I was supposed to do four (or was it five) regional rounds of the NSQ but a freak injury meant that I was bed ridden for the whole of March. Thankfully, it wasn’t more than that and I was up and running by the time April Fool’s day arrived. So we did two of them, one in Meerut and the other in Greater Noida. Following are the reviews of the regional rounds of 9th AIMA National Students Quiz at Meerut and Greater Noida.
Meerut- The quiz at Meerut had a lot of multimedia content to lighten the mood of all the participants as it was the first time in its 9 year history that Meerut was one of the destinations for NSQ. But with the ease with which the questions were dealt showed the hard work put in by the participants in their preparation. The teams that eventually made it to the national finals were extremely lucky as the points that they accumulated in the first round meant that the other teams had to take risks in the second round. The risky game did not quite work out well for them as the winners CL College and MSM College (both from Meerut) played the waiting game in the final. Waiting for the others to try and err. Luckily for CL and MSM, that is exactly what happened and the scores in the first round were just about enough for them to sail through to the finals. Greater Noida- With a total of 78 teams descending at the venue from far off towns like Jaipur and Pilani, the Greater Noida regional round became a tough cookie for the local junta. I like to follow the 60 to 40 principle when it comes to setting the difficulty standard of a quiz. 60 to 40 principle- In the preliminary round of a quiz, the highest score should not be more than 60% of the total marks possible while the score of the last team to qualify should not be less than 40% of the total score. As a quizmaster I eagerly look forward to the thriller that the upcoming finals will be if the 60 to 40 principle falls through. So as it happened, out of a possible 20, the scores of the 6 qualifying teams lied between 13 and 8.5. A clear indication of the homogeneous quality of participation. The first round saw the teams from Jaipur, Pilani and Zila Ghaziabad making early inroads. The second saw them drifting away from the other three and strengthening their position for the final assault. The final round saw all of them collect negatives at least once. Scores before the 2nd last question- Pilani- 14, Jaipur- 10, Ghaziabad- 13. Pilani buzzed in at the question and identified Novak wearing a Joker mask as Messi. Final question saw Jaipur buzzing in to identify Dharavi slums as Reality tour and Travels social touring site and with that they reached safe and sweet 16. Pilani’s journey ended with both kicking themselves at the calculation error. Final scores: LNMIIT (Jaipur)- 16, IMT (Ghaziabad)- 13, BITS (Pilani)- 8 Few questions from the quizzes- 1. This controversial exhibition at Berlin’s X Museum, entitled ‘The Whole Truth’, consists of a X person, seated inside a glass box, answering visitors’ questions about their life and culture. Below the box the line reads ‘Are there still X in Germany?’. Solve for X. 
2. The brand Hydrox, a portmanteau word of the atomic elements which make up pure water: hydrogen and oxygen, made its debut in 1908 by the Sunshine company. While its imitation X was launched in 1912 by Nabisco, yet Hydrox suffered from the impression of being a knock-off. Decode X. 3. A timing of 1 hour 32 minutes and 28 seconds on 24th February, 2013 at Hong Kong brought an end to a 14 year old career. Whose career is being talked about?
