World Quizzing Championships - Pune details

For the last few years, the International Quizzing Association (based in the UK) has been conducting the World Quizzing Championships in several countries, including India. This website has all the details about the format & history of the event.

In essence, this is a solo written competition consisting of 8 sections (of 30 qns each) to be solved in 2 hours.

Pune will be one of the venues where the quiz will be simultaneously held. Here are all the details:

Date: 6 June (Saturday)

Time: Report by 3:30 pm. Quiz starts sharp at 4 pm, ends at 6 pm. Answers & Scoring will follow immediately.

Venue: (note: this is the same venue at which Mahaquizzer 2009 was held):
Symbiosis Law School Auditorium,
Symbiosis Law School,
Senapati Bapat Road,
Pune - 411004

Wikimapia link: http://wikimapia.org/#lat=18.522336&lon=73.83004&z=17&l=0&m=a&v=2
Google Maps: http://tinyurl.com/d2p46t

Registration: Prior registration is mandatory to ensure your seat. Only very few extra answer sheets will be available for "on the spot" registrations, so confirmation is necessary. Registration is free & open to all. To register, please contact the local coordinator as follows:

Pune Coordinator: Suvajit Chakraborty (93701 24365, chakrabortysuvajit [at] gmail.com)

The BC Cup - Report

This was an experimental quiz conducted at the Boat Club in Coep by Aniket Khasgiwale , Yash Marathe and Aditya Gadre .

The format was as follows: There was a 25 question written elims from which we drew seeds and made eight teams . Then there were 4 Quarters each of which had two legs . Home- where all the questions go directly to one team and Away- when all questions go direct to the other team .
Instead of points we awarded 'Goals' for correct answers. In keeping with UEFA rules , in case of a tie the team with more away goals went through. Then there was a semi and a final.

Seeds: 1. Anand S , 2. Aditya Chandorkar , 3. Suvajit Chakraborty , 4. Arnold D'souza , 5. Pratyush Srivastava , 6. Omkar Nene , 7. Sameer Deshpande , 8. Abhishek Nagaraj

Quarters had 10 questions each . 5 to each time.

QF1: Anand S vs Abhishek Nagaraj
Score: 2-2 Away goals : 1-1 . Anand won on the tiebreaker.

QF2: Arnold D'souza and Ratan Sebastian v/s Pratyush and Salil
Score: 3-3 Away Goals: 2-2 . Arnold & Ratan won after a very lengthy tiebreaker.

QF3: Suvajit and Sudarshan Shidore v/s Omkar Nene and Manish
Score: 2-3 . Omkar and Manish won this one on aggregate.

QF4: Aditya Chandarkar and Yasho Tamaskar v/s Sameer Deshpande and Suraj Menon
Score: 2-2 Away goals: 0-1 . Suraj and Sameer go through on away goals.

Semis had 20 questions each . 10 to each team.

SF1: Anand and Yasho (draft pick as Anand was alone) v/s Arnold and Ratan
Score: 4-4 Away goals: 1-2 . Anand jumped the gun on the last question and got it wrong to allow Arnold and Ratan to go through on away goals.

SF2: Omkar and Manish v/s Sameer and Suraj
Score: 2-5 . Sameer and Suraj hit 3 away goals on the trot and ran away with it.

Finals: The finals had 36 questions .

Arnold and Ratan v/s Sameer and Suraj
Score: 2-10 .

A surprisingly low scoring , anti-climatic final where Sameer and Suraj hit their peak while Arnold and Ratan lost the plot.

Any comments about the quiz are welcome.

The BC cup

The BCQC will be organising a sports quiz in the style of the FA cup hence BC Cup.

Format : Written elims
Top 16 individuals qualify and are drawn into 8 teams . The 8 teams face off against each other in a knockout fashion.

Eligibility: Open , anyone can take part.

Venue: Boat Club , College of Engineering Pune

Time: 1 pm , Sunday , 31st of May

QMs: Yash Marathe , Aniket Khasgiwale and Aditya Gadre

Flavour: Sports

In case of any queries contact Aditya -9881101291 or Yash 9890102888

Mahaquizzer 2009 - Pune results

Organised by: KQA
Conducted in Pune by: Vishwajeet Narvekar (many thanks as usual!)

School Winner: Sanket Bhilare - Abhinava Vidyalaya
      BCQC prizes: 2nd: Rohan Danait (Abhinava), 3rd: Rajeev Galgali (Shamrao Kalmadi)
College Winner: Yash Marathe (Modern)(45)
      BCQC prizes: 2nd: Aditya Gadre (COEP), 3rd: Saransh Verma (SIT)
Ladies Winner: Suparna Bhattacharya (12)
Open Category Winner: Amit Garde (63)

Number of participants: ~30
Official final standings: keep an eye on this link.

Amnesia: BCQC May Open Afternoon Quiz

Set and Conducted by Niranjan Pedanekar.

Results (43 questions):
1st: Harish Kumar, Ramanand, Manish (draft) [D]: 70 pts
2nd: Meghashyam, Maitreyi, Nandan Gokhale(draft) [E]: 60 pts
Jt. 3rd: Suvajit C, Aniket, Rohan Chokkar (draft) [A]: 45 pts
Jt. 3rd: Yash M, Vinay, C V R Sastry (draft) [B]: 45 pts
Jt. 3rd: Suraj, Yasho T, (draft), Abhinav [C]: 45 pts
Jt. 3rd: Aditya, Kaustubh, Samit [F] (draft): 45 pts

Elims: highest: Aniket+Suvajit (21/35); cutoff: 11
Participating Teams: about 35

Conducted with customary elan by Niranjan, this was however the most restrained set of questions I've seen from him. Earlier efforts have been full of maze-like framing & intricate connects, but clearly, recent trends have been towards simpler presentation (most notably seen in last year's visuals quiz) and less cognitive overload.

The elims were good, though some questions perhaps needed some more information to crack. The set was undeniably tough, but workable. Over the years, Niranjan's prelims have usually been superlative, combining interest & creativity in equal measure, but this one was a couple of carats short of his usual top tier.

In comparison, the finals were much better: he opened with a couple of very nicely made questions. There were fewer questions this time, and a lot more time to think, which was very much appreciated by this reviewer. There were the usual questions bordering on "eh?" but there was a conscious effort to steer clear of the usual areas. Consequently, there were more questions on unexplored Indian topics & even mutilated fauna, and very few on pet topics such as films & sport.

As the scores show, there seemed to be something for every team. Going into the last 13 questions, any of the teams could have taken top spot. We were lucky for a couple of things to go in our favour. We had managed only 3 out of the first 30, and managed to get 4 in the last 13. Even at the end, we didn't know we had won, but it was clear it had been very tight.

Played in excellent spirit by all teams and with great interest from the audience, this was a fine quiz.

Thanks to Landmark (Pune) and Blaft Publications for co-sponsoring prizes, and Persistent Systems for allowing use of their splendid auditorium

Tyson Gibran Quiz : BCQC May open (Morning Quiz) Report

Set and Conducted by Yasho Tamaskar and Suraj Menon

Standings :
1st : J Ramanand , Meghashyam Shirodkar and Maitreyi Gupta : 78 pts
2nd : Akhil , Suvajit and Sameer : 73 pts
3rd : Niranjan Pednekar , Aditya Gadre , Siddharth : 43 pts
4th : Abhinav Gudur ,Rohan Chokkar and Nikhil Motlag : 39 pts
5th : Yash Marathe , Vinay and Kaustubh Bhat : 13 pts
6th : Amit Dandekar , Yash Sinha , Saransh Verma : 10 pts

61 Qs seamless IR , One written round with differential marking and a Long Connect

While most of questions in the elims were good , though the elims were a bit too tough or rather too quizzer friendly which is why the cut off was very low (only about 8/35). The questions were all great however.

Positives:
The finals had some very good questions and covered a very wide range of topics which is always good to see. There were several interesting audio-visual questions . All the answers were of the kind that most of audience could have related to them. The team names and the production values in general were very entertaining .

Negatives:
The quiz was way too long and the last 30 questions had to be rushed through at a very high pace.
IMHO both the special rounds seemed forced. The TIME covers round seemed to just be about recognising people .
The long connect seemed to be made just to make up the lack of myth/religion in the rest of the quiz. In my opinion the theme was too far out and not accessible to all. In addition the 5 question weightage to the theme (something my last quiz was criticised for too) did seem too much. The two teams that cracked the theme on the second clue just ran away with it with no chance for anyone else to catch up.

BCQC May Open Quizzes

The BCQC presents two open quizzes in May. Here are the details:

Administrivia

Date: 17th May (Sunday)

Venue: Dewang Mehta Auditorium, Persistent Systems Ltd., Senapati Bapat Road, Pune
(The nearest landmarks: The location is behind Domino's Pizza, near the new ICC Towers complex in which are situated shops such as Mainland China. The place is about 2 km from Pune University. This is a wikimapia map to the location.)

Contact: Phone: Ramanand (97642 58560), Aditya (98811 01291), Email: contact(at)bcqc(dot)org

'How to's: Upto two members per team; no prior registration needed; no entry fees

Prizes

(the same for each quiz)
Prizes for each finalist, for the Best College Team, the Best School Team, and the Best Newbie Team.
Prizes are co-sponsored by Landmark (Pune), Blaft Publications (Chennai), and the BCQC.

Morning Quiz: The 'Tyson-Gibran' Quiz

Quizmasters: Suraj Menon, Yash Tamaskar
Timings: 9:45 am to 12:45 pm (report by 9:30 am)
Flavour: General
What to expect: A lot more than ear-lickin' sportsmen/philosophers/second-rung Bollywood villains.

Afternoon Quiz: 'Amnesia'

Quizmaster: Niranjan Pedanekar
Timings: 2:30 pm to 5:30 pm (report by 2:15 pm)
Flavour: General
What to expect: Creative quizzing with a lateral thinking twist.(See past 'Amnesia' reports here)

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A complete list of BC Opens