Its Raining Reviews!

Warning: Really really long post!
After a spate of quizzes that were conducted as part of the DU quizzing season, its time for picking up and analyzing whatever remains in our collective consciousness of them, and awarding the bouquets and the brickbats. So here goes. :-)

Hansraj Quiz Fest – Conqurso ‘09
Illuminati, the Quiz Society of Hansraj College did a fine job of conducting their Quiz Fest, Conqurso ’09 on 7th and 8th December, 2009 (review of Conqurso '08 here). It consisted of 4 quizzes, the details of which are given below:

Ipso-Facto – The General Quiz
Kicking off the quiz fest with the General Quiz, the questions were of a good standard and well researched.
Content: With the prelims consisting of 23-odd questions, the cut-off went around 7-8. I felt the prelims were tending a little towards literature, but were of a quality level. The finals were keenly contested, with the result of the quiz being decided on the last question.
They were also good enough to provide the participants with food. Adds to the experience. :-)
Rating: 4/5.
Some Questions:
1. It is a psychological complex where people who are entrusted with the care and well being of vulnerable patients begin to form a romantic attraction and often erotic attraction toward their charges. The effect can also occur in patients who see medical workers as their protector and then develop feelings for them. The effect is named after someone famous. Who?
2. Messua, Messua's husband, Nathoo, Buldeo, _______. Fill the blank
3. Pic Connect: Andrew Flintoff, Ricky Pointing, Andrew Strauss.
4. It is an often derogatory term used to describe the practice thrusting journalists into an area to report on a story in which the reporter has little knowledge or experience. The lack of knowledge and tight deadlines often result in inaccurate or distorted news reports, especially during breaking news. What is the term?
5. What is unique about these works of art? Who made them?
















6. Connect:















El Classico - The Sports Quiz
Content: The Illuminati team did a comprehensive job of conducting a sports quiz of great quality. A low scoring and relatively tough prelims gave way to the finals, which were also pretty original in content. It ended up being a one-sided affair with the DCE team of Soumya Pande and Abhinav Katoch (Team Name: KHBKKMDR) remaining in the lead from the start. IIT’s blitzkrieg towards the end took them to 2nd place.
Rating: 3.5/5
Some Questions:
1. One of the dirtiest sports in the world, it was started in 1976 near Llanwrtyd Wells. It began as a result of an over the bar conversation in The Neuadd Arms between Gordon Green and a few regulars. It now attracts more than 200 entrants each year and is currently sponsored by Rowntrees Randoms. What?
2. Who was the first Olympic athlete to test positive for the use of performance enhancing drugs? He lost his bronze medal in the 1968 Summer Olympics.
3. ID The Sport















4. What is the significance of the black chevron aka V on the jersey?
















Da Biz Code - The Business Quiz
A really good business quiz, which unfortunately suffered from lack of participation because of the quiz happening simultaneously in MH as part of Tempest. From what I heard about Tempest, quite a few of us who came to Hansraj were very glad to be there. I thoroughly liked the content, and the prelim was the best that Conqurso '09 had on offer.
Rating: 4.25/5
Some Questions:
1. On August 11, 2005, the Supreme Court of California ruled that former sales manager Elyse Yanowitz had adequately pleaded a cause of action for retaliatory termination under the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, and remanded the case for trial. The case arose out of a 1997 incident in which Jack Wiswall, then the general manager for designer fragrances, allegedly told Yanowitz to fire a dark-skinned sales associate despite the associate's good performance. When Yanowitz refused, Wiswall pointed to a "sexy" blonde-haired woman and said, "God damn it, get me one that looks like that." Wiswall retired as president of the luxury products division of X, at the end of 2006.
2. What resulted by the merger of the two cooperative bank conglomerates, Coöperatieve Centrale Raiffeisen-Bank in Utrecht and Coöperatieve Centrale Boerenleenbank in Eindhoven (which were formed in 1898) in 1972?
3. The book focuses on branding, and often makes connections with the anti-globalization movement. The author writes about issues such as sweatshops in the Americas and Asia, culture jamming, corporate censorship, and Reclaim the Streets and pays special attention to the deeds and misdeeds of Nike, The Gap, McDonalds, Shell, and Microsoft and their lawyers, contractors, and advertising agencies. Who and which book?
4. In 1825, while making a painting for which he was paid 1000 dollars, he was informed of his wife’s illness, and subsequent death. Heartbroken in the knowledge that for days he was unaware of his wife's failing health and her lonely death, he moved from painting to something. Who is he and what did he go on to invent?
5. Of several types, it can refer to charity in Pakistan, tipping as demonstration of gratitude or respect, something that is often requested on top of fares to taxi drivers in Egypt, and as outright bribery, like when you are caught with chillum by a police officer. What?

Subcontinental – India Quiz
Left after the prelims, but seemed pretty decent in content, with questions on Nirupama Vaidyanathan, Quiz Master Tito, Kamakhya Temple and Aranyakas .

Take a bow, Illuminati! A job well done. Just ensure the prizes are disbursed soon. That'll be the icing on the cake. :-)

Jigsaw Jigyasa – JMC Quiz
Conducted by Manimugdha Sharma for a 2nd Year running(Last year's review here), the quiz at JMC pretty much did live up to the standard that JMC has managed to associate with itself after last year. The organizers did great by having a larger prize on offer over last year, which by any standards wasn’t bad at all. The quiz was well conducted and had good questions. Although the questions veered a little more towards history, overall, the quiz managed to encompass most topics. The LVC at the end did skew the scores to some extent, thanks to a +10 for each correct identification (which included ones like the flag of France). Apart from this drawback, the quiz was pretty good.
Although I didn’t attend the quiz at LSR this time around, I still feel that JMC managed to sweeten the deal just a tad more than LSR, and in turn taking the crown for the Best Quiz in a Girl’s College for the year. (A preliminary to the shadys that will be handed out soon. :-))
Rating: 3.75/5
Some Questions:
1. Patrick Garrett (pic was shown) was an American Old West lawman, bartender, and customs agent who was also the sheriff of Lincoln County, New Mexico. But his claim to fame was his killing of a legendary bandit somewhere in South Mexico. Who?
2. The Egyptian Arab historian al-Maqrīzī, writing in the fifteenth century CE, attributes this to iconoclasm by Muhammad Sa'im al-Dahr, a Sufi Muslim fanatic from the khanqah of Sa'id al-Su'ada. In 1378 CE, upon finding the Egyptian peasants making offerings in the hope of increasing their harvest, Sa'im al-Dahr was so outraged that he did something, for which he was later hanged. What did he do?
3. What was the purpose of the formation of ‘Alec Station’ in 1996, which was subsequently disbanded in October 2005?
4. This is believed to have been originated at X, a small station near Haridwar and popularized by the Saharanpur, Muzaffarnagar region of Uttar Pradesh. The fact that the western Uttar Pradesh belt is the largest producer of saccharum in the country has helped develop variants. Maner, a small town near Patna in Bihar, is also famous for it. What?
5. An LVC on elements in the periodic table named after people/places.


Ramjas Quiz
A quiz that I didn't attend, because it clashed with the SRCC Biz Quiz conducted by Gautam Bose. But it was for the first time that there were blind participants coming and taking part in a quiz. The organising team did a great job of accommodating them, with Shashank acting as their scribe, and the QM's replacing the visual questions with other dry ones. Kudos! We hope to see this trend continuing and more participation from all quarters.

SRCC Biz Quiz – Gautam Bose
Gautam Bose did a fairly decent job of conducting the Business Quiz at SRCC on 12th December. Although I felt that quite a few questions lacked the workoutability factor and were simply know-it-or-you-don’t variety, it was still a quiz worth attending. The quiz had the concept of carrying over the points of the prelims (2 per ques) to the finals with a normalizing factor of 5. The irony was that till the end of the quiz, 3 out of 6 teams were still on the same score that they started out with! The team from NSIT (of Roshan and Sharat) comprehensively beat everyone, with CBS a distant second.
Good Bits: Good, trivia-based questions, on-the-spot Cash Prize of 7k.
Not-so-good bits: On Gautam Bose’s request for not having his questions turning up on the blogs, I shall refrain from posting any questions. And he doesn't crack very good jokes. And there was only one prize that was given. :-)
Rating: 3.5/5.

Hindu Gen Quiz – Catalysis ’09
Conducted by Shubham Shivang for a second year running(last year's review here), Catalysis ’09 was similar to the ’08 edition in some ways, but quite different in others. While the ’08 edition had a fair number of repeats from a few sources, the QM did better this time around in keeping content that was more original. There were some bloopers this time around which were much more glaring, unlike the year before. Also, keeping with the fact that he had to forego his 2nd LVC because of time constraints, the quiz ended up being rushed through. The content was otherwise pretty good.
The Not-so-good-bits: The QM’s failure to identify Reese Witherspoon, and instead having a question on her, and demanding Sonia Gandhi as the answer (all thanks to a hoax mail that has been circulating for some time now), his inclusion of an LVC on movies of Kanti Shah, over the 2nd LVC, which, as per his own admission was better.
Rating: 3.5/5
Some Questions:
1. Which is the most famous location where we find Rudyard Kiplings poem, If inscribed?
2. A good pic + video+ audio connect on Meher Baba.
3. In the Nath tradition, he is recognized as an Avatar or incarnation of the Lord Shiva and as the Adi-Guru of the Adinath Sampradaya of the Nathas. Is still worshiped by millions of Hindus, he is approached more as a benevolent god than as a teacher of the highest essence of Indian thought. Who?
4. His father was a noted film script writer, with credits like Naya Daur and Waqt. His brother is responsible for launching arguably India's most powerful actor. Who?
5. Pic connect on roles played by Denzel Washington based on real life people.
6.Identify. (Yes, we knew he would expect Sonia Gandhi as the answer, but answering it just seemed wrong! :-) )













Eco-Biz Quiz at St. Stephens – Kunal Malhotra
It was perhaps Kunal’s first quiz in DU after a gap of almost 10 months, and he did a fair job of conducting it. The prelim was pretty good, 24 questions that needed some time and thinking to crack. The finals saw 6 teams reach the finals. Apart from a couple of simple and old repeats, most of the questions were original and had good content. The teams were neck and neck, with the only 15 points separating the first and fifth ranked team for most of the quiz. It was CBS, if I’m not mistaken, who finally triumphed. The only sore point, apart from the odd sitter, was the lack of communication that it was 3 members per team, instead of the norm of 2 members per team.
Rating: 4/5.
Some Questions:
1. What features a bearded man on the front, with the dates 1833 and 1896, and no slogan at the back?
2. Officially, Morocco’s biggest forex earner is tourism. But unofficially, what is the real big earner, with more and more resources devoted to it each year?
3. Which newspaper was started in September 1843 by James Wilson?
4. As per Watson’s account, Sherlock Holmes bought it from an unwitting Jewish pawnbroker on Tottenham Court Road for 55 shillings, but which was worth at least five hundred guineas by his estimations. What?
5. London's financial industry has boomed since the deregulation of UK financial markets (the "Big Bang") in the 1980s under the Thatcher government. However, it was noticed that outsider’s were performing better as compared to the local companies. What term was coined to describe this scenario?

Leave answers as comments as per the name under which its been reviewed.

All in all, it was a good year of quizzing, with some new faces proving themselves and some old ones continuing to revel in their halcyon days of Quizzing. A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all! :-)