Inquizzition-7 - FC, Pune

What: Inquizzition 7, Fergusson College, Pune, OPEN trivia quiz, Teams of 2
Where: Fergusson College, Pune
When: Sat, 30 Sept, 11 am
Contact: Ulka (9373334274) or Veda (9823747725) / vedaaggarwal at gmail

The QUAINT Report and Awards 2005-06

(Excludes the Interrobang Annual Illustrated Calendar - all the action your imagination can take)

This is fairly over-due, so let's plunge into the first "Quizzers of Interrobang/Inquizitive" awards and annual status report. We used to occasionally write out a report on the egroups earlier for the sake of the BC alumni, and so here goes another martyr to the cause of nostalgia.

Michael Hussey award for awesome consistency: Kunal Sawardekar walks away with prize into the sunset leaving us dusty and dazed. A phenomenal year in which Kunal won almost everything he took part in - Open quizzes unbroken right from Sept to May (except for April where exams stole him), Quizomania, the local Mahaquizzer tourney and sundry other quizzes. Chakravyuuh eluded him but he'll be back for more. Quite simply the best year I've seen any Pune quizzer have. Michael Hussey would know how he feels

Kevin Pietersen prayj for an immigrant with good performances, weird hair and weirder activities: Shamanth Rao-da, fresh (stale?) from academic environs, relocated to Pune, won many quizzes (Chakravyuuh, VIT, Niranjan's included), had his lovelife discussed on blogs, went to parties uninvited and slept in parks. Only the racoon hair was missing.

Darren Gough "return in a new avatar" gong: Samrat Sengupta for coming back from IIM-L. And we love listening to both of them talk.

Son of Kal-El Comeback shield: Niranjan Pedanekar for finally reviving his quiz after 5 long years. Last heard, Sourav Ganguly was looking for his number. Niranjan also wins the Sansad Bhavan trophy for the best questions last year.

Graham Gooch the Runaway Bridesmaid certificate: Ramanand and Harish, for contriving to come 2nd at Chakravyuuh for the 4th successive time, once again by the shortest margin. England has won the Ashes, Martin Damm a Grand Slam, but will their turn come?

Ballack-Shevchenko greener pastures puraskaar: Gaurav Sabnis and Siddharth Dani, who on the pretext of higher studies have gained parole. The slur of being a BC quizzer shall never leave them though. The resident-bouncer-who-was-never-there-to-bounce-except-at-tech-quizzes and the sub-nice shall be thought of fondly.

Richard Branson competitive medal: all the Bombay Quizzers who come all the way to take part - what wonderful enthusiasm!

The Most Hon. Rev. Bobby John Award for questions that make you think: won by the Most Hon. Rev. Bobby John himself for such golden gems such as (someone may please refresh my memory).

Shane Warne "watch my lips" shield in conjunction with Ram Gopal Varma's K-Jo commemorative for best controversial moments: The subaltern Parnab saab controversy and ND's blast from the past

Dame Judi Dench Best Supporting cameos: Hirak, Major Shankar

Special Inzy-Hair "it was just a disagreement" award aka "Pyaar ke Side Effects": the wonderfully entertaining casting of Anand Sivashankar and Arnold D'Souza. When will we see them together again?

Ric Charlesworth award for best strategy at a quiz Major Brijesh Nair, for his superb BC quizzes and "steal" sections

(More awards have escaped the attention of this blogger, so anyone who traps more can release them into the comments section)

Many thanks to those who did open quizzes in the last year: Harish, Sudarshan, Abhishek and Kapeesh, Shamanth, Anand and Vibhendu, Niranjan, Gaurav, and Meghashyam. No malice to anyone or anything or any heavenly body (includes you, Pluto) intended :-)

September Open Quiz

Date and Time: 24 September, Sunday from 1:00 pm
Organised and Conducted by: Kunal Sawardekar and Kunal Thakar
Venue: Dewang Mehta Auditorium, Bhageerath, Persistent Systems Pvt. Ltd., Pune
Flavour: General (with a bias towards popular culture :-))
Team Size: Two per team
Contact for info: 9923224475/kunalns[at]gmail

Usual notes: We will also try to conduct a newbie quiz as part of the proceedings. If you don't have a partner, that's not a problem - just show up.

Abhivyakti - Open Quiz at MIT

Date: 17 Sep, 2006
Set and conducted by: Akshad Viswanathan, Rahul Phadnis, Viraj Phanse, Jay Athalye

Results:

1st: Aditya Bidikar & Salil Wagh
2nd: Sujit Adhye & Sushant Bhadkamkar
Joint 3rd: Suhas Walanjoo & Kunal Thakar**, Kunal Sawardekar & Abhishek Nagaraj
4th: Ganesh Hegde & Salil Bijur
5th: Gaurav Singh & Aniket Khasgiwale

** The team of Suhas & Kunal was formed after Suhas qualified solo and Kunal was a part of the team that just missed qualifying.

Telecom Grandmasters 2006, SITM

Harsh Ketkar & Arnab Pal attended the Telecom Grandmasters Quiz organised by Symbiosis Institute of Telecom Management. Here is Harsh's report:

Disclaimer: Any resemblance to a cinema awards function is purely coincidental and unintentional.

First, the official description:

"Telecom GrandMasters 2005 had touched new horizons; Telecom GrandMasters 2006 would be a leap across the horizon. We, at SITM, set the pace for others, we believe in transforming dreams into reality. We have done it time and again and this time by going online for the preliminary round of the event for the second consecutive year. The Final Event in 2005 was graced by presence of Ms. Diana Hayden and Mr. Abhay Deol.

TGM 2005 itself was a "grand success", with the team from VIT, Pune bagging the first prize. The celebrities who graced the occasion included Diana Hayden and Abhay Deol."

Now, the real one:

Over 750 corporate as well as student teams across 22 cities in India participated in the quiz. The first celebrity guest was Shreyas Talpade and he kicked off the award ceremony, uh, quiz. (oops… sorry it is a quiz). The quizmaster had forgotten his name and kept on referring to him as Iqbal. After a small Q&A session with Iqbal, in which he tried to market his latest venture, he left, apologizing that he had a function to attend. That kept his presence short, and more importantly, sweet.

The next one to come was Sharad Kapoor.

QM: How was it like working with Mallika Sherawat in Murder?
Sharad Kapoor: Umm... It could have been called "Lust" or "Trust".

Later,

QM(on the stage): How was it like working with Mallika Sherawat in Murder?
Sharad Kapoor: Don't you watch movies?
QM: I do.
Sharad Kapoor: Then go and watch "Murder". I am not in it.
QM: Umm... That's why I asked you about it. Well, how did you find Pune's roads?
(Participants on stage smiling to each other)
Sharad Kapoor: Quite good. They are better than Bombay roads.
A loud gasp from the audience follows. (The poor guy has probably not travelled much in Pune to know the current state of roads.)

Then the QM suddenly realized that he is conducting a quiz and asked Mr. Kapoor to throw a few questions at the audience. Every correct answer received by Mr. Kapoor was greeted by a comment "Mind-blowing… Baap re baap."

After 4-5 rounds, it was the turn of Ashmit Patel (Aha! The questions got mixed up! That explains the "Murder" part), Aaditya Dutt (famous for directing "Aashiq Banaya Aapne"), and Geeta Basra, a Bollywood debutante. Together they promoted their new film "Dil Diya Hai". They said it was going to be a "different" film. And then the usual informal chat followed.

Here it goes...

QM: Nowadays we get to hear lots of new names like Ashmit Patel, Geeta Basra, etc... all non Kapoor khandaan names. How was it for you to make it big inspite of not being from a star family?
Ashmit: Well, It wasn't easy. But I feel that it is easier for women to make make it big in Bollywood.
Geeta Basra (with an imbecile smile): What are you saying, Ashmit? We have to work equally hard!
QM, audience and others: HAHAHAAHAAA!!

This went on for around 10-15 minutes. The participants (us included) used the opportunity to visit the toilet. The finalists on the stage just sitting and grimacing wondering how much longer will they have to tolerate this nonsense.

Oh yes, we forgot to mention about the quiz altogether. Here are a few of the "too tough, crackers, and blasters (according to the QM)" questions.

1.Where will be the FIFA world cup be held in 2010? (The team, to which this was posed couldn't answer it!)
2.What is the name of the social networking website started by a Google employee, and named after him?
3.What is the next version of Windows, previously called Longhorn, called?
4.What is the torro scale used to measure? (We answered "Hurricane", but no, it was wrong. The QM wanted "Tornado".)
5.In which year were the departments of Post and telecommunication separated?
6.How many bones does the human arm have? 29,30 or 33?

What were these questions doing in the mains?

The rounds were strictly okay for a national level quiz. There was a round of infinite rebound (bounce), the usual buzzer round, two "choice of subject" rounds, including a rapid fire round and a three question round; and a normal passing round with no IR. But the questions were absolutely bad. We don't blame the QM. He tried his best. There were instances when we answered the questions and the audience did not applaud. The poor folks are not to blame. The questions, which were outright sitters (“sitters” is a very charitable description, mind you, they were worse) were to blame. They should keep the students away from setting the questions and allow only pure quizzers to set the questions. If not, then they should outsource it. And the QM and the quiz setter should be the same person. Even inter-collegiate quizzes in Pune and the ones held informally at BCQC are better by a factor of ten.

The QM was irritatingly stubborn at times. There was a connect round, and the answer was "Windows 95" The team answered it like this: "Windows 98, uh 95". The QM refused to award the points to them. Now this is childish. If they have got the funda, why not just give it to them? But the QM thought otherwise.

Quizzes conducted by B-Schools usually are very well managed but this time round the overall organization of the quiz was found wanting. Also the quiz stretched on for almost 3.5 hours, which is too long, thanks mostly to our celebrity guests. We also think that the organizers should stop inviting celebrities to the quiz. They seem hopelessly out of place. Finally, they should cut down on the protocol and formalities; they are simply not required. As quizzers we just want a good quiz, and nothing else.

So will we participate next year? Very unlikely.

Winners:
1.Jayakanthan R & Venkatesh N.A.
TCS, Chennai (125 points + tie breaker).
2.Sumeet Kaul & Chandan Mohanty
Infosys, Pune (125 points).
3.Harshvardhan Ketkar & Arnab Pal
College: VIT, Pune (120 points).

:: Harsh

Malhar '06 Quizzes

A personal report a.k.a why we sometimes need to think about a Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Quizzing And Quizzers.

The Techie Kaun Quizzes at SCIT

 

Day One:

Technology Quiz

 

Date: 1st Aug

Venue: SCIT Audi, Hingewadi.

 

QM: Suhel Banerjee, Google.

 

Results:

1st : Rohit Jain + 1 (SIBM) 100 Points

2nd: Siddharth Dani and Rashmi Vadanagare (VIT) 95 Points

3rd: Abhishek Nagaraj and Sudeep Pradhan (COEP) 93 Points

 

Nature:

Technology was a bit of a misnomer. Mostly involved tech-business along with tinges of including movies and politics. QM was innovative and passed the litmus test called Siddharth Dani, who otherwise was in plein forme as far as expletives for people is considered. The best thing was the sense of BC informality to what was quite a big quiz. QM must be commended for saying stuff like "you might want to kill me after this", and then proceeded to give a quite arbit connection involving half-sisters and full monsters. nnovative rounds included using Google Trends (search volumes for specific keywords vs time) and mostly included us guessing why there was a spike in searches for a particular keyword at a certain time.

 

Main complaint has to be scoring system. Very very unfair, although included doubling something which I personally don't mind. However long connects has 30 - 15 D&P scoring, that never gave us a chance, and Siddharth + Rashmi were done in by negatives when they doubled. In conclusion, great quiz and enjoyed myself if only for the questions. But sir, next time please to have seamless IR.

 

 

---

Day Two:

Bizzy B - Business Quiz

 

Date: 2st Aug

Venue: SCIT Audi, Hinngewadi.

 

QM: Avinash Mudaliar, 3xUS.

 

Results:

1st : Rohit Jain + 1 (SIBM) 70 Points

2nd: (SPJAIN) 55(?) Points

3rd: (I forget) (i forget) Points

 

(Help!)

 

Notes:

 

Firstly elims had negative scoring. Bad. Very very bad. Next, questions involved recently changed MDs, the various posts of Gopal Balakrishnan and dates from history and ranks of organizations in rich-lists. Bad. Very very bad. To be fair, the few good questions were overshadowed by their quite badly behaved friends. Add the usual symbiosis fundaes like, "This exam is like CAT", "You should have known how it works, you have given the CAT" and "OK, fine. If you did not know, good. Now it will help you when you give the CAT". But, I digress.

 

Here enters the QM. Now I have a feeling, the QM entered here figuratively as well because if the finals was anything to go by - there is no way the same person could have set the elims, or if I am mistaken it just showed an extreme apathy towards the elims. Anyway, the finals were quite excellent. There were fundaes, Shamanth style question asking, (but nowhere near as cool). However this quiz too was affected by the bane of all quizzes, showing smart-ass ads and asking what happens next, and indentify this ad. If the QM could have veered away from this temptation, the quality of questions would have been elevated greatly. The presentation was a bit too loud and 'showy' for our liking, but what to do.

 

In general, must say the guys at Symbi are improving as far as flexibility, choosing of QMs, and management in general is concerned. Now, if only Dani hadn't called them Quiz Nazis, I would've said, well done!

Indian Cinema Quiz at B.J.Medical College

* Pretty decent film quiz (belying worries to the contrary) by Kiran and lot at B.J.Medical College, whose quizzing so far has been more famous for Shivaji-Vivek, paper planes and the "Khashaba Jadhav from Kolhapur" performance
* Good round structure (era-wise, buzzers, questions on film crews, audio-visuals)
* Questions were not obscure (95% at least) and topics were on stuff that a fan would be interested in knowing
* Was won by Niranjan and me, while Aditya Pethe and Harish (who was a super-sub!) came 2nd - they did get a couple of tough ones and parried a couple to us ;-). Suvojit and friend were 3rd in a good comeback. Can't remember team 4's names.
* Harish's father makes his debut - got some tough ones right later during the final from in the audience
* Pretty good organisation - even with the taut and blinding light-buzzers ("buzzer" is probably the wrong term)
* As I had expected, it was primarily a Hindi film quiz, with the 5% regional quota taken up mainly by Marathi, and then some Tamil and Bangla
* Had fun overall - I think all who were there would agree.

July Open Quiz - Results

Details:
* July BCQC Open Quiz on 9 July, 2006
* Set and conducted by Meghashyam Shirodkar
* Scoring: Infinite Rebounds (10 pts); No Pole Position; Elims winners decide seating order

Results (60 questions in the Final):

1st-C: Shamanth Rao and J. Ramanand (100 pts)
2nd-E: Aadisht Khanna and Raj Kamal (85)
3rd-B: Sayak Dasgupta and Suvojit Chakraborty (80)
4th-A: Rishi Iyengar and Udatta Duarah (75)
Jt 5th-D: Shivaji Marella and Maitreyi Gupta (70)
Jt 5th-F: Niranjan Pedanekar and Gaurav Sabnis (70)

Elims results (30 questions):

1st: Ramanand and Shamanth (21.5)
2nd: Sayak and Suvojit (19)
3rd: Rishi and Udatta (18.5 *)
4th: Raj K and Aadisht (18.5)
5th: Niranjan and Gaurav (18)
6th: Maitreyi and Shivaji (16.5)
Cutoff: 16.5

Comments and Criticisms:

* I didn't like the elims much. Some of the questions like the Jolie, sudoku qns should not have been asked, IMHO. Some of the qns could have been better and more carefully framed. Probably the 1523-Great Britain qn was the best of the lot.
* The finals had too many easy questions shown by the fact that as much as 28 out of 60 qns were answered on the direct.
* Overall, the choice of content was fine, but the framing of questions made it too easy. Some of the questions were extremely huge - I have not seen such end to end slide coverage :-). I have a feeling that workability is sometimes taken to the extreme where too many clues are thrown into the pot. For instance the Empire State Bldg qn: it had enough material to set about 10 qns on the topic. One or two strands could have been picked out to make a smaller and more neater question. A thumb rule could be to keep eliminating clues in a question until the least amount is left which is at the same time still generally workable. It's a tough thing to get right, no doubt
* QM needed to be a little firm during arguments :-) Don't ask the audience for opinions, and if possible, even anticipate such problem areas during setting
* Now for some positives: this is probably Meghashyam's 2nd or 3rd quiz ever, so for a beginner, the quiz was pretty decent. There were no hitches in presentation etc.
* The questions on "first lines...Win 95 removal", "chote sarkar-sorry", the 1st qn on tennis, the ship MV..., etc were very good. Some of the other choices in questions were decent, but made too easy by framing, or were such that there were only few options to guess, what Niranjan calls "survivability" of a question was low in most qns
* At the risk of sounding like Rahul Dravid, these open quizzes are also an opportunity for newer people to have the experience of setting questions and organising quizzes. We have had at least 3 debuts in the last 8 quizzes, and the results have been encouraging.

And...:

* Thanks to Meghashyam for the prizes :-)
* Thanks to the participants, from Mumbai and the locals, for braving the slightly inclement political weather and turning up !
* I wonder why no one thought of the team name "conceived on the fourth of October" considering the subtitle of the quiz
* We may have a vacant slot for September, so if anyone's interested in holding a quiz then, please let me know and I'll see if it becomes possible. Samrat will do the quiz in November.

As usual, please leave comments on this post if you have anything to say about yesterday's quiz.

Two quizzes

There will be two open quizzes in Pune on Sunday (9th July):

1. An Indian films quiz at B.J.Medical College, Pune. Teams of two, open to all, Rs. 40/- entry fee. Time of quiz is 9:30 am

2. General quiz by Meghashyam Shirodkar at the Dewang Mehta Auditorium, "Bhageerath", Persistent Systems Pvt. Ltd, Senapati Bapat Road. Teams of two, open to all, likely entry fees (as part of prize money kitty) of Rs. 50/-. Quiz starts at 3 pm.

KQA Mahaquizzer - Pune

This is about the KQA's annual quiz Mahaquizzer that is scheduled for the 21st May (Sunday). The Pune round will be held at

Rooms 21 and 22,
The Institution of Engineers,
JM Road, Shivajinagar,
Pune.

Reporting time at the venue: 9. 30am.

You may register for the quiz by sending an email to arul(dot)mani at gmail or to shamanth at gmail, indicating Mahaquizzer - in the subject line (this is for those who havent registered at the May Open in Pune) You are urged to register in advance to avoid alast minute hassles at the venue. Do also pass on the word to other quiz enthusiasts.

Details about the quiz (as provided by KQA):
The Karnataka Quiz Association will hold the second edition of Mahaquizzer, the annual solo quiz contest, in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Trivandrum, Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata and New Delhi on Sunday, 21 May 2006

Mahaquizzer is a written quiz; 150 general questions to be answered in 90 minutes.

Prizes will be awarded to the person with the top score in each city – in addition, prizes will be awarded to the best woman entrant and the best school entrant in each city.

The person with the top score across the cities will hold the title of Mahaquizzer for this year. The winner will also receive the Wing Commander Mulky Memorial Trophy for Quizzing Excellence from Wingco's family in June at the time of the KQA anniversary.

Date of contest: Sunday, 21 May 2006
Time: 1000hrs-1130hrs at all venues
No entry fee
Open to all (above the age of 12)

:: Shamanth

Amnesia 2006 - May Open Quiz - Report and Results

Amnesia 2006 - May Open Quiz

Date: 14 May, 2006
Set and Conducted: Niranjan Pedanekar

Quiz Final Results - 55 questions

1st: Shamanth Rao and Kunal Sawardekar (22)
2nd: B.V.Harishkumar & J. Ramanand (19)
3rd: Samrat Sengupta & Sudarshan Purohit (18)
4th: Anand Sivashankar & Vibhendu Tiwari (12)
Jt. 5th: Gaurav Sabnis & Sarika Chuni (7)
Jt. 5th: Rishi Iyengar & Rohan Morarka(7)

Quiz Elim Results

Cutoff: 18/35
1st: B.V.Harishkumar & J. Ramanand (23)
2nd: Samrat & Sudarshan (20.5)
3rd: Gaurav & Sarika(19)
4th: Kunal and Shamanth, Rishi & Rohan, Anand Sivashankar & Vibhendu Tiwari (all 18)

Report

* Amnesia 2006 was Niranjan's 1st quiz in 5 years after the now-defunct series of Mensa quizzes which were part of local folklore. The usual Niranjan constructs of lateral connects, 10 feet deep entertainment and sci-tech questions, the long questions et al were back :-)
* There were a few questions that participants and audience found vague that the quiz creator later agreed with. But there were several compensating questions that were brilliantly set, IMO. A lot of new topics or refreshing takes on old topics were seen. The level of acceptance or dislike on some of the offbeat questions will be a subjective emotion - overall, I was very entranced by the questions (as usual :-))
* Also felt that the participants and even audience members responded well to the questions - some very good attempts, many successful, were heard. Personal favourites among questions were: (being careful about not giving them away for those who will read them later) the grey-blue boxes with red lines and a tree, the 4 geographical locations, mutation-self-selection-veracity, ali-gogh-reagan connect, 4 military guys connect etc.
* There were a few questions that were too easy, some that were good but repeated without the knowledge of the setter or were simply a little to "iffy" (pun intended ;-)). Most common criticism was the length of questions, though, I personally didn't have a problem except for about 10% of the questions.
* Response was a little disappointing, I thought. Though the good old Mensa flavour was revived by the presence of Niranjan's wife who however didn't pick up her traditional duties as a scorer this time.
* The competition was fierce, with the winners being decided only on the 2nd last question, until which team any of the top 3 could have picked up the top spot. Kunal and Shamanth have added another feather in their caps-which-now-looks-like-a-strange-bird. Since these series of quizzes are the only ones that (even) I allow myself to be a little immodest about, on behalf of the likes of George, Harish, Sujay and me, I'd like to welcome you to the club ;-)
* Finals Questions are unlikely to be available soon because the ppt is very large and some alternate form of dissemination will be required.

I think those who don't have a history of being Niranjan-quiz-philes should comment :-) (please point out omissions and errors in this post)

The May Open Quiz

What: The May Open Quiz
By: Niranjan Pedanekar
Date: 14th May, 2006 (Sunday)
Venue: Dewang Mehta Auditorium, Bhageerath, Persistent Systems Pvt.
Ltd, Senapati Bapat Road, Pune
Flavour: General
Time to report: 11:45 am
Elims begin: 12 pm
Team size: Members of two
Please try and make it on time - really, there is very little excuse for local quizzers to be late. The earlier we begin in the afternoon, the more convenient it will be for people from out of town.

Additionally, we will also conduct the now-regular midstream unseeded quiz for some of our inexperienced participants.

Small Note

Dunno if everyone has seen this but Anand has a comphrehensive review of the March Open that he and Vibhendu did up on his blog. He has detailed numerical analysis and personal opinions about each teams showing. Excellent, detailed and precise. Do see.

April Open Quiz - Results

Details:
* April BCQC Open Quiz on 23 April, 2006
* Set by Sarika Chuni and Gaurav Sabnis; conducted by Gaurav
* Scoring: Infinite Rebounds (2 pts); Pole Position bonuses (3/2/1)

Results (54 questions in the Final):

1st: Dhoomketu and Naveen Unni (17 pts)
Jt. 2nd: B.V. Harishkumar and Samrat Sengupta (16)
Jt. 2nd: Salil Bijur and J. Ramanand (16)
4th: Shivaji Marella and Ganesh Hegde (14)
5th: Arnold D'Souza and Shamanth Rao (super-sub for Kunal S :-)) (13)
6th: Kunal Thakar and Anupam Akolkar (12)

Elims results (35 questions):

1st: Harish and Samrat (18*)
2nd: Salil and Ramanand (18)
3rd: Dhoomketu and Naveen(?)
Cutoff: 14.5

Comments/Criticisms:

* Participation numbers seem to be going up - many more new faces this time. More visitors from Bombay, two of whom won the quiz!
* Personally felt that the questions weren't completely upto the usual standards of the quiz-setters. Close to half the questions were entertainment related. Fewer connects (was expecting some of Gaurav's patented bizarro connects, but none materialised :-)) and very little sports. Uncharacteristic pitch. A lot more history and politics this time.
* Also felt that though some of the questions had some interesting trivia as their basis, the framing did not do justice to it. For instance, the questions on "What was Operation Wrath of God?" or on Norman, the NZ athlete were like Alicia Silverstone i.e. clueless.
* A slightly rushed affair which led to some questions not being done justice too; one of the more tougher elims I have taken.
* Couple of rough decisions going against H & S :-)
* Another super-sub: Shamanth replaced Kunal S for the finals as the latter is in the middle of exams.
* Since this is likely to be Gaurav's last formal quiz in Pune for a while - taking the opportunity to wish him well and thank him for the entertainment in the past.
* Next quiz: Niranjan's in May

Unseeded quiz results
For the first time, we held an unseeded 25 questions-written quiz for some of the lesser experienced quizzers. About 20 of them took part. Conducted by Shamanth, here are the results:

1st: Chinmay
2nd: Aniket Khasgiwale
3rd: Akshat Vyas
4th: Mithun Srivatsa, Arun Mirpuri, Gaurav Singh (Tied)

Please leave comments on this post if you have anything to say about yesterday's quiz. Also note that from this time, due to initiatives from Salil and Abhishek, we're recording more info about the quizzes in our report. I don't have my notes, so have left some info blank. Please do help complete

April Open Quiz

Sarika and Gaurav will be conducting an Open Quiz in Pune this weekend. Details:

Date - 23rd April 2006 (Sunday)
Time - 10:00 a.m. (finals will end at approx 3 p.m.)
Team Size 2 members
Venue - Dewang Mehta Auditorium, Bhageerath, Persistent Systems Pvt. Ltd, Behind Domino's Pizza, Senapati Bapat Road, Pune
Flavour: General
Contact for more info: gaurav(dot)sabnis(at)gmail...

Update: On the side, an "unseeded quiz" will also be conducted. This is meant for all rookie participants.

The Sahara Aamby Valley City Brand Equity Quiz 06

Conducted by : Derek O' Brien
Date : 9th April, Sun.
Location: Sahara Aamby Valley City

Results : 1st Place - Goldman Sachs (Bangalore)
2nd Place - UTI Bank (Mumbai)
3rd Place - KPMG (Chennai)

Comments: Derek sprung a big surprise by having IR. This itself, added to the fact that he was in full form implementing the 'militaristic' theme fully as General RAMDI(RAMSKI?), parodies and usual leg-pulling made it a fun experience overall.

There were of course bad questions(esp. the AVs, which mostly involved muted/beeped out brand names in various unrelated movies/songs) However some questions were nice, and overall the surroundings did help lift up the mood of the average spectator.

The drive up to Amby Valley (to use a now obselte term) is quite spectacular to say the least, and it does quite help to have a member of a co-quizzer's family to drive you till there ;-)

Also to mention that Dhammo and Dhananjay narrowly missed out on the grand prize, and note, for future reference how Tamilian(South-Indian?) pronounciations can rob you of some considerable richess. (Note : Detailed teams to be put up later)

March Open Quiz

Results

1st: Kunal Sawardekar and Niranjan Pedanekar
2nd: Shamanth Rao and Abhishek Nagaraj
3rd: Ganesh Hegde and J. Ramanand
Other Finalists: Shivaji Marella+Siddharth Natarajan, Sudarshan Purohit+Salil Bijur, Meghashyam Shirodkar+Aniruddha Kasbekar

Comments
* Good quiz overall - several new areas explored
* Good coverage of sports and films, reflecting interests of the question setters :-)
* Some questions were a little too easy, IMO (none came to us - grrr!- except one, which we thought was too easy and hence got bowled through the gate)
* Techno-problems could have been avoided
* Thanks to the organisers for the prizes and the chocolates
* Some newer people spotted participating, including some kids who went on to smash the tough sports questions down the baseline.
* As Niranjan already commented, they won narrowly (by 5 points) "thanks to an answer by Kunal that ran 'sub-commandante marcos of EZNL' :-)"
* We have had six quizzes so far since May last year - every time, the winner has either been Niranjan or Kunal S. In fact, Kunal has won the last four in a row and plus he's having a terrific year (blame it on "final year luck" :-) ) - well done!
* The next open quiz will be in May, by Niranjan
* Apologies to Dominique Lapierre for polishing him off :-)

Others please comment...

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Date and Time: 26 March, Sunday from 12:00 pm
Organised and Conducted by Vibhendu Tiwari and Anand Sivashankar
Venue: Dewang Mehta Auditorium, Bhageerath, Persistent Systems Pvt. Ltd., Pune
Flavour: General
Team Size: Two per team

Torquest

- COEP Fervor(sic) Technical Quiz

Organized By :

Kapeesh Saraf, Aseem Deodhar, Kunal

Results :

1. Siddharth and Anupam(VIT)
2. Kunal T and Rashmi (VIT)
3. Kunal S and Arnold (FC + VIT)
4. Abhishek and Vineet (COEP)
5. Akshay Adya and Anay (COEP)
6. Sushant and Neeraj. (COEP)

Comments :

A tech-trivia quiz, with some funda based questions. Overall decent stuff.
Junta who attended, pls put more comments.

Fervor quiz

Me and a few friends are conducting a technical quiz as part of Fervor 2006. Details follow-

Date- Saturday, 11th March 2006.
Time- 10.30 a.m.
Venue-College of Engg., Shivajinagar, Pune.
Dept. of Mechanical engg.
Room no. 11 (tentatively)

Rules-Teams of two.
Only those with a valid college I-card will be allowed to participate.
Cross college teams allowed.
No registration fees.

You can also visit the Fervor website for more details about the event.
Amazing prizes to be won.

So if you (like me) are one of the generally jobless people who go to quizzes and love trivia, then make sure to be there. Okay, okay... be there even if you're one of the extremely busy and intellectually advanced souls for whom knowledge is an eternal pursuit and quizzing a religion and all that jazz... Or be there just because I'm asking you to come. But be there.

This also happens to be my maiden attempt at being a quiz master, so YT is truly excited at the prospects of all the brickbats he is likely to recieve. A few bouquets would surely help ;-)

- Kapeesh