I wasn’t too keen on writing a review for these two quizzes, for two reasons-
1. I wasn’t too sure if anyone ever reads or is interested in reading them, the reviews of quizzes I mean. Are they any interesting? or let me re-phrase this- Is quizzing, and all the passion that comes with it, more about just participating in quizzes (and probably winning) than also knowing what happened in other quizzes across the country. Is the literature of quizzes, minus the questions of course, too boring to read? That brings me to the second question.
2. Does review of a quiz have any value? Does it help in making me a better quizzer (by the looks of it I don’t see how that is possible)? Does it, like reading a match review of a sport, give me a directly usable benefit which various sections of newspapers also provide?
Maybe I should write another blogpost on this.
At the moment I can’t find any answer to reason 2. So I’ll jut try to answer the questions reason 1 highlights that too because I got inspired by clicking on Seth Godin’s head and I believe what I am doing is worth collating.
Chronologically, 3rd Feb. Times NIE The Knowledge Quiz
What happens when 30 school cheering teams are pitted against each other in a quiz competition? The cheering competition becomes as important as the quiz show. With decibel levels reaching Sharapovaesque levels the young quizzers had a tough time concentrating in the quiz. Thus there were bloopers like missing sitters like Utkal (How is Orissa addressed in the national anthem?) and SMS (If three short-three long-three short is the morse code for SOS, then how does the telecom industry better know three short-two long-three short?)
The quiz was conducted on a day where the weather gods were playing games. Since the stage was set in the open, the panic that the drizzle initially created fizzled away as soon as the sun came out. Thus bringing a relief to the faces of the emerging faces of Delhi quizzing. The preliminary round was a written affair with 25 questions with the last question being the anagram of all the tie-breaker questions. As the finals started, the early inroads that DPS, Indirapuram made was enough for them to take them to a convincing victory. The teams from Vishwa Bharti and Ryan International, Noida were so busy vying for the second spot that they forewent the courage to challenge DPS for the first position.
Final Scores: DPS- 35, Vishwa Bharti- 29, Ryan- 25
7th Feb. Smriti- KMC General Quiz
Some quizzes leave you with immense satisfaction.
Some questions deserve researching on going back home.
Some quizzers never seem to have their druthers.
Some poets can’t make a poem rhyme.
Having conducted Smriti 3 times previously, so eager was I for hosting Smriti for the 4th time that I had started preparing for it from November itself (when I got a call from the organisers). Since I follow the rule of- ‘No two quizzes will be the same’ I had thought of two new rounds but due to paucity of time available I could do with only 1 new round. Hopefully, I will get the opportunity to do the new round soon.
The quiz had 25 questions with Fibonacci Nos. as tie-breakers. 6 teams[out of 74 teams] from the best of the institutions of Delhi qualified for the finals, namely- Venky [Galaxy 2011 winners], NSIT, DSE, FMS [Galaxy 2011 runners up] and two teams from IIT-D.
The initial couple of rounds had all teams evenly placed with no clear winner in sight. However, the team from Venky picked up pace with a superb 11 pointer and an easy 6-er to get into a slender lead after the penultimate round. All they had to do was just score almost as much as anyone else in the Maro Lagaataar round. And they did that with ease. And IIT, Delhi did themselves a huge favour by cracking Shashi Tharoor’s Great Indian Novel for 20 points to come second.
Final Scores: Venky- 52, IIT- 43, FMS- 37
Some Qs from the quiz-
1. Are we alone?’ and ‘Non existence of evidence is not evidence of non existence’ are the taglines of which Non-profit organisation?
2. This is the _____ memorial in Horse
Guards Avenue, London.
The writing on the plaque reads:
_______
Bravest of the brave,
most generous of the generous,
never had country
more faithful friends than you.
FITB.
