Sports Quiz By Bishwabijoy Sen at YMCA

The regular sports quiz by Bishwabijoy was held on 28th August at YMCA this year. Organised by the Mind Games group who organise regular formal and informal quizzes. The prelims had over 20 teams. They were topped by Dirty Rotten Scoundrels followed by Quiz Lovers of Calcutta. Other teams to make it to the final were Three Idiots, Last Action Heroes, Barrackpur Boys and Boye Gaiche. The quiz was a mix of different sports with a lot of a visuals, videos and audio which are typical of the quizmaster's style. There was also a written theme round. 

The main complaint as with all of Bishwa's quizzes was that it was too short with only 30 questions apart from the theme round. Quiz Lovers of Calcutta stormed off to a brisk start taking the early lead and maintaining it till the half way mark. Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Three Idiots were within striking distance. In the second half Dirty Rotten Scoundrels rallied led by some amazing answers from their young talent Anurag. It all came down to the last question which was an audio piece about Renee Richards the tennis player. The question was Quiz Lovers' direct who were leading by 5 points and they missed and it was answered by the indomitable Shouvik Guha of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, who won the quiz. Hope to get more questions in this quiz which has become a regular yearly feature in the city next year. Not too many questions can be posted as the quiz had more of an audio-visual feel to it.

First: Dirty Rotten Scoundrels: Shouvik Guha, Kinshuk Biswas and Anurag Sarkar.

Second: Quiz Lovers of Calcutta: Ashok Sanyal, Somenath Chanda and Indranil Mukherjee.

Third: Last Action Heroes:Partha Sarathi Ghatak, Samrat Dutta and Varun Rajiv.

Some Questions: 

Q) Which sporting term has originated from the sound made by a toy which is known as clackers in English? 

A) Tiki-Taka (Style of football)

Q) Who are the only swimmers to have won gold medals in three different Olympics in the same event? 

A) Dawn Fraser and Krisztina Egerszegi. 

Q) Mark Spitz once replied to question "No. It helps me in streamlining and swim faster." What was he being asked about? 

A) His moustache

Open Quiz by Kinshuk Biswas at YMCA

The much delayed reviews to the quizzes are being posted. The reviews maybe a little short as the quizzes were quite some time ago.

The General Quiz Ver 2.0 by Kinshuk an old hand open Calcutta Quizzing was held at YMCA Chowringhee the new hub of quizzes in the city on 7th of August. 18 teams were present for the prelims which keeping in mind the trend of the quizmaster's earlier quizzes was quite tough. Hammer and Tongs was unsurprisingly the top team of the prelims with 18 points. Inmaniacs followed with 14. The cut-off was 8.5/30 much lower than the respectable 11 of the previous year. Other teams to make it were Last Action Heroes, Quiz Lovers of Calcutta, Byapok Byatha, Gone Up in Smoke, ESS-S&S and Answering Service.
The finals had 70 question with a written round of 5 questions before the usual round of 30 questions in clockwise and anti-clockwise rounds. There was a problem with the audio system which was a major issue throughout the quiz.
Answering Service started off very well going into the lead with very good answers. Hammer and Tongs were close behind followed by Byapok Byatha.
In the second half Inmaniacs started to make inroads into the lead of the top two teams. At the end Answering Service won comfortably, follwed by Hammer and Tongs and Inmaniacs made a late rally to finish third. Special mention to all other teams who answered some crackers.
The quiz was very tough according to a lot of the participants some of whom named it 'Carnage at Chowringhee YMCA'. There were a few questions contributed by the head of Norwegian Quiz Association most of which were unanswered. It was a quiz which most enjoyed but was of a tougher standard than other general quizzes.
First: Answering Service: C.P. Singh, Soubhadra Chakravarty, P. Srikant and Sudip Kalyan De.
Second: Hammer and Tongs: Jayashree Mohanka, Shouvik Guha, Anil Vaswani and Subhendu Roy.
Third: Inmaniacs: Gautam Ghosh, Abhijit Banerjee, Malabika Banerjee and Anirudh Chari.

Some questions from the quiz:

Q) The largest non commercial kitchen in the world serves the following types of cooking Bhimapaka, Nalapaka, Souripaka and Gouripaka. Where is this kitchen?
A) Jagannath Temple Puri.

Q) The original was “The Man in the Arena” speech delivered by Theodore Roosevelt at the Sorbonne, Paris in 1910. This was substituted by another literary work when being portrayed on the screen. Name the incident or the work of literature which was used in place of the speech?
A) 1995 Rugby World Cup Final or Invictus.

Q) A fictional character in Slavic cultures, his role is similar to that of Santa Claus in the west. He was originally on the list of mascots for the Sochi winter Olympics, but was removed as he would become the property of I.O.C. In 1998, the town of Veliky Ustyug in Vologda Oblast, Russia was declared as his home. Name this very popular character?
A) Ded Moroz

Q) George Mendonsa is believed to be the male protagonist. The claim of the female protagonist however has three candidates: Edith Cullen Shain, Greta Friedman and Barbara Sokol. What is being discussed?
A) VJ Day Photograph by Albert Eisenstadt.

Q) Two people met on 22^nd September 1931 at 45, Beckton Road, Canning Town in East London and discussed about machinery. One was visiting a friend and the other grew up nearby. Name both individuals?

A) Mahatma Gandhi and Charlie Chaplin

Delay in updates

The blog has not been recently updated. The reasons are many and unfortunate. With the coming holidays the remaining quizzes will be reviewed and updated. The following quizzes will be covered: 

1. Mindgames Sports Quiz by Bishwabijoy Sen 

2. General Quiz ver 2.0 by Kinshuk Biswas

3. General Quiz by Anirudh Chari

4. Sukomal Chakladar Memorial Sports Quiz by Supratim Chakladar

5. Oasis Lone Wolf Quiz by BITS Pilani 

6. General Quiz by Tathagata Chatterjee

7. Sports Quiz by Ashoke Sanyal and Somenath Chanda

I apologise to all blog followers for this delay which is completely on account of my shortage of time. Meanwhile, wishing all the quizzers a very happy Durga Puja and Diwali. Keep Quizzing and Cheers.

MELA Quiz by Sreshth Shah at YMCA on 10th July

A novel type of a quiz was conceived by Sreshth a young Calcutta Quizzer who was leaving for USA on the 20th. His idea was to have a MELA (Music,Entertainment,Literature and Art) quiz. As it was a new concept a lot of teams turned up and the quiz master being young people expected a contemporary and different quiz from the classical type quizzes being dished out by the regular quizmasters.

There were 19 teams who were present for the preliminary round. The prelims were a good balance of old and new. Sreshth had forgotten to Photoshop the name of the artist on a painting so one question was cancelled and it was of 29 questions. 

Last Action Heroes topped the prelims with 24 points followed by Potodanga Thunder Club which was welcoming back their talismanic quizzer Robin after a long time of absence due to work pressure. The other teams to make it were Boye Gaiche 2.2, A team with Varun Rajeev a new import from Bangalore, Felix and Jimmy go to the White Castle, Hammer and Tongs, Comfortably Dumb and Sudip Kalyan Dey's team named perennial underachievers. 

The finals started with a written round of 5 questions and went on to the regular infinite bounce pattern. In the middle was another written round with a theme. Lastly there was the anticlockwise infinite bounce round.

It was generally a two way battle all through the quiz with Potoldanga and Last Action Heroes going neck and neck. All this was punctuated by a few brilliant answers from Varun Rajeev and his team. Boye Gaiche was following closely behind. 

The theme round and the second half continued in the same vein. Eventually Potodanga settled the matter by answering a few questions before the end. 

The quiz was overall quite enjoyable. The questions were from a lot of different topics. However, Sreshth remained in his comfort zone and asked questions on things he knows and likes. Thus the music part was abit heavy on western. There was no classical music both eastern or western. But that made this quiz different from normal classical quizzes and was a new experience for quizzers of the city. Overall an intersting evening of different type of Quizzing.

First: Potoldanga Thunder Club: Robin Dey, Prithwish Datta 

Second: Last Action Heroes: Partha Sarathi Ghatak, Samrat Dutta and Anurag Sarkar

Third: Varun Rajeev and Team

Questions: 

Q) In the world of live, street and television performances, how do we better   

     know Christopher Nicholas Sarantakos?

A) Criss Angel

Q)  The origin of this phrase means “to make up one’s mind to go through with an unpleasant situation or experience” dates back to the day when the wounded had to be seen to without the benefit of anesthetics or painkillers. The victim would be given an object that would help him brace himself against the coming pain. What phrase?

A)  Bite the bullet. 

Q)  It is known as raqs sharqi in Arabic, but its English name is attributed to Sol Bloom, entertainment director at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. It is a popular form of exercise and entertainment today, with many different styles of the dance. Identify this style of dance which is the literal translation of the French term ‘Danse du Ventre’. What? 

A)  Belly Dancing

Q)  We first heard Sandeep Vinayak Prabhu on November 3rd 2006 till 26th Jaunary 2007, a total of 86 days. Then we heard him from 17th August 2008 for another 98 days. After that he was heard on 26th December 2009 for another 84 days. And the last we heard of him was from October 3rd2010 for another 96 days.Where did we hear him?

A)  As the voice of 'Big Boss'  

Indefinite Postponement of the Fundoo Film Quiz

The fundoo film quiz has to be postponed indefinitely as the quizmaster Mr. Anirudha Bhattacharya (Anida) will be out of the country for work related matters for at least three months. The inconvenience and dispappointment is regretted. We shall try to hold the quiz as soon as Anida is back.

Mahaquizzer 2011 by KQA

The long overdue review of the Mahaquizzer of this year is finally being posted. Mahaquizzer is an individual written quiz held simultaneously all over India since 2005. The quiz has 150 questions to be answered in 90 minutes.

The pattern of the questions was much different from last year. There was an emphasis on language and word origins in most of the questions. Many people thought that they were solving a cryptic crossword instead of a quiz. Others who are strong in areas like word origins, language and literature loved the quiz. A written quiz should be made even where all quizzers would have an equal chance. There were certain questions which were a little misleading in their clues like Irish cricket team has nothing to do with a four leaved clover as mentioned in question 56. The Irish symbol is the Shamrock. Again in question number 18 Venus is not the progeny of Juve and Diana in Roman myth. The other facts about Venus were correct however the first bit of information was misleading.

KQA must keep in mind that all types of quizzers take this quiz and they should not make it one dimensional. We need to work more on the international style like the WQC. If we need to improve the overall scores internationally instead of just two people scoring highly from India the pattern of the paper has to be modified accordingly.

Overall the paper was a good test of certain areas of knowledge. Some questions could be worked out easily.

Many thanks are due to Gautam Ghosh for arranging the venue and Rudradeep for the legwork.

The Top Five Scores from Calcutta:

1) Shouvik Guha - 78

2) Jayashree Mohanka - 76 (The best score by a lady in India)

3) Gautam Ghosh - 63

4) Sanjoy Mukherjee - 61

5) Anirudh Chari - 60

The June General Quiz by Dhruv Mookerji at the YMCA

Torrential rain and bad weather greeted the General quiz which was held at the YMCA on 19th June. The rain didn't cause any problems for the ever enthusiastic quizzers as there were around 45 odd teams who turned up for the quiz. Quite a few teams were without members, and it seemed like a scramble for people at the venue as quite a lot of teams were formed on spot. A short delay later, the written prelims began, consisting of 34 questions with teams fighting for space to sit, stand or even squat on the floor to write the answers.

The prelims consisted of a nice blend of questions from the world of films, cricket, geography, food and culture.

After the checking of the preliminary sheets, Hammer and Tongs topped the preliminary round with a score of 20, closely followed by Quiz Lovers of Kolkata and Inmaniacs. The other teams which made their way to the stage were Last Action Heroes, Boye Geche, Four of a Kind, Lateral Thinkers and TNT Tears with the cutoff being a score of 14 and a couple of stars.

The format of the Finals consisted of 70 questions with a Long Visual Connect Theme round.

The Finals began with the first question being unanswered by the teams on stage and was answered by someone in the audience. But after that, most teams most teams opened their account with the lead changing hands from TNT Tears to Hammer and Tongs to Last Action Heroes. At the end of the first half though, Last Action Heroes and Hammer and Tongs were the front runners of the quiz with Inmaniacs, TNT Tears and Boye Geche close behind.

Before the second half of the quiz was the Theme Round where the quizmaster would show numerous visuals on the screen and the earlier the theme got answered,  more the number of  points would a team get.

The First visual was that of Michelle Obama and the second one was that of Jude Law. At this stage a correct answer would fetch 80 points while a wrong answer would mean negative 40. Nonetheless, TNT Tears went for the theme and got it right! Seeing this, Hammer and Tongs, Inmaniacs, Boye Geche and Last Action Heroes went for the theme as well on the 2nd slide and got it right as well! Four of a Kind and Lateral Thinkers cracked the theme a few slides later and settled for lower theme round scores. It was one of those days at the office for Quiz Lovers of Kolkata who failed to manage the theme at all. The other visuals of the theme round was the map of USSR, a Blackbird plane, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, A Walrus, Julia Roberts, the singer Madonna and Maxwell. Guesses anyone? The answer was - Songs by the Beatles.

Moving to the second half, the direction changed and so did the frequency of answers by Inmaniacs as they came close to the the leaders of the quiz, Hammer and Tongs. A late surge by the Last Action Heroes made the quiz very tight towards the end. As the last question was asked, all three of those teams were on 180 points and in a nail biting finish, Four of a Kind answered the last question correctly before Hammer and Tongs and made sure the quiz ended in a 3 way tie for first place with a score of 180 each for the three teams.

A couple of Sudden death Tie breaker questions later, Last Action Heroes had to settle for third place at the quiz as the other two teams cracked one answer which they failed to get right.

At the next question to settle for First place, Inmaniacs got the correct answer as Hammer and Tongs got the wrong answer and thus Hammer and Tongs had to settle for second place while Inmaniacs placed first.

After a really long time was a quiz so closely fought, with almost all the teams being very close to each other. Credit must be given to Dhruv Mookerji for such a well researched, nicely presented and a quiz where we had to put our thinking caps on to do well.

The top three teams were gifted Books from the sponsors - Crossword.

Also worth mentioning was that Sarath Rao shot the quiz in detail for a documentary on the quizzing culture in India.

Also credit must be given to Dhruv for ensuring that there was no entry fee for the teams, which did show with the number of teams turning up.

Final Standings :

1st -   Inmaniacs (Gautam Ghosh, Abhijit Banerjee, Anirudh Chari and P. Srikant)

2nd -  Hammer & Tongs (Jayshree Mohanka, Souvik Guha, Sanjay Mukherjee and Anil Vaswani)

3rd - Last Action Heroes (Partha S. Ghatak, Samrat Dutta, Sumantra Gupta and Anurag Sarkar)

Selected questions from the quiz :

Q : If Glaziers in Venice messed up while creating any glass product, rather than waste the glass by disposing of it, they would convert that product into a _____, whivh was the italian word for a common flask. This word is now commonly used in English. Which word?

A : Fiasco.

Q : Ray Bolger, Bert Lahr, jack Haley and Terry were cast as 4 of the 5 in a group of characters in a film. Who was cast as the 5th member of this band of travellers?

A : Judy Garland in the Wizard of Oz.

Q : A tetragrammatron means 'word with four letters'. However all 4 letter words are not tetragrammatrons. This term specifically refers to one thing - there is only 1 tetrgrammatron ( and it's used in a religion ) . What is it?

A : YHWH ( jehovah)

Q : Tagline for which film was -'A tale of murder, lust, greed, revenge and seafood' ?

A : A fish called Wanda.

Looking forward to another quiz by Dhruv da in the future!