Date: 23 Sept, 2006
Venue: Tilak Smarak Mandir
Organised by: Abhinava Vidyalaya, Pune and BCQC
Set by: BC quizzers
Conducted by: Ramanand
Quiz Final Results
(56 questions)
1st: D.E.S. Secondary School (Akshay, Deven, Makarand): 130
2nd: Abhinava Vidyalaya (Gautam, Nissim, Neil): 120
3rd: Muktangan (Ruchik, Shantanu, Siddharth): 110
4th: Bishops (Karan, Raghav, Puneeth): 95
5th: S.P.M English (Jaideep, Kaustubh, Abhishek): 85
6th: Symbiosis Secondary (Abhishek, Mihir, Rohit): 60
(9 questions out of 56 were unanswered)
Quiz Elim Results (in descending order)
Cutoff: 20/30
Abhinava, Muktangan, Symbiosis, Bishops, DES, SPM English (the quiz had a rule that only
one team per school could make it to the finals which meant second teams from Abhinava and
Symbiosis who scored higher than the cutoff could not make it to stage)
Report
* This is the first time we've been involved in a school quiz, and approached it with a view
to introducing ideas like Infinite Rebounds, no buzzers/timekeeping, "workable" questions
and the whole pack that is considered conventional at college quizzing and beyond, but is
certainly novel to school quizzing.
* The finalists were quite good (as were many audience members) at answering the questions
and adapting to this "newer" form of quizzing. Connects were cracked with aplomb.
* It was a tight race between the unfancied DES team and Abhinava (who had the triple tags
of being defending champs and top seeds playing at home) with the lead oscillating between
them. In the end, it did come down to the very last question - the final theme connect which,
being open to all, DES got and Abhinava did not. That decided the winner. Muktangan, who
came in 3rd, were best at the connects, getting the theme very early and earning a lot of
useful points in that segment.
* The organisation by Abhinava was excellent. The turnout was not quite as high as we'd
expected, but given the positive feedback from kids and teachers, hopefully this kind of
quizzing will have got a big boost.
* The quiz had two broadcast questions and a 5+1 theme connect in addition to the IR rounds.
* A small report in the TOI (which erroneously states that DES won by 5 points).
Sample questions:
1. Since 1930, kids have been using sentences like "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us
Nine Pizzas" to memorise something. However, from August 2006, such sentences will have to
be modified. What would you be trying to memorise using such sentences?
2. This is an area in northwestern England, on both banks of the lower reaches of the
River _____ Estuary. This region is named after the river and is famous for its
contribution to British popular culture. Entertainers such as the Beatles came from here.
A famous derby match between two of England's oldest clubs takes its name after this
region. Name the region in question.
5 comments:
For a quiz to be more audience friendly, I think we should do away with the broadcast questions and writing-down-the-theme funda.
Now, the above type of questions are good for a BC session but not for a quiz watched by a large audience. It takes time for teams to write down answers in a broadcast question and for the QM to collect the answer sheets and correct them. The kids were getting restless for such questions due to lack of activity on the stage.
Also, the theme should be said out loud for everyone to hear. The answers to the theme questions need not be given if no one answers them (like the theme question in the September Open).
Fair enough. So essentially you are arguing that only one team can take home the theme bonus if they get it right. There are different streams of thought here - qn being whether the theme should be kept alive for all or not. The only minor question to be handled is how to handle ties if more than one team wants to go for it and you don't aren't able to achieve a serialisable schedule (:-)) when more than one team wants to answer.
It depends on whether you want to make the quiz for the quizzers on stage or for the audience to enjoy. I have always felt our quizzes are more about getting and giving 'highs' to the quizzers on stage. So the special rounds,modified formats of scoring,looong questions,themes et al can actually get further convoluted. That way we can at least achieve the objective.
Of course, all these should be a strict no-no when you want to make the audience (newbies/uninitiated with a 'passing' interest) enjoy and convert them into repeat customers.
Achieving a balance is extremely difficult and by trying to target that elusive balance (not sure if aiming for the balance is deliberate)leaves both ends of the spectrum dissatisfied.
Of course Amnesia 2006, as usual, is to be considered an exception to the rule.
Old debate, isn't it? I prefer quizzes and quizzing where participants and audience are there for the content, unencumbered by thrill-factors and prizes, which are incidental. So for me having great prizes and audience-friendly formats should be a bonus on top of the content, and the reverse is not "worth it" for me. I'm not really that keen on "converting heathens", but I will continue to preach a little so that anyone who has been looking for such intellectual stimulation should find a medium and forum for it - that's the extent of the "reaching out" I want to do. At the end of the day, the content is what I'm interested in (selfishly). The money is a happy bonus, when it happens. And I don't think *even* Amnesia 2006 can achieve or has achieved a balance that will keep the uninitiated more than happy - it remains a highly-quizzer friendly quiz, because of its lack of prize money and audience-friendly rounds, and don't forget the "questions that build on standard trivia" - those who will get hooked will have that inclination anyway. As for newbies, the question is how do you provide "net-practice" without screwing up the fully open quizzes. Again, make it available without too much mollycoddling - if they like it enough, they'll catch up. But by all means provide the medium. I think the BC is that medium. Unfortunately, people don't seem to want to use it that way - reminds me of an interesting note on dhoomketu's blog discussing differences in quizzing in Delhi and Mumbai where someone said people have other options for entertainment in some places which might explain why quizzing takes a backseat - does that seem to be happening in college circles now? Only quiz-nerds like us will remain. Or is this the way it always was?
Sorry for the ramble. Why am I discussing all of this? :-)
We face this problem in our college quizzes too, lately. After having graduated, we find that the juniors at the helm of affairs in the event-organisation are more interested in a having large B-school type events where there are celebrities involved and countless audience prizes to be given out. This means that they need not a BC open kind of a quiz, but a junta quiz with questions like 'How many times did Tulsi marry?' being asked.
Coming back to the topic of broadcast questions, its a good round which if implemented properly can keep the audience interested too. I don't see any reason why we should do away with it because the audience got restless once.
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