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
4 comments:
Thanks for the kind review.
Apologies for the elims. I looked at them myself and found that I would not include at least 10 of the questions as compared to the elims over the years :) I would either change the framing or replace the question altogether.
Probably because, this time, I followed a different approach of concentrating on the finals and using what I had not used in the finals as elims 'material', and ran out of time before I could look at them closely.
Better elims next time ;))
Even I missed the complex connects (especially the Kekule Connects, of which there was only one) that make Niranjan's Quiz such fun.
I felt there was too little sport, only Dodgeball and Armchair Cricket come to mind, and both are not truly sport questions. But as usual, the questions were brilliant because they were framed on fundae (brit-accented villains, pomegranates, storks etc) rather than simple facts. I think that is something all of us should try to emulate.
Also, I really liked the fact that throughout the quiz everybody had enough time to think and were never hurried by the quizmaster. I think this is something which we should follow at all quizzes, rather than rushing through questions.
One minor correction:
Sastry was in out team, not Abhinav.
Thanks, Aniket for the kind comments, and apologies for the delay in reply.
Not many sports questions, as I went with the idea of looking at many different and new areas. If you noticed, there was hardly any Hindi F&M as well :)
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