IIM-B Vista Open

20071014@IIM-Bangalore

Clipped and Collected from Kerala Quizzers orkut community.

Lloyd

Harsha Bhogle @IIM-B

Last Sunday Me,Thomas (Ex TKM) & Prashanth (Ex CET) gatecrashed into IIM-B for 'Quizzard' which was part of 'Vista' the annual IIM-B business fest. The Quiz as always started late, Written prelims of 35 qns after which 6 teams made it through to the finals... As always we 3 were left high & dry thinking about the near misses we had or what could have happened if we had written the first guess kinda thing... This normally happens when u don't qualify and mind u its a tough field out here.. KQA veterans were all there plus some QFI imports from Chennai made it even more tougher. The QM was Harsha Bhogle,Questions were set by Anustup of KQA, Harsha was at his best in enthralling the audience with his quick wit and one liners, but at times he failed to impress. The setting for the Quiz was superb except the Buzzer - as always it malfunctioned a la Wardrobe malfunctioning which has become too common nowadays the latest star being Potter aunt JK Rowling....

The saddest thing about the Quiz is only 2 Mallus were on stage, One being our evergreen Anil Sir and his partner Jayadev who is a NRK, their team performed creditably and won the 3rd spot (Anil Sir had to leave after 2 rounds to catch the 9.45pm train to Cochin) Seeing people like Anil Sir & Arul Mani I always feel that most of us should be ashamed at the fact that we don't even have 10% of the enthusiasm that they have, For every KQA quiz Arul would be the first one to arrive on his Activa and from organizing to conducting to participating he is always there, Muslims go to Mecca for Hajj once a year but for Anil Sir Bangalore is Mecca and participating in Quizzes is a Hajj that he performs once a month, that's the spirit...

The Quiz was a memorable event and as expected was won by Arul,Uduppa combo, Infosys was 2nd Anil Sir's team led by Jayadev came third and Swami's QFI team came fourth - seeing Swami coming fourth was like watching the Aussies losing a Cricket match. For questions & a review keep checking Thomas's blog - http:oraclique.blogspot.com.

Anil

Part of the questions were set by Gopal kidao another mallu who is a mainstay of QED.Questions,presentation,ambience,audience&everything was right.I still feel kicking myself for leaving early which contributed to my team ICNH finishing third.the first two teams had cash 30000inr&20000inr.we got 3k worth vanheusen vouchers.5pts&a middle aged guy who booked a ticketback robbed the team of 20k but we have the honour of surpassing QED with swami,jayakantan&sumo one of the veryfew todo this in the past 5years.
Let me also mention that Thomas won an audience prize for cracking the dream scene from wildstrawberries(bergman).And gracias,lloyd for bringing the news across

Thomas

review

it was a fantastic quiz. the quality of the questions, the entertainment factor, everything was superb. one of the highlight was harsha bhogle telling anil's team that they needed to "insert" it better, when testing out the buzzers! ... for those not in the know anil's team in bangalore is called insert cool name here)... harsha said he would add it to the list of worst things he has ever said onstage in his life...

anil had to catch a train and hence left after the first onstage round... too bad they were not allowed a substitute! they lost out only in the final round... called derailer... interesting because of the "rail" angle ;-) the team had already been derailed once!

sorry that i have not yet updated my blog with the questions (hope prasanth can send them across, i didn't note anything) and opinions... was busy at work this week... there were quite a few trivia gems.. the quizicians didn't disappoint!

yeah i got an audience prize and also made some cool cracks in the prelims... it was an enjoyable and memorable outing despite the fact that we didn't qualify... i also made what qualifies as my super blooper... wrote "lighthouse of alexandria" instead of "library of alexandria"! :-)

TRIVIA BITES
(Waiting for inputs from Prashanth)

Queuriestu - III

hi

Here's the third instalment of Queuriestu. Questions are simpler (I hope) this time around.

Read between the lines and think out of the box. Hope you enjoy cracking this set.

Cover me in replies, drown me slowly!

Answers next Friday.

luv

sonofdelphi

http://oraclique.blogspot.com

----------------------------------------

QUEURIESTU - III

We Can Work It Out

----------------------------------------

1. Won't blame you if you can't understand this. What word is derived from French for the twittering

noises made by birds?

*

2. Anyone can answer this one. What were the names of the tunnels built for/in The Great Escape?

*

3. A heady mix of current affairs and trivia. This chimpanzee was taught sign language and was named

after the person recently voted the world's top living intellectual. Give me the name...of the chimpanzee.

*

4. A typical, 'character'istic connection question. Connect Orson Welles, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

and Lee Falk.

*

5. The logo of which company, a major star of the day, is formed by its name being interleaved four

times in a circular fashion?

*

6. What was Linus Torvald's planned name for Linux? Free something, you say, cryptically.

*

7.If an aye-aye is a kind of monkey and beri-beri is a vitamin deficiency disease...,

who or what is an atlatl?

*

8. What did Hermann Rorschach, the Swiss psychiatrist, invent/create? What did you say that was?

*

9. Ozzy, anyone? What is the Osborne effect?

*

X. As far as currencies go, what is peculiar about the Mauritanian Ouguiya and Madagascar's

Ariary? The clue is that this question is inappropriately numbered!

*

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shamelessly Me

-----------------------------

Getting lonely in blogosphere...

No one visits, my worst fear

Do you my desperate plea hear?

Won't you,my dear, please come here?

Please do visit my blogs and comment.

Choose your poison(s)!

:-)

Musings - http://incubbator.blogspot.com - Hatching Zone For Ideas

Literary - http://cubbspace.blogspot.com - The Last Resort Of An Unpublished Author

Quizzing - http://oraclique.blogspot.com

Programming - http://oozone.blogspot.com

Publishing's gone to the dogs
Nowadays everybody just blogs.
Words and ideas the blogger bleeds
Nonsense spewing out at insane speeds
Who cares? Anyway, nobody reads!

- Thomas Jay Cubb

hi

Here are the answers to Queuriestu - III.

Not too many responses :-(

Perhaps I should not have opined that this was an easy set...it seemed it was not!

>> Questions are simpler (I hope) this time around.

Hope for a better response next time around.

luv

sonofdelphi

http://oraclique.blogspot.com

----------------------------------------

QUEURIESTU - III

We Can Work It Out

----------------------------------------

1. Won't blame you if you can't understand this. What word is derived from French for the twittering

noises made by birds?

* Jargon

Very few people got this one. Gibberish was a very appropriate guess, though incorrect.

2. Anyone can answer this one. What were the names of the tunnels built for/in The Great Escape?

* Tom, Dick and Harry

Anyone. Get it?

3. A heady mix of current affairs and trivia. This chimpanzee was taught sign language and was named

after the person recently voted the world's top living intellectual. Give me the name...of the chimpanzee.

* Nim Chimpsky was the name of the chimpanzee

Many of you worked it out to Noam Chomsky, but I'd specifically asked for the name of the chimp.

+I - Wikipedia has an article about Nim. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nim_Chimpsky

4. A typical, 'character'istic connection question. Connect Orson Welles, Samuel Taylor Coleridge

and Lee Falk.

* The connection is Xanadu. Have given points to all answers with this word.

They all created characters (so it was a character-istic connect) who lived in Xanadu. Coleridge

wrote Kubla Khan, an epic ode to the real-life Mongol conqueror, who lived in Xanadu. Lee Falk

created Mandrake (he created Phantom too), who lived in Xanadu. Charles Foster Kane, the hero

of Orson Welles's classic Citizen Kane, also gave his residence the same name.

5. The logo of which company, a major star of the day, is formed by its name being interleaved four

times in a circular fashion?

* Sun, the only star of the day :-), Microsystems

+I - SUN - stands for Stanford University Networks

+I - Such symbols are called ambigrams

6. What was Linus Torvald's planned name for Linux? Free something, you say, cryptically.

* Linus wanted to name his Freax !

Working the clue out: Free X (Something) and reading it aloud. Juvenile.

+I - He chose this after his friend Ari Lemmke gave him a directory called Linux because he didn't like

the name Freax. Who would have!

+I - He wanted to modify Andrew Tanebaum's Minix initially but was not allowed to. Check out my short

poem about it from http://oozone.blogspot.com/2005/11/heart-for-gnu.html

7.If an aye-aye is a kind of monkey and beri-beri is a vitamin deficiency disease...,

who or what is an atlatl?

* An atlatl is a type of primitive weapon - a kind of spear-thrower

Precursor to the bow and arrow?

8. What did Hermann Rorschach, the Swiss psychiatrist, invent/create? What did you say that was?

* Inkblot test

Where they show you weird pictures and ask "What do you think that is?". Have seen this only in

movies.

+I - Also known as TAT - Thematic Apperception Test

9. Ozzy, anyone? What is the Osborne effect?

* Loss of sales for a company's current product because of the company's yet-to-be-launched

new product.

Apple might just have done it - with their announcement of Intel Apple PCs...Microsoft keeps doing

it, but is lucky, every time!

+I - It is named for Adam Osborne; his company which went bankrupt after he announced the

Osborne-II computer.

+I - Adam Osborne died in Kodaikanal in 2003, which is when I first heard about him

QM: Apologies for the misleading Ozzy allusion! ;-) Oh pedantic me, but it is Ozzy Osbourne,

not Osborne.

X. As far as currencies go, what is peculiar about the Mauritanian Ouguiya and Madagascar's

Ariary? The clue is that this question is inappropriately numbered!

* These don't follow the decimal system.

+I - 1 Ouguiya = 5 Khoums

+I - 1 Ariary = 5 iraimbilanja.

(I've already forgotten!)

+I - Madagascar only recently changed its currency from the Malagasy Franc.

+I - Iraimbilanja means "one iron weight"

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CURIOUSEST! - Enjoyable attempts

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. On Jargon

Gibberish (Was very popular)

2. On Tom, Dick and Harry

Jane Doe and John Doe.

X and Y

Any And One

3. On Nim Chimpsky

Noam Chimpsky

7. On Atlatl

Albino monkey with vitamin-deficiency

Inca headgear

9. On Osborne effect

An irresistible urge to eat live bats!

X. On Ouguiya/Ariary

Have odd numbered notes, like a 9 ouguiya note

The coins are all crosses (Xs)

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SCORES (chronological, quiznetimal numbering)

----------------

1. Dinesh Krithivasan - 4 (Fantabulous tries, early bird!)

2. Vivek Krishnan - 3 (Thanx for the extra info)

3. My Quizbox - 3 (No clue as to ur name!)

4. Srikanth Madani - 4.5 (Missed out on number-base)

5. Dijo - 1 (Minix was Tanenbaum's OS)

6. Kamal Rathi - 3 (Not B&A exactly, but OK)

7. Nishanth - 2 (Cool tries)

8. Vaibhav Devanathan - 2 (First to jargon)

9. Balasubramanian K.A - 9 (Fantastic)

X. Abid EH - 2.5 (Half for mandrake and chomsky together)

Y. Ranjith Kumar - 3.5 (Imaginative work on the connect and chimp)

Z. Rachana Parmar - 5 (Good effort)

A. Venkateshwar KR - 1 ( Entertaining as always)

B. Shashwat Quiz - 8 (Solid)

C. Anish Babu - 1 (Good attempts)

Landmark Open Chennai 2007

The Chennai leg of the Landmark 2007 was conducted by Dr. Naveen Jayakumar at the Music Academy on 15Aug07. The turnout was huge and the auditorium was jam-packed, to witness the landmark quizzing event of the year. Please also check the following links for other reports:
Wenkey
Inquizition
Hindu

The prelims on the first listen, I mean while writing the answers, seemed to be pretty decent. But in retrospect, only the first 30 questions or so seem to pass muster. Hindsight is 30/40! :-) There was an unnatural bias towards Harry Potter in the set of Qs (3+ out of 40; am complaining even though we got all of them), many were arbitrarily worded (avarahonam) or dead giveaways (one Q was even a repeat from the Odyssey event) and hence non-competitive; it was all in all an uneven spread. The cut-off was way too high, 30+/40, I have reason to believe, and would have been OK only if the quality/standard was uniform throughout.

Personal. Participated as the Borobodur Orangutans - Sreeram, Prasanth & me. DNQ. Usual story! :-( Managed to predict quite a few questions in the prelims and still did not qualify! Also ended up with a bout of Chennai-belly... Was a bad outing, all round.

The final round was not so great either. Not much substance (nothing to note!) and hence I left early. Usually I stay till the end, if only because I have traveled all the way to participate. The questions were rather stale, many seemed to have been left-overs from the 2006 quizzing season! Most of the current-affairs questions were based on early, mid 2006 stuff.

There was a high level of arbitness felt in some of the Qs (possibly because of the staleness factor) mentioned above. One of the teams even resorted to answering "Michael Jackson" based answers for all Qs that came to them - just because of a monstrously horrendous and banal connection question. And the answer to one of the questions which captured everyone's imagination, dendronautics was answered incorrectly and still given points. The team had answered something to the effect of "tree climbing" when the answer was morel like "study of vegetation according to height"!

The questions in the quizzer of the year round also was of non-uniform standard. Some of the participants had it real easy while some had it real tough. Of course, luck is a factor and also, this is a subjective opinion, but this was the general impression left behind.

In my opinion, it was a disappointing show, a let-down compared to the Odyssey Open in January 2007 held at the same venue.

QED from Chennai, the crowd-favourites won again, as other reports tell me. Some fun team names as well, "Cheque De", "Eternal Moonshine Of The Spotless Behind", "Munnabhai and the Jacky Sparrows" etc

The organizers could have made (and should in future make) better use of the computer during the registration stages in order to minimize the chaos that prevailed just before the prelims. Online registration/seating reservations for outstation teams would have been really cool.

Trivia Bytes
---------------
(prelims, thanx to prasanth for jogging my memory)
01. Wolf in Norse mythology. Harry Potter - Fenrir (cracked with Norse not HP cue!)
02. Movie clip --> Harry Potter and Dolores Umbridge
03. Visual Of - The Deathly Hallows
04. Kalashnikov most famous model - 1947
05. Philippines national flower - Jasmine
06. Avarohanam -> Avatar (abstrusely worded)
07. Origin of rivers - Manasarovar
08. Dalai Lama Nobel Prize - Gandhi
09. Only Non-Indian Bharat Ratnas - Nelson Mandela, Khan Abdul Gafar Khan
10. 1991 book - Generation X
11. Etymology. Asterix cue . - Font
12. Only bulletproofable car in India - Ambassador
13. Countries with Square flags - Vatican, Switzerland
14. Visual. Pale Blue Dot.
15. Predicted by Mendeleev - Technetium
16. Ekta Kapoor. Non 'K' film - Shootout at Lokhanwala
17. Question that has to be answered in Parliament - Starred question (This was a nice one)
18. Rearview mirror (Odyssey repeat)
19. Magnetic North Pole, GPS (Have disagreement about this one)
20. Named after son of Vayu - Maruti
21. Student body with certification -
22. AR Rahman song used for - Taj promotion (Predicted Q!)
23. Visual of stained glass in study - Venn diagram (another beauty)
24. Robinson Crusoe Island (Has become a chestnut!)
25. Types of webs

(Please check the other links for a better version of the questions)

Queuriestu - II

hi
Welcome to Queuriestu 2. The TUTU edition? :-)
Took longer and had more fun than expected, framing this set of questions. Hope you enjoy it.
Answers next week.
luv
sonofdelphi
http://oraclique.blogspot.com

------------------------------
QUEURIESTU
We Can Work It Out
-------------------------------
Q1. Eunoia is a rarely used (you know, yeah!) term denoting a normal mental state. Root words: Eu + nous = good thinking. What's special about this word? Eminently guessable, analyze the word.
A:

Q2. Tintin was created by...everybody knows...Herge. His real name was...wait, I'll say it...Georges Remi. The question is, why Herge?
A:

Q3. You will miss this most queuriest question for sure. :-) After whom (that's correct, not who) is the unit for radioactivity named?
A:

Q4. Symbolic question. Led Zeppelin's first three studio albums were called I, II and III. Though their fourth was untitled, LZ-IV was known by another name. Gimme the name ????
A:

Q5. Which organization(?)'s name is derived from a corruption of the Greek word for circle? Don't be klueless, rounding up was one of their activities!
A:

Q6. What was peculiar about Australian fast bowler Merv Hughes's hat-trick against the West Indies in the late 1980s?
A:

Q7. Question 007. Which was the last James Bond movie with its title the same as an Ian Fleming work? Cryptic Clue: Vital shy gin delight - shaken, not stirred
A:

Q8. Googleable. Who or what is a sabra?
A:

Q9. Never mind your score in Queuriestu, but if you got an Apgar score of zero, what'd you probably be?
A:

QX. Fill in the blank. Heaven (Christian):Pearly Gates:: Valhalla: _______ .
A:

ANSWERS

hi

Just remembered that I'd forgotten to say when I would send in the answers.I decided two days after the last reply trickled in would mean it was about time. The list stopped at P. So, here are the answers.
Tough set this was, I guess. (Presented this set to crack, I would have scored 3...max) Bubbli and Venkateshwar, who attempted all the questions in the true spirit of Queuriestu, get special mentions.
Not many people spotted the anagram in question 007- VITAL SHY GIN DELIGHT shaken and stirred will give you the name of the movie (3,6,9). Take another shot at (of?) it before you scroll down.

luv
sonofdelphi
http://oraclique.blogspot.com

------------------------------
QUEURIESTU - II
We Can Work It Out
-------------------------------
Q1. Eunoia is a rarely used (you know, yeah!) term denoting a normal mental state. Root words: Eu + nous = good thinking. What's special about this word? Eminently guessable, analyze the word.
A: It is the shortest word that contains all the vowels.
+I: Mozambique also contains all the vowels
+I: Abstemious, Facetious contain all the vowels in alphabetical order

Q2. Tintin was created by...everybody knows...Herge. His real name was...wait, I'll say it...Georges Remi. The question is, why Herge?
A: Herge is the French pronunciation of "R.G.", the author's initials in reverse order.
Confession: I'd read this somewhere. l still don't know how to pronounce it. :-)

Q3. You will miss this most queuriest question for sure. :-) After whom (that's correct, not who) is the unit for radioactivity named?
A: (Question cancelled)
I lost my footing on the framing of this one. Points for everyone.
What I had meant to ask was: You will 'miss' this most queuriest question for sure. After whom was the unit of radioactivy, curie named? There is a controversy regarding whether it was Pierre Curie or after both the Curies. The answer I wanted was Pierre Curie, and why I had said you would 'miss' this for sure... (+I http://www.orau.org/ptp/articlesstories/thecurie.htm - note "named after the late Prof. Curie")
The controversy was the reason why I had asked the question in the first place, but forgot to include the curie bit! :-) It was intended as a curious, 'curie'ous, queurious question....
+I Becquerel - is the SI unit of radioactivity. Named after Henri Becquerel
+I Roentgen Equivalent Man - named after Wilhelm Roentgen
But in any case, I'd like to make a comment here - when the name of a person is asked, and is the same as the unit, please mention the name of the person not just his/her surname. I got many answers of just "Curie" - which Curie?

Q4. Symbolic question. Led Zeppelin's first three studio albums were called I, II and III. Though their fourth was untitled, LZ-IV was known by another name. Gimme the name ????
A: Zoso
The album cover had only symbols (runes?) and one of the symbols (picked by Jimmy Page, the guitarist) vaguely resembled the English spelling Z-O-S-O.
+I This was never endorsed by the band members though.

Q5. Which organization(?)'s name is derived from a corruption of the Greek word for circle? Don't be klueless, rounding up was one of their activities!
A: Ku Klux Klan.
Klue was the direct clue, the Klan introduced the k-spelling corruption in many words. Also, the Klan did round up and lynch blacks.

Q6. What was peculiar about Australian fast bowler Merv Hughes's hat-trick against the West Indies in the late 1980s?
A: The three wickets came in three different overs!
Last ball of one over, first ball of next to end the first innings and first ball of second innings.
+I: Courtney Walsh also had a hat-trick across two innings in the previous Test but it came in two overs.
+I: Best ever bowling figures for Australia - 9/121 AA Mailey v England at Melbourne, 4th Test, 1920/21

Q7. Question 007. Which was the last James Bond movie with its title the same as an Ian Fleming work? Cryptic Clue: Vital shy gin delight - shaken, not stirred
A: The Living Daylights
Anagram of VITAL SHY GIN DELIGHT. Shaken and stirred was probably a better anagram indicator from a crossword point of view, but shaken not stirred was better from the quizzing point of view. I made my pick when at the crossroads.
+I Living Daylights was a short story by Ian Fleming

QM: None of Pierce Brosnan's Bond movies were bonafide Ian Fleming novels. Anyways, he never played cards (baccarat) with the villain in his movies, hence some charm was lacking afaiac...

Q8. Googleable. Who or what is a sabra?
A: A sabra is a native-born Israeli.
QM: Googleable was a red herring to throw you off your tracks. Maybe you should just have looked it up in your dictionary or encyclopaedia!!! ;-)
+I - Sabra liqueur is a famous chocolate liqueur from Israel (Hadn't known this)
+I - Sabra also seems to be the name of a mutant Israeli with superhuman powers in Marvel Comics (Courtesy Mayura). QM: The names of comic characters often go a long way in increasing your QQ (Quizzing Quotient).

Q9. Never mind your score in Queuriestu, but if you got an Apgar score of zero, what'd you probably be?
A: Dead or seriously unhealthy.
Apgar score is a rating given as an estimation of the health of a newborn baby. If you geta zero, you are, most probably, done for!
QM: When you google, google deep! - TJ

QX. Fill in the blank. Heaven (Christian):Pearly Gates:: Valhalla: _______ .
A: Valgrind
In Norse mythology, it is the name of the entrance to Valhalla.
+I: It is pronounced val- grinned, not grind
+I: It is a software tool on Linux, the documentation of which is where I picked this piece of trivia
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
CURIOUSEST! - Enjoyable attempts
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rotary Club (QM: was expected)
A Jew who is a Mossad mole in hiding
Helen of Troy
Banquet Hall
European union
Master at wielding the sabre
Odin's arms
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
SCORES (chronological, quiznetimal numbering)
----------------
1. Rajkamal Vasu - 5 (Good work on the anagram)
2. Dijo - 4 (Yeah, I have read the book)
3. Rajesh Raghavan - 3 (Enjoyable effort)
4. Anurag Singh - 3 (You got a point for the wild guess too!)
5. Bubbli - 5.5 (Attempted all the Qs, way to go! 0.5 for zoFo)
6. Varun Reddy - 4 (Newborn yes, but dead too. 3 separate overs)
7. Shashi Prakash - 5.5 (Didn't know about drink)
8. Rajesh Mohan - 5 (Klan)
9. Manu S Madhav - 2 (More attempts please)
X. Minhaj Alam - 5 (Nice to see you back)
Y. Prasanna Shankar - 4 (Two 0.5s in there)
Z. Santanu Dey - 4.5 ('e' comes before 'u' ;-)
A. Abhirup Ganguly - 3 (Good work on eunoia)
B. Himanshu Sapra - 1 (One on One)
C. Barb Rose Mayura- 5.5 (Thanx for all the extra info)
D. Prateek Vijayavargia - 5 (100% strike rate)
E. Prakash Swaminathan - 2 (Good working out, but two answers not specific enough)
F. Abid EH - 2 (Placements over?)
G. Mamatha Balasubramanian - 4 (Call it cues!)
H. Dinesh Krithivasan - 6.5 (Great show)
I. Srikanth - 2 (Two out of one!)
J. Samrat Sengupta - 3 (Missed shortest word)
K. Sushant Raut - 3.5 (Qurie :D Me2)
L. Nishad Manerikar - 2 (Good attempts)
M. PG G - 3 ( This line reads like a video file extension. Pray, expand ur name :-)
N. Shashwat Bhattacharya - 4 (It was not best ever figures for Australia, I could think of Shane Warne's best - 8 for 71)
O. Venkateshwar KR - 2.5 (Enjoyable as usual)
P. Ranjith Kumar - 5 (I picked up Apgar from you, remember? Back in Trivandrum?)

ASKQANCE 2007

REVIEW
--------------
Arul Mani was the QM for this one. There were a couple of other quizzes organized on the same occasion which I did not attend. The prelims was decent enough and the finals were OK. Cannot recall much more, writing this after a gap of nearly 2 months now.

You can read more about the event here http://kqaquizzes.org/2007/07/05/kqa-xxiv-anniversary/

PERSONAL
---------------
Team: Past Blast Masters (Lloyd, Ramdas, Prasanth & TJ) DNQ by a longish margin.

TRIVIA BITES
-----------------
Lazarus gena
Date given - Gavrilo Princip Bridge
Mary Quant - Mini Cooper car, mini-skirt
French Somaliland - Djibouti
Ra I & II - Thor Heyerdahl expeditions
Multiskins
Baptism, Miracle at Cana, Magi - Theophanies
Castle of Otranto - Gothic literature
Binney & Smith => Crayola
Oracle of delphi - gases
General Tapioca vs Alcazar (Tintin) - Shown pic of tapioca and a castle
Bread fruit, Jack fruit
Rashomon - Japanese map with gates
Battle of Armageddon
Salt Castle - Salzburg
On the banks of Vistula - Warsaw
Liverbird
European capital outside Europe - 1816-1822 - Rio de Janeiro (of Portgual)

KQA Mahaquizzer 2007

The Bangalore leg of the Mahaquizzer 2007 competition was organized by the KQA at the ITC campus on Sunday. The exam(!) was administered simultaneously in 9 other cities. It was, for the most part, a great set of questions. The general opinion it was much better than those in the previous editions.

There were 150 questions to answer in 90 minutes' time. Anustup Datta top-scored with 67 points for Bangalore. I hear the national top was 71 (in Chennai). The official results and answers will be put up on the KQA blog soon. Sreeram, my friend in Chennai scored 46, he told me. The topper in Kerala was Harikrishnan with 51.

It was an enjoyable outing for me, was writing anything resembling an examination after a gap of nearly 4 years! I managed to scored 34 points out of 150 (as per my count,the cursory in-situ evaluation put me at 30; the vagaries of evaluation!). After the unofficial results were announced, Praveen, Sai, Vivek and I headed to Mangalore Pearl, a restaurant in Fraser Town, for a pork-fest!

Kudos to the KQA for a job well done!

----------------------------------------------------
TRIVIA BYTES
(110/150, watch the KQA site for full detail E&OE)
----------------------------------------------------
* 1992 Bharat Rana sent by registered post - Maulana Abul Kalam Azad
* Fruit "song of the wolf" - Cantaloupe
* Greek for hatred and cold - Styx
* Camphiris, used to dye nails of mummies - Henna
* Popeye Bulge
* Impurity list 1881 - Ivory Soap
* Two word term coined in 90s book about sleep - Power Nap
* City of Angels soundtrack, Greek Rainbow - Iris
* Kumbha mela modern => Harsha Vardhana
* Obituary 1975 misquote Shakespeare - Hercule Poirot
* Banks list. - highest altitude ATM
* Adult reproductive stage - Imago
* Island listing - Galapagos
* Julius Caesar Burial. Inspiration for Roman history book - The Forum
* Plane Mosquito aviation company - De Havillan
* Jagmohan Mundra
* Spy - Nana Phadnawis
* Number of horses > number of people - Mongolia
* SI unit of charge Coulomb. CGS - Coulomb
* 1951 case. Somebody vs State of Madras - First Constitutional Amendment
* Samuel Rubin. Paris brothers - Faberge
* Stuff about pigs and fences! Erinaceous - Hedgehog
* Brazil rock formation - Pao de Pizugur
* Mnemonic to remember speed of light. How? - Using telephonic keypad
* Somebody - Indy500 founder
* Trained to catch fish - Cormorants
* 1851 book by inventor Elastic - Charles Goodyear
* John McDermot won the first. Dominated by Kenyans - Boston Marathon
* BOMIS, beard award - Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia
* Assistant of Robert Koch - Petri dish
* Sage curse Brahma not to be worshipped anywhere - Bhrigu
* Apple software to convert to Intel - Rosetta
* Uluru Ayers Rock
* Expulsion list. Missing two name - The Grimm Brothers
* Name inspired by "And Quiet Flows The Don" - Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hain
* First reality show - Candid Camera
* Only mineral to be directly consumed by humans - Rock salt (The only shocker!)
* Hypothetical landmass, Roman May 7,9,11 - Lemuria
* Ethnical classification of idiocy - trisomy of Chromosome 21 - Mongoloidism (Down's syndrome)
* Father son duo. Father => Country - Israel and Judah
* Plant response imitation of animal - Mimosa
* Heal-all, trifoliate and five-foliate = Ginseng
* Iranian capture of British soldiers. Look like - Mister Bean
* Hurakan
* Resident of Spain, highest civilian honour - Vishwanathan Anand
* Name of character - Godot
* 1988 Nobel Peace Prize - UN Peacekeeping Force
* Saka, Kollam etc out of 29 used in India- Calendar
* Debonair founder, Illustrated Weekly - Ashok Rao Gavi
* Manufacturer of golf-clubs and tennis racquets. All England sponsor - Yonex
* Pierre De Coubertin introduced. skills needed by soldier to escape - Modern Pentathlon
* Oldest in Pirelli calendar - Sophia Loren
* River in Himalaya, Karnataka, character in Matrix Reloaded (4) - Kali
* Fallen Soldier Robert Capa photo
* Complete - Gambia, Niger, Nigeria, Congo - Senegal (rivers too)
* Islamic earthquake, also late 80s Hindi movie - Zalzala
* Hong Kong star "what Hollywood aspires" - Jackie Chan
* First Indian woman historian - Gulbadan Begum
* Former Belgian Grand Prix, health location - Spa
* Only trophy with names of all winners and management. Everybody gets to keep - Stanley Cup
* Movie called US warfare against Iran - 300
* Hungarian scientist coined "chain reaction" ~= Geo Lillard
* brother of famous person. built platform nations - Ernest Hemingway
* Persepolis ruins
* Named after Japanese steaks - Kobe Bryant (My only real miss!)
* Duel description - Alexander Pushkin
* Sanam - Idol in Arabic, Majrooh Sultanpuri popularized
* Golden flower Chinese movie - Chrysanthemum
* Photography story - Great Wall Of China
* Norwegian for destruction - Lemming
* editor of Esquire 2004, to become smartest man - Read entire Britannica
* Building, blending etc - Cocktails
* Locarnot - place where seven treaties were signed
* Lingua franca
* Oxford Cambridge boat race
* Missing movie 1939 - Wizard Of Oz
* Lumbar puncture, name of movie - Spinal Tap
* Handheld camera pioneered by Elvis => series (first 1989) - MTV Unplugged
* How to play lyre brother - Mercury and Cadatius
* Australian dollar, main city, no capital - Nauru
* Coined by Desmond Tutu at end of apartheid - Rainbow Nation
* Pilomotor reflex, 62-book horror series - Goosebumps
* Legumes name and music band former name given - Black Eyed Peas
* Company identity something. Used seasonally in India, Africa (worldwide) - Election Ink
* Format wider than tabloid - Berliner
* Vishwesarayya - "useless" - Jog Falls
* Tuartara
* Updike poem No French movie without _______ - Depardieueu (I wrote an Eiffel-tower-view!)
* Description of game - Quoits
* US National Monuments founding story
* Tributary of Colorado - Gila
* Superiority, Satisfaction, Incongruity - Smiling
* White House Design
* Steven Soderbergh - 1986 rock documentary
* Largest plant seed- Double coconut
* Plaster of Paris
* Debut in Perfect Murder - Daughter of Saeed and Madhur Jaffrey
* Brief bio - Mohsin Hameed
* Newest Independent Caribbean - St. Kitts & Nevis
* 1935 Nobel, took on wife's name - Frederic Joliot-Curie
* Theodore Roosevelt first US prez out of country - Panama
* Capybara - eaten in Venezuela, fo hide elsewhere
* according to different myths - Fire
* Battle Royale movie based on - The Lord Of The Flies
* Actor debut in 1975 Kannada movie, never in mother-tongue - Rajni Kant
* Waverly by Walter Scott
* Daredevil needs a female - Frank Miller, Elektra
* Four Quarter - Inca
* Yellow fever nursery rhyme => Jack Be Nimble
* Egyptian god, ram head - Ammon
* Blue Stone Excrement - Spirulina

Queuriestu - I

Queuriestu, was another series of quizzes that I ran on Quiznet. Not successful as the previous series "Queuriest", due to different reasons, but I think this was the tougher of the two. Running this series also helped me stay in touch. I was in quizzing wilderness from 2003 to 2006; this series helped me a lot.
-----------------------------------

Hi all!
Old habits die hard. The Quiznet (and quizzing) habit of mine was almost well-and-truly dead! But then the quizzing motherlode pointed the way to the Young World quiz (as a spectator) and that inspired the resurrection, the Quizzerrection! :-) Have also rediscovered my crossword habit...
I name this series as Queuriestu (2)- after my old series on Quiznet, the cluesy (and classy as well I hope :-) Queuriest which I ran around two years back. "Quizzerrection" was probably a better name for this series as I can't guarantee that this will be in the Queuriest vein; this may not be QueuriesTWO exactly. But then I thought about the possible problems with spam filters and the like . :-)
I will try my best to live up to the name. I also hope that I will be able to maintain the momentum and keep going.
Shoot in your attempts ASAP. Answers and scores next Friday (promise)
// (emoticon I invented for "bye-bye") :-)
luv
sonofdelphi
http://oraclique.blogspot.com

------------------------------
QUEURIESTU
We Can Work It Out
-------------------------------

Q1. Let's start off with an ungoogleable (or is it ungooglable?) one. Gimme one word that describes the following formation.
x-----------x
|-----------|
|-----x-----|
|-----------|
x-----------x
(Hope this displays correctly. Anyway, it's supposed to be a rectangle with 'x's indicating things at the corner and the centre.)
A:

Q2. If you google, hitting below the belt, I hope you'll go straight to the foul bowl! But where are ice-hockey players (puckers!) sent for committing fouls?
A:

Q3. Anti-democracy statement: Not everyone is equal. What does the abbreviation YMMV stand for?
A:

Q4. Very literal one. Why is Cape Three Points, in the Gulf of Guinea, Ghana known as the `land nearest nowhere'?
A:

Q5. Rumble In The .... You've all heard it. Who or what is a borborygmus?
A:

Q6. Current affairs. Watergate. What was Deep Throat's real name? Cryptic Potter Clue: Possibly Death Eater Nixon's response to Voldemort's call.
A:

Q7. A bland, boaring question. To kill which demon did Vishnu take the avatar of Varaha?
A:

Q8. Computer programming trivia. What does a quine do? Goto Q8 and print it.
A:

Q9. Filler question. What's Japanese for "single number"?
A:

Q10. Let's round it off with this one. Forever with chuckers, cricket was never a gentleman's game. Who invented over-arm bowling?
A:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

ANSWERS

hi
Sorry for the delay. The promise of Friday was a promise broken. I apologize.
Anyways, here are the scores and answers.
Next set when the when the next set comes.... ASAP... :-)
luv
sonofdelphi
http://oraclique.blogspot.com

------------------------------
QUEURIESTU - I
We Can Work It Out
-------------------------------
Q1. Let's start off with an ungoogleable (or is it ungooglable?) one. Gimme one word that describes the following formation.
x-----------x
|-----------|
|-----x-----|
|-----------|
x-----------x
(Hope this displays correctly. Anyway, it's supposed to be a rectangle with 'x's indicating things at the corner and the centre.)
A: Quincunx
An extremely cool word to know. Starts with a Q and ends with an X! Maybe I should have given that as a clue. But that would have made it googleable.
Does ungoogleable = unsolvable? And does ungoogleable mean unattemptable???? There was just one attempt at cracking this - pentagram by SM.

Q2. If you google, hitting below the belt, I hope you'll go straight to the foul bowl! But where are ice-hockey players (puckers!) sent for committing fouls?
A: Sin-Bin
This was the preferred answer. Have given points to "Penalty Box" also. When there is "foul bowl" in the question, sin-bin is the better answer.

Q3. Anti-democracy statement: Not everyone is equal. What does the abbreviation YMMV stand for?
A: Your Mileage May Vary
Had a lot of responses to this one! Was fun to read.

Q4. Very literal one. Why is Cape Three Points, in the Gulf of Guinea, Ghana known as the `land nearest nowhere'?
A: Because it is the land nearest a location in the sea which is at 0 latitude, 0 longitude AND 0 altitude.
Most of you missed the altitude part. Half points for those who missed that.

Q5. Rumble In The .... You've all heard it. Who or what is a borborygmus?
A: Stomach fills the blank. The sound made by gas and fluid moving through the intestines.
No who answers...

5. Q6. Current affairs. Watergate. What was Deep Throat's real name? Cryptic Potter Clue: Possibly Death Eater Nixon's response to Voldemort's call.
A: (W) Mark Felt.
If you are a Potterhead, you didn't need to get the newspapers to get this one. The followers of Voldemort (Death Eaters) feel a mark burning! Thus, Mark Felt!
Some of you tried guessing the first name (incorrectly), In a quiz, any quiz, it is better to be incomplete than incorrect. Haven't penalized though.

Q7. A bland, boaring question. To kill which demon did Vishnu take the avatar of Varaha?
A: Hiranyaksha
+I: Bali or Mahabali was killed by Vishnu in his avatar as Vamana.

Q8. Computer programming trivia. What does a quine do? Goto Q8 and print it.
A: A quine is a program that prints itself.
If you follow the instruction in the question, you would have printed the question itself. The goto part was a red herring (QM blooper actually); not really needed.

Q9. Filler question. What's Japanese for "single number"?
A: Sudoku
The clue was in....Filler! Leave no word unread!
I don't think sudoku can be a replacement for crosswords. With crosswords, you can learn a lot from the answers and improve your vocabulary, but there are no such advantages with sudoku. It's hit-or-miss. Sudoku is a good timekiller though and leaves you feeling intelligent!

Q10. Let's round it off with this one. Forever with chuckers, cricket was never a gentleman's game. Who invented over-arm bowling?
A: Christina Willes.
I've given points for slight variations as well. The story, though, is apocryphal - rather dubious.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
CURIOUSEST! - Enjoyable attempts
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your movement is mainly in vain ;)
Not Greg Chappell
Eccentric? (x-centric)
You sail from there around the globe and reach the same place. nothing else in that latitude!
Pentagram
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

SCORES (chronological, quiznetimal numbering)
----------------
1. Sreeram - 4 (The Early Bird!)
2. Santanu Dey - 4 (Some half-points)
3. Rajesh Mohan - 1.5 (Yeah, I am the TKM guy)
4. Ranjith Kumar - 2.5 (You missed the altitude part)
5. Venkateswar KR - 5 (Superwittive effort as expected. You haven't changed one bit! :-) Thanks!)
6. Anirudh Batra - 1 (100% strike rate, but why don't you guess more?)
7. Anees Sekhar - 4 (Solid show)
8. Sushant Raut - 3.5 (Very enjoyable effort, Mr. X SentriK)
9. Vaibhav Devanathan - 3 (Almost missed ur answers because you left the numbers blank!)
X. Kumar Vaibhav - 9 (Superlative)
Y. Divya Kanal - 3.5 (.5 for omitting the term)
Z. Akshar Chandra - 3 (100% - bring down the percentage; more guesses please)
A. Abhishek Nigam - 1 (A sin-bin win!)
B. Anurag Singh - 4 (Fortune favours the guessers. Way to go, man!)
C. Sanjeev Mittal - 4 (Emphatic display. Was quine a guess? Superb)
D. Abid EH - 4 (Where are you now?)
E. Sandeep Unni - 4 (Good to see you back too!)
F. Abhishek D - 1 (Now you do know!)
G. Srikanth Madani - 1 (Great attempts. In the true spirit of quizzing)
H. Varun Reddy - 4 (Good effort)
I. Balasubramanian KA - 5 (Smooth sailing)
J. Mamatha Balasubramanian - (Hi there!)
K. Dijo - 1 (I Almost Missed It!)