This was a special quiz for us because Titash was making his debut or should I be saying "Dee butt", as a quizmaster in an Open quiz.
All of us turned up at the Starmark terrace on the 21st of March 2010 to sit for the prelims. Titash had finished conducting the Srijan Cyber quiz only a few hours ago. So he was a pretty busy QM.
The Sports quiz was jointly conducted by Titash & Gautam Ghosh. The prelims had 30 questions & I was delighted to see it focused not only on sports knowledge but also watching & closely following sports. I was sitting with Boss & Panda as the Potoldanga Thunder club (Original I should add) and we were in quite good form in the prelims. Unlike usual, we did not mess up anything we knew and scored 23 on 30 in the prelims. It was enough for top spot!
There were 6 teams in the finals with all the usual suspects. All pedigreed teams of high caliber.
Titash started off the quiz with a written round where we did not get full marks because we crossed off an answer we had written correctly. The question was who was declared the winner of the Tour de France after Floyd Landis was disqualified. The first thing that came to my mind was Oscar Perreira but for some reason I believed him to be a Sri Lankan cricketer and we crossed it off and went for Carlos Sastre.
The answer was of course Oscar Perreira.
Then the dry rounds started and we managed a few answers. The luck of the draw was kind to us and we got questions we knew the answers to. Mr. Ghosh was kind towards us on a couple of questions when he awarded us full points even though teams before us had given part of the answers correctly. We were very grateful.
In the second half of the quiz, Supratimda, Ashokda & Somnathda's team were at par with us, jointly in the lead, as we went into a theme round by Titash.
Fortunately for us they jumped the gun early and received negative points. Everyone cracked the theme later on but the negative cost them dearly.
After that round we were again fortunate as we received a couple of sitters to stay just 5 points ahead of Supratimda & Co.
The last round was a topic round with more points going on passes than directs.
But thankfully the first 4 questions were all answered by the team below the top two.
Then it all boiled down to the last 2 questions. They took the topic "Miscellaneous" and received a toughie! It was a question on fishing which no one answered. We took the topic "Sporting deals" and were asked a very workable question.
It was about Beckham signing a multimillion dollar contract to publicize the London Olympics and about bringing him back from LA Galaxy. We were asked who the person was and from where was he to be brought back? We over thought the question and went for Fred Perry and bringing him back from time. Our answer seemed very logical to us and we were pretty confident.
Thankfully our confidence was very obvious & the next team from us who were trailing us by 5 pts clearly thought Fred Perry was a good answer. They also went for Fred Perry and bringing him back from the dead or something.
I am getting tired of saying this but again fortunately for us, we were both wrong which meant we had won! This proves one thing though. You don't win Open quizzes in Kolkata without a bit of help from Lady Luck!
And before wrapping up this review we should not forget to congratulate Titash for doing a wonderful job hosting his first open quiz and Gautam Ghosh who also was excellent.
Some questions:
Q)Which team took part in the Euro without having qualified for the tournament?
Ans: Denmark. Denmark actually won the tournament without qualifying! This was one of the sitters we got.
Q)In horse racing what is a "morning glory" ?
Ans: A horse that does well in morning practice but fades away in the main race.
Q)Besides Zico & Socrates which other 2 midfielders made up the famed Brazilian quartet of 1982?
Ans: Falcao & Cerezo
Q)In which city is the Kentucky Derby held?
Ans: Louisville
Q)Who was nicknamed the Mozart of table tennis?
Ans: Jan Ove Waldner
Q)Which boxer was nicknamed the Bayonne Bleeder ?
Ans: Chuck Wepner the inspiration for the Rocky movies
Q)Sand, Ice & Water are all types of ?
Ans: Sailing or gliding
Q)Which team with a horde of Olympic medals to their name perished in 1969 in an air crash en route to the World Championship in Prague ?
Ans: The US figure skating team
Q)Which Soviet grandmaster, acknowledged as the greatest player never to be the World Chess champion, was paid tribute to in "From Russia with Love" ?
Ans: David Bronstein
Q)The largest manufacturer of these is Vacor de Mexico. The company makes 90 percent of the world’s production. Over 12 million are produced each day. What is the product?
Ans: Marbles. Great answer by Ashokda.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Quiz for the recreation club at the Insititute of Engineer's
Sid & myself were requested to conduct a quiz for the Institute of Engineers and we duly obliged. We weren't sure of the level of the participants so we decided to make an easy quiz with fun questions.
There were 4 teams in the quiz & I started off the quiz with my half of the questions. Instantly I could feel that the people were having difficulty understanding the framing of the questions. Although the questions were easy enough, the framing was a little twisted. But I had forgotten that these were not experienced quizzers who could think their way through a twisted question.
One look at their blank faces after my first question, I knew I would have to provide a lot of hints for teams to answer. And I did.
The teams were very competitive & quarreled with each other over my providing hints. Amazingly they answered some pretty difficult stuff without hints but had not heard of Dan Brown!
Sid took over in the 2nd half of the quiz & the teams answered a lot more questions because Sid had been careful enough to keep a lot of questions on India & Kolkata.
The quiz was appreciated by all present & we left feeling very cheerful after everyone told us we had done a good job. Everyone but one! He was in one of the teams and came up to me with a list of 20 questions he felt, we should have asked. The first 4 questions were : "Who was the 22nd Jain Tirthankara ?", "Who was the last Jain Tirthankara ?", "Who was the 3rd Jain Tirthankara ?" & "Who was the 2nd Jain Tirthankara ?". I didn't read any more.
Some questions & experienced quizzers will realise how easy the quiz really was:
Q) The backdrop for what was a feud between the houses of Capulet & Montague in the city of Verona ?
Ans: Romeo & Juliet. I mentioned Shakespeare as a hint and still 3 teams missed it!
Q) Which landmark replaced King Gyanendra in the bank notes of Nepal ?
Ans: Mt. Everest. The Tirthankara guy protested by saying "only people can be landmarks"!
There were 4 teams in the quiz & I started off the quiz with my half of the questions. Instantly I could feel that the people were having difficulty understanding the framing of the questions. Although the questions were easy enough, the framing was a little twisted. But I had forgotten that these were not experienced quizzers who could think their way through a twisted question.
One look at their blank faces after my first question, I knew I would have to provide a lot of hints for teams to answer. And I did.
The teams were very competitive & quarreled with each other over my providing hints. Amazingly they answered some pretty difficult stuff without hints but had not heard of Dan Brown!
Sid took over in the 2nd half of the quiz & the teams answered a lot more questions because Sid had been careful enough to keep a lot of questions on India & Kolkata.
The quiz was appreciated by all present & we left feeling very cheerful after everyone told us we had done a good job. Everyone but one! He was in one of the teams and came up to me with a list of 20 questions he felt, we should have asked. The first 4 questions were : "Who was the 22nd Jain Tirthankara ?", "Who was the last Jain Tirthankara ?", "Who was the 3rd Jain Tirthankara ?" & "Who was the 2nd Jain Tirthankara ?". I didn't read any more.
Some questions & experienced quizzers will realise how easy the quiz really was:
Q) The backdrop for what was a feud between the houses of Capulet & Montague in the city of Verona ?
Ans: Romeo & Juliet. I mentioned Shakespeare as a hint and still 3 teams missed it!
Q) Which landmark replaced King Gyanendra in the bank notes of Nepal ?
Ans: Mt. Everest. The Tirthankara guy protested by saying "only people can be landmarks"!
Sanskriti 2010 Sports & General quizzes
Since I was one of the quizmasters of the Sanskriti 2010 quizzes this is more a report than a review.
Myself & Sid conducted the usual 2 quizzes (Sports & General) for Sanskriti 2010 in early March this year.
The sports quiz scheduled first saw just 6 teams turning up at first so we used the prelims questions as a written round for all 6 teams. Unfortunately after this round a lot of teams turned up. So we had no choice but to scrap this round & prepare another prelim in 10 minutes!
Not sure how many teams exactly took part but the Vivekanada Hall was completely full. The Hall by the way, was a great place to host small quizzes as the arrangements for sound & projection were top notch.
8 teams qualified from the hurriedly prepared prelims. In the finals there was no stopping Sarba, Panda & Titash as they won comfortably.
An hour later we had the prelims for the General Quiz.
Again 8 teams mostly from Enquiry qualified. This quiz was a lot closer than the sports quiz with Debanjan, Jishu & Arindam winning. In the long visual theme round they got a whopping 19 out of 20 individual identifications correct!
Here are some questions :
Q) In celebration of this sportsperson’s record-breaking feat, ADIDAS launched a range of equipments called the TT-10 series.Identify the person
Ans: Taeke Taekama
Q) The 1984 NBA draft had prospects like Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley and John Stockton. However the number one draft was some one else.Who??
Ans: The "Dream", Hakeem Olajuwon
Q) Buildings, Antennas, Spans of bridges & Earth structures like mountains & cliffs are the four possible starting points for what ?
Ans: BASE Jumpers. BASE is an acronym of Buildings, Antennas, Spans & Earth.
Q) The bird was intended to be an eagle but is now officially recognized as a cormorant although the bird shows the short head and curved beak more readily associated with a bird of prey.
What’s the bird?
Ans: The Liver bird in the Liverpool crest.
Q) Connect : Costa Rica vs Czechoslovakia 1990 with Germany vs Saudi Arabia 2002.
Ans: Headed hat-tricks from Tomas Skuravy in 1990 & Klose in 2002
Q) Among the major cities of India what sporting feature connects the cities of Delhi, Kochi, Pune, Margao, Shillong, Guwahati, Indore & Chennai ?
Ans: Nehru Stadiums.
Q) Who received US$ 9,700 from five lawyers to purchase new equipment after his old one, supposedly held together by duct tape and screws, broke during training in November 2009 ?
Ans: Shiv Keshavan.
Q) Ray McCauley is a former Mr. South Africa who also took part in the Mr. Universe competition in 1974 finishing 3rd. Tell me why he features in this round on Sports & Religion ?
Ans: He turned to God after finishing his bodybuilding career & became a pastor. And it was to him that Hansie Cronje first confessed. Great crack by Soumarup!
Q) Faisal II, the last king of the Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq was the inspiration for what?
Ans: Abdullah in Tintin
Q) The name of a village in Devon, inspired from the novel “Westward Ho!”, is the only place name of it’s kind in the British Isles in what way ?
Ans: It is the only village name that contains an exclamation mark! The answer was there in the question!
Q) Which people had a script that moved from left to right diagonally?
Ans: The Liliputans
Q) During WW2, men in the combat arm of the SS had something tattooed on the underside of the left arm, usually near the armpit. There were only 4 variations of this tattoo.
What was tattooed on them ?
Ans: Their blood groups.
Q) When the charge of bigamy was raised against X, Czar Alexander responded by saying, “X has two wives, yes, but I have only one X.”
Who is X?
Ans: Mendeleev
Myself & Sid conducted the usual 2 quizzes (Sports & General) for Sanskriti 2010 in early March this year.
The sports quiz scheduled first saw just 6 teams turning up at first so we used the prelims questions as a written round for all 6 teams. Unfortunately after this round a lot of teams turned up. So we had no choice but to scrap this round & prepare another prelim in 10 minutes!
Not sure how many teams exactly took part but the Vivekanada Hall was completely full. The Hall by the way, was a great place to host small quizzes as the arrangements for sound & projection were top notch.
8 teams qualified from the hurriedly prepared prelims. In the finals there was no stopping Sarba, Panda & Titash as they won comfortably.
An hour later we had the prelims for the General Quiz.
Again 8 teams mostly from Enquiry qualified. This quiz was a lot closer than the sports quiz with Debanjan, Jishu & Arindam winning. In the long visual theme round they got a whopping 19 out of 20 individual identifications correct!
Here are some questions :
Q) In celebration of this sportsperson’s record-breaking feat, ADIDAS launched a range of equipments called the TT-10 series.Identify the person
Ans: Taeke Taekama
Q) The 1984 NBA draft had prospects like Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley and John Stockton. However the number one draft was some one else.Who??
Ans: The "Dream", Hakeem Olajuwon
Q) Buildings, Antennas, Spans of bridges & Earth structures like mountains & cliffs are the four possible starting points for what ?
Ans: BASE Jumpers. BASE is an acronym of Buildings, Antennas, Spans & Earth.
Q) The bird was intended to be an eagle but is now officially recognized as a cormorant although the bird shows the short head and curved beak more readily associated with a bird of prey.
What’s the bird?
Ans: The Liver bird in the Liverpool crest.
Q) Connect : Costa Rica vs Czechoslovakia 1990 with Germany vs Saudi Arabia 2002.
Ans: Headed hat-tricks from Tomas Skuravy in 1990 & Klose in 2002
Q) Among the major cities of India what sporting feature connects the cities of Delhi, Kochi, Pune, Margao, Shillong, Guwahati, Indore & Chennai ?
Ans: Nehru Stadiums.
Q) Who received US$ 9,700 from five lawyers to purchase new equipment after his old one, supposedly held together by duct tape and screws, broke during training in November 2009 ?
Ans: Shiv Keshavan.
Q) Ray McCauley is a former Mr. South Africa who also took part in the Mr. Universe competition in 1974 finishing 3rd. Tell me why he features in this round on Sports & Religion ?
Ans: He turned to God after finishing his bodybuilding career & became a pastor. And it was to him that Hansie Cronje first confessed. Great crack by Soumarup!
Q) Faisal II, the last king of the Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq was the inspiration for what?
Ans: Abdullah in Tintin
Q) The name of a village in Devon, inspired from the novel “Westward Ho!”, is the only place name of it’s kind in the British Isles in what way ?
Ans: It is the only village name that contains an exclamation mark! The answer was there in the question!
Q) Which people had a script that moved from left to right diagonally?
Ans: The Liliputans
Q) During WW2, men in the combat arm of the SS had something tattooed on the underside of the left arm, usually near the armpit. There were only 4 variations of this tattoo.
What was tattooed on them ?
Ans: Their blood groups.
Q) When the charge of bigamy was raised against X, Czar Alexander responded by saying, “X has two wives, yes, but I have only one X.”
Who is X?
Ans: Mendeleev
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Srijan 2010 Biz & Cyber quizzes
The quizzes for Srijan 2010 the Tech Fest of Jadavpur University were conducted by our very own Titash on the 20th & 21st of March this year.
The Biz quiz on the 20th, saw around 20 teams taking part with some pretty decent teams turning up.
C. Ramshankar from IIMC, sitting alone, topped the prelims ! Teams from JU, IIFT, Xaviers & a couple of other mixed teams made up the rest of the qualifiers.
CRam raced off to a healthy lead in the early parts of the quiz but towards the end, myself & Boss managed to catch up with him. However CRam managed to win on the last question. IIFT finished 3rd.
The quiz had awesome questions & some very interesting, innovative rounds.
It was time for the Cyber quiz on the 21st. Sadly just 10 teams turned up with just 2 and a half teams from Enquiry ( Shabbir was sitting with a Srijan volunteer ). The rest of the teams were literally begged to participate. As expected the quiz was a 2 horse battle at the start between the 2 full Enquiry teams, Panda & Sid vs Boss & me. After going neck & neck in the early stages, Sid & Panda pulled away in the middle stages and won comfortably. Again the quiz was conducted superbly with great questions. The quizmaster Titash, did his job splendidly but unfortunately the organisation, sans the CEO Kunalda, left a lot to be desired.
Here are some questions :
Q) Mark Wahlberg became famous after commercials for this company which owns a two letter domain name. Which company ?
Ans: Calvin Klein
Q) ‘-------- , save -------- ’ was the slogan of the PETA in 2008 to save elephants that are killed in accidents with trains in the country. PETA members, in their effort to draw attention to the issue, enacted a scene in front of Rail Bhavan here with a railway engine killing a dummy elephant. Fill in the blanks
Ans: Lalu save Bholu
Q) This company became the sponsors of the PGA Championship trophy in 2007.The name of the company is a syllabic abbreviation of the company’s air division. Which company?
Ans: Fedex
Q) Since its initial launch in 1982, the franchise has spawned a variety of products, including six lines of action figures, four animated television series, countless comic series and a film. It is commonly abbreviated as MOTU. What?
Ans: Heman & the Masters of the Universe
Q) Which DELL subsidiary company's name is inspired from the X-files ?
Ans: Alienware
The Biz quiz on the 20th, saw around 20 teams taking part with some pretty decent teams turning up.
C. Ramshankar from IIMC, sitting alone, topped the prelims ! Teams from JU, IIFT, Xaviers & a couple of other mixed teams made up the rest of the qualifiers.
CRam raced off to a healthy lead in the early parts of the quiz but towards the end, myself & Boss managed to catch up with him. However CRam managed to win on the last question. IIFT finished 3rd.
The quiz had awesome questions & some very interesting, innovative rounds.
It was time for the Cyber quiz on the 21st. Sadly just 10 teams turned up with just 2 and a half teams from Enquiry ( Shabbir was sitting with a Srijan volunteer ). The rest of the teams were literally begged to participate. As expected the quiz was a 2 horse battle at the start between the 2 full Enquiry teams, Panda & Sid vs Boss & me. After going neck & neck in the early stages, Sid & Panda pulled away in the middle stages and won comfortably. Again the quiz was conducted superbly with great questions. The quizmaster Titash, did his job splendidly but unfortunately the organisation, sans the CEO Kunalda, left a lot to be desired.
Here are some questions :
Q) Mark Wahlberg became famous after commercials for this company which owns a two letter domain name. Which company ?
Ans: Calvin Klein
Q) ‘-------- , save -------- ’ was the slogan of the PETA in 2008 to save elephants that are killed in accidents with trains in the country. PETA members, in their effort to draw attention to the issue, enacted a scene in front of Rail Bhavan here with a railway engine killing a dummy elephant. Fill in the blanks
Ans: Lalu save Bholu
Q) This company became the sponsors of the PGA Championship trophy in 2007.The name of the company is a syllabic abbreviation of the company’s air division. Which company?
Ans: Fedex
Q) Since its initial launch in 1982, the franchise has spawned a variety of products, including six lines of action figures, four animated television series, countless comic series and a film. It is commonly abbreviated as MOTU. What?
Ans: Heman & the Masters of the Universe
Q) Which DELL subsidiary company's name is inspired from the X-files ?
Ans: Alienware
Business Quiz at Army Institute of Management – 26th February
Fully armed with questions, Mr Gautam Ghosh made his way to the Army Institute of Management to host their Business Quiz on the 26th February. I must say I also had a ‘part’ to play in the content . Unfortunately during the prelims the teams felt like they were in a shooting gallery, and were ducking for cover. I had anticipated a large deal of quality participation, considering the publicity that the institute and I personally :D had done for the event, but alas it was more of mass rather than class. The cutoff for the prelims was a mind boggling 4 out of 20, with the top team , the usual suspects , Cramshankar and Abhishek Nagraj from IIM C topping by a whopping margin with 13 points. The other teams in the final were ISB&M, 2 teams from Army Institute of Management , a solo PHD student from IIM C and the team of the CEO himself and our very own ‘Brandman’ Gairik . .
Much to my relief the finals seemed a far easier battleground than the prelims, and most questions were answered. The team from Army Institute of Management, had raced to an early lead in a relatively easy warm up round. However in the end class prevailed. As the rounds progressed, CRAM and Nagraj established their dominance, and ended up with double the no.of points of the team in 2nd. CEO and Brandman put up a spirited effort to make up for the early deficit, but in the end Army Institute of Managament, led by Rishi edged out Enquiry’s sole representatives by 15 points for 2nd place.
One major positive for this quiz, was the audience. Rarely have I seen an audience stick around for a quiz finals, but here was the hall (though quite small) , filled to capacity.
It was great to see, the crowd cheer up the home teams and they didn’t disappoint.
Apart from the crack team led by Rishi, an all girls team from Army Institute of Management gave some nice answers and finished 4th.
Overall, a pretty decent quizzing experience for all concerned.
By Titash
Business Quiz ‘Comprehending Wall Street’ at Kalyani Government Engineering College, 27th February
‘Every dog has his day’ and our very own Kutta, Alekhya Chakraborty from IMT G and formerly of KGEC has been having quite a few big days recently. Seems like the quizzers from the North and all over the country have really felt the bite of this Royal Bengal Daschund , what with his national championship victories in DARE 2010 and the AIMA quiz . So, salivating at the prospect of a quiz organized at the former kennel of this Big Dog of Quizzing (knowing the fact that Alekhya had set bulk of the questions and the other quiz happening in Kolkata was well…in plain words a lump of hair) our CEO, Kunal and I set rail for Kalyani on a warm February morning. Incidentally I had partied till 4 am that morning, so it takes a seriously crazy quizzard to get up for a quiz at Kalyani in 4 hrs time. After a two hour rail journey we arrived at Kalyani railway station, only to learn that the college was 30 hrs away. Of course we know when the CEO is around ‘Chaap nei’, so we took a rickshaw . Our journey was like a throwback to Pather Panchali, the village fields, cows grazing , trains coming and going. Finally, we arrived at our destination .
Expectedly , considering the distance very few outstation teams had turned up. In fact there was only one, apart from us, a mixed team from Xaviers and RCC . However, what the quiz lacked in quality of participation was made up by quality of questions. The prelims had some very nice questions, although it was made slightly easier for the teams with options being provided for 20 of the 30 questions. I wouldn’t blame the organizers, though considering the level of participation. The finals were on stage, which I must say was wonderfully arranged. The whole set up looked very professional, and considering the fact that the quiz was primarily organized by 1st years, it was a commendable effort. The 1st round had some good dry questions, which seemed to be made by Alekhya. 2nd round onwards of course , there were some typical run of the mill biz quizzing rounds, like taglines and logos, the 1st of which both me and kunal are horrible at. There were also a rapid fire round which had some inordinately tough questions, very few of which could be answered. Interspersed in between were however, some good dry and visual rounds + a connection round which had some excellent questions. In the end there was a round sent by Alekhya which was meant to be a theme round, but was misread by the organizers as a normal round. It gave me quite a kick to actually figure out that it was a theme round, and tell the organizers the errors of their ways afterwards :D, pardon my narcissim. Expectedly Kunal and I won by a comfortable margin, with one of the four home teams coming 2nd. I must say of course, we were having a few nervous moments when the taglines and the rapid fire rounds were going on.
I must make a point here to appreciate young Sachin of KGEC, 1st year who did a superb job hosting the quiz. One of the teams had raised an objection to one of the answers, and the way he diffused the whole situation was praiseworthy. I have seen many quizzes in engineering colleges hosted by students, and I think he stood out for his confidence and poise.
Overall, the quiz lived up to expectations, and the Big Dog would be happy that his little puppies managed to pull off a creditable and show and effort in ‘Comprehending Wall Street’ (The name of the quiz)
Question of the Quiz
- What brand of tea was launched by the Times Group in the 1980’s only to be shelved due to lack of success ?
Ans) Editor’s choice
By Titash
Question OURS- The Business Quiz at IIFT
Due to the insurmountable amount of ‘lyadh’ prevailing amongst most quizzers who took part in this quiz, and the technical difficulties faced by our very own environment friendly mascot, am posting a review of the Business Quiz at IIFT held in 22nd February hosted by me !!!! Finally, a chance to gloat !!!!
With a view to forge a strong quizzing culture in IIFT Kolkata, the Kolkata wing of Quintessential- The Quiz club of IIFT was formed this year, and the 1st major event organized by Quintessential, Question OURS , the Inter College Business Quiz happened this Monday at the IIFT Kolkata campus. The quiz tested out the mettle of some of the quizzing brains in Kolkata, in some grueling rounds of Business Quizzing. Participants came from some of the best colleges in Kolkata- IIM C, Jadavpur University and Presidency College. Some of the other B-schools in Kolkata also participated, Army Institute of Management, ISB&M, Praxis Business School and MSIT.
First there was a written preliminary round from which 6 teams, qualified for the final. The finals featured teams from IIM C, Jadavpur University, Presidency College and IIFT Kolkata. The team from IIM C, C Ramshankar and Shobhit Bhatnagar who are incidentally also the reigning Tata Crucibles and BT Acumen national champions dominated the quiz from start to finish and won by a large margin. There was a however a very tight battle for 2nd place, with two teams from Jadavpur University and Presidency College fighting tooth and nail. Finally it was the team of Sumantrasarathi Dutta aka Central and Kunal Mandal aka The CEO, the Concept yada yada yada from Presidency College and Jadavpur University respectively who came 2nd. The winners walked away with a beautiful trophy and cash prizes.
The event was truly one to remember for IIFT, especially from the point of view of quality of participation. The questions which covered the whole gamut of the business world, from IT to FMCG to Business Strategy had both the participants and the audience gripped for the 3 hrs of this quizzing gala. The event was widely appreciated by all the participants who came from various colleges and it was a common sentiment echoed by all of them, that IIFT Kolkata should have more such event s in the near future.
Some questions :-
1.Which word often used in finance and in daily parlance comes from the modern French word meaning "money box" ?
Ans)Cash
2)This word meant weight in Spanish. It was a name given to ‘The real de a ocho’ which was known in Europe as a thaler. It had a legal weight of 27.468 g . What am I talking about?
Ans)Peso Coin
3)“------------" is also part of a title referring to a minor character from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. -------- is a reference to
10 ^(10^100).
What is ------------- ?
Ans)Googleplex\
4)The word is derived from the Latin bursa. The oldest known of these was found with Ötzi the Iceman who lived around 3,300 BCE. Another early example is on Egyptian hieroglyphs, which show pouches worn around the waist. The next appearance is in 14th century Europe. What are we talking about?
Ans)Purse
5)The T2000, the Dunlop Max200G and the Prince “Original” Graphite are all types of what?
Ans)Tennis RacquetsBy Titash
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Tata Crucible 2010 Campus Edition Kolkata
Sunday 14th of March, 2010 when the city was abuzz in IPL fever the campus edition of Tata Crucible 2010 Kolkata round took place at the Taj Hotel like always.
The number of teams was nowhere close to the 300 of last year. This time it was around 100. The IPL game against Bangalore was a factor for the low attendance but as Giri correctly said it was also because there were easier options available to out station teams than Kolkata.
6 teams from Enquiry including 3 from JU, 1 from CU, 1 from IIFT & 1 from Presidency sat in the prelims. Apart from Panda n Central who missed out by half a point, all the rest of us made it to the semis.
From our semi St. Xaviers won & Boss from CU won the other semi beating the Dark Lord Kunalda & Sid from JU in a tiebreaker. And as CU won, in a dramatic moment fit for any Ekta Kapoor production, the Dark Lord rose up from his seat and applauded Boss !! Giri on seeing this, expressed his love for Kolkata and applauded the Lord for his show of sportsmanship !!
But there was yet more drama to unfold !!
As the 4 straight qualifiers were announced we got a shock. IIFT's name was announced !!
Another duo from IIFT had beaten Titash & Jaggi to the finals !!
But one of them, feeling sure they wouldn't make it, had by then reached the Eden Gardens !!
So they were disqualified & JU & IIT KGP who finished 2nd in our semi were called onstage for another tiebreaker.
Amazingly even IIT KGP had departed which left the very sporting combination of the Dark Lord & Sid Vicious to claim the vacant finals spot !!
The final started with a whole round on management gurus & theories where IIMC absolutely blasted away. They won the quiz in the first round itself wrapping up an already expected victory almost within the first round.
With some good answers CU finished 2nd ( which was what the quiz was for anyway !! ) & the sporting duo in a sporting attempt at gaining points finished last with a negative score !!
Some questions
Q) Which entity with the slogan "We make a different world" is one of the top recruiters from colleges in the USA ?
Ans : US Army
Q) Who designed the Tata logo ?
Ans : Wolf Olins
Q) In which "fruit" company had Forrest Gump invested money ?
Ans : Apple
The number of teams was nowhere close to the 300 of last year. This time it was around 100. The IPL game against Bangalore was a factor for the low attendance but as Giri correctly said it was also because there were easier options available to out station teams than Kolkata.
6 teams from Enquiry including 3 from JU, 1 from CU, 1 from IIFT & 1 from Presidency sat in the prelims. Apart from Panda n Central who missed out by half a point, all the rest of us made it to the semis.
From our semi St. Xaviers won & Boss from CU won the other semi beating the Dark Lord Kunalda & Sid from JU in a tiebreaker. And as CU won, in a dramatic moment fit for any Ekta Kapoor production, the Dark Lord rose up from his seat and applauded Boss !! Giri on seeing this, expressed his love for Kolkata and applauded the Lord for his show of sportsmanship !!
But there was yet more drama to unfold !!
As the 4 straight qualifiers were announced we got a shock. IIFT's name was announced !!
Another duo from IIFT had beaten Titash & Jaggi to the finals !!
But one of them, feeling sure they wouldn't make it, had by then reached the Eden Gardens !!
So they were disqualified & JU & IIT KGP who finished 2nd in our semi were called onstage for another tiebreaker.
Amazingly even IIT KGP had departed which left the very sporting combination of the Dark Lord & Sid Vicious to claim the vacant finals spot !!
The final started with a whole round on management gurus & theories where IIMC absolutely blasted away. They won the quiz in the first round itself wrapping up an already expected victory almost within the first round.
With some good answers CU finished 2nd ( which was what the quiz was for anyway !! ) & the sporting duo in a sporting attempt at gaining points finished last with a negative score !!
Some questions
Q) Which entity with the slogan "We make a different world" is one of the top recruiters from colleges in the USA ?
Ans : US Army
Q) Who designed the Tata logo ?
Ans : Wolf Olins
Q) In which "fruit" company had Forrest Gump invested money ?
Ans : Apple
Arohon 2010 NIT Durgapur
Titash, Debanjan, Jishu & me went to Durgapur on 6th March 2010, to attend the quizzes at Arohon.
We made an early start, catching a bus from Karunamoyee at 7:30 AM. En route the bus halted at Shaktigarh, the "Langcha Capital of the world". And it truly was !!!
Everywhere we looked we saw "Langcha". There was a Langcha Palace, Langcha Cottage, Langcha House, Langcha Hall, Langcha Mahal and a lot more I can't recollect. And for those of you who don't know, "Langcha" is a kind of sweet quite popular here in Bengal. The shape as some of you would know might turn off guys !! Then again I should add it might turn off "some" guys !!
We reached Durgapur in the afternoon & had to wait quite a while for the General Quiz to start.
Mr. Arul Mani conducted the quiz in which around 30 teams sat in the prelims. We were quite surprised to see very few out station teams as usually Arohon is quite a popular destination for college quizzers in Eastern India. But who were we to complain.
The prelims had some fantastic questions. Mr. Mani is known for his question framing and this time too he did a great job hoodwinking people with his clever choice of words.
We made the finals along with 5 teams from NIT Durgapur where the first round was truly a pain both for the eyes and the brain !!
The projector wasn't working well in the daylight & the first round was identifying celebrities from portraits of them as kids !!!
And the list included Aung San Su Kyi & the current head of North Korea !!
It was perhaps the first time in my entire experience of quizzing that a round went by without any team troubling the scorers.
The main quiz started and instantly the questions got better. We raced off into a lead and held on till the end. It got quite interesting towards the end as we had suffered a lot of negative points but we just about finished first.
The next quiz to be hosted by Arnab Sinha was titled the "Final Frontier". Arohon always has late night quizzes and this was one of them. It was scheduled for 11 PM. It was meant for 3 member teams from the same college, which sadly meant Titash would be sitting alone.
It also meant we had a lot of time to kill before the 11 PM start and so Debanjan suggested we walk to the Damodar barrage "nearby".
Jishu wasn't ready to go. So we had a vote with Jishu losing 3-1. It's the last time I'm voting for anything Debanjan suggests !!
We spent the next 3 hours walking around asking people how to get to the barrage. Everybody seemed to think it was just a 15 minute walk away. The roads were like dust bowls and all of us were covered in grime within the first 5 minutes of the expedition. Tired & hungry & thirsty & lost, we wandered about like madmen in search of Utopia by the Damodar barrage side.
I had visions of dipping my feet into the cool water of the Damodar. In my vision, for some reason I was playing a Sarangi as I let the cool waters of the Damodar wash my feet !! I was taken aback at first but then realised why I had suddenly thought of playing a Sarangi.
Rani Laxmi Bai's horse was called Sarangi & her son was named Damodar Rao !!
Years of quizzing has done this to my psyche !! I see connections everywhere !!
Anyway after hours of walking we decided to give it up. All our efforts seemed fruitless and so we reluctantly turned the other way cursing our luck !!
Final Frontier started a bit late, around 12 AM & it was an open air quiz. We made it to the stage where Arnab did a good quiz. Jishu was in good form and we won quite easily.
We spent the night in the room of a school pal of Debanjan & Jishu.
Next morning it was time for the Sports & Entertainment quiz conducted by Mr. Arul Mani again. Again his questions were impeccable & the framing out of this world. And given the line up we had for this quiz it was no surprise when we came out on top !! I am not boasting !! We really did have a quiz team, half of which was entertainment heavy & the other half sports heavy !!
Me & Titash left after the quiz & after a long bus ride reached Kolkata late on the night of 7th March. It had been the most successful quiz trip of my life !! A strike rate of 100%.
But again in today's IPL world 100% is nothing !!
Some questions from Arohon :
Q) This activity which involves 30 bone joints & 50 muscles, has been practised in this country for centuries and experts believe it is the reason for the country's dominance in a certain sport. Namr the activity, the sport & the country ?
Ans: Use of chopsticks, table tennis & China
Q) A poem written by the man who inspired RL Stevenson to create Long John silver has been in the news recently. What is this poem ?
Ans : Invictus
This was a starred question in the prelim
Q) In the parliament what are questions that are meant to be answered orally on the same day called ?
Ans : Starred questions !!
Q) Which 8 letter misnomer is used to describe the silverfish ? Silverfish itself is a misnomer
Ans) Bookworm. Silverfish is an insect, so neither a worm or a fish !!
Q) Which book got it's title from the mishearing of a poem by Robert Burns ?
Ans) Catcher in the Rye
We made an early start, catching a bus from Karunamoyee at 7:30 AM. En route the bus halted at Shaktigarh, the "Langcha Capital of the world". And it truly was !!!
Everywhere we looked we saw "Langcha". There was a Langcha Palace, Langcha Cottage, Langcha House, Langcha Hall, Langcha Mahal and a lot more I can't recollect. And for those of you who don't know, "Langcha" is a kind of sweet quite popular here in Bengal. The shape as some of you would know might turn off guys !! Then again I should add it might turn off "some" guys !!
We reached Durgapur in the afternoon & had to wait quite a while for the General Quiz to start.
Mr. Arul Mani conducted the quiz in which around 30 teams sat in the prelims. We were quite surprised to see very few out station teams as usually Arohon is quite a popular destination for college quizzers in Eastern India. But who were we to complain.
The prelims had some fantastic questions. Mr. Mani is known for his question framing and this time too he did a great job hoodwinking people with his clever choice of words.
We made the finals along with 5 teams from NIT Durgapur where the first round was truly a pain both for the eyes and the brain !!
The projector wasn't working well in the daylight & the first round was identifying celebrities from portraits of them as kids !!!
And the list included Aung San Su Kyi & the current head of North Korea !!
It was perhaps the first time in my entire experience of quizzing that a round went by without any team troubling the scorers.
The main quiz started and instantly the questions got better. We raced off into a lead and held on till the end. It got quite interesting towards the end as we had suffered a lot of negative points but we just about finished first.
The next quiz to be hosted by Arnab Sinha was titled the "Final Frontier". Arohon always has late night quizzes and this was one of them. It was scheduled for 11 PM. It was meant for 3 member teams from the same college, which sadly meant Titash would be sitting alone.
It also meant we had a lot of time to kill before the 11 PM start and so Debanjan suggested we walk to the Damodar barrage "nearby".
Jishu wasn't ready to go. So we had a vote with Jishu losing 3-1. It's the last time I'm voting for anything Debanjan suggests !!
We spent the next 3 hours walking around asking people how to get to the barrage. Everybody seemed to think it was just a 15 minute walk away. The roads were like dust bowls and all of us were covered in grime within the first 5 minutes of the expedition. Tired & hungry & thirsty & lost, we wandered about like madmen in search of Utopia by the Damodar barrage side.
I had visions of dipping my feet into the cool water of the Damodar. In my vision, for some reason I was playing a Sarangi as I let the cool waters of the Damodar wash my feet !! I was taken aback at first but then realised why I had suddenly thought of playing a Sarangi.
Rani Laxmi Bai's horse was called Sarangi & her son was named Damodar Rao !!
Years of quizzing has done this to my psyche !! I see connections everywhere !!
Anyway after hours of walking we decided to give it up. All our efforts seemed fruitless and so we reluctantly turned the other way cursing our luck !!
Final Frontier started a bit late, around 12 AM & it was an open air quiz. We made it to the stage where Arnab did a good quiz. Jishu was in good form and we won quite easily.
We spent the night in the room of a school pal of Debanjan & Jishu.
Next morning it was time for the Sports & Entertainment quiz conducted by Mr. Arul Mani again. Again his questions were impeccable & the framing out of this world. And given the line up we had for this quiz it was no surprise when we came out on top !! I am not boasting !! We really did have a quiz team, half of which was entertainment heavy & the other half sports heavy !!
Me & Titash left after the quiz & after a long bus ride reached Kolkata late on the night of 7th March. It had been the most successful quiz trip of my life !! A strike rate of 100%.
But again in today's IPL world 100% is nothing !!
Some questions from Arohon :
Q) This activity which involves 30 bone joints & 50 muscles, has been practised in this country for centuries and experts believe it is the reason for the country's dominance in a certain sport. Namr the activity, the sport & the country ?
Ans: Use of chopsticks, table tennis & China
Q) A poem written by the man who inspired RL Stevenson to create Long John silver has been in the news recently. What is this poem ?
Ans : Invictus
This was a starred question in the prelim
Q) In the parliament what are questions that are meant to be answered orally on the same day called ?
Ans : Starred questions !!
Q) Which 8 letter misnomer is used to describe the silverfish ? Silverfish itself is a misnomer
Ans) Bookworm. Silverfish is an insect, so neither a worm or a fish !!
Q) Which book got it's title from the mishearing of a poem by Robert Burns ?
Ans) Catcher in the Rye
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