May Open Morning Quiz - "Dekho Magar Pyaar Se"

Date: May 4, 2008
Set and Conducted by Niranjan Pedanekar

Results (elims scores in bracket):
1st: Harish + Ramanand (D): 215 [25.5]
2nd: Akhil + Apurva (C) : 210 [20.5]
Jt. 3rd: Salil + Yasho (B) : 160 [24]
Jt. 4rd: Aditya Gadre + Kaustubh (E) :160 [21]
5th: Abhishek + S. Ashwin (F) : 145 [19.5]
6th: Aniket + Manish Manke (A): 105 [20]

Best school team: Pushkar Pandit and Kunal Kalkundri; Best college team not in final: Rohan and Gaurav Singh, Best newbies: Harshal Modi and Mahip Vyas

Scorer: Aadinath Harihar

Report

This report is easy to describe: the quiz was brilliant :-). After having inflicted brain-churning quizzes in the last couple of years, Niranjan chose to rebel against the monsters he had unleashed, as well as the verbose laziness of the rest of us. He presented a quiz whose underlying theme was 'pithiness' which showed that questions can be set with an economy of expression by exploiting the proverbial '1 pic == 1000 words. In doing so, he has again pushed the boundaries of what we can do in setting a quiz. At the same time he was also able to show us what we can do 'at a quiz' - in presentation, in building atmosphere, in panache and chutzpah (Yiddish for ... :-))

The quiz began with a Larry Lessig/Dick Hardt style presentation which so caught everyone's fancy that there was actually an encore demanded and had. The elims set the standard with some excellent questions.

Most felt that the finals were a lot less mentally taxing than previous quizzes, which seemed to naturally flow from the theme of the quiz. There were 4 regular rounds and 4 'special rounds'. Though interesting, I felt some of them had too many questions. Another observation was that since we spent less time in parsing each question, we had a little more time to ponder the possible answers.

As ever, Niranjan's choosing of question elements was almost always excellent. While setting a question, there are several different ways of presenting it. This is especially so in a visuals only quiz, where one would have been faced with questions such as what to show, whether there are enough hints within the images (remember: want to have as few words in the question as possible), whether this is a good enough question, and so on. For me, observing these possible choices was the best part of the quiz. For instance, the question about the index from a particular book - I don't know if other pages would have been as revealing as that particular page.

Lest I wax too eloquent, here are some minor flaws: the quiz was at least 30 minutes too long. There were quite a few Rosa Park-ers (perhaps our new term for 'sitters' ;-)) which, much to the chagrin of Teams F & E, kept coming to us. (Team F were perhaps so distraught that when presented with their own sitter, they chose to slip rather inconveniently :-).)

Further on the plus side, the proceedings on stage were very peaceful and conducive to quiet contemplation of quizzes. We had a large turnout of school quizzers this time. Harish and I finally won (together, that is) a quiz of Niranjan's, having come close twice before. Akhil and Apurva, fine but underrated quizzers, gave us a good fright with their late surge.

It was an enjoyable way to spend a Sunday morning.