2. Rules of the game
25 Questions in the prelim
No negative marking. Feel free to guess
Exact and complete answer expected
Quizmaster‟s decision remains final
Top 6 teams in the final
2
3. Q.1
HBR released a list of The Best-Performing CEOs in the
World in November 2015.
The world‟s top-performing CEO isn‟t a household name. In
fact, Lars Rebien Sørensen doesn‟t even look like a big-time
global executive. How did this mild-mannered, bespectacled
executive land in the #1 spot on our list? It‟s partly due to his
company‟s decision years ago to focus almost exclusively on
diabetes treatment. The runaway global growth of the disease
has driven up the company‟s sales and stock price.
Identify the company.
3
6. Q.2
This lifestyle brand is inspired by the iconic style, values and
personality of the founder. With a passion for design,
architecture and fashion, she brings her unique vision to this
beautifully designed, high quality collection of women‟s apparel,
accessories and decorative home. The brand encourages
consumers to embrace and express their own sense of style and
individuality through all parts of their life.
Identify the person behind this:
6
10. Q.3
Though his other achievements are well
documented, less known are his
astonishing stock-picking skills. His
Cambridge college, King‟s, appointed him
bursar in 1924. He channeled its resources
into the Chest fund.
Between 1924 and his death in 1946, the
Chest fund grew from £30,000 to
£380,000, a remarkable feat given the
stock market turbulence of those decades.
Identify.
10
13. Q.4
Kete Heddleston wrote a piece on „How our engineering
environments are killing diversity‟ on her blog.
“Women in tech are the canary in the coal mine. Normally
when the canary in the coal mine starts dying you know the
environment is toxic and you should get the hell out. Instead,
the tech industry is looking at the canary, wondering why it
can‟t breathe, saying “____ ___, canary. ____ ___!” When one
canary dies they get a new one because getting more canaries is
how you fix the lack of canaries, right? Except the problem is
that there isn‟t enough oxygen in the coal mine, not that there
are too few canaries.”
Fill in the blanks (think of a 2013 book)
13
16. Q.5
“It‟s very tricky to do any
drawing of a tragedy. A
drawing often comes across as
lighthearted, and there‟s
obviously nothing lighthearted
about this thing,” said
Christoph Niemann, who
created this cover.
What tragedy is he talking
about?
16
22. Q.7
Created by Stanford Professor Tsachy Weissman and graduate
student Vinith Misra, Weissman score is used to measure the
effectiveness of compression algorithms.
Which company achieved a Weissman compression quality
score of 5.2 in June 2014, almost doubling the previous record?
22
25. Q.8
Masaan director Neeraj Ghaywan, who has directed this „fuelled
by love‟ tear-jerking commercial for X, says that he had not
expected this response. “It is simply baffling. We were not
expecting this at all. The agency, SapientNitro, came up with
this idea and we developed it. But the response has simply been
amazing,” he said. It went live in February 2016 and has been
viewed over 1.6 million times.
X‟s previous campaigns, „Visit Mom‟ (2013) and „The Welcome
of Home‟ (2014) had also been crafted specifically keeping
Indians in mind. Identify X.
25
31. Q.10
With $1,500 and no business experience,
they turned a wild idea into a company
that would become the international retail
colossus. Re-imagining military surplus as
safari and expedition wear, the former
journalist and artist created a world that
captured the zeitgeist for a generation and
spoke to the creativity, adventure, and
independence in everyone.
Identify the company which was founded
in 1978 and acquired by Gap Inc. in 1983.
31
37. Q.12
Not far from here in Cuffe Parade
are located the World Trade Centre
Towers.
The shorter one on the right is the
IDBI Tower.
The taller one (MVIRDC) is
named after which Bharat Ratna
awardee?
37
40. Q.13
X is one of the largest companies in Sweden and the largest Y
manufacturer in the world and employs approximately 48,600
people in 140 production and manufacturing sites. Interestingly,
Volvo was established in 1920s as a subsidiary of X.
In 1907, the company‟s first year, a total of 2,200 units were
made. Now, more than 2,27,000 per hour are made.
Give X and Y.
40
44. Q.14
The Boeing 747 ________ (formerly Large Cargo Freighter or
LCF) is a wide-body cargo aircraft and is used exclusively for
transporting 787 aircraft parts to Boeing‟s assembly plants
from suppliers around the world. In 2006, Boeing renamed it
to _________, a reference to the 787‟s name, Dreamliner. Fill
in the blanks.
44
47. Q.15
In April 2015, Pantone released a new color which for the first
time was named after a character.
According to the company, the hue is “designed to represent
the sweet and subversive characters,” and it is perhaps an
appropriate partnership, given the _____‟ only purpose is to
serve history‟s most villainous masters.
Fill in the blank.
47
58. Q.18
In a blog post he wrote to introduce X‟s new look to the world,
the CEO and co-founder likened the old logo to a bad, 90s
hairstyle. “Have you ever looked at someone‟s hairstyle and
thought „oh my, you peaked in the 1990s?‟ Well that‟s a bit how
I feel about X‟s look today.
He and his in-house team of designers cut X some new clothes
- a “brand refresh” based on the company‟s philosophy of “bits
(technology) and atoms (humanity)”
Identify X.
58
61. Q.19
In 1935, X hired the advertising firm of S.H. Benson to give a boost
to their marketing efforts. John Gilroy, a poster designer, recounted
that the X family sought to avoid a campaign specifically about their
product. They thought that would be vulgar, and they wanted to
highlight the purported „health benefits‟ of their product. Ultimately
that led to animals. Gilroy then took off in that direction and
produced an unbelievable assortment of zoo animals, including the
famous toucan.
But it wasn‟t just the animals that made these posters famous, it was
also the superb copy work of Dorothy Sayers. For the original
toucan poster, she quipped:
If he can say as you can
“X is good for you”
How grand to be a Toucan
Just think what Toucan do.
61
64. Q.20
In 2012–13, a proposal on the White House‟s web site urging the
United States government to build a real _______ ______ as an
economic stimulus and job creation measure gained more than
30,000 signatures, enough to qualify for an official response.
The official (tongue-in-cheek) response was released in January 2013
and noted that the cost of building a real _______ ______ has been
estimated at $850 quadrillion, while the International Business Times
cited a calculation that, at current rates of steel production, the
_______ ______would not be ready for more than 833,000 years.
The White House response also stated “the Administration does not
support blowing up planets” and questioned funding something
“with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man
starship” as reasons for denying the petition. Fill in the blanks.
64
67. Q.21
The invention of the modern ______ _______ system is
credited to inventor and Automotive Hall of Famer, Ralph
Teetor - a man who couldn‟t actually drive due to being
completely blind.
The inspiration for this struck Teetor while he was riding with
his lawyer in the 1940s. The lawyer had a tendency to slow
down while talking and speed up while listening. This rocking
motion annoyed Teetor, who decided to come up with a
device.
What did he invent?
67
73. Q.23
In July 2014, Facebook made a barely perceptible change to its
website. Steven Millward of Techinasia.com noticed the change
and contacted Facebook‟s Asia HQ and the team responded:
“This is just one small example of how we‟re always working to
personalize people‟s Facebook experience.”
He added: Asia-Pacific is the single biggest region for Facebook
users. So it makes sense that Facebook would want to be more
inclusive with this little gesture.
What was this tiny design change?
73
75. Ans.23
Changed the notification icon
The icon used to show North and South America, no matter
where you logged in from. Users in Asia, Africa, and Europe
now see an icon of the Eastern Hemisphere.
75
82. Q.25
M.I.A. released a video for her track „Borders‟ in 2015. The
self-directed clip sees M.I.A. join a group of refugees as they
climb wire fences, crowd on to tiny boats, and wade into the
sea.
However, she soon became embroiled in a row with a football
club after she wore a shirt of the football club with the words
„Fly Pirates‟ on it. The club requested a total halt to the
broadcasting of any images or clips which show M.I.A. in the
modified shirt as well as compensation for the harm suffered.
Which football club?
82