Interrobang

The two-day quizzing melava at College of Engineering Pune was a momentous affair as it saw the return of BC Cup back in its in-person avatar and a general quiz by Suraj Menon which was billed as a set on his favorite topics. The venue for the general quiz was the well-equipped Kirloskar Auditorium in BHAU Institute which saw a great turnout (over 25+ teams). The elims kicked off with a wonderful audio question paying tribute to two beloved Punekars. There were thirty such succinctly framed questions and it was a thoroughly enjoyable set filled with great fundaes centered majorly around things one might’ve heard/read about. The cutoff was 19 out of a possible 30, with top score being an impressive 24. Top 8 teams made it to the finals and one draft was added to each team. Finals had 46 questions divided into four rounds – Two written and two IR. First written round was a set of 10 questions loosely themed on veteran quizzers in the circle. Loved the concept and how each answer was ...

 Set by Aditya Gadre, Aniket Khasgiwale and Yash Marathe Format: 30 question elim to determine the 8 quarter finalists. 60 question quarter to determine the top 4 for the semi finals. 40 question semi-final to determine the top 2. A 28 question final to determine the winner. Report The 13th edition of the BC Cup saw a return to the Boat Club steps after a brief online sojourn on account of the pandemic last year.  The elims was an even affair and threw its fair share of surprises as long time BC Cup veteren and perennial favourite Ingit sir didn't qualify, and last years winner Deepanjan Deb (aka DD) just about scraped through with the cut off 12.5 points. Samrat Sengupta lived up to his moniker of Sabse Bada BC and topped the elims with a whopping 19 points.  The Quarter Finals The top 8 in the quarter finals were: Anannya Deb, Gokul, Prithwish Datta, Suraj Menon, Sachin 'Talent' Deshpande, Deepanjan Deb (DD), Samrat Sengupta and Rohit Suresh (Rotti)  The quarter fi...

The BCQC October Open was set by the suave duo of quizmasters Akshay Parale and Naman Jain with questions on “Mumbai, Pune and everything in between.” The venue for the quiz was the Kirloskar Auditorium at the Bhau Institute located in the campus of the College of Engineering, Pune, just adjacent to the BC steps. The venue, secured thanks to the efforts of Srinivas from COEP, was well-equipped with all the necessities that a quiz club wants and more; and will hopefully see more quizzing in the recent future. The quiz started at 11.45 am with twelve teams of two attempting a 25-question preliminary set with a total of 29 points for grabs. Eight out of twelve teams present consisted of undergraduate college students. The preliminary round was well set, with questions on temples, personalities, buildings, art, culture and even rare minerals (yes, you read that right). The difficulty level was fairly balanced, with most questions being workable. The prelims ended with a top score of 21 o...

  Quiz : Test Match Special  Date & Time : 10 July, 2022, Noon Venue : COEP Theme : General (NOT cricket) Format: Written Elims for teams of 2 to get seeds + Final for all participants   QM(s): Suraj Menon Results: Winners – Team 1: Kunal Sawardekar, Aditya Gadre, Brajendu Bhaskar, Arnold D’Souza & Pitambar: 230 pts Second place: Team 6: Vibhendu Tewari, Rajiv Rai, Amit, Snehil & Palak Shah: 180 pts  Third Place: Team 2: Venky Srinivasan, Anannya Deb, Sania Narulkar, Abhinav Dasgupta & Anurag: 170 pts Other Finalists: Team 5: Piyush Kedia, Shubham, Naman Jain, Akshay Parale & Soham – 140 pts Team 4: Samrat Sengupta, J Ramanand, Sandeep Shankar, Pravin & Madhura – 130 pts Team 3: Anmol Dhawan, Sahil Gupta, Charles Matthew, Pranav Joshi, Ghanashyam – 75 pts  Suraj Menon is known by monikers like UNESCO Best QM and BQMI (Best QM in India) – so when he said he wanted to set 90 questions and do a ‘Test Match style’ quiz with an elims and ...

Quiz: The MELA Quiz Date & Time: 6 May, 2022, “Morning” Session Venue: AFMC Pune Fest: Silhouettes 2022 Format: Elims+Final QM(s): Med Cdt Giridhar Gopal and Med Cdt Saurabh Singh Bisht Results: 1. Omkar Dhakephalkar and Shivam Sharma 2. Naman Jain and Prajot Patne (college team) 3. Med Cdt Yash Gupta and Med Cdt Arkajyoti Majumdar (college team) Other Finalists: Sahil Gupta and Akshay Parale Shashank Tyagi and Yogesha Metla Med Cdt Dev Dileep Nair and Med Cdt Aditya Jayapalan The second quiz at Silhouettes was the first one on the second day. It was a MELA quiz and my partner was none other than celebrated social media sensation and poet Shivam Sharma of the Manasarovar Project fame. In that way, I was lucky, because I am not a MELA person. And the results showed that. We were promised that the quiz will start on time, and it did after the promised 45 minutes of delay. I believe the QMs were making the questions till the last moment :P The elims were a sh...

Quiz: Gen Open Date & Time: 1 5 May, 2022, Evening Session Venue: VIT, Pune Fest: Advitiya 2022 Format: Elims+Final QM(s): Naman Jain Results: 1. Piyush Kedia and Shubham (College team) 2. Anisha Karnail and Ahan 3. Sahil Gupta and Shivam Sharma Other Finalists: Sagnik Sarkar and Dr. Anmol Dhawan Akshay Parale and Charles Matthews Omkar Dhakephalkar and Pranav Pawar The elims was short, crisp and easy. This was important as there were many first-time college quizzers. Though the open quizzers might have thought it too easy; for the college quizzers that might not be the case. This is not to say that the questions were ill-framed. The hints were couched in excellent wording. The quizmaster was also quite strict about various doubts and arguments and knew exactly what he wanted. Out of 25, we scored about 22/23. This was not the highest, Piyush and Shubham scored higher! There was one seat of the six finalists reserved for a college team. Unfortunately th...

Quiz: The Ent Quiz Date & Time: 14 May, 2022, Evening Session Venue: VIT, Pune Fest: Advitiya 2022 Format: Elims+Final QM(s): Naman Jain, Aditya Pethe and Parth Hasabnis Results: 1. Pranav Pawar and Omkar Dhakephalkar 2. Piyush Kedia and Shubham (college team) 3. Sahil Gupta and Akshay Parale Other Finalists: Palak Shah and Mehvish Mukadam (college team) Sumukh Herlekar and Kamya Chandrashekhar Anisha Karnail and Avishek Ghosh I am not an ent quizzer, but specialization is for insects. So I accompanied my partner-in-quiz, Pranav Pawar to this quiz at VIT Pune, part of their quiz-fest. As Naman, one of the QMs was at pains to point it out, it was an Ent quiz, not a MELA quiz. So we had TV series, movies, Bolly and Holly, and even Instagram Reels questions, the latter of which is one of the most innovative rounds I have seen so far. The elims were nice and short. There were a couple of googlies which did bowl us over. However, it was a high-scoring round, especiall...

Quiz: The Maharashtra Quiz Date & Time: 15 May, 2022, Morning Session Venue: VIT, Pune Fest: Advitiya 2022 Format: Written QM(s): Aatreya Gaikwad Results: 1. Omkar Dhakephalkar and Pranav Pawar 2. Akshay Parale and Charles Matthew 3. Nikhil Jadhav (solo) A thirty-question set to begin a day of quizzing is always a good idea. Especially if it is written. However, if the topic is “Maharashtra”, one gets apprehensive. On top of that, the QM is among QSoc’s first timers. However, I am happy to report that Aatreya did an excellent job. And fear that the quiz will be niche was unfounded. The quiz was divided into bite-sized themes of five questions: Geography, Food, Forts, Current Events etc. All of the questions were wonderfully framed with plenty of hints such that even a non-Maharashtrian, and non-Marathi person would get it. The gen quotient was such that one of the answers was “Pompeii”, and another was the etymology of “Thecha”, and a fort answer was “Kondana”. ...