Dalhousie Institute Open Quiz 2011 at The DI

One of the oldest quizzes in Kolkata the DI Open conducted by Mr. Neil O’Brien was held at Dalhousie Institute on 21^st May. There were 77 teams for the preliminary rounds out of which 55 were from different schools. The prelims were of 30 questions. There were a few old chestnuts and few questions which left a lot of teams confused. What Indian monument was discovered in the 1930s by Colonel Morgan behind a bush? The time frame clarification was requested by a few teams and they were told that it maybe 1830s also. Answer given was Ajanta Caves. This left a lot of teams stumped as Ajanta was discovered in 1819 by a British Officer of the Madras Presidency named John Smith. Colonel Morgan and 1930s or 1830s confused a lot of people. Another question which was the first European country to ban the burqa? Answer given was Belgium. Again very confusing as the burqa was banned in Turkey in 1980 and in Belgium in 2010. The dangers of Google quizzing are evident as a google search of the question would give Belgium as the answer which is not correct. The quizmaster may argue that Turkey is in Asia as a matter of convenience. The highest score was 20 posted by Hammer and Tongs followed by Inmaniacs and Answering Service, Paglu and Juxtaposed. A whole lot of teams including DI, Octette and Last Action Heroes were in a tie-break with 17 points. Two questions which were questionable in the prelims were therefore not fair to a lot of teams which would have made the finals or at least to the tie-break.

The tie-breaker round had 3 questions. The first was, Which Cartoon character appeared on Playboy magazine cover and also as a centrefold? Answer given was Bart Simpson. Again a lot of people stumped as the answer is Marge Simpson. It was akin accepting Prince Charles as the answer for a question for which the correct answer is Queen Elizabeth II. The second question was: Who are the recipients of the Jack Nicklaus award? Answer given player of the year by PGA. Again very strange answer considering the fact that it is the award for the best collegiate golfer of United States and is given in three divisions by NCAA. A team answering golfer of the year was overlooked, strange as it was closer to the truth than the answer which the quizmaster had. After the painful process of the tie-breaker DI, Javed and Friends and a college team from Calcutta University eventually made it to the finals.

The finals were again very lopsided as the quiz did not use infinite bounce or flat scoring. Teams answering less number of questions could win this quiz. However this quiz was decided by the seating arrangement. Inmaniacs were the beneficiary of this in the first half of the quiz where they ran away with the quiz posting 60 points. If the quiz was of infinite bounce type then the result of the quiz would have been totally different. However that said Inmaniacs were very good and answered nearly all the questions they got in the first half of the quiz. In the second half Answering Service and DI had a close fight for the other podium spots with the former clinching it by answering the last question of the quiz.

The quiz was very disappointing with respect to questions, content and methodology. The problems with the questions which were there in the prelims and the tie breaker continued into the final. It would have been very nice if the questions were a bit authentic with respect to facts. For example why was the operation to kill Osama Bin Laden called Operation Geronimo? The question itself was incorrect as the operation was named Neptune Spear and Geronimo was the codename given to Bin Laden. The question should have read: Why was Osama Bin Laden given the codename of Geronimo? Another one was: Who coined the term ‘Nerd’? Answer accepted was Jonathan Swift when in fact it is Dr. Seuss.

Another huge problem was the quizmaster unwilling to give points for perfectly correct answers. For example Traf O Data a program written by Bill Gates in 1957 for traffic control was rejected by its users for what reason? Firstly Bill Gates was 2 years old in 1957 so he couldn’t have written any program it was in 1970 that he did. Answer given by a team was that he did not have a driving license as he was underage. Answer accepted he was a minor. Another one what is a Defibrillator used for? Answer by a team a device used to revive a human heart by using electrical impulse. Answer accepted machine used to revive human heart by electric shock.

Another shocker: What kind of a bad habit is Enulation? Answer Picking or Digging your nose. This has not been found in any dictionary encyclopaedia or at any website. The answer obtained for synonym of nose picking is rhinotillexomania. Another One : Which was the first Al Qaeda attack on Americans after the first World Trade Centre bombing attempt? Answer given: The attacks on the American embassies in Dar Es Salaam and Nairobi in 1998. Answer accepted The attack on the US embassy in Nairobi. The quizmaster was unaware of the fact that the operation was a coordinated attack in both cities simultaneously in fact Dar es Salaam was bombed 5 minutes earlier. The information is available here. A non wikipedia link is being provided so the quizmaster may not brand us as wikipedia crawlers. Here is a very interesting one: What are the ingredients of the drink Shanghai Mary? Answer: Vodka and Sweet and Sour Sauce. Sweet and sour sauce as an ingredient for a cocktail could not be found in any book or website. Vodka and Soya sauce are however used for two different cocktails: The Black Death and Manchurian candidate. There is no drink called Shanghai Mary. There is a Shanghai cocktail which is made of lemon juice, anisette, Jamaican light Rum and Grenadine. The only Shanghai Mary is a dish of dumplings at The Source Restaurant at the National Mall in Washington DC. We took the time out to mail the question to International Bartenders Association who sent us a mail proclaiming that there is no cocktail named Shanghai Mary. They also mentioned that Sweet and sour sauce is not used as a cocktail ingredient. However if there is any such example in fiction they would stand corrected.

We can go on dissecting this quiz and finding the various mistakes and problems. It seems that DI Open takes the old adage of ‘Quiz master is always right’ to the extreme. It is a sorry sight to see such quiz which was an institution in the city losing its integrity in this way in the eyes of the proper quizzers. Getting newspapers to write good things about the quiz solely based on past reputation is a sorry state of affairs. And it does not bode well for all the school children who are made to attend the quiz exposed to such Incorrect facts. Their foundations of quizzing are being damaged. Unless the quiz makes some major changes like infinite bounce,flat scoring ,properly researched and authenticated questions it will be even further demeaned than it is today.Its like using a bullock cart to go to Paris instead of an aeroplane. Sure it can be done for the sake of it but is it really the wise thing to do?

Results:

1. Inmaniacs: Gautam Ghosh, Abhijit Banerjee, Malabika Banerjee and Anirudh Chari
2. Answering Service: Sanjay Mukherjee, C.P. Singh, Soubhadra Chakraborty and P. Srikant.
3. DI: Tathagata Chatterjee, Soumyadip Chaudhury, Barry Antonius and Leslie De Gama

The questions are not being posted separately for this quiz as enough questions have been discussed already.