The finals of the XIX Vidyasagar Rajan Memorial Quiz at KQA for colleges. Set jointly by Venkatesh Srinivasan and Varun Rajiv

1. XIX Vidyasagar Rajan Memorial
Inter-College Quiz Finals
Quizmasters:
Varun Rajiv and Venkatesh S

2. Written Round – 8 questions
Clockwise – 12 questions
Anti-Clockwise – 12 questions
Differential Scoring Written Round 2 –
8 questions

3. Write Here, Write Now!
Written Round on Indian Tourism
8 visuals
+10 for each, no negatives
+15 if only one or two teams get it

4. 1. ID location

5. 2. Identify location

6. 3. Fill in the blanks and which state is this?

7. 4. ID the location

8. 5. ID the logo

9. 6. ID the State

10. 7. Fill in the
blank; also
give the
tagline of
Chattisgarh
tourism; a
kind of
“counter
point” to the
overall India
tourism
campaign

11. 8. Who is the brand
ambassador and
which state?

12. EXCHANGE SHEETS!
Answers Follow…

13. 1. ID location

14. Kabini

15. 2. Identify location

16. Tranquebar / Tharangambadi

17. 3. Fill in the blanks and which state is this?

18. Four Dhams / Char Dham
Uttarakhand

19. 4. ID the location

20. Bishnupur

21. 5. ID the logo

22. Dadra and Nagar Haveli Tourism

23. 6. ID the State

24. Goa

25. 7. Fill in the
blank; also
give the
tagline of
Chattisgarh
tourism; a
kind of
“counter
point” to the
overall India
tourism
campaign

26. Hieun Tsang
Credible Chattisgarh

27. 8. Who is the brand
ambassador and
which state?

28. Sudarshan Pattnaik
Odisha

29. Clockwise
12 questions on Infinite Bounce
+10 for direct and pass; no negatives
+15/-5 on Infinite Pounce

30. 1
On the left is a sculpture called “Meeting Place”; on
the right is the frieze below it.
Where would you find this (specific)? What starts
from here?
(larger pics follows)

33. ANSWER

34. St Pancras Railway Station, London
Starting point of the Channel Tunnel Rail
Link

35. 2
Its name refers to the very large—up to 25 centimetres
long—tadpole (typical of the Pseudis genus), which in turn
becomes an ordinary-sized frog, only about a quarter of its
former length. What is its name, deriving from the
Greek word meaning beyond belief/opinion?

36. ANSWER

37. Pseudis paradoxa or Paradoxical Frog

38. 3
Though in 1980, X had tied Y's
1500m world record of 3:32.1,
new rules would come into
effect in 1981, which would
have the effect of giving Y sole
possession of the record.
However, X avoided this
unusual removal of a record
via rule change by setting a
new record later in 1980 of
3:31.36.
ID X, Y and the rule change

39. ANSWER

40. • Steve Ovett
• Sebastian Coe
• New timing rules came into effect in 1981,
which would recognise records over 400 m to
the hundredth of a second. This had the
effect of giving Coe sole possession of the
record, as Coe ran 3:32.03 to Ovett's 3:32.09.

41. 4
This is a 2006 novel by Daniel
Handler. It is formatted as a collection
of seventeen interconnected
narratives from the points of view of
different people in various sorts of
love. Chapter titles include,
“Immediately”, “Obviously”, “Soundly”,
“Often”, “Barely”, “Truly” and so on.
The author’s main claim to fame is a
successful series he wrote under a pen
name.
Name the book and the series

42. ANSWER

43. • Adverbs
• Lemony Snickett

44. 5
In Feb 1948, X was tuning his instrument before a live
broadcast from a Bombay studio when an All India
Radio producer asked him whether he could play
something in honour of Y. In feverish inspiration, X
produced a new raga and named it partly after the first
name of Y.
Many years later, in 1982, X was associated once again
in a work about the life of Y and won worldwide acclaim
for the same.
Who are X and Y? What is the raga?

45. ANSWER

46. • Pandit Ravi Shankar
• Mahatma Gandhi
• Mohan Kauns raga

47. 6
A certain team landed at the Tilbury docks near
London on March 10, 1928, en route to Amsterdam.
After witnessing this team play in the Folkstone
Sports Festival, defending champions England, gold
winners at the 1908 and 1920 Olympics, lost their
enthusiasm.
Which team was it and what happened as a result
of this?

48. ANSWER

49. • Indian hockey team
• Great Britain did not contest in Field
Hockey in the Summer Olympics till India
was its colony

50. 7
This is a stamp honouring a freedom fighter and founder
of the institutions of Gandhigram. She set up
Gandhigram in 1947 to help rural poor for their growth
and development in the areas of health, education,
economic development and social welfare. As a deputy
minister of education in the Union Cabinet headed by
Jawaharlal Nehru, she was instrumental in making
primary education free all over the country.
Name her and her famous father,
who pioneered road transport in
the Madras Presidency and
founded a major business group

51. ANSWER

52. • Dr TS Soundram, daughter of TV
Sundaram Iyengar, who founded the TVS
Group

53. 8
“We coined the phrase ‘_____ _____,’ ” Minna Fry, a
former marketing director of Bloomsbury, recently said
of the series. “The more people want, the less you give.”
Ahead of each publication, she said, “we were extremely
tantalizing—releasing little nuggets.” She laughed. “If
you were really lucky, you’d get the title!”
Fill in the blanks and which series is she talking
about?

54. ANSWER

55. • Denial Marketing
• Harry Potter series

56. 9
The two characters on the left, are inspired in part by
the lady on the right – the long-term editor of a famous
magazine.
Name all three characters for 10 points or the TV
show and the magazine for 5 points

57. ANSWER

58. • Peggy Olson and Joan Holloway from
Mad Men
• Helen Gurley Brown of Cosmopolitan

59. 10
“In the late 1940s and early 1950s a new kind of detective
story appeared on the scene. This was a story in which
the mystery is solved by regular police detectives,
usually working in teams and using ordinary routines.
This kind of narrative is customarily called the “_______
_______" story. Instead of whodunits, they concentrate
on the various steps involved in nabbing the culprit and
proving the crime.
The comic strip in the next slide is cited as one of the
earliest examples of this style
Fill in the blanks and name the comic

61. ANSWER

62. • Police Procedural
• Dick Tracy

63. 11
In many Indian Hindu households, the 80th birthday of
a male member is a grand event, celebrated as
“Sathabhishekam”.
One of the milestones that the person is deemed to have
achieved lends credence to the fact that it could
correctly be called, “Sahasraabhishekam”.
What is the milestone?

64. ANSWER

65. • Seen a 1000 full moons
• Sahasra is 1000 is Sanskrit

66. 12
The author of this book, Rowan
Williams is the 104th person to
occupy a certain post
(currently).
This book is about the moral
and spiritual sub-text of a
famous series of novels.
What post does Rowan
Williams hold and what is
this book about?

67. ANSWER

68. • Archbishop of Canterbury
• Chronicles of Narnia by CS Lewis

69. Scores…

70. Anti-Clockwise
12 questions on Infinite Bounce
+10 for direct and pass; no negatives
+15/-5 on Infinite Pounce

71. 1. His epitaph reads:
Stop a while, traveller!
Should Mother Bengal claim thee for her son.
As a child takes repose on his mother's elysian lap,
Even so here in the Long Home,
On the bosom of the earth,
Enjoys the sweet eternal sleep
Poet X of the Y.
He’s usually known as WXY, but towards the end of
his life regretted his infatuation with something
that caused him to take on W, and perhaps for that
reason is referred to only as XY on his epitaph.

72. ANSWER

73. Michael Madhusudan Dutt.

74. 2. Where? Be specific. And why these particular countries’ flags
there?
Twelve in all - Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Chile, France,
Japan, NZ, Norway, South Africa, the Soviet Union, the UK and
the USA.

75. ANSWER

76. Ceremonial South Pole.
Original signatories of the Antarctic Treaty.

77. 3. Bill Coffin mooted a concept he called the Vonnegut Capital Management Fund -
named for Vonnegut’s The Sirens of Titan, in which an entrepreneur makes a fortune
by using a particular (completely arbitrary) method of picking companies to invest
in, becoming the world’s richest man in the process.
Coffin attempted to correlate the fictional method of picking companies to the real
world, and ended up with the following list:
[…]
NN (NN, Inc.)
IN (Intermec, Inc.)
GG (Goldcorp, Inc.)
O (Realty Income Corp.) O (Realty Income Corp.)
D (Dominion Resources, Inc.)
MA (Mastercard, Inc.)
DE (Deere & Co.)
T (AT&T, Inc.)
HE (Hawaiian Electric Industries, Inc.)
HE (Hawaiian Electric Industries, Inc.)
A (Agilent Technologies, Inc.)
VE (Veolia Environment)
NS (NuStar Energy L.P.)
[…]
What method of picking companies?

78. ANSWER

79. Take letters of the words in the Bible and find
corresponding company.
For example, “In the beginning God made the
heavens and the earth” gives
IN
TH
EB
EG
IN
NI

80. 4. The scientific reasoning behind a ___ _____ ___ (X) is that
the X acts as a Faraday cage.
While the underlying concept is good, the typical X fails in
design and execution. An effective Faraday cage fully
encloses whatever it's shielding, but a ___ that doesn't fully
cover the head doesn't fully protect it.
In 2005, a group of MIT students tested the effectiveness of
X at blocking various frequencies. While effective in most
cases, they found that it amplified certain frequencies:
those in the 2.6 Ghz and 1.2 Ghz bands.
What were they researching?

81. ANSWER

82. Wearing a tin foil hat to keep out prying eyes from
your mindz.

83. 5. Sometime in the last month, X, at 11544 days, eclipsed Y’s
record (d. October 20, 1964) for being the longest serving ex-
President of the United States.
Some outlets quipped that, as a measure of time, X’s ex-
Presidency has lasted the equivalent of 26 Zs.
X,Y, Z.

84. ANSWER

85. X - Jimmy Carter
Y - Herbert Hoover
Z - Iran Hostage Crisis

86. 6. In the 1937 New Year’s Day England v Australia Test match, Day
1 started with a pitch that favoured batting, though the Australians
could not take advantage of it and finished the day at 6/181.
On Day 2, rain dramatically altered its course. With the sun drying
the pitch (covers could not be used during matches) captain Don
Bradman declared to get Eng in to bat while the pitch was ‘sticky’;
Eng also declared to get Oz back in, conceding a lead of 124.
Bradman took a decision to counter England’s declaration, and
ended up scoring 270 (375), a performance that Wisden rated in
2001 as the best Test match innings of all time.
What did Bradman do to counter England’s declaration?

87. ANSWER

88. He reversed the batting order – to protect
the batsman while the pitch dried out. Bradman
scored his 270 from coming in at No. 7.

89. 7. An X is a concrete scar caused by a mortar shell’s
explosion that’s later filled with red resin -
because ________ was a site of intense urban warfare, there
are many of these scars, and marks of explosions that
resulted in one/more deaths were filled with the resin.
X?

90. ANSWER

91. Sarajevo Rose – mortar rounds landing on
concrete create a floral pattern, and street artists
memorialised deaths in this fashion.

92. 8. A sub-category of mangas, what is Manga Shimbun?

94. ANSWER

95. Manga
News.

96. 9. In December 2011, X, after Argentina's Cristina Fernandez joined the list,
speculated that the United States had a hand in it.
"It would not be strange if they had developed the technology […] ... I don't
know. I'm just reflecting," he said.
"But this is very, very, very strange ... it's a bit difficult to explain this, to
reason it, including using the law of probabilities.“
X, Fernandez, Paraguay's Fernando Lugo, Brazil's Dilma Rousseff and
former Brazilian leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, all leftists, are all a part of
the list.
“We’ll have to take good care of Evo. Take care Evo!" he further said, about
Evo Morales, who hasn’t joined the list yet.
"Fidel always told me, ‘X take care. These people have developed
technology. You are very careless. Take care what you eat, what they give you
to eat ...'" he said.
What was X accusing the United States of doing?

97. ANSWER

98. He accused the United States of giving Latin
American presidents cancer.

99. 10. This is a variation on something more
well-known. What, and for what specific
reason?
In loudest din or hush profound
My ears catch evil's slightest sound
Let those who toll out evil's knell
Beware my power, the F-Sharp Bell!

100. ANSWER

101. That of Rot Lop Fan, a Green Lantern whose
species lacks sight, and thus has no concepts of
brightness, darkness, day, night, color, or lanterns.

102. 11. I couldn’t find too much information about it on the
Internet, but here’s a pretty good oral description:
The most famous brand is a product called Fixxo by Simco.
It is a liquidy thing with the consistency of fish glue, and
dries with slightly white traces, or at least used to. Simco
now has insane R&D which has made it smell nicer and dry
more transparent.
Most kids in Punjab have made use of their dad's Fixxo to
stick projects/charts together for school on the nights that
the stationery shop is shut. It will hold.

103. ANSWER

104. Sikh beard gel.

105. 12. Who designed these album covers? He’s most
famous for being the subject of a 2011
Oscar-nominated film.

106. ANSWER

107. Mr. Brainwash.

108. Scores…

109. Different Strokes
Written Round
8 questions
Differential scoring - +20/2, +15/4, +12/6, 10/8
- 5 if incorrect

110. 1. ID the clothed man – he’s at work.

111. ANSWER

112. Spencer Tunick.

113. 2. In the vein of Air Jordans and Nike LeBron, these
Nike shoes were created as a design study for X (before
other factors rendered this particular design study
obsolete).
Who?

114. ANSWER

115. Jeremy Lin.

116. 3. X will celebrate its centennial in 2013, and to that
end introduced a new logo that’s an interpretation of
the four-sided Tiffany timepiece that sits atop the
information kiosk at the centre of the Main Concourse
at X.

117. ANSWER

118. Grand Central Station.

119. 4. Minimalist poster from a series about women
scientists. Who is this one about?

120. ANSWER

121. Rachel Carson.

122. 5. This is the control room of X, whose exteriors are a
lot more recognisable/widely seen.

123. ANSWER

124. Battersea Power Station.

125. 6. In the 2000 movie MI:2, the name of the deadly
virus that everyone haggles over is ‘Chimera’.
What was the name of the antidote?

126. ANSWER

127. Bellerophon.

128. 7. These photographs are from Rush, an upcoming film that
focuses on the 1976 F1 Championship rivalry between X
(Chris Hemsworth) and Y (Daniel Brühl) – name both.

129. ANSWER

130. X – James Hunt
Y – Niki Lauda

131. 8. This tee references
what?

132. ANSWER

133. Akira.

134. Final Scores and Winners!

135. For more quizzes and information on
upcoming quizzes and events, visit our
website at
http://kqaquizzes.org
http://twitter.com/kqaquizzes
Join the KQA mailing list at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kqanews/

136. Tie Breakers

137. 1. The Battle Of ______ _______; King Harold of
England defeated his brother Tostig and King
Hardraada of Norway here on 25 September 1066.
Which place?

138. ANSWER

139. • Stamford Bridge

140. 2. A porn producer, Caballero Video, has
agreed to withdraw its titles ‘Boston
Cream Thigh’, ‘Chocolate Fudge Babes’,
‘Peanut Butter D-Cups’ after being sued
by X, who contended that both the titles
and its packaging mimicked X’s products.
X?

141. ANSWER

143. 14.

144. ANSWER

145. Created for Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom.

146. 4. “Obliged to find an apartment of their
own, my parents searched the
neighbourhood and chose one within walking
distance of the park. Showing them out after
they had viewed it, the landlady said: "And
you'll be glad to know I don't take Jews." Her
mistake made clear to her, the anti-semitic
landlady was renounced, and another
apartment found. But her blunder left its
mark. Back on the street my mother made a
vow. Her unborn baby would have a label
proclaiming his race to the world. He would
be called ___ ____.”

147. ANSWER

148. Yehudi Menuhin.

149. 5. What’s the concept behind this album art?

150. ANSWER

151. Representations of specific Black Sabbath songs:
 A screaming man in a straitjacket ("Paranoid")
 A voodoo shaman ("Voodoo")
 An angel and a devil ("Heaven and Hell")
 A knight with a sword emitting an eerie glow ("Neon Knights")
 A hooded man ("Black Sabbath")
 A goat head, hidden in the sand directly under the War Pig
("N.I.B.")
 A metallic-skinned man flexing his muscles ("Iron Man")
 A pig dressed as a sergeant ("War Pigs")
 A group of children inside a casket ("Children of the Grave")
floating on the water ("Children of the Sea")
 A man with a whip ("The Mob Rules")
 Lightning in the shape of a devil's head ("E5150")