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Verve 2004 Results According to this news item (search for "Brain Sync" - yet another name for the Verve quiz), VIT topped the quiz and B.J. Medical College took home spots 2 and 3. Many congratulations to them. Not sure how good or bad the quiz was, but Verve has always has operated on the extremes of quality - so wonder which end of the graph it was this time.

The General B.C.Joshi Memorial Quiz The Army Institute Of Technology is organizing its Annual Gen. B.C. Joshi Memorial Quiz along with the Owl In The Bowl (Solitaire Quiz) . Details: Date: 29th Feb Time: 11 am Venue: AIT, Alandi Road, Pune-15 Open quiz On the spot registrations. Two member teams. Prizes: Cash prizes over Rs 15000/- and certificates for all. Transportation from COEP and Sadhu Vaswani Chowk. Contact Numbers : * Ishwadeep : 9890093120 * Suresh Punia: 9422366537 E-Mail: bcjquiz@yahoo.com While on the subject, an old post on BCJ .

QUIZ-O-MANIA at Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune (finalised) Details: Organized every year by Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, Pune , this year's quiz will be held on the 28th Feb (Saturday) . Time: Registration at 12:30 am, Written Elims at 1:30 pm. Stage finals will follow immediately. Venue: Auditorium, VIT Entry fee: Rs. 30 Snacks will be provided for finalists and entry fee will also be refunded. This is an Open Quiz First Prize: Rs. 4000/- Second Prize: Rs. 2500/- Third Prize: Rs. 1000/- Audience prizes as well. For more details, contact: * Siddharth: 9422501573 * Salil: 9422501433 * Varun: 9822517873

Some upcoming Pune Quizzes Verve (Express Youth Forum) : 22 Feb Gen. B.C. Joshi Memorial Quiz (Army Institute of Technology, Pune) : 29 Feb Brand Equity Quiz (The Economic Times of India) : 5 March Chakravyuuh (The Govt. College of Engg., Pune) : 7 March (as Salil is quick to point out) QUIZ-O-MANIA (Vishwakarma Institute of Technology): 28 Feb (Details in the next post) Still awaiting official announcements and details of the BCJ & Chakravyuuh quizzes.

Upcoming posts A new Question of the Week , a response to Salil & Arnav's comments and some experiences of strange formats at quizzes.

Formats of Rounds - II Update (25 Dec 2006): See this post for an update on this subject. Some obsolete/incorrect portions have been struck off. In continuation to Formats of Rounds - I Infinite Rebounds Since Direct and Passing doesn't work in its usual form for reasons noted before, it has quickly been replaced by the Infinite Rebounds system as the de facto quizzing format in all the good quizzes. A caveat here is that of the qualifier "good quizzes", as a great many "popular" quizzes aren't aware of this system, or if they are, choose to shy away from employing it - an exploration later. The commonly agreed conventions of Infinite Rebounds : The choice of the team to receive the next question depends on how the previous question was answered. If the previous question was answered by a team, the next one is put to the team next in order from it. Alternately, if it went unanswered, the new question is simply advanced to the team next to th...

Comments on Formats of Rounds - I Pulling out significant comments to the earlier post into the open. Salil has this to say : Some Thoughts on Infinite Rebounds:- Having participated in many inter-school quizzes where the Direct & Passing system is rampant, Infinite Rebounds (IR) was a pleasant surprise when I started participating in college-level quizzes. One of the pecularity of IR is the freedom of points reserved for each question (unlike the D&P where its 10-5) where there can be multi-answer questions of 15 points, etc. At a certain quiz I went to, there was this question: Complete the famous Janata Party slogan of the Emergency time: Nasbandi ke teen dalal - _______, __________, __________ . The quizmaster (QM) fairly declared 15 points for the whole answer : 5 for each blank. Though we knew the answer : Indira, Sanjay, Bansi Lal ; we were at position 5. Unfortunately for us, 3 teams had already provided one name each winning 5 points apiece, b...

Brand Equity Quiz - 2004 Information about ET's Annual Quiz here . Pune is the last city in the Zonal eliminations schedule (5th March) at the Poona Club.

Rajiv Rai When Young World (the Youth/Children's supplement of The Hindu was launched in the early nineties, it carried a regular quizzing column called Mindsport . The aims of the column was to introduce young minds to quizzing of a higher level, with the unspoken spirit of "workability" and interesting facts. It also explained the methods of going about cracking such kinds of questions and applying well-known points to such an effort. Impressed by it, I began a regular collection of the clippings of MS. It wasn't until I started quizzing in real earnest (after I came to COEP in 1997; before that I had participated in exactly 2 inter-school quizzes in all of my schooling) that I got to experience the "quizzing at a higher level" that was articulated in the columns of Mindsport many years ago. One of the reasons I could make the transition without discomfort (I wasn't conditioned by the fact-based school quizzing routine since I hadn...

Question of the Week - I A new section that has one of our/my most favourite questions, accompanied by a small analysis on what makes it so good. To start off, this week has an old BC chestnut: Q: "He lies here somewhere" is rumoured to be the epitaph on whose grave? A: Werner Heisenberg, most famously remembered as the physicist behind one of quantum theory's most famous credos, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle . Like most good questions, this has an economy of words and facts, revealing just enough to make it both entertaining and deducible. "Uncertainty" is the one motif that emerges out of a statement with the qualifier "somewhere". Yes, it may be construed as unfair to those with no familiarity with physics, but the Uncertainty Principle is famous enough to be known by well-read laymen. And like most good questions, a revelation of the answer in case it goes unanswered will draw a gasp of appreciation from most. C...

Formats of Rounds - I Setting a good quiz, apart from just the raw content of questions, depends a great deal on the structural framework of a quiz. Or put less glibly, formatting of different rounds is extremely important to how it is received by audience and participants alike. A fine balance needs to be struck between retaining the interest of the spectators while being fair to the participants. ("Fairness" will be a constant refrain on these pages, for a majority of such formats tend to be tuned towards providing semi-gladiatorial pleasure for the audience, and letting the contestants fume and wish for fortune cookies to crumble their way.) D & P and Forward Biasing If you wander into a quiz and see the organisers pull out the dinosaur called the Direct and Passing method, then you can be sure that (a) they have never participated in good quizzes themselves (b) Do not believe in modern concepts such as being fair to participants or (the most li...