September 2006 BC Open Quiz

Date: 24 Sept, 2006
Venue: Dewang Mehta Auditorium, PSPL
Set and Conducted by: Kunal Sawardekar and Kunal Thakar

Quiz Final Results
(46 questions)
1st: Ganesh Hegde and Shivaji Marella: 80
Jt. 2nd: Shamanth Rao and Salil Bijur: 60
Jt. 2nd: Samrat Sengupta and J. Ramanand: 60
4th: Akhil and Apurva: 40
5th: Meghashyam Shirodkar and Aditya Udas: 35
6th: Harsh Ketkar and Rashmi Vadnagare: 20

(15 out of 46 questions went unanswered)

Quiz Elim Results
Cutoff: 8/21
Shamanth+Salil topped the elims

Newbie quiz by: Abhishek Nagaraj and Salil Bijur

Report

* Despite suspicions (;-)) of a quiz filled with hard rock quiz and a Bart-Homer jugal-bandii, the questions were quite interesting, and as should be, reflective of the different interests of the quiz-setters. So we did have questions on rock music and Bart Simpson, but we also had questions on politics, dynasties, tech trivia, literature, India and etymology. Though perhaps not a quiz that covered "everything", I personally learnt a lot of new things and found it enjoyable. In some sense, it had the effect of a Major Brijesh quiz.
* Only complaint was the quiz was too short. Just 21 qns in the elims and 46 in the finals. Blame it on setters leaving things too late in their prep? Perhaps it is time to start mandating at least 80 good questions per Open Quiz. Typically, the setter of the next quiz knows at least 5-6 weeks in advance when s/he is expected to do the quiz, and so has enough time (IMO) to make it worth the time of the participants.
* A 5+1 theme connect in addition to the usual IR questions was done. Interestingly, the answers were not given out for any of the questions leading to the theme. Shamanth and Salil went for the theme despite being in the lead and lost points to slip to 2nd spot.
* The Kunals have promised to make soon available the questions on the inquizitive yahoogroups. If any reader wants questions, please leave your email id in comments for this post and we'll arrange to send them to you.
* We had a lot of new people show up for the newbie quiz which was a good sign. Everyone was on stage for that quiz.

* Samrat will conduct the next open quiz in November.

Sample Elims questions:
1. Acc. to Slavic myth, 3 brothers named Lech, ___ and Rus went hunting one day, but got separated while following different prey. Lech went north, __ went west and Rus went east. Lech's descendants founded the modern nation of Poland (also known as Lechia), Rus's descendants founded Russia, while ___'s descendants founded their own nation and took their name after their founder. Fill the blank.
2.Rossum the senior, a man thought by many to be half crazed, develops the technology, which is then made suitable for practical production by his son Rossum the junior, who establishes an island factory of Rossum's Universal ___. The technology however goes tragically wrong, and humanity is doomed as a result. Fill blank.