NMIMS (Bombay) - General Quiz

Had conducted a General Quiz at NMIMS (Bombay).

Winners: Rajiv Rai (Deutsche Bank) and AP Alagarsamy (Fullerton)

They romped home so spectacularly that I have forgotten who the runners-up were :)

Here are a few questions:

1. Complete this excerpt from the poem ‘Eloisa and Abelard’ by Alexander Pope:
How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
____________________________
Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d.

2. What are all these:
Up and Down, Circular Swing, Drunk Style, Half-circle, Figure Eight, Side to Side, Whiplash, Two up Two Down, All Out, Tandem, Thrust, Hammer, Breakdown, Low Profile, Full Body and Half Body.

3. The phrase is attributed to Bernard of Chartres who used it while comparing the 12th century scholars with those of Ancient Greece and Rome. Its most famous usage was in a letter to Robert Hooke and has been interpreted as a sarcastic remark due to Hooke’s severe stoop. What?

4. He became captivated by her in the late 1990s when he reviewed one of her albums for a men’s magazine. He said, "Her music has a personal stamp that doesn’t look like anyone else’s and no one can sing or dance like her, at whatever age, with such an innocent sensuality, one that seems to be of her own invention." Identify the duo.

5. Regarded as the incarnations of Avalokitesvara, the title was first bestowed upon a person named Sonam by the Mongolian ruler Altan Khan in 1578. Because he was the third member of his lineage, even his two earlier incarnations were conferred with this title posthumously. What is being referred to?

NIT ( Silchar) - General Quiz

Here a few questions from the General Quiz I conducted at NIT-Silchar:

1. "I was waiting for my teammates to embrace me, and no one came...I told them, ‘Come hug me, or the referee isn’t going to allow it.’"
Whose words about what?

2. X along with Gustav Kirchhoff discovered the elements cesium and rubidium. In 1855, his assistant Peter Desaga perfected an earlier invention of Michael Faraday and named it after X. Identify the person.

3. The director wanted 'something unusual' for the promotional video of one of his films. He approached someone whose involvement in movie-world was till then restricted to just two films, the first of which was way back in the 1980s for a film titled 'Abdullah'. Yet, he was chosen because of his familiarity with Shakespeare's works. Identify the person and the movie.

4. In 2005, a former skating champion named Sanjeev Bhatnagar filed a PIL in the Supreme Court asking for the deletion of a particular word. The SC labeled it 'a publicity interest litigation', fined him Rs.10000 and dismissed the 'case'. It was also noted that the word represents the culture and not the province. What?

5. During the 1982 Ranji Trophy semi-final, Raghuram Bhat picked 8 wickets in the first innings, including a hat-trick. Later, batting at No.11, he scored 30 runs and helped put on a partnership of 91 runs for the last wicket. Staring down the barrel of an innings defeat, the opposition captain came in to bat at the uncharacteristic No.8 position and did something remarkable. Though his 66-ball unbeaten innings failed to save his team, the match is still remembered for his heroics.
Identify the batsman and what did he do?

KIIT (Bhubaneshwar) - Tech Quiz

Conducted a couple of quizzes (Biz Quiz & Tech Quiz) at KIIT-Bhubaneshwar on the 17th of February. Here are a few question from the Tech Quiz:

1. “I am half ‘Nobel prize winning chemist’ and half ‘blanket carrying cartoon character’.” Whose quote?

2. Larry Wall wanted to give it a short name and claims that he considered and rejected every three and four letter words in the dictionary. Being a god-fearing Christian, he named it after the Parable of the ______ from Gospel of Matthew (13:46). On discovering that the name was already in use, he simply removed an alphabet. What?

3. On July 18, 1996 an alternate telecommunications provider called IDT achieved a technological breakthrough that would eventually cut the cost of international calls by 95%. The first call was made by Susan Cheever to Sara Grosvenor. Why were they selected?

4. As a child, he designed shoes for walking on water. After his graduation he was a lecturer of Astronomy. He propounded ground breaking theories on labour division and production technology. His inventions included, the cowcatcher, Speedometer, uniform postal rates and Greenwich Time Signals. He once baked himself in an oven at 265oF and on another occasion was lowered into Mt. Vesuvius to view molten lava. Identify him.

5. It began in 1971 when Michael Hart was given free computer access at the Materials Research Lab at the University of Illinois. He then proceeded to type the US Declaration of Independence and sent it to everyone on the networks. What?