Interrobang

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”. ...

Quiz: Etymology Quiz Date & Time: 15 May, 2022, Afternoon Session Venue: VIT, Pune Fest: Advitiya 2022 Format: Written QM(s): Vaishnav Loya Results: 1. Piyush Kedia and Shubham 2. Omkar Dhakephalkar and Pranav Pawar 3. Akshay Parale and Charles Mathew The afternoon quiz meant that everybody was a bit sleepy, and it was hot. However the energy and excitement brought in by the quizmaster helped energize everyone. This was a first-time QM and, in that capacity, the quiz was not bad. It was highly enjoyable. I daresay it was easy (the winning scores were in the range of 27-29). This, however, does not take away from the quiz. It served as a delicious appetizer to the main open later in the evening. The quiz was helpfully divided into various sections (last names, businesses, etc.) and that helped narrow down the guesses. There were many easy questions which could be missed with a bit of overthinking, speaking to the framing of the question. At one question, a disput...

Date & Time: 8 May, 2022 Venue: AFMC, Pune Fest: Silhouettes 2022 Format: Elims + Finals QM(s): J. Ramanand Results: 1. Suraj Menon and Arnold D'Souza 2. Shashank Tyagi and Yogesa Metla 3. Gp Capt Anurakshat Gupta and Dr Anmol Dhawan Other Finalists: Med Cdt Giridhar Gopal and Med Cdt Saurabh Singh Bisht (college team) Akshay Parale and Naman Jain Surg Lt Cdr Hitesh Mahato and Maj Sri Krishna Venigalla Omkar Dhakephalkar and Pranav Pawar Mastermind winner and Brain of Pune – Ramanand conducted the Shyam Bhatt Open quiz at AFMC (which most sources tell us, reliably might I add, is the longest running open quiz in Pune). The annual event commemorates AFMC alumnus Shyam Bhatt and as usual his batchmates were on hand to share their memories of him. The quiz started with a nice easy-paced (but by no means easy-peasy) elims which covered a wide range of topics and resulting in seven teams making it, because nice guy JR did not want to ditch a team on stars. The finals had 28 que...

Date & Time: 5 May, 2022 Venue: AFMC, Pune Fest: Silhouettes 2022 Format: Elims + Finals QM(s): Naman Jain Results: 1. Akshay Parale (Open)- 75 points 2. Sahil Gupta and Shivam Sharma (Open) - 70 points 3. Giridhar Gopal and Saurabh Singh Bisht (AFMC) - 70 points Sports quizzes tend to be esoteric. For everyone who attended the sports quiz at AFMC this year, they were pleased to see this myth getting debunked like a ramp shot from Jos Buttler's blade. Think of all the reasons for not attending a quiz: middle of a pandemic, weekday and a god awful heatwave. Despite this, we had a full house for the event with 24-25 teams showing up (a rarity for sports quizzes apart from BC Cup). Elims were an enjoyable affair with 20 crisp workable questions, also reflected in the fact that the cut off for the finals was 10.5 with many teams scoring between the range of 8-10. A trend that I have observed in this QM's other quizzes is that his sets are well-framed and cater to a large a...