Finals - The Waves Lone Wolf General Quiz 2017

The Lone Wolf Quiz - Waves 2017
BITS Pilani KK Birla Goa Campus
Finals
Crafted and hosted by
Lucky Kaul
29 October, 2017

The Deal
Written Round I – 6 questions (Reverse Themed)
Infinite Bounce/Pounce I – 10 questions
Short Themed Written Round - 3 (+1) questions
Written Round II – 6 questions (Reverse Themed)
Infinite Bounce/Pounce II – 10 questions
Total 35 (+1) questions.
Your starting score in this final is your elims total multiplied by 3.

Written Round I
6 questions.
10 points per correct answer - Part points
wherever applicable.
10 bonus for getting all 6 correct.
No negatives, feel free to guess.
Theme - Design.

1
The Committee for Melbourne is a non profit founded in 1985 with a mission
to make Melbourne a more livable city to be in.
In early March 2017, it lobbied to remove a certain “unconscious bias” in the
city that existed in many places where roads crossed each other - but probably
not noticed by the general public - with a view to make Melbourne “an equal
city”. The above move was welcomed and implemented on a trial basis without
any extra financial burden on local electricity operators.
What exactly was done on a trial basis?

Female figurines were installed on pedestrian crossings, in
addition to the male ones all of us are used to seeing
(This case, however, was not the first time it was done in the world)

2
Vickers-Armstrongs was a British engineering company that was into armament
design, shipbuilding and aviation design.
Somewhere in the 3rd quarter of the 20th century, it was approached to by an
ambitious American who wanted to make the result of his efforts look realistic.
To do the same, VA constructed a 30 ton, 12 meter by 2 meter drum that would
rotate at 5km per hour, at a huge cost of $750,000. With the help of this, the
American was able to simulate the required conditions to much applause and
critical acclaim.
Where, and what conditions were thus simulated by the American with
required help? Images follow.

Stanley Kubrick being able to simulate gravity in the Discovery
spacecraft in 2001 : A Space Odyssey

3
Louis XIV reigned as the King of France from 1643 to 1715, the longest for
any European Monarch till date. He commissioned the building of the now
famous Palace of Versailles in order to shift the seat of the French
Government away from the feuding, trouble-making noble families in Paris.
A patron of art and design, he wanted to see his personal self-centric
attitude - that everything revolved around him - reflected in his bedchamber
- and he did so with the clever use of what was naturally and freely available
to him.
As a result of the above, what was specially kept in mind regarding the
orientation of his bedchamber?

His bedchamber was to be constructed along the East-West axis
(So, the sun would, quite literally, move in the direction of his bedchamber - thus
depicting his showy, self centric attitude - Louis XIV was also known as the Sun King)

4
The 1880s marked the beginning of a now hugely valued industry in the world
of food consumption - however, it faced one major issue until 1891, that the
constituents that would provide the required taste would easily go away into
thin air. This inspired a William Painter to come up with something which soon
gained popularity and revenue as it had to be bought again and again.
The above story caused another worker in Painter’s company a decade later to
present an innovation in another field - where in the previously existing
everyday product had to be sharpened using leather for use. His solution
provided a cheaper and less laborious alternative for the same.
What did William Painter come up with? What, the best that its users could
get, did Painter’s employee present the world with?

The crown cork, the packaging standard for glass bottles
containing carbonated beverages

King C Gillette’s Disposable Razor, that marked the beginning of his
company in 1901
He was earlier a salesman in Painter’s Crown Cork company

5
The Olympic torch for the 2000 Summer Olympics
essentially tried to symbolise three things - one of them
being the blue waters of the Indian and the Pacific Oceans
surrounding it.
Name the other two that are quite reflective of
Australian identity and culture - one of which could be
called as an element of a set. Image follows.

The sails of the Sydney Opera House

6
The invention of this clothing item dates back to WW1 when it was introduced
as an alternative to the heavier forms that army men were used to wear. It was
realised that clothing should allow for fluid movement and be adaptable for the
fighting terrain. Such clothing got its name probably due to the kind of areas it
was designed for - networks of narrow, deep ditches that were muddy and
smelled of dead bodies.
A detective-like , longer-than-usual version of this dress donned by an Indian
caught international attention sometime this year.
What clothing item? What specific dress from this year is this and
how/where did it gain attention?

Priyanka Chopra’s Gown trail at the 2017 Met Gala

Infinite Bounce/Pounce - I
10 questions.
Clockwise - +10/-5 on pounce, +10/0 on
bounce. Part points wherever applicable.
Bangalore Bounce to be followed.

1
It is said that the entry of something into India back in 1556 was by accident.
The story goes that the Abyssinian Emperor had requested the Portuguese
Emperor to send across one of these so that the missionaries in Abyssinia
could spread and preach the Gospel with ease.
When it halted for a break in Goa, the Abyssinian Emperor had changed his
mind and so this something stayed back here. It so happened that at that
time schools for Indians had just been opened in Goa, so this proved to be all
the more useful.
What thus marked its entry into India via Goa?

2
When asked to one of the members of a certain set as to why
his cricket team’s captain made an exceptional choice a
decade ago, he said that they had prepared for this situation
beforehand. It just so happened that him, <a usual choice>
and <somebody else> had the best frequency in the required
job in the practice sessions, and so the choice was made.
What exception , moving away from the otherwise better
options did this account for, and in what do-or-die context?

Allowing Robin Uthappa to bowl in the Indo-Pak bowl out during the
2007 T20 World Cup

3
The sinking of the Titanic that took the lives of 1,517 people is a
fairly well known event with us quizzers probably learning more
about it from quiz fundas than sweeping through the internet.
While it was a major challenge for the remaining passengers to
survive in the freezing cold conditions of the Atlantic Ocean, it is
also interesting to know that 24 of these passengers who had
boarded the ship from Southampton were saved from the disaster
without having suffered anything.
What was so special about these passengers?

They had never boarded for New York City.
Their ticket was valid till Cherbourg in France which was the only stopover
location of the ship.

4
Translating to “Made of Hundreds of Flowers”, the national anthem of this
Asian country was ranked third in BBC’s list of Rio 2016’s top national
anthems thanks to its musical uniqueness compared to other anthems -
the possible reason being that it is the only anthem composed using a
certain musical instrument.
Listen to a snippet of this anthem and its lyrics and tell me to which
country this national anthem belongs to.
Hear the background music and tell me the childhood-ish instrument
used. Audio link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7ZvETrH-I4

5
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is a 1988 movie directed by Terry
Gilliam that talks about the eponymous guy’s wartime exploits against
the Ottoman Empire.
While it was a box office bomb, it is notable for the sequence in which
Uma Thurman , a goddess, is presented to the audience - the director
describing it after her enclosure is opened - “The winds are blowing, her hair
starts billowing out, the dressing girl(s) bringing in the robes… and it’s really
funny because she’s there, static, elegant, sexy.”
What exactly inspired the above sequence?

6
Lateralus is a song by the progressive rock band Tool that
much more than the song itself is notable for its
construction at least in its first few lines. How?
While you’re at that, another interesting fact about the
song is that its introduction ends after 97 seconds ,
following which its first verse begins. What is this an
intended pointer to? Image follows.

Subsequent lyrics have total number of syllables in the
Fibonacci Sequence
Black - 1
White - 1
Then are - 2
All I see - 3 ….

97 seconds = 1 minute 37 seconds = 1.618 minutes
Pointer to the golden ratio, the ratio that two
subsequent Fibonacci numbers converge towards

7
The creation of Telangana in 2014 was seen as a major victory by
its citizens. Being a new state, a new emblem was needed and so,
one was made, featuring one monument in addition to Charminar.
This design was happily adopted by the Government - but after a
few days, a serious flaw in it was discovered, which was then
corrected.
Identify the city the other monument is located in. What was the
flaw in the original design? Image follows.

Satyameva Jayate must be written right below the
Sarnath lions, which it was not

8
When Ellen Woodbury was interviewed about her research - the results of which
became public in the mid-1990s, she had to say the following -
There is very little footage of ______ doing everyday things. Mostly, I found
documentaries about how they build their nests and ……. …. Also , Jim Fowler brought
a ______ with him when we had a massive animal-research study period
before….That was very helpful. Then I wrote down the characteristics of <a name> -
loyal, traditional, takes pride in his job as a majordomo, dislikes children, and so on.
Fill in the blanks. Where exactly would you have seen the result of her
research?

The portrayal of Zazu in The Lion King (1994)

9
Once during the Cold War, the CIA wanted to try a certain ingenuine
method of spying on the Soviets. For this, it needed subjects that were
stealthy, smart, fast, jump over tall objects and not likely to be detected
as spies. When CIA did find the required subjects, they trained them hard,
slit them open, inserted relevant recording material and sent one such
sample out to spy - except that their trial spy got hit by a vehicle.
Sometime later, this method was deemed useless and called off.
Who were these subjects? Where exactly in their bodies were the
antennas installed?

Cats
Their tails were used as antennas

10
These majorly exist in two types - the ones having vertical
cuts and the ones having lateral cuts.
In the ones having a vertical cut, the movement of the
reproducer happens along the surface of the groove rather
than side-by-side (or up and down) as in the case of those
having lateral cuts - with the vertical cut ones usually the
more efficient ones in their job.
What am I describing above? Images follow.

Short Written Themed Round
3 (+1) questions.
10 points for every correct answer
Theme points decrease from +20/-15 to +5/0.
To make this round a little exciting, I’ve
decided that we’ll add a bit of Only Connect
(R2) flavour to it.

How this round works
The three answers will be in a well defined (not
necessary exhaustive) logical sequence. You’ve to
figure out the answers, and then tell me what the
theme/sequence is and what will come fourth in the
sequence. This fourth can be something concrete
OR anything that logically fits.

Example
If the answers are one potato, two potato and three potato, then you
can see this is the sequence of the rhyme and next in sequence will be
four (and nothing else).
OR if the answers are Kauravas, Double century, 300 (the movie),
then logically you can tell me anything that is related to the number
400 (eg. Highest individual test match score). If you figure the
sequence out by the second answer itself, I still want anything related
to 400, and NOT 300 (with the sequence being 100,200,300,400).

1 (+20/-15)
Akashic Books is a Brooklyn based publisher that has gained international
fame because of many of its publications having titles that contain the
names of famous cities and one other word.
One of such publications based in India talks about the dark, eclectic tales
of a city’s thriving underworld - characterised by crime, death and the kind
of sufferings it brings on to the city’s ordinary people.
Name this book, that also shares its name with a movie genre that got
coined thanks to a 1998 RGV production dealing with similar themes.

2 (+15/-10)
Eric Goddard was a British army man in India who during his stay in the
country rose through the ranks to become the General Officer Commanding-
in-Chief of the Southern Command at the onset of Indian Independence.
A year after India was declared free, he was specially requested by someone
to devise a plan known as the Goddard Plan that involved the strategic
deployment of large amounts of infantry from Solapur and Vijayawada in
order to achieve the intended purpose once and for all.
How did the Goddard Plan manifest itself a few weeks after it was devised?

3 (+10/-5)
(For this question, the relevant part is obtained by removing the last word of
whatever answer you get.)
Unlike its earlier, older (and yet popular) variant, the working of this
technology involves its detection as a 2D digital image by an image
sensor and is then digitally analysed by a processor. This processor
locates three distinctive squares at three of the four corners of the
image and normalises its image size , orientation etc. using the fourth
smaller square at the remaining corner. The remainder of the image is
converted to binary and then checked using error correcting
algorithms.
The working of which technology is described above, that was
invented in the mid-1990s in Japan to track vehicles by faster
processing of data than usual?

1
Akashic Books is a Brooklyn based publisher that has gained international
fame because of many of its publications having titles that contain the
names of famous cities and one other word.
One of such publications based in India talks about the dark, eclectic tales
of a city’s thriving underworld - characterised by crime, death and the kind
of sufferings it brings on to the city’s ordinary people.
Name this book, that also shares its name with a movie genre that got
coined thanks to a 1998 RGV production dealing with similar themes.

2
Eric Goddard was a British army man in India who during his stay in the
country rose through the ranks to become the General Officer Commanding-
in-Chief of the Southern Command at the onset of Indian Independence.
A year after India was declared free, he was specially requested by someone
to devise a plan known as the Goddard Plan that involved the strategic
deployment of large amounts of infantry from Solapur and Vijayawada in
order to achieve the intended purpose once and for all.
How did the Goddard Plan manifest itself a few weeks after it was devised?

Operation Polo, chiefly led by Sardar Patel that led to the
annexation of Hyderabad into the Union of India

3
(For this question, the relevant part is obtained by removing the last word
of whatever answer you get.)
Unlike its earlier, older (and yet popular) variant, the working of this
technology involves its detection as a 2D digital image by an image
sensor and is then digitally analysed by a processor. This processor
locates three distinctive squares at three of the four corners of the image
and normalises its image size , orientation etc. using the fourth smaller
square at the remaining corner. The remainder of the image is converted
to binary and then checked using error correcting algorithms.
The working of which technology is described above, that was
invented in the mid-1990s in Japan to track vehicles by faster
processing of data than usual?

Stuff having two words that begin with forward moving
consecutive letters of the English alphabet
MN - Mumbai Noir
OP - Operation Polo
QR - Quick Response (Code)
ST - (eg.) Scheduled Tribes / Simon Taufel etc.

Written Round II
6 questions.
10 points for every correct answer. Part
points wherever applicable.
10 bonus for getting all 5 correct.
No negatives, feel free to guess.
Theme - Famous Contests.

Wishing all the best to...
6 ke 6 maarunga!

1
So Sorry is a political cartoon series broadcast by the India Today Group
where in it showcases current political news in a humorous way using
animated caricatures , at times using references well known to Indians.
One of such episodes that was made at the onset of the 2014 general
elections involved a battle between Narendra Modi and Arvind Kejriwal - a
hotly contested but humorous battle of tunes.
Which similar fictional contest from almost five decades ago provided the
inspiration for the one in this episode?

Ek Chatur Naar from Padosan(1968)

2
Raymond Orteig was a French hotelier who had immigrated to New York
City at the age of 12. After the First World War, his hotels became a
favourite for French airmen who visited the US in the years to come.
Greatly impressed by their war stories, he wondered if their job could get
commercial attention and go on to benefit the public. Thus, to encourage
the same, in 1919 he constituted a prize of $25000 to perform a certain
task - one that was tried by a daring few but bore fruit only eight years later.
What exactly had Orteig constituted the prize for? Who bore the fruit?

To fly transatlantic from New York to Paris
It was attempted twice before Lindbergh did the same successfully

3
Research suggests that the usual spots of a certain kind of injury are the abdomen
and the chest of a human - apt spots given the orientation of this feature when it
makes antagonistic contact with the human body.
Since 1910, 15 male deaths have occurred due to this. Five women have
experienced this injury since they’ve been allowed to compete in 1974. Thus, to
take care of such occurrences, every day a team of 200 people are ready at various
locations of this contest so that any participant who experiences this can be
stabilised within ten minutes.
What is this unusual cause of injury during a particular annual event?

Being gored by the running bulls in Pamplona

4
In 1999, when he was asked something regarding a feat
he had just achieved that was viewed all around the
world, all he had to say was “It would have looked cocky
had I not used any of them. So I decided to fake it.” - thus
not really needing any kind of help to do the same.
Who? What feat? What had he faked?

John Carpenter - the first millionaire on WWTBAM
Used Phone-A-Friend to call his father on the last question

5
At certain intervals of time, 30 of such items from all corners of India
are transported to Delhi via air by booking special business class
tickets for them - instead of being kept in the cargo hold, for security
reasons. These items are then taken to a prescribed location, its
contents unboxed for a few hours, locked and then sent back - all
under utmost care to avoid any kind of mishaps.
What exactly are these items and what is their purpose?

The ballot boxes that are opened in Delhi (sent from 29 states
+ Pondicherry + Delhi) to count votes and declare the winner
of the Indian Presidential Election

6
(Credits Santosh Moorthy/Abhishek V)
What does THIS infographic depict the journey of? Image follows.

Infinite Bounce/Pounce - II
10 questions.
Anticlockwise - +10/-5 on pounce,
+10/0 on bounce. Part points
wherever applicable.
Bangalore Bounce to be followed.

1
As we saw in the prelims, the Moscow-Washington hotline was
established pronto after the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The operators at the Russian end were baffled when the US sent its first
message because they could not understand why a weird message, a
part of which to do with springing animals was sent to them.
Once they did understand the why, they just sent back a poetic
description of the setting Moscow sun.
What exactly did the US send as its first message and why?

THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS OVER THE LAZY
DOG’S BACK 1234567890
To test whether all the keys worked correctly

2
While LG had never planned to include the _______ feature in
its smartphones, it decided to do so in Japan and did not bring
in its otherwise well marketed products because a device having
removable parts, logically, cannot be sealed - being ______ was
more important than to be able to remove your phone’s battery.
Another reason for such phones to be made was attributed to a
weird habit among Japanese women as a result of them clinging
onto their phones.
Fill in the blank. What habit am I talking about above?

3
St Pancras is one of the many railway stations in London.
Catering to a fair deal of passengers, it (obviously) offers
benches for them to sit and wait for their trains.
How exactly did this particular set of benches come to
exist in this station? Images follow.

The Olympic Rings that adorned this station back in
2012 were recycled to make these benches!

4
The ___ _ __ ___ ___ Party is a legit party in the state of New York.
Founded by Jimmy McMillan, its basic operating funda reflects in the
party’s name.
One of their taglines is “breakfast, lunch and dinner” - as a pointer to
the fact that the above three will become affordable if not <the party
name>. However, in 2015, McMillan got pissed and aptly put the
party “for sale, trademark and all.”
What is its name? Image follows, but not exactly his.

5
The following events that happened in the 1869-70 period have been said
to get a certain endeavour entry into popular fiction – thanks to a person
writing a famous work about the same a few years later -
a) Establishment of the Transcontinental railway in the US
b) Opening of the Mumbai-Allahbad-Howrah Railway line, and
c) Inauguration of an important route, the alternative to which was
travelling through a Cape Agulhas (and still is, in few cases).
Identify the last event c). What endeavour? Who was this person?

6
The following illustration was found by someone in a National Geographic
book about birds. On getting approval from his fellow mates, he traced out
the bird using a pen and tissue paper. This was rejected because they felt it
did not fully convey the intended message. In comes Tom Wilson, who
suggested to add an olive branch as a symbol of peace, following which the
combined result got accepted to much appreciation.
Which relatively lesser known person in a certain trio from the previous
century traced out the design of the bird?
What was the result of the above? OR How did we get to see it in the
previous century? Image follows.

Michael Collins, the astronaut who went to the moon
but did not walk on its surface.

7
The procedure of making them look brand new again involves
removing old paint, cleaning, applying blue undercoats,
smoothening with silicon carbide paper and finally lettering
contents with golden yellow or light blue paint. The result of
the above can be seen by us nationwide.
On what items, chiefly produced in Chennai, is this
procedure followed? (They are produced in other places
with different paint jobs too but this is the majority case)

8
In September 2014, Allyouneed.com teamed up with LSG Chefs to
launch a special kind of food home delivery service in Germany - inspired
from a kind of food that people usually enjoy somewhere else.
As per spokesperson Max Thinius - You find the meals on _____ , exactly
that way. __ ___ __ is just fresher.
The last three blanks is the name of the service, and is a pun on an
extremely important vehicle in the United States.
What service is this, and thus what are its food products inspired by?

Inspired by food served on flights

9
This business dates back to the end of the 19th century in the city of Dundee. Its
location on a major estuary allowed for easy import of whale oil from another now
major city. Soaking <something> in whale oil made it soft and easily processable
by machine - and so the business thrived.
Except, after the onset of the Crimean War, their need became essential thanks to
major demand from the military, and so it was both sensible and relatively
inexpensive to produce it in the city where it imported the raw material from - and
thus the first such establishment was built there in 1855, only to grow and
trounce Dundee in the coming years.
What business was this? Which is the other city in question? How did this city’s
business suffer 92 years later, and why?

Later shifted to Calcutta and from there jute trade
gained popularity in those areas

The Partition of India
The areas where the raw material was produced went to Bangladesh while most
of the mills where it was processed were in India
(Of course Bangladesh later built mills and established themselves)

10
In 1947, Niels Bohr was presented with the Order of the Elephant, an
honour usually given to royalty and heads of state.
The deal was that every awardee of this honour had their coats-of-arms
displayed on a wall in the Fredriksborg Castle in Denmark. Since Bohr
did not have one, he came up with his own coat-of-arms using
something apt that highlighted the core philosophy of quantum
mechanics - things have to be analysed separately in terms of their
contradictory properties in order to understand them fully.
What motif was thus chosen by Bohr for his coat-of-arms?

The Yin-Yang Symbol
Bohr conceptualised the complementarity principle in Physics

Thanks for attending the quizzes at Waves, 2017! :)
For feedback on this quiz
Lucky Kaul
fb.com/luckoo.kaul
luckykaul97@gmail.com

Finals - The Waves Lone Wolf General Quiz 2017

Finals - The Waves Lone Wolf General Quiz 2017

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