Wednesday, December 28, 2011

V for Wikipedia - II

Click the image for a larger view

Just like last year, the Boat Club Quiz Club is happy to announce that it has made a small donation to the Wikimedia Foundation. The reasons remain the same; perhaps we could add one more: what if you woke up tomorrow and found Wikipedia gone?

Happy quizzing, reading, encyclopaeding.

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Mega-Whats 2011 Pune results

When: 11 Dec, 2011
Where: COEP
Moderated by: Gaurav Keskar
No. of teams: 19

Winners:
OPEN winners: MEGA-WTFS (Ramanand J., Harish Kumar B.V., Salil Bijur, Kunal Sawardekar) - 57
OPEN runners-up: BARR CHAILA FC UNITED (Yash, Suraj, Atul, Anannya) - 52
COLLEGE winners: KILROY’S DOPPLEGANGERS (AFMC - Kshitij Jyoti, Kamesh Gupta, Mridul J., Saikat) - 33

A list of All India results.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

COEP Mindspark 2011 quizzes (includes Chakravyuuh)


Forwarding an announcement from COEP:

MindSpark is the annual Technical Festival of the College of Engineering, Pune.
This year MindSpark will play host to 4 quizzes from27th- 29th December 2011. Specifics BelowFor any additional clarifications. visit http://www.mind-spark.org/chaanaksha.php
1. Chakravyuh- the Open General Quiz
Wednesday , 28th December 2011
Timing: 11:00 am to 4:30 pm.
Venue: The Auditorium, College of Engineering, Pune

Weblink: 
http://www.mind-spark.org/chakravyuh.php
Chakravyuh has been one of Pune's best known open quizzes for many years now. A general quiz that is literally based on anything and everything under the sun, the participants of this quiz can range from college students to software professionals. Chakravyuh has gone on to produce quizzers who would later perform exceptionally well at national level quizzes. Previous years have elicited fantastic participation and the prize money remains as sweet as ever.
Status: Open Quiz (Anyone can Participate)
Team size: 2
Registration fees: Rs. 30/- per team. Register on the Spot.


2. Torquest- The Scince and Technology quiz
Tuesday, 27th December, 2011
Weblink: http://mind-spark.org/torquest.php
We wouldn't really be an institute of excellence in technical education unless our students were sound in their technical knowledge and fundas. Pit your love for technology against ours. Brush up your theory and find out how much you could actually apply it when you go out into the mad, mad world. Science and technology are inseparable, and this is a quiz where the passion for both would find a home.
Status: Open Quiz (anyone can Participate)
Team size: 2
Registration fees: Rs. 30/- per team. Register on the Spot.

3. Qonnoisseur- The MELA Quiz

Thursday, 29th December, 2011

Weblink: http://www.mind-spark.org/qonnoisseur.php

There's not really much to introduce to this classic format. We're looking for people who read a lot of classics, watch a lot of movies and critique works of art in your spare time, then you're the kind of person who just might have a shot at winning this quiz. Prove yourself to be the ultimate savant in all things related to media and culture

Status: Open Quiz (Anyone can Participate)
Team size: 2
Registration fees: Rs. 30/- per team. Register on the Spot.

4. 10^-9- The Nanotechnology Quiz
Tuesday, 27th December, 2011
Wednesday, 28th December, 2011

Weblink: http://www.mind-spark.org/nano.php

From nanotubes to colloids to powder technology. You need to know it all to crack this one. Dodge a volley of questions and advance in your quest to conquer the material world for this is the Nanotechnology quiz. The winner takes it all.

Status: College Quiz (I Cards required)
Team size: 2
Registration fees: Rs. 30/- per team. Register on the Spot.

Total Prize Money to be won : Rs 80, 000/-

Goodies for participants and Loads of Audience Prizes (Movie Tickets, Magazines, Anti Virus Packs, Developer Keys, T Shirts etc.)


For more details contact:
Himanshu Panandikar +91 90497 25707 (chakravyuh@mind-spark.org)
Mihir Khatwani +91 97647 707747 (torquest@mind-spark.org)
Neelima Jha +91 90283 59871(qonnoisseur@mind-spark.org)
Nilesh Adhav +91 96658 45872(nano@mind-spark.org)

Saturday, December 03, 2011

Mega-Whats 2011 with Pune details

Mega-Whats is the KQA's annual team competition. Full details are available at this link. Gist is as follows:

  • (upto) 4 member teams; a General quiz
  • On the 11th of Dec (Sunday) from 2:30 pm
  • Pune venue is: Seminar Hall 2, Room no. 13, Mech Department, COEP . A full list of venues is here.
  • Prizes (sponsored by the BCQC in Pune) for Best City Team, Best School and College Teams.
  • Prior registration is advised to guarantee a seat and to help organisers figure out the logistics. A list of registered teams so far is here.
For the rest of the details, visit this link.

Monday, November 21, 2011

The 1st Annual Tender Leaves Inter-School Quiz - Results

See prior announcement

Date: 19 Nov 2011

Set and Conducted by: Ramanand J, Suraj Menon

Turnout: ~70 teams

Format:
A General quiz with an emphasis on Books. Teams of 2 (classes 5-7) for elims. 23 questions written elims on slides. Top 6 teams in finals.
Finals: 22 questions on Infinite Rebounds clockwise, 3 written rounds on Book covers, Authors, and a Visual Connect.
Highest in elims: 18 (Bishop's), cut-off: 15 (4 stars).

Results
1st: Team 5 - Orchid School - 1
2nd: Team 6 - Panditrao Agashe School
3rd: Team 2 - Bishop's
Other Finalists: Orchid-2, Millennium International, Symbiosis

Best School (based on number of teams in top 10): Orchid school
Prizes and trophies sponsored by Tender Leaves.

Thanks to Yash Marathe and Ranajeet Soman for helping out with the quiz.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

The 1st Annual Tender Leaves Inter-School Quiz

As some of you know, veteran BCQC quizzer Harish's day job (and sometimes night) is being CEO of Tender Leaves, an online book library in Pune. Tender Leaves is organising its first ever Annual Inter School Quiz – a general quiz with a focus on books.

The details are as follows:

What: A General Quiz with a focus on books
Quizmaster: J. Ramanand
Who can participate: Students from Classes 5,6 and 7
Team Size: Two. Both members should belong to the same school
Format: Written prelims, followed by a Final with 6 teams of 2 members each
Entry Fees?: None
How to register?: : Call 020 32305063 or write to support@tenderleaves.com; On the spot registrations are also allowed

Date: 19th November (Saturday)
Timing: participants need to report by 9:15 AM; Elims: 9: 30 AM- 10:00 AM; Finals: 10:45 AM- 12:00 noon)
Venue: Nehru Memorial Hall, Camp, Pune.

Prizes: Prizes for each finalist, Trophies for winners and first runners-up and the Best School (school with the maximum teams in the top 10 in the elims). Lots of audience prizes.

Contact Details: Phone: B V Harish Kumar (020 32305063/ 9890454910) Email: support@tenderleaves.com


Please note that the prelims will be followed by the release of The Diary of a Puneri Kid – an anthology of fiction stories written by young writers from Pune. The Finals will follow the book release function.

Monday, November 07, 2011

General Lee Speaking (BCQC November 2011 Open Quiz)

Date: 6 Nov 2011

Set and Conducted by: Aditya Gadre

Format:
Teams of 2 for elims. 25 teams participated. 35 questions written elims on slides.
Top 6 teams in finals. Participants from 7th-9th top teams joint finalist teams randomly. Teams of 3 for finals.
Finals: 21 questions on Infinite Pounce clockwise, 1 5-image Google Doodle written round, 1 7-question non-negative theme, 21 questions on Infinite Pounce anti-clockwise

Results
1st: Team F - Kunal Sawardekar, Maitreyi Gupta and Siddhesh Sarma (draft) - 210225pts
2nd: Team A - J. Ramanand, Niranjan Pedanekar and Yash Sathe (draft)- 125pts
3rd: Team E - Salil Bijur, Chintan Shah and Kamayani Sharma (draft) - 110pts
4th: Team C - Yash Marathe, Aditya Chandorkar and Satyavrat Wagle - 100pts
5th: Team D - Vikram Keskar, Sameer Deshpande and Rohit Sahasrabuddhe (draft) - 90pts
6th: Team B - Venkat Srinivasan, Amit Paranjape (substituted by Arjun Mohan) and Aniketh Rallabhandi (draft) - 35pts

Best College Team: Hitesh Mahato & Finehas Pinto (AFMC)
Best Newbie Team: Prateek Nagras & Rohan Dhamdhere

Prizes sponsored by Landmark and BCQC

Elims cutoff: 11.5

The full set of questions from the prelims and finals are available here, courtesy the QM.

Report (by Ramanand)
* Very simply framed, easy-paced and accessible prelims. Liked it.
* I'm not a fan of Infinite Pounce: I think it complicates the finals, makes it less entertaining for the audience (everyone scribbling away all the time), and elongates the quiz. I'll comment on that separately.
* Time management could have been a little better (it was better in the 2nd half)
* Liked the big connect, though I think the exhaustive-or-not part was confusing (to me)
* Slightly uneven pitch - with some easy ones and some tough ones. Perhaps it would help if the QM further explains the significance of the tough ones to counter the participants' sledging them as being too 'complicated' :)
* Some of the questions could have been less verbose
* What was not at all good was the confusion over scoring. I do think a non-participant should score (or there should be a visible scoring sheet/excel open). It's difficult for teams to keep scores accurately, esp. with Pounce-a-tantra in place.

* <in-joke>BTW, contrary to fears of extinction, some endangered vCats were once again spotted (or was it just the unspotted version? too dry to tell)</in-joke>

Please leave your opinions in the comments section.

Monday, October 31, 2011

"General Lee Speaking" - the BCQC Nov 2011 Open

No, it's not yet another sign that the Chinese are taking over. It's just a general quiz, this time by COEP's own (partially loaned out to XLRI) Aditya Gadre. Details of this third edition of this season's BCQC Opens are:

Quizmaster: Aditya Gadre

Flavour: General

Format: Written prelims; Finals with 6 teams (but with the Draft Pick system: after prelim, top 6 teams to qualify for finals, members of next 3 teams will be distributed among them.) Up to two members per team; no prior registration needed; no entry fees

Date & Time

6th November (Sunday)

Timings: 1:30 pm to 4:30 pm (report by 1.15 pm) Written prelims: 1:30 pm to 2:15 pm Finals: 2:30 pm to 4:30 pm

Venue

Classroom 11/13, Mechanical Engineering Dept., College of Engineering, Pune

How to get to the venue

The College of Engineering, Pune (also known as COEP or just "Engineering College") is located very close to other landmarks such as Pune Station, Sancheti Flyover, and the RTO. The Mechanical Dept. is on the same side as the Boat Club (where our informal weekend sessions take place). It is on the opposite side of the Seminar Hall where last month's open was held.

Contact

Phone: Suraj (98903 59065), Aditya (98811 01291), Email: suraj.sk[at]gmail.com

Prizes

Prizes for each finalist, for the Best College Team, the Best School Team, and the Best Newbie Team. Lots of audience prizes.
Prizes are co-sponsored by Landmark (Pune) and BCQC

The BCQC is on Facebook and Twitter as well.

the questions from last month's quiz by Vikram Joshi are now available at the BCQC Questions Blog.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

A cricketing theory of Indian quiz groups

The great thing about analogies is that they seldom have to make sense. Often, the seed of such an exercise is in misplaced induction: you start with one element that coincides with another, and then you construct, induction step after step, a cathedral of pure imagination. Here is one such anal-logie, an attempt to equate Indian quizzing groups with Test cricketing nations.

Pune: this is where it began. One day, I realised that New Zealand cricket had much in common with us (the BCQC). In the quizzing map of India, we are a small but committed quizzing city. We tend to suffer from a very tiny pool of quizzers, but don't let that affect our creativity. We tend to be garrulous about our quizzing opinions, but are usually easy-going (and no one really pays much attention to us :-) ). Yes, we are (were?) a cold city; some of our quizzing happens outdoors and in picturesque settings (at least when we had the Dewang Mehta auditorium!). It can also be argued that the BC is a multi-purpose arena, where quizzing has to contend with other sports. And we have had reasonably good individual success at national events.

From now, everything is, as I put it, "illegitimate shoehorning":

Kolkata: This veteran quizzing city is the Olde English Test team. History records it as fostering quizzing in the country. The style is old-fashioned, and the rest of India seems to practice a different form these days.

Bombay: These guys are the New English Test team. Largely made up of talented expats (from South Africa? see below). Competitive like crazy. Have won some big quizzes recently.

Bangalore: My vote goes to Australia as their isomorphic peer. Why? The KQA sets the standard when it comes to quizzes, formats, and quizzers. Perhaps the Australian Test team of a few years ago ;-)

Chennai: Should they be Australia? Or should they be South Africa. I hope no one tries to "choke" me for this. Maybe they are Victoria and New South Wales; two sides of the same Face/Off coin.

Goa: The guys at the SEQC will throw theirs stereos at being typed as the Windies; both have great locations to quiz, drink, and relax, but certainly do some great quizzing. Makes me think: why take quizzing (and such analogies) all that seriously?

There are many more quiz clubs and cricketing nations; scope for more mad connections. Are the guys in Delhi the Pakistanis (unpredictable "Northies" with flair; not ageless, I hope)? And what about the Sri Lankans and the Zimbabweans?

And who are the India of quizzing? (or are we all?) Is it time to ask the Belgians?

Written as a companion piece to this video, recorded by Sarat Rao, who is making a documentary on Indian quizzing (shot on the sidelines of the last BCQC Open)

Monday, October 10, 2011

IIT Bombay Techfest National Open Quiz - Pune details

Forwarding a message from the organisers:
Techfest 2011-12 shall host the largest inter-institutional quiz in India, The “Techfest National Open Quiz 2011-12”. With a prize money of INR 1,00,000 for the grand finale and much more interesting prizes this quiz aims to bring together the best quizzers from across the nation. The quiz will be held at Pune, Ahmedabad, Delhi, Guwahati, Chennai, Hyderabad and Mumbai and the winners of all the cities will finally clash during Techfest 2011-12 to claim the title of the Techfest National Open Quiz Champions. Rest of the details are here.

Quizmaster: Rohit Nair

Format: Written prelims; Stage Finals with 6 teams. Winners to be invited to Techfest, IIT Bombay in January for the Grand Finale. Two members per team compulsary; No cross institutional teams strictly; Registrations on www.techfest.org/tnoq and also on the spot registrations; No entry fees

Date & Time: 15th October (Saturday); Timings: From 11 am
Venue: College of Engineering, Pune

How to get to the venue The College of Engineering, Pune (also known as COEP or just "Engineering College") is located very close to other landmarks such as Pune Station, Sancheti Flyover, and the RTO. The Seminar Hall is near the main building and is on the opposite side of the road from the Boat Club (which is the venue for the weekend sessions).

Contact: Phone: Rohan (98901 06884) Email: rohan.k[at]techfest.org, Arindam (97695 85892) Email: arindam[at]techfest.org

Monday, September 26, 2011

Stuff I've Come Across (BCQC September 2011 Open Quiz)

Date: 25 Sep 2011

Set and Conducted by: Vikram Joshi

Format:
Teams of 2 for elims. 32 teams participated. 30 questions written elims on slides.
Top 6 teams in finals. Participants from 7th-9th top teams joint finalist teams randomly. Teams of 3 for finals.
Finals: 30 questions on IR. 1 10-image visual connect. 2nd round of IR with 30 questions in reverse passing order. 'Pick your poison' in 'Infinite Pounce' format where every team selects a topic, other teams can attempt in writing.

Results
1st: Team E - Aditya Gadre, Yash Marathe and Ayon Gupta (draft) - 150pts
2nd: Team C - Vibhendu Tewari, Sarat Rao and Swaminathan (draft)- 120pts
3rd: Team B - Anannya Deb, Anand Sivasankar and Salil Bijur (draft) - 115pts
4th: Team D - J. Ramanand and Suraj Menon - 110pts
5th: Team F - S. Balakrishnan, Sameer Deshpande and Arjun Mohan (draft) - 80pts
6th: Team A - Shubhankar Gokhale, Abhinav Dasgupta and Gaurav (draft) - 50pts

Elims cutoff: 11.5
Best school team: Maitreya Ghorpade and Shreedhar Kale (Symbiosis Secondary School)
Best college team: Abhinav and Suraj
Best newbie team: Arun Warrier and Vignesh J.

Report
Vikram Joshi of the Bombay Quiz Club conducted the second open quiz of the calendar year. This probably helped increase participation from his city. There were also many newcomers including school students.

Team B took an early lead in the first IR round at 70 points with teams C and D at 40. Team E suddenly pulled themselves up by cracking the long visual theme in the 1st set of images. All teams except B answered the theme at the end but B remained at the top. It was the 2nd IR round that saw team D in solid form answering almost everything that came their way. At the end of this round, teams E and D had stolen the lead from B. The Pick your Poison round which had negative marking brought changed the scoring order again, with team E finishing first and C second.

Vikram presented a graph of the distribution of topics the quiz covered: History, Geography, Literature, Sports, Culture, Entertainment and Current Affairs were distributed almost equally. A note on the part points policy: If a question had more than one answer, full points were awarded to only the team that had answered all.

The quiz ended in time with prizes from Landmark being distributed to all finalists.

Landmark, Pune kindly sponsored prizes for the quiz - we thank them for their support.

Please leave your opinions in the comments section.

Friday, September 23, 2011

Brand Equity Quiz 2011 - Pune Round results

Date: 22 Sept, 2011
Conducted by: Derek O'Brien
Venue: Westin Hotel, Pune

Turnout: ~30 teams

Standings
1st: Infosys (C): Pratyush and Mehul
3rd: ZS Associates (D): Prabhakar and Jaipal
3rd: Advinus Therapeutics (A): Suraj & Shariq
Other finalists: ZS Associates (Bharat and Anand), Indira School of Business (names not announced), TCS (Abhishek and Suchir)

Got comments? Use the commenting form below.

Questions from the prelims here.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

BCQC September 2011 Open Quiz

In the second edition of this season's BCQC Opens, Vikram Joshi of Bombay Quiz Club will conduct his first quiz in Pune. Vikram is one of Mumbai's leading quizzers having won KQA's Mahaquizzer city round and Landmark Open Quiz national finals among several others. It will be a general themed quiz reflecting what he has been reading and watching lately. Details follow below:

'Stuff I've Been Reading'

Quizmaster: Vikram Joshi

Flavour: General

Format: Written prelims; Finals with 6 teams (but with the Draft Pick system: after prelim, top 6 teams to qualify for finals, members of next 3 teams will be distributed among them.) Up to two members per team; no prior registration needed; no entry fees

Date & Time

25th September (Sunday)

Timings: 1:30 pm to 4:30 pm (report by 1.15 pm) Written prelims: 1:30 pm to 2:30 pm Finals: 2:30 pm to 4:30 pm

Venue

Seminar Hall II, College of Engineering, Pune

How to get to the venue

The College of Engineering, Pune (also known as COEP or just "Engineering College") is located very close to other landmarks such as Pune Station, Sancheti Flyover, and the RTO. The Seminar Hall is near the main building and is on the opposite side of the road from the Boat Club (which is the venue for the weekend sessions).

Contact

Phone: Suraj (98903 59065) Email: suraj.sk[at]gmail.com

Prizes

Prizes for each finalist, for the Best College Team, the Best School Team, and the Best Newbie Team. Lots of audience prizes.
Prizes are co-sponsored by Landmark (Pune) and BCQC

Update: the questions from this quiz are now available at the BCQC Questions Blog

Friday, September 02, 2011

Oasis Quiz Lone Wolf Edition 2011 : Pune Chapter

The Oasis Quiz Lone Wolf Edition is the annual lone wolf quiz conducted by ELAS, the quizzing club at BITS Pilani.

It will be a 90 minute 120 question written solo quiz, held simultaneously across various venues across the country. The quiz is open to all. The college-level winner in each venue will be invited to Pilani during Oasis, the annual cultural festival of BITS-Pilani to participate in a mega showdown. Prizes for college category and open category winners. The winner here will be crowned champion and, needless to say, will win lots of money and pride and honor.

register at : http://tiny.cc/lkodg

4th Sept. 11 am onwards

Venue: Seminar Hall 2 is confirmed. It is adjacent to College Gymkhana & college library.

Pune Venue : College of Engineering, Pune

Contact : Amit Patil - 9970144577

The last year's question paper is here .

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Announcing the BCQC Questions Blog

If you read our sidebar or this post, you'll notice that we've not been much of a question posting gang. This has changed (at least for now!).

Thanks to the efforts of Yash Marathe and others, who in a Veda Vyasa-like fit have taken it upon themselves to upload some of the recent BC quizzes at the BCQC Questions Blog.

The first two sets are as follows:

1. The BC Cup 2011: Questions (Report).

2. The recently held BC August 2011 Open "Cineaste": Questions (Report).

Before we end, a caveat. Other quizzing associations who have enthusiastically put up their questions online have often reported that people have been lifting questions without even a semblance of credit, and thus have even opted to stop putting questions online. We understand these dangers, but right now, we plan to try sharing these questions and see what happens. Perhaps we shall naively invoke the laws of karma on those who will pull Pritams on us.

So if you use these questions as they are, please give the BCQC's quizmasters sufficient credit for their creativity and effort. It is only fair, as you will agree.

Sunday, August 07, 2011

Cinéaste - The Movie Quiz (BCQC August Open Quiz)

Date: 7 Aug 2011

Set and Conducted by: Avaneendra Bhargav and Rohan Jain

Format:
Teams of 2 for elims. 29 teams participated. 30 questions written elims.
Top 6 teams in finals. Participants from 7th-9th top teams chosen by finalist teams as draft picks. Teams of 3 for finals.
Finals: 48 questions IR with round reversal. 1 written theme.

Results
1st: Team C - J. Ramanand, Niranjan Pedanekar and Ranajeet Soman (draft) - 105pts
2nd: Team A - Padmanabhan Pillai, Akhil Singh and Ravi Handa (draft)- 75pts
3rd: Team B - Suraj Menon, Anubhav Chatterjee and B.V. Harishkumar (draft) - 70pts
4th: Team E - Yash Marathe, Debanjan Bose and Kaushik Koley (draft) - 65pts
5th: Team F - Salil Bijur, Amulya Sreekumar and Swapnil Pandit (draft) - 60pts
6th: Team D - Aditya Murarka, Saurabh Mishra and Rohit Iyer (draft) - 50pts

Best school team:
Best college team:
Best newbie team:

Report
Although late in the calendar year, BCQC's formal quizzes were revived by a movie-themed quiz by Avaneendra and Rohan. The questions were dominated by Hollywood-based questions but covered world movies, Indian movies, cinema technology and terms associated with film-making.

The quiz stuck to schedule without any unwarranted delays. Team C took an early lead which they maintained till the end of the quiz. The first round by Avaneendra was not very remunerative with many questions going unanswered. The written round featured 6 questions requiring identification of cameo appearances. This round balanced scores and brought the teams lagging behind closer to others. The second IR round by Rohan had comparatively more answerable questions resulting in close competition and teams A and B finishing 2nd and 3rd respectively. 2 extra questions were added to compensate for the questions that were scrapped.

Please leave your opinions in the comments section.

Tuesday, August 02, 2011

The BCQC - now on Facebook

The BCQC's Facebook Page is here.

So now, if you want to join us and generally commingle, you have a variety of options:

1. The "inquizitive" Yahoogroup (get news)
2. The BCQC blog (read us, comment and rant)
3. The BCQC Twitter page (follow us, stalk us)
4. The bright new BCQC Facebook Page (join us, like us, get news)
5. ...and the BCQC site (which still remains out of commission due to some extreme makeovers underneath) (know all about us)

Of course, there is the option of just ignoring us, in response to which we will immediately turn the other cheek.

Sunday, July 31, 2011

BCQC August 2011 Open - a Movie quiz

After a hiatus of a year, the BCQC Open returns. Unlike in earlier times, the next set of Open Quiz days will only have one quiz per day. Here are the details:

'Cinéaste - The Movie Quiz'

Quizmasters: Avaneendra and Rohan

Flavour: Films

Format: Written prelims; Finals with 6 teams (but with the Draft Pick system: after prelim, top 6 teams to qualify for finals, members of next 3 teams will be distributed among them.) Up to two members per team; no prior registration needed; no entry fees

Date & Time

7th August(Sunday)

Timings: 10:30 am to 2:00 pm (report by 10:15 am)
Written prelims: 10:30 to 11
Finals: 11:30 to 2 pm

Venue


Seminar Hall II, College of Engineering, Pune

Contact


Phone: Suraj (98903 59065), Rohan (98811 60507), Avaneendra (90110 40388)
Email: suraj.sk[at]gmail.com

Prizes


Prizes for each finalist, for the Best College Team, the Best School Team, and the Best Newbie Team.
Lots of audience prizes.
Prizes are co-sponsored by Tender Leaves and the BCQC.

How to get to the venue

The College of Engineering, Pune (also known as COEP or just "Engineering College") is located very close to other landmarks such as Pune Station, Sancheti Flyover, and the RTO. The Seminar Hall is near the main building and is on the opposite side of the road from the Boat Club (which is the venue for the weekend sessions).

Sunday, June 05, 2011

WQC Pune 2011 round - results

Organised by: IQA
Conducted in Pune by: Amit Patil (many thanks!)
Venue: COEP

Number of participants: 17
Local Results - the 'worst' section score in brackets:
1st: Kunal Sawardekar: 101 (+7)
2nd: Ramanand: 98 (+6)
3rd: Suraj Menon: 89 (+5)
4th: Salil: 85 (+5)

Section winners:

Entertainment: Kunal, Mihir, Shivam Sharma (7 :-))
Culture: Kunal (11)
Lifestyle: Suraj (21)
Science: Kunal (16)
History: Kunal (21)
Media: Suraj, Ramanand (18)
Sports: Salil, Suraj (11)
World: Kunal (17)

For more: keep an eye on this link.
Bombay results here.
Bangalore results here.

Wednesday, June 01, 2011

World Quizzing Championships 2011 - Pune

Important Update (posted 3 Jun)

The location has changed - it will be held at Room No.13, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering , COEP (It is close to the Boat Club, and not on the Seminar Hall side).

Reporting time remains 3:30 pm. The schedule is: Paper 1 from 4 to 5, then Paper one checking & scores, Paper 2 commences, followed by final scores.


This is a solo written competition consisting of 8 sections (of 30 qns each) to be solved in 2 hours.

Date: 4th June 2010 (Saturday)

Saturday, June 4 · 4:00pm - 6:00pm (Report by 3:30 pm)
Location: Room no. 6 , Seminar hall 2 , College Of Engineering , Pune [Near the Library and Gymkhana]
Local coordinator: Amit Patil
Registration: Free, but mandatory to ensure your seat. Since the no. of registrations will be used to print answer sheets, and only a handful of extra answer sheets will be available for "on the spot" registrations, book early to confirm your seat.
To register, write to Amit at amitpatil2020@gmail.com

For the quiz format, visit this link.

Important Note
An earlier registration notice had mistakenly pointed to a Google sheet meant only for Bombay participants. If you plan to take the quiz from Pune and have entered your name in that sheet, please write to Amit and let him know.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Mahaquizzer 2011 - Pune results

Organised by: KQA
Conducted in Pune by: Vishwajeet Narvekar (many thanks as usual!)
Venue: COEP (thanks to Mihir, Gaurav and other students for the arrangements)
School Winner: Rohan
College Winner: Aniket Khasgiwale(39)
Open Category Winner: J. Ramanand (59)

Number of participants: ~30
Official final standings: keep an eye on this link. All scores are provisional pending adjudication. According to the KQA twitter feed, Arul Mani has won this year's Mahaquizzer with 87 points.


BC Cup 2011 - Results

When: 22nd May, 2011
Where: BC, Pune
By: Aniket, Aditya Gadre, Yash Marathe

This year’s edition saw more major changes to the format. It has now moved away from the head-to-head knockout contests to a conventional quizzing IR format - a positive move IMO.

Format:
First, an elim determines 8 qualifiers. The qualifiers took part in a 60 qn format, after which 4 are eliminated. Scores are reset and another 36 qn semi takes place. The final is a one-to-one contest like last year's contest. The match consists of a home leg and an away leg. Home is basically direct questions. If one gets a direct question wrong and the opponent answers, it counts as an away goal and is used for tie breakers.

Group stages
The prelims cutoff was 12.5, with a top score of 19 by Anand. The 8 qualifiers in random order were:

Anand, Suraj, Annanya, Kaushik, Srinath, Ramanand, Pradeep, and Dipanjan. Pradeep took his spot after a tie-break decider (just the beginning of the day for him).

The Quarter Finals: Anand was in complete control of this, taking 9 points to emerge the leader. Suraj (7) was next in. Three of us (Annanya, Pradeep, and Ramanand) were tied on 6, necessitating a long drawn out tie-break threatening the reserves of the QMs before Ramanand was eliminated.

Semi Final The tables were turned - Anand, Annanya, and Suraj finished on 3 points each, as Pradeep decided to enjoy the view at the other end of the table with a comfortable 5 points. Another set of tie-breakers later, the defending champion squeezed into the final.

The Final
Pradeep v Annanya
Pradeep will never forget the Cooch-Behar Trophy, that much we can be sure of. That miss on a cricket question, a topic that Pradeep is considered a leading expert on, was to prove costly as Annanya put on a smooth performance to win 5-4. Once again, his breadth of knowledge across sports helped him win the cup (and even ensured a point or two for fellow quizzers, as I can testify in the Quarters.)
Final score 5-4, Annanya Deb wins on aggregate

The winner for BC Cup 2011 is Annanya Deb

Previous winners:
2009: Suraj and Sameer
2010, 2011: Annanya Deb

Once again, congratulations to the three quiz-masters for a very interesting and wide variety of questions on sport. Comments and suggestions? Leave it in the comments section for this post.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Mahaquizzer 2011

"Mahaquizzer" is India's biggest solo quiz. This year's edition will be held on the 29th of May (Sunday) from 10 am. Prior registrations are recommended as different venues have different seating capacities, and on-the-spot registrations cannot be guaranteed. Plus, this helps the organisers plan better.

In Pune, the Quiz will be held at:

Seminar Hall II (Next to main Auditorium),
College of Engineering,
Pune (COEP),
Shivajinagar,
Pune-5
Coordinator & KQA Proctor: Vishwajeeth Narvekar (98201-09984)

The quiz is open to all and there are prizes for local winners in categories such as School, College, Open and Lady entrant. In Pune, we will be sponsoring additional prizes for schools and colleges.

The rest of the details can be found at this KQA link.
To check if you are registered, visit this link.

* Previous results and reports from Pune
* Questions from earlier editions.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

The BC Cup 2011

This is the BCQC's annual individual, open quiz to crown the Best Sports Quizzer. This is the third edition. ( Reports for 2009 and 2010 editions)

Format: "This is vastly, hugely mindbogglingly big quiz - if you thought Anand's lit quiz was long, that's just peanuts compared to this" - Douglas Adams
First, a 30 question elim determines 8 qualifiers . These 8 people take part in a 60 question quarter final. The top four go through to the semi final. The semi-final will consist of 34 questions with scoring reset to zero. This is to keep the 'winning three consecutive matches' concept constant from last year's edition. The top two then go to the final.
The finalists will then face off one-on one for a 24 question final. The match consists of a home leg and an away leg. Homeleg is basically direct questions. If one gets a direct question wrong wich the opponent answers, it counts as an away goal and is used for tie breakers (as per UEFA rules:) )


So that's a total of 148 questions + tie breakers.

Administrivia QMs: Yash Marathe, Aniket Khasgiwale and Aditya Gadre
Theme: Sports
Teams: Individual
Restrictions: (or the lack of one) Open quiz. Everyone is welcome

When? 12:30 pm, Sunday, 22nd May, 2011
Where? The Boat Club, College of Engineering Pune
Registration: Free registration. You can register by :
1. Mailing yashcmarathe[at]gmail.com
2. Calling or SMSing Aditya at 9881101291
3. Confirming your attendance on the facebook event.

This is required as we need to get elim sheets printed.

Prizes: Landmark Vouchers

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Landmark Quiz - Mumbai 2011

QM: Navin Jayakumar

Results:
1st: The Dukes of Cambridge, .... - Shubhankar Gokhale, Srinath and Abhinav Dasgupta : 64 pts
2nd: The Travelling Pillsburys - Vibhendu Tiwari, Sumant Srivathsan and Anil Kothuri: 49 pts
3rd: Sigh Babas of Put-a-party - Salil Bijur, Yash Marathe and Aditya Gadre: 44 pts
4th: Ani Uris - Taking the 'p' out of pani puris - Anand Sivashankar, Amit Garde and Meghashyam Shirodkar : 44 pts*

Other Finalists
Your guess is as good as mine - Prasann Potdar, Amit Pandeya and Francis R
Swami and friends - Alagarsamy, Nitish Khadiya and J Krishnamurthy
Hazare Khwaeishen Aisi - Subhashish, Navin Sharma and [one more person]
Born Losers Aniruddha Dutta and two more gentlemen (TCS)

* Lost on tie breaker

This year's Landmark open had a rather simple elim set which arguably led to a few surprises with regard to the finalists. A tougher elims would perhaps been a bit more fair and ensured that the best 8 teams in the auditorium qualified for the final.

The final itself, in my opinion, was interesting and had a good mix of new, current events and 'static' fundas. About the quality of the questions, I felt a bit of workability was compromised in trying to make the questions tougher. A lot of the questions seemed too heavy on the 'funda' and largely involved fitting situations to questions instead of working out the answer.

I felt a few questions were put in just for the gimmick or rather were asked just so that the audience would have heard of the answer, which hurt a couple of teams (particularly us and Swami and friends) as they went not go for answers they knew could not possibly feature in an open quiz final (which turned out to be the right answers!)

That said, it is indeed very difficult to balance a quiz such that you hold the interest of a largely newbie audience and hardened quizzers, and Navin Jayakumar certainly does this job better than most.

Please post your opinions in the comments.

PS: I have forgotten the names of a few finalists. Please post the names in the comments. Thanks.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

The Annual BCQC College Quizzer of the Year - for The Yash Marathe Prize

For the Yash Marathe Prize (the prize is named after the best college quizzer of the previous year!)

Who can participate: Any (full time) college student from a Pune college. 11th standard onwards. Please carry a college identity card if you are not a BCQC regular (we will be polite in case we challenge your presence)

When: 27th March (Sunday). Reporting Time: To be announced

What: A general quiz. Written eliminations (Please get a pen), 8 qualifiers in the final. This is a solo quiz.

Venue: BC Lawns, COEP

Prizes: for all finalists; also for best first year participant & junior college participant

Registration: Mail yashcmarathe@gmail.com or adityadgadre@gmail.com to register. This is largely to make sure we have elim sheets for everyone.

Alternatively you can also call Yash Marathe (9890102888) Aditya Gadre (9881101291)

Note: The quiz is strictly for college quizzers from Pune, so we aren't inviting entries from outside. Also, the quiz is meant for student quizzers, so we will not be able to accommodate part-time students or professional quizzers with suspicious identity cards!

BCQC website down for refurbishment

Our website, http://bcqc.org is undergoing change, so it won't be available for the next few days. Mails sent to @bcqc.org addresses are also likely to be affected for some time, so in case you need anything, please leave a comment here on this blog.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

The BQC - IIT Bombay Quizzes - Review

Sumant reviews the newly launched and recently conducted BQC-IIT Bombay quizzes here.

Monday, March 14, 2011

Prahelika 2011

Pune Institute of Computer Technology will be organizing their annual quiz Prahelika. The details are as follows:
Date: 24th March 2011 (Thursday)
Time: Elims 10:15 am and Finals 12:00 pm
Venue: Pune Institute Of Computer Technology, Sr. No 27, Pune-Satara Road, Dhankawadi, Pune 411043
Eligibilty: College Teams only
Team size: 2 per team, Top 6 teams to qualify for the finals.
Registration: Rs.50/- per team, on the spot registrations allowed. Register online or contact 9762123762
Prizes: Worth Rs 10,000/-, Special prizes for the Audience, Best Team Name & Best team Slogan
Contact details: Sumaer Bahl (9762123762)

Thursday, March 03, 2011

Sinhagad Quiz

Sinhagad College of Engineering will be organizing their annual Sinhagad Open quiz. The details are as follows:
Date: 5th March 2011
Time: 11am
Venue: IT seminar hall, Sinhgad college of engineering, Pune
Team size: Maximum of 2 per team
Registration: Fee of Rs 80, on the spot registrations allowed.
Prizes: 1st Rs 9000, 2nd Rs 3000
Hosted by: Sameer Jagdale
Contact details: Sameer Jagdale 9923072228

TrizQuiz - Cummins College of Engineering, Pune

Cummins College of Engineering for Women (Mech Dept.) will be organizing a quiz titledTrizQuiz as a part of its inaugural edition of a technical event - Triz 2011.

The details are as follows,

  • Date: March 13, 2011 (Sunday)
  • Theme: General
  • Time: 10:30am
  • Team size: 2 (for UG college students with valid I-cards, on-the-spot registrations are allowed)
  • Prizes: Cash prizes worth ` 5k
  • Conducted by: Avaneendra Bhargav and Nikhil Motlag
  • Registration fee: ` 50 per team
  • Venue: MKSSS's Cummins College of Engineering for Women, Karvenagar, Pune - 411052 (get directions to the college here)
For more details, contact:
Nikhil - 98608 04350
Avaneendra - 90110 40388
else check the event website

Sunday, February 20, 2011

AIT's Gen. B.C.Joshi Quiz 2011 - Report

Date: 19 Feb, 2011
Venue: Army Institute of Technology, Pune
Set and conducted by: Meghashyam Shirodkar
Theme: General

Quiz Final Results
Format: 35 qns in the prelims; 45 questions (IR) + Cluenatic round


1st: Anand Sivashankar + Anannya Deb (F) - 90* (tiebreak: 2)
2nd: Suraj Menon + Yash Marathe (B) - 90 (tiebreak: 1.5)
3rd: Niranjan Pedanekar + J. Ramanand (C) - 78
4th: Vikram Joshi + Srinath (E) - 72
5th: Sumant Srivathsan + Vibhendu Tewari (A) - 67.5
6th: Sachin Ravi + George Mathew (D) - 35

Report
The "General B.C.Joshi" quiz is back. The quiz from AIT that had set high standards of organisation in the 'days of yore' began in 1998, stumbled a little in the early years of the last decade, and then ran out of steam after 2005. So, for those of us with fond memories of AIT's quizzing history, it was great to see the quiz being 'rebooted' (as the QM mentioned more than once).

For the record, with all the pedantry befitting a quiz, the B.C.Joshi quiz began in 1998, and not in 2000 as numerous speakers mentioned yesterday. I'd written about the BCJ quiz a long while ago - the post is here. Incidentally, it was fitting that Anand, part of the BVP team to have won the inaugural edition, was again the winner, in a close quiz and tight tie-break finish.

Here's brief, bulleted summary of facts and opinions:
* The time management was poor, with the quiz (esp. finals) beginning very late. This also meant we had to lose a round at the end; given the placings, it could have made a lot of difference to the top 5 positions. To their credit, the organisers did solicit feedback on this issue and have promised for better things last year.

* The entry fee, at 200/- for corporate teams at least, was very steep. Outside of the Brand Equity Quiz, this must be the most that I've paid to enter a quiz prelims! IMO, the entry fee only adds to another barrier to attending this quiz; the distance to the venue, and thus relative lack of transportation being the main problems.

* I did not like the prelims very much. Yes they were tough, but that's not the complaint. There were quite a few questions that were on very unattractive topics; even if the aim is to appeal to populist subjects, there are many topics that are both interesting and mainstream. In addition, the rolling visuals, the commentary in the middle, etc. was very distracting. It would have been better if the visuals had been bunched together in the prelims paper. I thoroughly disagree with the scheme of having more than 1 pt per question! Three points for simply identifying the people behind Intel was unfair, esp. if someone got just one point for much better answers. (I'll confess: perhaps the only reason my team qualified was because we managed to pick up some of these 2 or 3 pointers)

* The finals were a lot better in comparison. But there was a clear current affairs (2009-2011) bias. Multiple questions on topics such as the census, FaceBook etc. could have been avoided.

* Too many questions had too many partial points at stake; perhaps the questions could have been smaller/tighter, which would have avoided the problem. The addition of 3 qns in the end made a difference to the top 5 standings. Perhaps the QM could have just stopped at the end of the 2nd last round, having come to the end of the allotted time.

* Some of the questions in the finals were quite good. The teams on-stage were well-matched, and there were some fine answers. Almost everyone was in the hunt for most of the quiz, which made for good viewing.

* Thanks to the organisers for the bus transport, the fine food, and their hospitality.

AIT has promised to ensure future editions of the quiz continue to happen, so until next year.

Got something to say? Write it in the 'comments' section here.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Shyam Bhatt Memorial Quiz 2011 - Report

Date: 13 Feb, 2011
Venue: Armed Forces Medical College, Pune
Set and conducted by: Lt. Col. Nikhil Moorchung (Finals)
Theme: General

Quiz Final Results
Format: 30 qns in the prelims; 40 questions in IR with a round reversal halfway


1st: Meghashyam Shirodkar + Salil Bijur (A) - 110
2nd: Suraj Menon + Avaneendra Bhargav (B) - 80
Jt 3rd: Kshitij Jyoti + Saikat Sarkar (C) - 50
Jt 3rd: Gaurav Parab + Amneet Sodhi (E) - 50
5th: Yash Marathe + Aditya Chandorkar (D) - 40
6th: Salil Jena + Arjun Kurup (F) - 30

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Heritage India Quiz 2011 - Report

Date: 11 Feb, 2010
Venue: MES Auditorium, Bal Shikshan Mandir, Pune
Set by: Ramanand, Salil Bijur, Yash Marathe
Conducted by: Ramanand
Theme: Indian Heritage

Quiz Final Results
Format: 20 qns in the prelims; Finals: 27 questions (2 rounds of 9 each in IR; 2 written rounds on stamps (4 qns) and geographical indications (5 qns))


1st: Orchid School (Shantanu, Ameya, Gaurav) (D) - 90
2nd: Sevasadan (Omkar, Onkar, Anumit) (A) - 65
3rd: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Sulochana Natu Vidya Mandir (Prajwal, Harish, Shiva) (B)- 60
4th: Dr. Kalmadi Shamrao (Rugved, Vishnu, Janhavi) (C) - 55

Notes:

Brief comments:
* Quiz was organised by the makers of the Heritage India magazine; the participants were from Pune schools in the age-group of 5th to 7th standards
* About 20-25 teams from about 8-10 schools participated
* Though tight at the beginning, Orchid pulled away from the rest in the second IR round and maintained their lead throughout
* As is always the case with school children, lots of enthusiastic kids, some of them very-well informed, and already showing the ability to guess and work-out. Only a handful of questions went unanswered, and not one was 'pass'-ed.
* Sevasadan topped the prelims with 16 out of 30. The cut-off was 14.
* Prizes sponsored by Heritage India, a local publisher (Saraswati Publishers, I think), and BCQC sponsored the 4th prize (because there was none).

Saturday, February 05, 2011

Heritage India Quiz for Pune schools

Heritage India Magazine is organising a quiz for Pune schools (in partnership with the BCQC). The gist:

Date : 11th February 2011
Time : 11 am – 2 pm
Venue : MES Balshikshan Auditorium, Mayur Colony, Kothrud, Pune
Theme: India's culture and heritage
For: school children in 5th, 6th, and 7th standards
Teams: of up to 3 per team
Quiz to be set and conducted by: BCQC

Registration and all other details in this link (word document)

Quiz-O-Mania 2011 - report

Date: 2 Feb, 2010
Venue: Vishwakarma Institute of Technology (VIT), Pune
Set and conducted by: Salil Bijur
Theme: General

Quiz Final Results
Format: 31 qns in the prelims; 42 questions in IR with a round reversal halfway


1st: Niranjan Pedanekar + J. Ramanand (E) - 100
2nd: Meghashyam Shirodkar + Rohan Jain (C) - 70
Jt 3rd: Venkat Srinivasan + Suraj Menon (F) - 55
Jt 3rd: Dr. and Aditya Chandorkar (B) - 55
5th: Kshitij Jyoti + Saikat Sarkar of AFMC (A) - 20
6th: Kamesh Gupta + Mridul Janweja of AFMC (D) - 15

Notes:

Brief comments: * liked the elims v much - good mix of gettable and tough ones
* finals: were mostly good; occasional involved and 'nefarious' connect that could have been better, simplified or avoided
* simple format, length of quiz was good, quizmastering was good, audience prizes were adequate
* was nice to see two AFMC teams (all first years) on stage in an open quiz after a long while; a mini-revival is in store?

Friday, February 04, 2011

General B.C.Joshi Memorial Quiz 2011

Date: 19th February
Venue: Army Institute of Technology, Dighi Hills, Alandi Rd., Pune-411015
Open General Quiz; 2-member Teams
Cross-college/Cross-corporate Teams allowed
Attractive Cash Prizes: Rs. 10,000/-, Rs. 7,000/- & Rs. 5,000/-
Special Prizes worth Rs. 3,000/- for the Audience, Best Team Name, etc.
QuizMeister - Meghashyam Shirodkar | Research - QuizCorp

(Transport to-from venue available on prior request)
For more details: http://www.aitsolutions.in/p/bc-joshi-quiz_24.html

Thursday, February 03, 2011

Extentia Company Quiz XI

When: Friday, January 28, 2011
Where: Extentia ITT, Kalyani Nagar
QM: Bobby Moothedan. Quiz set by Yash Marathe/BCQC
Theme: General

Email Quiz:
As always an email quiz was sent to Extentians earlier in the week. Winners determined by # of correct answers and timestamp on email.

Answers and winner ( Farah N and Pankaj Sontakke ) announced ahead of the Fri afternoon's quiz.

Finals:
Medium turnout at the ITT office this time – about 15 in all. Teams from the Extentia houses
Most number of participants from Team Parikrama
Difficult questions for Extentians this time. However, some great pickup on clues by most teams.
The QM helmed the quiz really well for a first timer, and kept the momentum going.
Good to see several new participants again
Good to see no fights break out again

Winners - Royal Brigade (Surbhi, Rahul D, Gaurav C, Vcat)
Runners Up - Constant Variables (Farah, Pankaj S, Eva, Pankaj S)

Shyam Bhatt Memorial and other AFMC quizzes

The Shyam Bhatt Trophy
Date: 13 Feb Sunday
Flavour: Open General
Team size: 2 member teams, cross teams allowed
Time: Reporting time: 1430hrs; Elims begin at: 1445hrs
Prizes: Cash prizes worth Rs. 10,000
Venue:New Lecture Hall Complex of AFMC(known as NLH)
Reg. fee: Rs.150

Quiz-Friends and How I Met Your Mother
Date- 14 Feb
Reg. Fee: Rs.100
Time, Venue same as above

Sports Quiz
Date:16 Feb
Reg. Fee: Rs.100
Time, Venue same as above

Bollywood Quiz
Date-17 Feb
Reg. Fee:Rs.100
Time,Venue same as above
NOTE: Finals for the Bollywood Quiz is an Antakshari

:: Krishna, AFMC (9545046062)

COEP's Quiztronomy 2011 - Announcement

The CoEP AstroClub is hosting a one-of-a-kind event on the quizzing calendar. Quiztronomy is an astronomy themed quiz- the trivia being workable everyone and not aimed specifically at astronomy enthusiasts. The quiz will consist of written prelims, followed by a six team final.

All finalists will receive prizes and certificates; Winners will also receive a trophy each The school/college contingent with the best performance will receive a "Best Contingent" trophy. This year, we will be awarding prizes worth a total of Rs.15,000/- (inclusive of vouchers)

Date: 5th February, 2011 (Saturday)
Time: 10:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. (reporting time: 9:30 a.m.)
Venue: Main Auditorium, College of Engineering, Pune – 5
Flavour: Astronomy- for everyone
Team: Two members per team; Teammates can be from different classes and cross school/ college. There is no registration fee. All participants must carry valid institute I-Cards.
Email: quiztronomy@gmail.com

Other Activities:
Telescope familiarization session will immediately follow the quiz. We also conduct workshops in introductory Sky Observations and Astronomy.

::Mohit from The Quiztronomy Team

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Quiz-O-Mania 2011

The annual open quiz at Vishwakarma Institute of Technology (VIT) Pune, Quiz-O-Mania, will be conducted on 2nd Feb 2011 as a part of the cultural fest Melange. Details are as follows:

Date: 2nd Feb, Wednesday
Flavour: General
Time: 10:30am (Reporting Time), Elims Begin at 10.45 sharp
Venue: "Sharad Arena" (VIT Auditorium)
Team size: 2
Teams that qualify for the finals: 6
Prizes: Cash prizes worth Rs 12,000

QM: Salil Bijur

Location: Vishwakarma Institute of Technology, 666, Upper Indiranagar, Bibwewadi, Pune-37.

For more details, check the event website

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

COEP Zest Sports Quiz - Report

When: Jan 23, 2011; Sunday
Where: COEP
Turnout: Only 11 teams showed up
Conducted by: Gaurav, Mihir and Vaibhav

Results:
1st: Yash Marathe (Modern) & Omkar Nene (IIT-B) [95 pts]
2nd: Sameer Deshpande (VIT) & Bharat Marathe (MIT) [65 pts]
3rd: Tarun Sharma & Aditya Pawar (AIT) [60 pts]
4th: Shekhar Mehta & Neeraj Paradkar (DJ Sanghvi College of Engineering, Bombay) [50 pts]

Low turnout didn't justify the quality of the quiz, could've been publicized better. As expected, there were quite a few repeats from 3 inexperienced quiz setters, but there were some very good questions all the same. Certainly better than the farce last year.

Report by Yash Marathe

Monday, January 24, 2011

2011 Landmark Quiz Pune - Results

What: Landmark Quiz, Pune Round
When: 22 Jan, 2011
Where: Nehru Memorial Hall, Pune
Conducted by: Dr. Navin Jayakumar

Results
1st: The Nawabs of Mahabs [Rajiv, Gopal, Sumo] (88)
2nd: Audio Killed the Radia Star [Vikram, Pradeep, Mukund] (70)
3rd: Travelling Pillsburies [Sumant, Anil, Vibhendu] (63)
4th: Also Known as QED [Samanth, Ramanan, Swami] (61)
5th: Pyaaz Hamein Kis Mod Pe Le Aaya [Suraj, Harish, Ramanand] (53)
6th: Nanachi Tang [Salil, Yash Marathe, Kunal Sawardekar] (42)
7th: Feni, Beedi, Wiki [Anand, Amit, Meghashyam] (40)
8th: Immaculate Misconceptions [Team from SAP] (39)

Other Results
Best Corporate Team: SAP
Best School Team: Delhi Public School; Runners Up: Army Public School
Best College: SIBM [Jai, Jai, Vikram]
Best Team Name: "Wish Wiki would have leaked this quiz" [Arjun, Gyanendra, Baruni]
Playstation Buzz challenge: Yash, St. Vincents

Review comments can be posted in the comments section for this blog

Thursday, January 20, 2011

V for Wikipedia

Those who have been quizzing for a little over a decade may remember how difficult it once was to set questions for a quiz. One had to go digging into books, re-establish friendships with newspapers (even the Times of India), interrogate every multimedia frequency to pass through your TV's cathode ray tube, and generally mope around looking for visuals and audio and ideas.

Then came the full wonders of the World Wide Web, and in particular the fourth and most important W: Wikipedia. Random Articles, Featured Articles, and Did You Know... came to our collective aid. Thousands of encyclopaedic minions, eager to show off their deep knowledge of the infinitesmal, rescued quizzes from lapsing into questions about George Bernard Shaw, The Beatles and (sometimes) Heisenberg's grave(s). (As Niranjan would put it, they left us 'encyclo-piidith'.)

But like atomic weapons in the hands of Harry S or 24x7 TV in the hands of Rakhi S, some of us knew not what to do with the power at our mouse-tips. We began filling up powerpoint slides (another technology aid given fresh meaning and purpose by trivia-nerds) with lengthy wikipedia article pages, sometimes omitting to even remove every "citation needed" and reference superscript[citation needed]. But still, we could do a quiz the next day.

We also began asking extensive questions about Wikipedia itself: its name, its logo, its mis-rendered devanaagarii 'vi', and in recent times, the number of hairs on Jimmy Wales's donation banner. These questions elicited tremendous applause and envy from participants, and thus the vicious cycle prospered.

It's been 10 years and Wikipedia has enriched our life immeasurably. Now everyone could ask a question, however bad, and everyone had knowledge at their fingertips. You didn't need to go to a neighbour's house and meet the Eureka-Forbes-esque friendly travelling World Book set salesman, or pore deep into volumes I-K of the Encyclopedia Britannica just to get to an encyclopaedia or even scramble to hide your beloved Manorama Yearbook.

These are some of the things we love about Wikipedia. That it represents an alternative spend of our cognitive surplus (as Clay Shirky puts it), a net positive addition to the world, to let us show off our most beloved pieces of knowledge, to read and learn and discover in an instant. We also think this is something worth supporting, in gratitude to everything that we've taken.

Which is why the BCQC is happy to have made a small donation to Wikipedia late last year, as part of its fund-raising campaign (or, perhaps we just wanted mugshots of large, sad, Americans with British provincial names removed from the top of our browsers at the earliest). The gesture is perhaps more token than substantial, but as a group whose principal aim is to promote quizzing in the world around us, it was among the nicest (and easiest) ways to say thank you.

Thank you, Wikipedia.