The TAF Open by Parnab Mukherjee

How would you feel, when you go to a quiz with the intention of winning lots of cash, but upon reaching you find out the QM is none other than "Pornob Da" aka Parnab Mukherjee. Yes, that's exactly how I felt.

We had heard all about the legend, but never had we sat for one of his quizzes.

Being an open general quiz, it made for some more obscure questions and entertainment. Although I must admit, on rare occasions I felt it wasn't as bad as I had heard it could be.

Apologies for the delay in posting this, but read on for entertainment.

Parnab Da starts with introducing himself and calling the Kutub veteran Kunal Malhotra "one of the greatest freedom fighters in the field of quizzing since independence". I wonder what Kunal was thinking.

The TAF Open General Quiz by Parnab Mukherjee

Sri Guru Gobind Singh College of Commerce, Pitampura

Date: 22 January, 2012

Prelims:

30 questions. Mostly obscure and factual. A few popular repeats. There was a slideshow and for a second, we thought that maybe this quiz would be a tad different from regular Parnab quizzes. However, what he would've normally said had simply typed on a ppt. So it was still a regular Pornob quiz, minus some entertainment. Samples:

1. What unique feat did the Devon Wonderers achieve in the field of sport?

After disclosing the answer, goes on about the beauty of the team name. About the cricket clubs in the early Olympics and the Canadian Lacrosse team with the same name.

2. What is the Sharon Stone Syndrome?

Answer: Middle aged men who develop heart problems on coming in contact with women.

Upon hearing various forms of the answers written by the participants, P: "I want middle aged men", followed by "It happens with a lot of men, doesn't happen with me anymore though"

3. Where is the Gandhi King Plaza, in Delhi, located? (The crowd's silence said it all i.e. 'next question please')

Answer: India International Centre

4. The word is derived from Latin literally translated as "all lions". However it has undergone 2 or 3 changes overtime, in English. It means courageous. What word?

Answer: Pantaloon

5. P: At the Lenin Museum, visitors aren't allowed to do something while they're inside. Men aren't allowed to do 2 things. I'll give you one - they can't wear hats inside. However, the other thing can't be done by women either. What?

Answer: Put their hands in their pockets

P: "The moisture, you see?"

(Obviously, most of the teams wrote the most obvious answer pertaining to obscenity. Fortunately, or unfortunately (that's for Parnab Da to decide), the ppl ARE allowed to do that, or so I gathered)

6. In 1643, this 1340 ft long and 12 ft long structure was made to protect the people from Red Indians. What?

(Wow, Red Indians really helped. Not.)

Answer: The wall in wall street

7. If the Durand separates Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the Radcliffe line divides India and Pakistan, then what does a "Vinculum" separate?

(If you haven't read your NCERTs for that, too bad)

Answer: The numerator and denominator in a fraction

8. What is common to Noor Mohammadi – Bhindi Bazaar, Mumbai and Azad Hind Dhaba, Kolkata?

(Poorly framed, but interesting answer)

Answer: The only 2 hotels to have MF Hussain's paintings on their walls.

All in all, the prelims were a drowsy affair. Any guesses for the cut offs? For a 10 team semifinal, the cut off was 2/30! Surprised? So was I. Fortunately, we just made the mark.

Semi Finals.

Typical Pornob style. Oral. Off the top of his head.

Samples:

Round 1 - Dry.

1. WW II veteran. Ace pilot. Gives his name to a stadium. Who?

Answer: Roland Garros

(Roland Garros was a pilot in WW I. But that hardly makes a difference, right?)

2. In India, there is a man made Island which is used as an air base. Which Island?

Answer: Willingdon.

3. If E. Sreedharan hadn't retired, he would've taken a different post altogether. Which post?

Answer: Kochi - metro

P: "I'll give 5 points to team 1 because they said Cochin. Team 4, too bad. you got the Cochin part right, but it's not the complete answer and team 1 had it first. By the way, you guys are from around there, aren't you? I knew it. Because you cracked Willingdon as well. No one but people from there could know that."

4. In which current day city is Jesus said to be born?

Answer: Some place in Jordan (that's the closest any team came to the answer)

Round 2 - Audio Round

1. Song plays. ID the band. Team 2 says "Opeth" P: "Good guess, but that's not the answer. I like Opeth. They came to Bangalore recently. I went there." Team 3 says "Dream Theatre" P: "People say I play too many classics, Dylan etc etc. So I thought I'd go with something contemporary."

Answer: Dragonforce

2. Some Old Bollywood song plays, starts with some Jazz in the beginning. Ques: Who's the guy playing the guitar in the Jazz sequence of the song?

Answer: Bhupender

P: "When you hear western music in old bollywood movies, you think RD Burman. The guitarist in RD Burman's band was very famous. Bhupender"

3. Some ghazal plays. ID the singer.

(the only thing the teams on stage can decipher is a female voice)

Answer: parveen sultana

Round 3 - Visual

1. Pic of an actress given, holding an award. Ques: For which movie is she receiving the award?

Answer: Gandhi My Father (actress was Shefali Shah)

2. Pic of some singer.

P: "ID the guy. Very controversial guy. His music is available on MySpace and YouTube. Also on his site for free download. He's banned in India and if he were to release an album, he'd be arrested"

Every team passes.

Answer: MC Kash

3. Pic of some cathedral.

Ques: where is it located?

Answer: Turkey (part points to Team 4)

Tie Breaker Ques

1. Who is the vice chancellor of DU? - Dinesh Singh

2. Who plays Aamir Khan's character in the Tamil adaptation of 3 idiots?

3. There is a proposed international airport coming up near Pune. Named after a religious place, which?

The Shadys 2011

With great power comes great responsibility. With great awards comes great procrastination and thus much like the Academy Awards we shall be awarding the Shadys at the end of the quizzing season instead at the end of the calendar year.

This year saw a surge in the number of QC alumni spreading across the country bringing a pan-Indian perspective as also a special Webby section for quizzing antics on the internet.

Presenting the Shadys 2011
Brought to you by The An(n)als of Improbable Quizzing at NSIT
{with inputs from Quizzers, DD from Mumbai, JJ and Sharat from Ahd, Abx from the Corporate World and the NSIT Quiz Club}

And now for something completely different.

We begin our evening with the Quibby award section much like the Webby Awards. These awards are given to philosophers of quizzing and those who have taken control of our lives and changed quizzing, as we know it, on the interwebz.

Blog Nazi of the Year

Awarded to Arkadev Ghoshal for making the need for Facebook pages futile with the brilliant use of his blog.
Quibby speech-"Answer on the blog, please"

Internet-mata-ka-bhakt of the Year

Awarded to a young man from St. Joseph's HSS in Calicut, Rithwik Kiwthir has given new meaning to the usage of Google,Wikipedia and revolutionized online quizzing. Ratnakar Sadasyula comes in a close second with his brilliant copy-paste-edit on Quizzers.

Rithwik, when told to give a speech, immediately opened Wikipedia and said "Colourless green ideas sleep furiously". This was his final attempt to say something in incomprehensible English while trying to make a good question out of it at the same time.

Online pwnage of the year

What started as a vernacular battle between the nemesis of Optimus Prime and a professor from Bangalore gave the world "Otto von Besmirch, Kaiser-e-Hand and the Republick of Quizzing Whorinas" as well as an insight into Al_lude's mind. We award this Quibby to Arul Mani for the most savage attack ever conducted in 5 lines.
We were too afraid of him to say something in 5 words. So we parceled his Quibby, shudder and post the thread of a lifetime.

And now, back to regular programming.

The "Ronald Reagan Assassination Attempt" of the Year Award

The Commonwealth Games 2010. Apart from the horrendous money guzzling scam that it is, it did a far far more blasphemous thing. Much like the attempted assassination of Reagan A delay in the quizzing season and thus the Shadys. Oh, the horror!


The LVC Witch Trials Award

The following LVCs are the inaugral inductees into the LVC Hall of Fame. We hope we never have to see them again. We Didn't Start the Fire, Sgt.Pepper's Lonely Hearts Band and Madonna's Vogue.

The "Kangalon ke ghar paida ho gaya hoon" Award

Much like the Manjot Singh quote-quizzing at IIT Delhi is now pointless from a fiscal perspective.

The Durex Perverted Question of the Year Award

Though it was a tough call with most "quizzards" being best friends with their hands referring it to a certain Mr. Jagannath all the time, Hindu College's Mecca Quiz took the cake, ate it and washed the knife used for us.

Question: What, laced with cocaine or other such barbiturates, was given to nervous newly-wed grooms as a stamina-enhancer on their wedding night?
Answer: Palang Tod Paan

The "Chai me dooba biscuit" newcomers of the year:

Anagh Mukherjee(SVC) and Sudarshana Chanda(LSR) with virtuoso performances at IIT, which was followed up by great shows at NSIT, LBSIM, etc.

Also Utkarsh (IIIT-D) and Anunay(DPS Dwarka) deserve an equal applause for excellent runs at NSIT and LBSIM.

The Avis Award for the perennially "We're #2. We Try Harder" Team

Govind "Greenko" Grewal for losing Gold too many times to the evergreen team of Suresh Kumar and Aniruddha Dutta at Crucible's Mumbai Edition. It is conjectured that this is due to lack of support from Greenko's teammate during the buzzer rounds. As Giri pointed out, Govind might actually have to quit working for the Tatas to eventually win a Crucible.

Galti Se Mistake Ho Gaya Award

The otherwise meticulous research team of the Landmark Quiz setting a question on Telegraph's April Fool's Day Hoax about tourists heading to Gorbachev's Birthmark-shaped Archipelago as a genuine question in the National Finals of the Landmark Quiz.

Kundra-Bawa Award

For all enterprising entrepreneurs mining the archives of Tata Crucible Question Compilations into kunjis for business quizzes and providing products and services for young muggers quizzers.

Chinese Torture Award
Anonymous Nirma University person, clearly frustrated by the level of the quiz, on a question on Sun Wukong (The Monkey King) , with deep anguish remarks "Yaar, Chinese Kitaab kaun padhta hai ?"

Go-Ogle cryptic question of the year award

After much ranting amongst quizzers, the award goes to Shivaji college's fest QM for asking SGTB Khalsa the following question at Shivaji College’s Vibrations:
"Which one of these is essentially a solo dance? 10 points without options, 5 points with options.
Do you need any?"

The Charles Dodgson aka Lewis Carroll of DU Award

Goes to the same anonymous QM at Shivaji college after the following
happened in the rapid fire round:

QM: What is half of 1/3?
Winning team: 1/8
QM: correct

Why-Rajni-Quizzes Award

Goes to one "Rajni Sir" of UCMS who stamped his authority on the QM during the UCMS Gen Quiz, while stopping just short of saying "Yanna Rascala! Mind it!!"

QM : Which is the only country to have only music and no words for its national anthem.
Rajni Sir : Its Spain.
QM : No, its Bahrain.
Rajni Sir : Arre !! Its Spain I tell you.
QM : I have Wikied it. It's Bahrain Sir.
Rajni Sir : Kya Wiki ! It's Spain I say!
QM goes weak in the knees (literally). An almost-crying expression, sweat on his forehead and with totally puppy like eyes :
"Sir Please (extended one)"
There was certain commotion and we need not say who won the argument.

Show me the money aka Paisa Paisa Award
Goes to Hansraj College's Illuminati for giving out prizes for this year's edition in a week's time, while winners of the 2010 edition were left waiting, shouting that phrase that quizzers love but hate to repeat.

In case we missed out on some "must-capture shady moments", feel free to leave them in the comments section. :-)

Till we meet again for next year's edition of the Shady's.

Good Night, and Good Luck.

Parnab's General Quiz at LBSIM

Ladies and Gentlemen,
I present to you, the outcome of the first live-blogging attempt of a Parnab Mukherjee Quiz. It wasn't easy, mind you. Noting everything that was coming out of his mouth, which changes quite often at that.
Lack of internet led to the delay in posting this, that's all. The Quiz took place yesterday at Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management. I found my first 'Pornob' to be hugely enjoyable, but that was perhaps because I didn't qualify. :-) He surely knows how to entertain. But I shall leave the rest for you to judge.

General Quiz by Parnab Mukherjee

LBSIM, Dwarka.

Date: 26^th February, 2011

Prelims:

25 Questions: A decent prelim, details are largely forgettable, barring an instance that is documented below.

During a certain question:

P(to a person who asked him to repeat a question): No, I won’t repeat the question. I won’t repeat it because you asked me to repeat. You’re a dinosaur, and you’re asking me to repeat a question as elementary as this one. I would have repeated had a young fellow doing his MBA asked me to, but you, being in the law profession, for you I won’t.

Tie Breaker:

1. Caveat newspaper relaunched by editor, owner – CR Irani

2. Non Indian wife, Bangladesh, delhi guy who died tragical. Name the cricketer. – Raman Lamba

Finals:

1. Work this out: Outstanding sportsman on this countries’ older currency note. Latest to join Euro: : Paul Keres, Estonia (Someone in Audience: Wah motuu!)

2. A famous trek as part of the guild to find the missing brother who he left to die in the Himalayas. Name the famous return: Reinhold messner. Nanga Parbat trek (Sounded like, Grand Old Miser, Barak Nagar Trek :-) )
   

P: “Please maintain silence. We’re doing a quiz, not antakshari”

3. Ram Jethmalani (co-financier), M J Akbar: Which newspaper: Sunday Guardian

4. It means to cleanse and strive to be pure. Second part of the word comes from the sound, fwa. Which word? Sufi (from tasawwuf) (Wiki’s origin states otherwise)

5. Muzaffar Ali’s famous film, titled Zooni (It never released), starring Vinod Khanna and Dimple Kapadia, life and times of which Kashmiri writer - Lady Writer – Habba Khatoon (P:One of the big 4)

6. 2 ITC Chairmen non-bailable warrant, 15 days case was over. Wrote Bite the bullet: (To a team who added on to a previous answer, P:Part of your creativity, part of their answer..?) – P: Don’t put random people in jail –Ajit K Haksar, JN Sapru, KL Chugh

(To a person who cracked this question from the audience, P:Why didn’t you sit for the elimination? Or do you refuse to be eliminated?)

7. (P:Workable but on different lines) –Agumbe - Name comes from the combination of two localities: Malgudi (P:All the way on the bonus)

8. Question to Varun Rajiv and Samanth Subramanian: Well known writer, celebrating 100 years, took his name from a famous Buddhist saint and almost modeled his life on that.Wrote: Varun ke bete and purane Juliyon ka course : (To a team that seems to struggle to remember the full name.. P:Dwidedi? Let me help you, Hariprasad Dwidedi, at least you know one Dwiwedi now!)
   Baba Nagarjuna

9. With which international Sports great would you associate a controversial promotion, amongst other places, a disputed structure of the Lavasa City: Steven Redgrave.

10. You know whats Doomsday. What is bloomsday? Day on which the events of James Joyce’s Ulysses day place– Leopold Bloom

11. In Salman Rushdie’s Haroun and sea of Stories, what is P2C2E? Process too complicated to explain. (When someone contests the answer, P:What do you mean it’s not there? It’s in the novel. He read it. It’s not complicated that a man likes Rushdie and works in ITC!”)

12. Recent piece of writing is called, “I Accuse” – who wrote? (“P:If I tell you the incident, it would be too obvious) – Jarnail Singh

13. Supported emergency, took up ministership under Indira Gandhi, wife’s name monica, Indian legend, studied for some time in England – Habib Tanvir (P:There’s one more similarity, but that is a difficulty. Like Ravi Shankar, he has his Norah Jones.)

14. Gajanan Hemmady - Manoj Guha. - legendary Indian pair – Why/Who/What? (Someone guesses, Bridge. P:Bridge? India’s best in bridge: Bermuda Bowl, Fifth, Second wild card…. (Someone in Audience: Yaar itna jhooth toh mat bol!)
    (“P:Don’t go complicated. Only top 5 other than hesh-bhupathi oh sorry leander-bhupathi, but in badminton, Indian doubles greats”)

15. 1^st audio: Very famous trance rock band – very very seminal album “The floor’s too far away” P: You can even guess it from the album –Ozrick Tentacles

16. 2^nd Audio: Whose singing kabir? Jheeni Jheeni Jheeni - Kumar Gandharva

17. 3^rd Audio: Mozart, conducted by? That’s a very strong cello, very distinct – When one of the finalists fumbles between Zubin Mehta and Yehudi Menuhin, P:Does it take as much to be a conductor as much as it takes for you to be an engineer?” : Leonard Bernstein

18. 4^th Audio: The name of the city/town is the gharana – Very rare recording – He was not from pre-recording era but someone who hardly wanted to be recorded – Performer/Gharana? – Baba Allauddin Khan of Maihar Gharana

19. 5^th Audio: Top Gun Theme: 2 part question: Name the composer: Harold Faltermeyer. Iconic Film – Top Gun

20. 6^th Audio: Modern Talking song. Name the album. Ans acc to P: Modern Talking. Actual Answer: The 1^st Album, or Back for good (remix)

Visual 1: Current Affairs: P:Absolute Current Affairs: Maria Vargas Llosa

21. Visual 2 – Nehru’s photo with someone. Name the Organization that was started: For Bandung Conference and NAM, P: Give them 7.5 points. For guessing Panchsheel, P:Panchsheel is something else, then it has to be Suharto.

22. Visual 3: P:Great guy – Max Plank

23. Visual 4: Writer. Namita Gokhale

24. Visual 5: ID: Not the lesser available stills. Photographed very less. Oscar Wilde

25. Visual 6: One of the greatest writers of the last century. Who? – Phil Newby (Unable to find anyone that sounds anything like Newby.Went predictably unanswered)

26. Visual 7: Photo of the Instrument. A Very specific answer needed. Two word name of the instrument. This version is usually not played much now: Khusrao’s Pakhawaj
    Last round.

27. Who ended his life, but after his last works – stinging political indictment of western world in King Leopold’s Soliloquy – Mark Twain

28. Talks about Fullbright and Rhodes Scholarships. Then asks, Which scholarship, for liberal arts and applied sciences, single largest Nordic supported scholarship for Asians – Erasmus Mundus

29. Winner of the Sakharov prize – temporary residency permit in India – Swedish resident - exiled voice – Taslima Nasreen

30. Manohar Moolgaonkar wrote a biography – Shaitani Hawa, which is a code word – whose life? Nanasaheb

31. P:Workable ans: Islamabad, Ahmedabad/Vikram Sarabhai - Urban Living Design Blocks – Gandhian Movement of Laurie Baker – Louis Kahn(P:Nehru was inspired because he designed Ahmedabad)

32. Dunlop, Esso, Aspirin, ICI, Dulux, National Geographic – All English Trailer – some of the historical trailers of: P:Satyajit Ray – All the way. (12 min short film for Esso, a movie done on Kanchenga for National Geographic – All the historical characters in normal clothes speaking in English...blah blah blah… )

33. Shyam Benegal’s Yatra - Central Narrative looks back at India through which train? – Himsagar Express – Kashmir to Kanyakumari.

P:I don’t know who’s first, second and third, and I’m not much bothered, but I am deeply thankful to LBSIM for inviting me here.

NTPC Electron 2010 - Delhi Round Review

NTPC once again conducted it's annual Electron Quiz for engineering and management institutions today at it's Power Management Institute center in Noida. The turnout was quite similar to last year, with around 50 teams participating. The quizmasters for the event were the renowned duo of K.M. Prashant, Sujit Verkey from NTPC itself.

Though Electron has in the past been a Gen Quiz with leanings towards business, this time it was vice-versa.

The prelim comprised 25 questions, which included old chestnuts, wiki-lifts and some interesting questions.

The finals were a well done-up affair, with 6 rounds and roughly 40 odd questions. A delight, especially compared to the National Finals last year. A good blend of dry questions, visuals, AV's, a "predator round" and the buzzer round.

The likeable aspect was the questions that had good fundas where, even if you didn't know the answer, you felt like you should have known it. The standard of questions wasn't quite uniform unfortunately, but was decent good nonetheless.

The let down, though, was the nature of the prelim. They were high-scoring, with the highest scored team at 18 and the cutoff being 16.5. When the range of marks between the qualifying teams comes down to a question and a half, the importance of each question is hugely significant.

The question in contention was:

Q. There are two types of newspaper sizes, one is broadsheet, name the other.
Now the problem that arises is this: there are three types of newspaper sizes: Broadsheet, Tabloid, AND Berliner. Tabloid was accepted, Berliner wasn't.

Notable questions included those on Toasted Skin Syndrome, Salman Khan Academy, Hugh Lowe farms, the Lipstick Building, Irving Fisher etc.

The national finals will once again be conducted by Derek O' Brien. Hope DoB does a better job of it over last year.

As always, NTPC were at their hospitable best, and had wonderful snacks and a sumptuous lunch for all participants.

All the very best to the teams for the Nationals.

The Quiz Fest Concludes

After two days of intense quizzing, which saw a very appreciable turnout of 200 odd people over two days, the second edition of The NSIT Quiz Fest has come to an end with the conclusion of the MELA Quiz by NSIT Alumni & IIM-I grad Debasish Misra. With a total of 8 quizzes, this years edition was bigger and better than the previous edition, while also offering better and significant prizes over last year, while maintaining a popular constant - Cash Prizes in hand. On behalf of the NSIT Quiz Club, I'd like to thank everyone who helped make this year's edition a success. Some notable mentions include:

1. The main sponsors, Institute of Internal Auditors. Without them, cash prizes at hand wouldn't have been possible without putting money out of our own pockets.


2. The Associate Sponsors, Punjab National Bank and Hind Pocket Books. Hind Pocket Books helped ensure everyone went home with books to read, and also sponsored our Online Quiz, while Punjab National Bank helped ensure the cash prizes would be more attractive.







3. Our faculty-in-charge, Dr. Duru Arun Kumar ma'am, whose support was with us from the time this edition of the Quiz Fest was just an idea.

4. All members of the NSIT Quiz Club, who made contributions in making the Quiz Fest a success.

5. Everyone who attended and participated in the NSIT Quiz Fest 2010.

Let the bouquets and the brickbats follow. :-)

The Shadys 2009

[Brought to you by The An(n)als of Improbable Quizzing at NSIT]

[Earlier Shadys here and here]

Firstly, a very Happy New Year to all of you. We return again with 2009's Shadys list.
There is much that we missed in 2009. We didnt go to Motilal Nehru , IP College for Women, or Gargi. I am sure they might have helped augment the list. For now, here goes :

Best Quiz Name

'Jigsaw' Jigyasa at JMC. X marks the spot, indeed.

Best Team Name "Why the hell is Roshan Shankar here?" - a very relevant question by Azeez and Shankhayan from IIT Delhi.

Yudhisthira Ashwathama Moment of the Year
Manimugdha , telling the Bawana Boys Katoch and Pande that "The connect is (in)exhaustive." The boys were leading by a slender margin with 85 points till the LVC round but got mixed up and ended quite far from the podium. Other teams who didnt bother listening to the quizmaster scored as many as 130 points in the round alone.

Agyaat Vaas Award of the Year
Sonia Gandhi, for managing to look like this at some point of time in history.




Best Connect of the Year

At SRCC's Crossroads festival, the quizmaster asks "Connect Patel Chest and a place in Mumbai where it all started." The Answer being Crossroads. Go figure, again.

Answer of the Year

Not an attempt at self-glorification, but this fluke was nearly on the scale of the Escape from L.A. basketball scene [Watch it here]. The Question [at the WQC 2009] was "The world’s longest reigning monarch was Pepi II (total reign 94 years). Places 2 to 5 in the list of longest reigning monarchs go to kings from Korea, China and Swaziland. At No6, with a total reign of over 72 years, who is the best known westerner in the list?" This is the thought process that followed :

"Ok, think of a random European King....hmmm....Louis,Henry,Charlemagne...Louis sounds fine...I guess there should be a number too....hmm...which number...hmmm...14 seems fine...Louis the XIV then.

And Louis the XIV it was.

"Karo Zyada ka Iraada" Award aka "Tere Baap ka Kya Jaayega" Award- To all of you (should I name them?) who so very gracefully cheat in prelims.Oh so sorry-are inspired by others' prelims sheets.

Most Trying Hard Quizzer Award for the Year (aka Martin Scorsese Award for Excellence )
A couple of years ago, there was a cash prize for this award at select colleges. We pay homage to those glorious times and award it to Harish Alagappa , for his Nobel Quiz solo charge, where he turned up with 2 non quizzers, qualified for finals, and ended a commendable 4th. Very Reminiscent of Anang Rawat's performance mentioned here.

Steve Bucknor Silent Assassin Award-goes to Abhinav Katoch for killer answers,a killer smile and a silent demeanour. Abhinav Katoch is also awarded the Chhupa Rustam award for his work in other fields :)

Kate Winslet "The Reader" Award for the best books read-goes to Mr.Soumya Pande for reading Erotica along with Franz Kafka's The Trial. Reason offered:-"Heavy Book hai yaar,thoda pressure relieve karna padhta hai"

Black Mamba Chamakta Sitaara of the Year-Miss Varunie Shashni of IIT Delhi,for making quizzers across Delhi,to come up with reasons to talk to the Quiz Secretary of IIT
Delhi,for things other than prize money and certificates :)

Best Actor

Avinash Mudaliar for the portrayal of a certain man whose pet dialogues would be "Brilliant", and "Put your Hands together !!", all mouthed in an unmistakeable South Indian accent; at the FMS Fiesta Quiz. Indeed, we did put our hands together.

Best Prediction of the Year

Dr. Bhattacharya [At the FMS Fiesta Quiz hosted by Avinash Mudaliar] - " And now he'll say that a lot can happen over a cup of coffee. "

30 seconds later,

Avinash Mudaliar - "A lot can happen over a cup of coffee".

Best Recommendation Taken of the Year-to Mr. Joy Bhattacharya who apart from yelling "I have a Super Answer.I know this" at quizzes,took advice on the best "websites" for "stuff" around.Kolkata Knight Riders might truly have something different in their "training videos".Too many quotes used :)

The "It Boy" of Delhi Quizzing-for the third year in a row-Mr.Udit Anand from NSIT for being an honest man,nice guy,compulsive question noter and a sweet looker. :)

Best of Luck for Even Semester Award and Rising Entrepreneur Award-both go to Mr.Nitesh Bhasin.Self Explanatory.

"Main hoon Al Gore,Environment ko saaf karoonga door to door" Award to Mr.Dinesh Kapur,who has left quizzing effectively for greener pastures.

Lewis Hamilton "Taa-lainnt Hai Ismain" Award-to Mademoiselle(spelling learnt :P) Krittika Adhikary.Talent hai ladki main.

"Bulla Rakhta Hoon Khulla=Open Quizzer of the Year"-goes to Kunal Malhotra, for his continued dedication to Kutub Quizzers and for umm... breaking some tags.

Please do attend The Quizzing Test Match - a quiz with a unique format, being organised by Kutub Quizzers tentatively on 9th/10th January at IIT Delhi.

Syed Burhanur Rehman Award for Lifetime Achievement

And the award goes to Syed Burhanur Rehman. When you are the Dadasaheb Phalke of Shady DU Quizzing, it is only fair that the award be named after you. And also awarded to you.

Battle Cry of the Year
Rallyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy !

Originated by Anang Rawat, has become the word for all NSIT quizzers when a few rounds of quizzing are over and the points tally is looking unfavorable.

Not that we have forgotten our beloved BKM. He is lurking, waiting for his moment to arrive. :)

Miscellaneous Awards

Intolerable Cruelty Award

Arul Mani, for asking us to make a choice out of C(38,8) combinations and then connecting those 8. He continues with his ways at Go Ogle 2010 .

Baara Mulkon ki Police Jisse Dhoond Rahi Hai Award

goes to Zizzyphus from the Daly Haal for answering questions no man has answered before.

Users may add more to the comments section of this post. But for now, this is all we have.We'll meet you same time, next year!

NTPC Electron 2009 - National Round Review

NTPC Electron 2009 conducted its national round on 23rd December, with 15 teams from all over the country, at the Power Management Institute, Noida.

The Quizmasters for the evening were Andrew Sloat (Semi-finals) and Derek O’ Brien (for the finals). 3 Sets of semi-finals were held, from where the top two from each set qualified for the finals. Andrew did a fair job of conducting the semi-finals.

After the semi-finals, the finalists included ISB, Hyderabad; Jadavpur University, Kolkata; NM ITM, Mumbai; SP Jain Institute of Management, Mumbai; NSIT, Delhi and ICFAI Business School Hyderabad.

Derek O’ Brien did a good job of conducting the finals. Even though the content was poor at some places and decent at best, he does manage to pull it off nonetheless. Full marks to him for making it an ‘inclusive’ quiz, if I may call it so, in the sense that the audience was kept involved and in good spirits, even if that meant the content of the finals was ‘HR-theme based’ questions, in Derek's words and disappointing, in mine.

The standard was not very uniform, and that can hurt a lot in a big quiz. Nonetheless, ISB Hyderabad ran away with the quiz right from the start, with a fabulous display of quizzing. ICFAI Business School came 2nd, SP Jain came third, followed by NSIT, Jadavpur Univ and NM ITM respectively. Belated best wishes to the ISB team, who had exams starting 2 days after the finals. :-)

ICFAI Business School, Hyderabad were represented as always by Raja Satish and co. (whose annual sightings at NTPC have been documented here). Later, Raja Satish went on to say, "I won't be coming next year. I'll be graduating as this is my 2nd year." We wish him all the best for his graduation, but I won't be surprised to see him again next year, considering his great love for NTPC Electron and the graciousness with which NTPC continues to welcome him year after year. Anyway, peace.

Sample Questions:
1. What is a ganga-jamuna saree?
2. What was made by Fariborz Sahba by importing marble from Greece?
3. In royal kingdoms, certain recipes were considered to be closely guarded secrets, so much so that women of the house were not even allowed to enter the kitchen. Why was this done?
4.Complete the quote: The only way of making money in Las Vegas is to _____.
5. ID the Book.














6. ID the movie cover:














Happy New Year to all! :-)

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! :-)

A Fistful Of Quizzes

This is a small attempt to review quizzes that have happened in this semester,and provide the QMs with some "feedback" :).Its obviously at your discretion to take it positively or otherwise :P
All ratings will be on a total grade point of 5.

I.LHMC Cobweb 2009
QM:-Bhavna Seth
Seeing that this year saw a surge in the number of excellent female quizzers,an excellent quiz was expected one of the better quizzers from DPS RK Puram :)
Content:-4/5. Excellent Questions on a wide variety of topics
Presentation:-1.5/5. It would be better if the Quizmaster learns to manage a quiz decisively,and have proper rules decided before the quiz.But that comes with experience and attending more quizzes.
Prelims:-3/5. Though they were criticized by quite a few people,I liked them and am not ready to pan them just because there's a mentality as to what a Prelims "should be" like.
Sample Questions:-
1.Identify
2.A mercury solution was commonly used during the process of turning fur into felt, which caused the Ys to breathe in the fumes of this highly toxic metal, a situation exacerbated by the poor ventilation in most of the workshops. This led to something happening,which also gave rise to a phrase.What phrase?
(Y has obviously been erased to make it slightly difficult,though it really isn't)
3.Who is known as the "Non Flying Dutchman"
4.A connect on Parsley,Sage,Rosemary and Thyme-leading to Scarborough Fair :)

II. AIIMS Science Quiz
QM:- Tejas Suri
Content:-3/5.Pretty reasonable content for a science quiz
Prelims:-3/5.Very well framed questions like the one on Chernobyl and Aardvark:P
Presentation:-3/5.Should get to start using Powerpoint,instead of the folder methods.
Sample Questions
1.By what name is this lady known?
2.The three latin phrases are different ways of putting which law?

"Pluralitas non est ponenda sine neccesitate"
"Frustra fit per plura quod potest fieri per pauciora"
"Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem"

3.Which band sings the OST of the TV show "The Big Bang Theory"?

III. Hansraj Ecolloqium 2009
QM:- Illuminati Quiz Society
Content:-3.5/5 for a little too lateral avoidable connect on Radio Stations
Prelims:-4/5
Presentation:-3/5
Sample Questions
1.The X is named after the Mexican town of Xalapa. Xalapa is itself of Nahuatl derivation, formed from roots xal-li "sand" and a-pan "water place".What?
2.Identify this economist
3.The term X has been used to refer to the country itself, and to the years associated with the boom. The first recorded use of the phrase is in a 1994 report by Kevin Gardiner.The X period has also been called "Ireland's Economic Miracle".What is X?

IV.LSR Tarang 2009 General Quiz
QM:- Manimugdha Sharma
Content:-4/5.Overall,the quiz covered some very good ground.
Prelims:-2.5/5.Quite ordinary
Presentation:-3.5/5.Well organized as always
Sample Questions
1.What first are William Herschel and Rajyadhar Konai associated with?
2.Identify this painting and give a cinematic connection to the same.
3.X earliest identified use of the exact phrase dates from 1942, in the Investigation of the National Defense Program: Hearings Before a Special Committee Investigating the National Defense Program,by Admiral Emory Scott who said "You have to increase from 7.72 to 12 for the average at the bottom of that fifth column, for X". This use refers to the total output statistics for the nine new shipyards that produced "Liberty Ships" with unprecedented speed, crucial to the course of World War II. It is thus far undetermined whether this literal use gave rise to the transferred, metaphorical, figurative sense.
Give vus X?

4.A very nice Connect-that conjoined Hamlet(first script),King Arthur's Excalibur and a whole other bunch of things-to Phantom:)

V.Stephen's Quizotic General Quiz 2009
QM:-Mit Chowdhury,CLC Law Faculty,2nd year,Law Centre

Highly rated by a lot of quizzers.Can't personally rate it as I didn't attend the quiz.
Sample Questions

1.“Whenever I was in the field, no one really knew I was doing it except one or two friends. In only my second Test, when I had performed it at Edgbaston, in 1985, someone had written about it to dear old Brian Johnston. “I did my little “thing” and there was a titter in the crowd. I thought there must be a streaker on the field but it was Brian telling the world and the spectators were listening on their radios. I’ve been lumbered with it ever since”. Who about what?

2.Fillup the blanks (exhaustive list)

1. A Temporary Matter

2. When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine

3. ____ ____ ____

4. A Real Durwan

5. Sexy

6. Mrs. Sen’s

7. This Blessed House

8. The Treatment of Bibi Haldar

9. The Third and Final Continent

3.The Hynek Classification System states that there can be 5 types of ‘contact’ between a human and an alien:

* When you see a UFO within about 150 yards

* When you see a UFO in the sky or on the ground and it leaves evidence behind

* When a person sees a UFO with visible occupants inside

* When the person is unwillingly taken and experimented on inside the alien craft

* When there is direct communication between aliens and humans

What are these laws better known to us?

Answer this question set in the comments as Set 1,2,3,4,5
Cheers
Roshan

NTPC Electron 2009 Delhi Round - Review

NTPC Electron was held this time around amidst a significantly larger participation from various colleges in and around Delhi. Although the number of engineering colleges was still few (around 4), there were still 48 teams from Management colleges, ensuring nearly double participation as compared to last year.

The QM was Ramya Mudaliar of 3XUS. Keeping in mind that last year’s event (Read review here and here) was a pretty run-of-the-mill business quiz, the expectations were not very high. But the quality of the quiz surprised quite a few and was highly appreciated by everyone. The prelims consisted of 25 questions which were mainly on business, current affairs and entertainment. Decently workable and interesting, and the kinds where you feel like kicking yourself upon hearing the answer.

The finals were short, with 3 direct-and-pass round and 2 buzzer rounds. The standard of the quiz was impressive, and most questions got the appreciation of the finalists as well as the audience. Although it started off as an evenly fought quiz, one of the teams from IMT Ghaziabad ran away into an unassailable lead after a few rounds.

High Points of the Quiz: Quality Questions, Great hospitality on the part of NTPC and PMI with free food and snacks, very good prizes, listening to NTPC's anthem.

The not-so-good part: Although both NTPC and 3xus were very professional in organizing the event, the only sore point was the refusal to disclose answers and cutoff prior to the start of the finals.

Finalists: 2 teams from IMT Ghaziabad, 2 teams from FMS, LBSIM and NSIT (Abhinav Ghosh and yours truly).

Teams to Qualify for the National Round: Both teams from IMT Ghaziabad and NSIT.

Some questions from the Prelims

1. ID the machine whose patent diagram was shown.
Bowling Pin Setup Machine

2. Company started in the 1930’s by a small time entrepreneur who saw an advertisement of a cigarette brand while itching for a smoke in a Bombay restaurant.
Camel Cigarettes ad, "I'd walk a mile for a camel" led to Camlin being named after it.

3. While Kishore Kumar won 5 filmfare awards for best male playback singer between 1980 and 1985, who won the 1982 Filmfare for best male playback singer?
Amit Kumar

4. First used in Kerala in 1982, machine consists of a control unit and processor. Utilizes a unique ID number to count and store the details. A red LED lights up after storing complete. Give funda.
EVM

5. Video of Dancing Queen, from Mamma Mia. ID the person with long hair playing the piano.
Benny Andersson

6. Launched on 26 July, 2009, certain tradition is followed in association to these ‘things’. Some Korean person was the protagonist of one such launch as well. What was launched and what is the tradition?
Launch of INS Arihant, Gursharan Kaur launched it. The naval tradition is that only a lady launches a warship. She was to break the coconut on the hull of the submarine.

7. Started by James Crossley in the 1850’s after finding sailors/seamen suffered from acidity.
Eno

8. Prancing horse: Ferrari :: Running Horse: _________
Eicher (Although Ford Mustang seemed a better answer)

9.'Its just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given than to explore the power they have to change it. It is not a fact. It’s an opinion. It is not a declaration. It’s a dare.’ What follows?
Impossible is Nothing

10. Connect














Galleon


11. ID Person and why was she in news?















Giselle Monteiro, Harleen Kaur in Love Aaj Kal.

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.

The Sweden India Nobel Memorial Quiz 2009

The Sweden India Nobel Memorial Quiz was held at IIT Delhi today. The Delhi round featured written prelims that saw 5 teams go through the finals. 3 other teams from Mumbai, Pune and Bangalore , who had qualified the respective regional rounds were also present for the finals.

The big revelation was that the quiz would be 7 rounds of general quizzing with only 3 rounds dedicated to the Nobel The prelims were a hurried affair with 30 questions, all spoken out by quizmaster Srinjoy Chowdhury and no coming back to questions. The finals were good, with some nice trivia questions.In the end, the team from NSIT ( myself, roshan and dernhelm ) won the quiz quite convincingly.

Sample Questions :

1) Anita and Arabella were 2 animals taken into space. For what purpose were they taken ?

2) Who is the only Wimbledon winner who was also engaged to a Wimbledon winner, but instead married a Playboy model ?

3) Mosammat Taslima Begum collected the Nobel Prize on the behalf of which Nobel Prize Winner ?

4 ) Which Indian Cricket Captain was born in Godhra ?

Answers :

1) These were spiders. They were taken to see whether spiders can spin a web in zero gravity.
2) Jimmy Connors
3) Grameen Bank [ Mohammad Yunus collected his half of the prize while the Begum collected it on behalf of Grameen Bank ]
4) Nari Contractor.

Sangita got all except the second.

Quiz Review : Rendezvous at IIT Delhi

Rendezvous , IIT Delhi's Fest was held from 24th-27th September. As part of the fest, there were 4 main quizzes ( Jeopardy, Sphinx, Kombat and Zoom-in ) as well as 4 theme based quizzes ( Movies, Sports, Lit and Fantasy and TV Shows ). Here is a report of the quizzes.

Jeopardy :

The quiz was hosted by Dr. Bhattacharya and Kunal Malhotra and saw a good mix of fairly easy as well as tough questions. The rules were such that the team that answered a question got to choose the next question ( upto a maximum of 3 times ) and this led to "scoring bursts" in the finals, where teams would sit idle for some time and then score 30-40 points in a burst, especially at the start of the quiz when the questions were easy. All agreed that the rules should be modified in the next edition to make the scoring a bit more evenly spread out in the quiz.

Sphinx :

Hosted by in-house quizzers, Sphinx was a decent quiz with a nice set of prelim questions. However, the same could not be said about the quizmasters, who made a no. of controversial decisions throughout the quiz. In the prelims, what exactly was reqd. as an answer was not specified explicitly on the slides, leading to some bit of confusion due to which a no. of teams lost marks for things they knew but did not write down. Also, one NSIT team had a question unchecked in their prelim sheet, which would have ensured that they qualified. When they came to the qm's to correct it, the qm's negated one of the their earlier corrected answers on the grounds of it not being worded correctly. This, I think, was a bit unethical to do.

In the finals, the qm's were openly partisan to all teams other than those who were leading the quiz. Whereas any of the answers sufficiently close to the actual answer was accepted from other teams, the leading teams were expected to give exact answers. This alone could be forgiven, but there were instances when the questions were modified impromptu to ensure that the leadng teams would not be able to give complete answers and would thus get only half points. Also, reversal of the infinite bounce order was not done at the half-way. That the eventual result of the quiz did not change despite all of the above was a thankful coincidence.

Kombat :

Arul Mani hosted Kombat, the open quiz. Though I did not attend it personally, from what I have heard, it was organised very professionally. Questions were a good mix of tough but interesting and workable questions.

Zoom In :

The quizmaster for Zoom In was thoroughly professional with the proceedings throughout. He was punctual and the quiz presentations were prepared well, without any glitches. The Quiz content too was pretty good and showed good effort on the part of the quizmaster. There were a couple of issues with the scoring though. I felt that the first round of identifying movie posters should not have had equal weightage as the rest of the questions. As a result, the team that scored the highest in this round remained in contention to win despite being the least scoring throughout the rest of the quiz. One of the questions was given more weightage than it deserved because teams answered it in part. A couple of decisions were controversial ( Quizmaster awarding points to a team when they said 'Code names for Unix,uh... Pass , er.... Ubuntu' whereas the answer was 'Code names for Ubuntu' ). At other times, teams were asked to explain their connects completely for points and not given any when they could not do so to the quizmaster's satisfaction.

The rest of the quizzes :

Were fairly decent and without too much incident. The TV Shows quiz saw a unique format where there were 6 categories and the individual toppers in each category as well as the overall 2 toppers went on into the finals.The Sports quiz too had a good set of questions. However, the quizzes were rather informal, some of the questions weren't well edited and some had to be scrapped because the answers were present in the questions itself.

All in all, Rendezvous was a mixed affair. There were more no. of quizzes, and a healthier participation in all quizzes. At the same time, not all quizzes could live upto the quality and professionalism generally seen in IIT's quizzes. I hope it will be better next year round.


PS : In an almost unnoticed incident, this blog has crossed the 100,000 mark !

Tata Crucible Campus Edition 2009 - Delhi Round

The Delhi round of Tata crucible saw nearly 275 teams turn up.

The prelims were a bit more on current affairs and random trivia, rather than standard business questions.  IMT Ghaziabad won the Delhi Round with considerable ease.

Giri was hitting some really legendary jokes. Sample this : 2 teams on the wildcard press the buzzer, before the one who's light is shining answers, the other team blurts out the answer . Giri looks at the other team, who answer the same and get points. When the guy from the team that shouted the answer exclaims that they pressed the buzzer , Giri quips " Many people send Valentine cards, only one gets married. " Again , when IMT Ghaziabad is on  a rampage, Giri exclaims " They are going like Virender Sehwag.[typical South Indian accent] Tu Daalega, Main Maarega. "

Here are the qs  [ Answers just below questions, highlight to reveal  ]

Prelims

1. Whose book is titled ' the story of my assassins' ?

Tarun Tejpal

2. logo of ?

Tetra Pak

3. Raju Narisetty has moved from The Wall Street Journal to which other big American Newspaper ?

Washington Post

4. The copyright on whose books ended in 2009 ?

Mahatma Gandhi

5. ad for ? [ This wasnt the ad shown, but the brand and the campaign is the same. ]

Coca Cola Little Drops of Joy Ad campaign.

6. which company had moved into sponsor Sri lankan Cricket Team after Dilmah backed off ?

Dialog Telecom

7. Who , along with Shilpa Shetty gained a share of Rajasthan Royals recently ?

Raj Kundra

8. Identify the person, has heavy investments in Sports and is also governor of Chukotka. 

Roman Abramovich

9. Which consulting firm has recently released an initiative to scrutinise company records for any malpractices ?

KPMG

10. Which famous actress, following her successful contribution to thwe AIDS campaign, has now been roped in for the Breast Cancer Awareness programme ?

Shabana Azmi

11. Identify the guy from Nike.

Phil Knight

12. Which company held a F1 promotion campaign recently on Rajpath. [ Is present in India ]

Renault

13. Which place has a state of the art rail coach factory and is better known recently for Sonia Gandhi- Mayawati standoff ?

Rae Bareilly

14. Which Newspaper is known for different timing than most dailies. [ their ad was shown, but cant find it ].

Mid Day

15. Captain Krishnan Nair is the head of which Indian Hotel Chain ?

Leela Group

16. Which famous Indian sports women will be endorsing a Herbal drink ?

Saina Nehwal

17. Logo of which group from Gujarat ?

Adani Group

18. Which sportsperson was removed by Kelloggs as its brand ambassador because of some disreputable action on his part ?

Michael Phelps 

19. Song-  'Masakali' . Identify the Producer.

Ronnie Screwvala

20. Ad for ? [Video of people playing hypothetical instruments, coupled with great sounds]

Bose Audio  

Cut off for Wildcards were said to be round about 13 and higher .

Wildcard Questions [ selected few ]

1. Company formed by Mamman Mapillai 

MRF

2. Company founded by a young doctor in Kolkata. 

Dabur

3. Who bought over Wall Street Journal recently.

Rupert Murdoch

4. Soap named after Turkish community bathrooms.

Hamam

5. 'To lay open' is Latin term . Known in English as ?

Patent

6. 1st product was Liquid Organic Cleaners 

Amway

7. Comapny name from anglicized form of Founder Matsuda.

Mazda

8. Double Helix is the logo of which Indian Company.

Biocon

9. American Messenger Service founded by Teenagers.

UPS

Finals

Round 1

1. Latin for ' Course of Life' / French for ' Summary'.

Curriculum Vitae/ Resume

2. Cant afford to  take you for granted. Cant afford to take it for granted. Cant afford dirty ashtrays, unwashed cars etc. Which famous ad ?

Avis Car Rentals ' We try Harder' ad.

3. 1st published from Naya Bazar in Delhi in 1946. What ?

Hindustan Times

4. Popular chain owned by ICBW Co-operative Society.

Indian Coffee House

5. Iridium consortium of sateelites was so name dbecause ?

77 satellites were supposed to be part of the consortium and Iridium has atomic number 77.

6. Bear who made short sells who cant meet commitments made on the sale. He is struggling like a ___________.

Lame Duck

Round 2

Identify:

1. Which organisation ?

Mozilla Foundation - Mitchell Baker 

2. Second man in sequence ?

Shah Rukh Khan. This is Paul Newman- Lux male ambassadors

3. Indian Designer, These were designed for which organisation ?

PETA - No Fur Campaign featuring Pamela Anderson. Designed by Rohit Bal.

4. Whose initiative ?

Jagdish Khattar.

5. Bombay DostMagazine, Publisher - Humsafar Trust. Whats special ? 

First Gay magazine.

6. Whats the funda ?

Google Page Rank

Round 3

Tata World

1. African Telecom major that had a stake bought by Tata.

Neotel

2. Vitax is a brand from which Tata company ?

Tata Tea

3. Under which name does Tata sell plywood ?

Conswood

4. Smart Basics, Help Yourself.

Ginger hotels

Round 4

Connect

1.  Kapil Dev, Zee Network, Glucose-D, 'Disco Dancer' Song

ICL - Kapil Dev founded, Zee shows matches, Mithun Owns a stake.

2. Parineeta Song, Shiv Nadar, UPS, L & T

Toshiba - vidya Balan, earlier L & T computers, HCL is Indian Distributor and UPS Worldwide distributor.

3. Flyte, (1/2) mv^2 , Mahindra, Ride the change, Beedi jalaile song

Kinetic - Bipasha Basu ambassador, Kinetic Energy, and bought by Mahindra.

4. Cluv Spice, Force 10, Pretty Woman song, Funda mint, Sonba

Godfrey phillips - Preity Zinta ambassador, and other Godfrey Phillips brands.

Round 5

1. Concept formalised first in 1978 - Delhi Metro

2. Originally formed in 1891, gave away baking powder with their products. - Wrigley's

3. Created by Col. Needham - IMDB

Good hospitality shown by the Taj, though it seemed a bit over crowded.  All in all, standard Crucible fare like every year.