
• What is yellow cake?
• What is the name of the 7 year old girl who cracked the 10th Board exams recently?
• What was the earlier name of Motilal Nehru College.

Shady questions indeed. Add to that scoring of +2, -1 and you know that things arent progressing the way they should.

2) The body language of volunteers and everyone around organising the quiz. These guys and gals didnt seem to know how to conduct a quiz without mayhem(also they believed Sudoku can be passed off as "Gaming"). General confusion and an atmosphere of disorder was prevalent.

and finally, the Ugly part:(this is going to be the longest)

1) the Quiz Finals: undoubtedly the worst quiz I have encountered in this season so far. The mood of the participants oscillated from anger- vociferously expressed as well as pent-up, stoic silences and at times, helpless laughter. Some of the objectionable parts:

• Threatening participants of disqualification if they as much as dared to talk to other participants.
• Proclaiming that the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 was known as 'Desert Storm'(not even Operation Desert Storm). The Actual answer is 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' and though one of the teams did mention this, their answer was not declared as correct.
• Audiences yelling out the answers meant for the teams and getting the question scrapped.
• Giving the easiest questions to the home team and vague trivia for the others.(i.e. rigging the quiz to ensure a home team win.)
  
• Audios and visuals varying in difficulty. There was 'Mount Rushmore' as well as 'Pi-supposedly a satellite of Saturn that I haven't been able to find on the Net despite my best efforts.
• The biggest blooper of 'em all. Question: The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown was copied from 2 books written in the 80s. Name them. Now there was only one book called The Holy Blood and The holy Grail by Richard Leigh and Michael Baigent. Unfortunately, the quiz master decided that there were 2 books- The Holy Blood and another one, The Holy Grail, hence ensuring that despite a correct answer given, the team in question was not given marks. This lead to a huge hullabaloo in the room and despite the intervention of a prof, things could not be resolved.
• The skewed scoring pattern that meant that anyone who got the only question in the last round right would win the quiz. Due to the ruckus as described in the above point, Team 1 went from potential winners to last. Sad indeed.

• The extremely high handed behavior of <---name removed--->, (who, as per her own claims, left DCE Mechanical to take up Physics Hons. at Motilal Nehru. Her dictatorial stand on decisions combined with her utter ignorance of the themes of the questions quizzing ensured that all the Teams had a tough time. All I can say is that the finalists need to be commended for excellent anger-management and avoiding violence on stage.

I guess the diatribe has been long enough. I end with my conversation with the Friendly Coordinator:

Me: Thank you, that was the worst quiz of my life.
Coordinator: Welcome. Next year round, we shall ensure that the quiz shall be even more worsest.
Me: Thank you once again.