Freshers' Challenge 2017, conducted on 17th August, 2017 at BITS Pilani, was a written quiz for freshers.

1. FRESHERS’ CHALLENGE
2017

2. RULES
~ Lone Wolf.
~ 30 questions + 5 trixies.
~ Ties will be settled by starred questions (5, 10, 15, 20, 25).
~ Switch off all electronic devices.
~ Cheating is not cool.

3. 1. Test starts here
Identify the set whose cardinality is as follows :
1877-1889 : 2
1889-1928 : 3
1928-1930 : 4
1930-1932 : 5
1932-1952 : 6
Also identify the last two elements added (0.5+0.5)
1952-1970 : 7
1970-1982 : 6
1982-1992 : 7
1992-2000 : 9
2000-2004 : 10
2004-2005 : 9
2005-2006 : 10
2006-2011 : 9
2011-2017 : 10
2017-present day : 12

4. 2. FIT red blank.

5. 3.
The following instruction manuals were drawn up to pay tribute to a certain company. Identify the company.
Pictures follow.

8. 4. Angel of Death : Slayer
_________, the meaning of pain
The way that I want you to die
Slow death, immense decay
Showers that cleanse you of your life
Forced in
Like cattle
You run
Stripped of
Your life's worth
Human mice, for the angel of death
Four hundred thousand more to die.
FITB and ID the ‘angel of death’.
Sadistic, surgeon of demise
Sadist of the noblest blood
Destroying, without mercy
To benefit the aryan race.

9. 5.*
What has been blanked out?

10. 6.
On the next slide is a painting of a black rectangle and a grey rectangle. There is a buildup of thin, translucent
layers of differently shaded blacks, which are luminous and warm, and not at all forbidding. The overall effect
is strangely ambiguous, neither space nor substance, and the artist himself described them as touching upon
the 'historical sublime’. When asked about the 'grey and black' paintings, he said, quite simply, that they were
about death. They are desolate, empty images, but they also afford a richly ambiguous visual experience.
Id artwork.
<Image on next slide>

12. 7.
The band members include :
● Jaymz Lennfield
● Grg Hammetson III
● Kliff McBurtney
● Ringo Larz
ID the band OR give funda.

13. 8.
Selim III, the Sultan of the Ottoman empire from 1789 to 1809, launched the first major attempt at
modernizing the army and rejuvenating the empire. Consequently he gained a band of youthful followers who
backed this attempt at modernization, labelled as literally X by the newspapers.
The phrase X attained mainstream popularity when William Safire, referred to a group of US politicians who,
in 1929, were called the X :
These new Republican warriors were called the ‘X’, a band of about 20 who had mutinied against the feeble
leadership of the Old Guard. For Senators they were young men (average age: 56).
Id X.

14. 9. FITB

15. 10.*
X : It sounds like a mix of Urdu, Hindi, Marathi and Y. It does not share many words with Sanskrit, instead has
a heavy Urdu/deccani influence. If you have any experience with Tamil, X is sort of like the Chennai Tamil.
Y : It is considered to be the superior form of ______. It has many sub-dialects and its standardized form is
widely accepted as the official version. To draw a comparison with Tamil Nadu, Y is similar to the Madurai-
Trichy Tamil.
Id X & Y
Or
What came about as a consequence of the differences between X & Y?

16. 11.
X was recently blocked in parts of India by the DoT, after two Bollywood production companies requested a
mass pulldown to combat media piracy.
X operates in a niche field, and maintains by far the largest library of whatever it stores. As of July 2016, it
contained approximately 15 petabytes of data, and was growing at the rate of 20 TB a week.
X’s name is a reference to a time-traveling device named WABAC machine, used by the characters Mr.
Peabody and Sherman in The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show.
Id X.

17. 12.
Why is this image of Jerry West relevant even today?

18. 13.
James ________ was an English chemist and mineralogist known for his eclectic research work.
He was never married and had no kin. Hence, his will stipulated that his estate be used to start an
establishment, X, which is named after James, in Washington DC for the increase and diffusion of knowledge
among men. Thus, he became the patron of the establishment despite having never visited the country.
Id X.

19. 14.
"From now on you'll have no identifying marks of any kind. You'll not stand out in any way. Your entire image
is crafted to leave no lasting memory with anyone you encounter. You are a rumor, recognizable only as déjà
vu and dismissed just as quickly. You don't exist. You were never even born. Anonymity is your name;
silence, your native tongue. You're no longer part of the System. You're above the System. Over it. Beyond it.
We're 'them'. We're 'they'. We are the X."
- Said some guy
Id X.

20. 15.*
“What the X Said to Y” is a brief dialogue written by Lewis Carroll, which explores the foundations of logic. A
seemingly obvious conclusion is rejected with the intention of the story being to question what constitutes a
valid argument.
The utilization of the characters X and Y for this dialogue is an overt tribute to Zeno, who famously utilized
them for a very similar motive.
ID X and Y. (0.5 each)

21. 16.
This Google Doodle pays tribute to Ferdinand Monoyer.
What is his claim to fame?

22. 17.
Fruits used for _____ ______ include cherries, raisins, and pineapple, often augmented with nuts. In the
Netherlands, _____ ______ is a compote of dried fruits, served as a dessert or a side dish to a meat course.
In Belgium, _____ ______ is often seen as a dessert. Typically, it contains a combination of raisins, currants,
apricots, prunes, dates, and figs. The dish is quite popular in Belgium; even _____ ______ flavored condoms
are available. In the United States, _____ ______ can also refer to fruits soaked in brandy or other spirits, or
even to fruit fermented in a liquid containing sugar and yeast.
FITB with the name of a character from a recent, heavily publicised Bollywood movie.

23. 18.
‘What I Talk About When I Talk About Running’ by Haruki Murakami is in his own words, ‘partly a memoir’. He
writes at length on his experiences running 25 marathons and a 65-mile ultramarathon, all the while giving
insights into the workings of the mind of Murakami the Writer and Murakami the Man.
The name of the book is a play on a 1981 collection of short stories called X by the American author, Y.
Murakami reflects Y’s minimalist style with his own clipped prose throughout the memoir.
ID X and Y (0.5 each)

24. 19. FITB

25. 20. *
Ami Horowitz is an American documentary filmmaker. He is the writer, producer, and director of Ami on the
Streets, a satirical short film series made for Fox News. In 2016, he made a short film titled _________
________, which depicted Sweden as a place taken hostage by rape and violence since it began accepting
more refugees from Muslim countries.
In a Fox interview, Mr. Horowitz acknowledged that most Swedes do not see the situation as he does. “They’ll
make excuses for it,” he said. “The majority of the population in Sweden still wants to have an open-door
policy. It’s confounding.”
ID the name of the film. (Blanks indicative)

26. 21.
This literature piece is reckoned to be among the first works to feature a ridiculous number of characters.
While most of the story revolves around the crazy adventures of five males and two females, the cast
suddenly balloons in the final year of the story as the protagonists board up with a royal family, and their
hundreds of servants.
Once the war sequence starts between the main heroes, miscellaneous friends and political allies, their
extended families, and sons and nephews in the double digits each, against the enemy force of one hundred
named villains and their allies, cousins, sons and nephews, the individual story arcs become almost too many
to focus on. And these are just the named characters - mooks are in the thousands.
Which work of writing are we talking about?

27. 22. Whom is the speaker talking about?
Audio removed. Excerpts from following YouTube video.
LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CST629ad4bU

28. 23.
Ramie is one of the strongest natural fibers and was widely used in ancient times. Ramie fiber is known
especially for its ability to hold shape, reduce wrinkling, and introduce a silky lustre to the fabric appearance.
However it will not dye as well as cotton.
Though ramie and flax are difficult to distinguish in ancient cloth, ramie's resistance to bacteria and mildew
made it appropriate for what specific purpose?

29. 24.
This was a cheque
drawn out for $7.2 million
in 1867. What was being
bought?

30. 25.*
According to Hindu mythology, Apasmāra was a dwarf who represented ignorance and epilepsy. He is also
known as Muyalaka or Muyalakan. In order to preserve knowledge in the world, Apasmāra could not be killed;
to do so would throw out the balance of knowledge and ignorance, as to kill Apasmāra would mean attaining
knowledge without effort, dedication and hard work. Consequently, this would lead to the devaluing of
knowledge in all forms. Hence, he could only be ‘suppressed’ and it is in this state, sculptures of him are
generally found.
Where would one see Apasmāra?

31. 26.
As recently as 1903 "Century Dictionary" defined it as "the ancient name of the region lying between
Kurdistan and India."
In 1935, its then leader asked foreign delegates to use the term X, the historical name of the country, used by
its native people. In formal correspondence, X literally translates to Land of Aryans
Id X.

32. 27.
Put funda/what is going on?

33. 28.
The School of Athens by Raphael <original image on next slide> served as inspiration for a pair of album
covers.
ID albums and album artist. (0.5+0.5)
<Images on next 2 slides>

36. 29.
_________ is a type of stage lighting once used in theatres and music halls. An intense illumination is created
when an oxyhydrogen flame is directed at a cylinder of calcium oxide, which can be heated to 4,662 °F (2,572
°C) before melting. The light is produced by a combination of incandescence and candoluminescence.
What term did this obsolete technology give rise to?

37. 30.
Id the director & the movie referenced.
(0.5 + 0.5)

38. TRIXIES

39. 31.

40. 32.
ONCE UPON
A TIME
NORTH
EAST
SOUTH

41. 33.
NOW IN HERE

42. 34.
n
Σ GIRLS
i = 1
n

43. 35.
VALHALLA EDEN SHANGRI-LA

44. ANSWERS

45. 1. Test starts here
Identify the set whose cardinality is as follows :
1877-1889 : 2
1889-1928 : 3
1928-1930 : 4
1930-1932 : 5
1932-1952 : 6
Also identify the last two elements added (0.5+0.5)
1952-1970 : 7
1970-1982 : 6
1982-1992 : 7
1992-2000 : 9
2000-2004 : 10
2004-2005 : 9
2005-2006 : 10
2006-2011 : 9
2011-2017 : 10
2017-present day : 12

46. A: List of Test playing nations
● Ireland and Afghanistan were awarded Test status in June
1877-1889 : Australia and England
1889-1928 : South Africa
1928-1930 : West Indies
1930-1932 : New Zealand
1932-1952 : India
1952-1970 : Pakistan
1970-1982 : South Africa removed
due to Apartheid
1982-1992 : South Africa
reinstated, Sri Lanka
1992-2000 : Zimbabwe
2000-2004 : Bangladesh
2004-2005 : Zimbabwe leaves
2005-2006 : Zimbabwe rejoins
2006-2011 : Zimbabwe leaves
2011-2017 : Zimbabwe rejoins
2017-present day : Ireland and
Afghanistan

47. 2. FIT red blank.

48. A: Calvin and Hobbes

49. 3.
The following instruction manuals were drawn up to pay tribute to a certain company. Identify the company.
Pictures follow.

52. A: IKEA

53. 4. Angel of Death : Slayer
_________, the meaning of pain
The way that I want you to die
Slow death, immense decay
Showers that cleanse you of your life
Forced in
Like cattle
You run
Stripped of
Your life's worth
Human mice, for the angel of death
Four hundred thousand more to die.
FITB and ID the ‘angel of death’.
Sadistic, surgeon of demise
Sadist of the noblest blood
Destroying, without mercy
To benefit the aryan race.

54. A: Auschwitz, Josef Mengele

55. 5.*
What has been blanked out?

56. A: Calibri

57. 6.
On the next slide is a painting of a black rectangle and a grey rectangle. There is a buildup of thin, translucent
layers of differently shaded blacks, which are luminous and warm, and not at all forbidding. The overall effect
is strangely ambiguous, neither space nor substance, and the artist himself described them as touching upon
the 'historical sublime’. When asked about the 'grey and black' paintings, he said, quite simply, that they were
about death. They are desolate, empty images, but they also afford a richly ambiguous visual experience.
Id artwork.
<Image on next slide>

59. A: Untitled/Black on grey

60. 7.
The band members include :
● Jaymz Lennfield
● Grg Hammetson III
● Kliff McBurtney
● Ringo Larz
ID the band OR give funda.

61. A: Beatallica
● Mashup of the names
of the Beatles and
Metallica band members
Sorry, we found no good memes 

62. 8.
Selim III, the Sultan of the Ottoman empire from 1789 to 1809, launched the first major attempt at
modernizing the army and rejuvenating the empire. Consequently he gained a band of youthful followers who
backed this attempt at modernization, labelled as literally X by the newspapers.
The phrase X attained mainstream popularity when William Safire, referred to a group of US politicians who,
in 1929, were called the X :
These new Republican warriors were called the ‘X’, a band of about 20 who had mutinied against the feeble
leadership of the Old Guard. For Senators they were young men (average age: 56).
Id X.

63. A: Young turks

64. 9. FITB

65. A: Tea-bagging

66. 10.*
X : It sounds like a mix of Urdu, Hindi, Marathi and Y. It does not share many words with Sanskrit, instead has
a heavy Urdu/deccani influence. If you have any experience with Tamil, X is sort of like the Chennai Tamil.
Y : It is considered to be the superior form of ______. It has many sub-dialects and its standardized form is
widely accepted as the official version. To draw a comparison with Tamil Nadu, Y is similar to the Madurai-
Trichy Tamil.
Id X & Y
Or
What came about as a consequence of the differences between X & Y?

67. A: X - Telangana Telugu, Y - Andhra Telugu
“Gultz aren’t meant to be memed”
- said some chut first year

68. 11.
X was recently blocked in parts of India by the DoT, after two Bollywood production companies requested a
mass pulldown to combat media piracy.
X operates in a niche field, and maintains by far the largest library of whatever it stores. As of July 2016, it
contained approximately 15 petabytes of data, and was growing at the rate of 20 TB a week.
X’s name is a reference to a time-traveling device named WABAC machine, used by the characters Mr.
Peabody and Sherman in The Rocky & Bullwinkle Show.
Id X.

69. A: Wayback Machine

70. 12.
Why is this image of Jerry West relevant even today?

71. A: NBA Logo

72. 13.
James ________ was an English chemist and mineralogist known for his eclectic research work.
He was never married and had no kin. Hence, his will stipulated that his estate be used to start an
establishment, X, which is named after James, in Washington DC for the increase and diffusion of knowledge
among men. Thus, he became the patron of the establishment despite having never visited the country.
Id X.

73. A: The Smithsonian

74. 14.
"From now on you'll have no identifying marks of any kind. You'll not stand out in any way. Your entire image
is crafted to leave no lasting memory with anyone you encounter. You are a rumor, recognizable only as déjà
vu and dismissed just as quickly. You don't exist. You were never even born. Anonymity is your name;
silence, your native tongue. You're no longer part of the System. You're above the System. Over it. Beyond it.
We're 'them'. We're 'they'. We are the X."
- Said some guy
Id X.

75. A: Men In Black

76. 15.*
“What the X Said to Y” is a brief dialogue written by Lewis Carroll, which explores the foundations of logic. A
seemingly obvious conclusion is rejected with the intention of the story being to question what constitutes a
valid argument.
The utilization of the characters X and Y for this dialogue is an overt tribute to Zeno, who famously utilized
them for a very similar motive.
ID X and Y. (0.5 each)

77. A: X - Tortoise, Y - Achilles

78. 16.
This Google Doodle pays tribute to Ferdinand Monoyer.
What is his claim to fame?

79. A: Monoyer created the vision test chart

80. 17.
Fruits used for _____ ______ include cherries, raisins, and pineapple, often augmented with nuts. In the
Netherlands, _____ ______ is a compote of dried fruits, served as a dessert or a side dish to a meat course.
In Belgium, _____ ______ is often seen as a dessert. Typically, it contains a combination of raisins, currants,
apricots, prunes, dates, and figs. The dish is quite popular in Belgium; even _____ ______ flavored condoms
are available. In the United States, _____ ______ can also refer to fruits soaked in brandy or other spirits, or
even to fruit fermented in a liquid containing sugar and yeast.
FITB with the name of a character from a recent, heavily publicised Bollywood movie.

81. A: Tutti Frutti

82. 18.
‘What I Talk About When I Talk About Running’ by Haruki Murakami is in his own words, ‘partly a memoir’. He
writes at length on his experiences running 25 marathons and a 65-mile ultramarathon, all the while giving
insights into the workings of the mind of Murakami the Writer and Murakami the Man.
The name of the book is a play on a 1981 collection of short stories called X by the American author, Y.
Murakami reflects Y’s minimalist style with his own clipped prose throughout the memoir.
ID X and Y (0.5 each)

83. A:
X - What We Talk About When We Talk About Love,
Y - Raymond Carver.

84. 19. FITB

85. A: Emoji

86. 20. *
Ami Horowitz is an American documentary filmmaker. He is the writer, producer, and director of Ami on the
Streets, a satirical short film series made for Fox News. In 2016, he made a short film titled _________
________, which depicted Sweden as a place taken hostage by rape and violence since it began accepting
more refugees from Muslim countries.
In a Fox interview, Mr. Horowitz acknowledged that most Swedes do not see the situation as he does. “They’ll
make excuses for it,” he said. “The majority of the population in Sweden still wants to have an open-door
policy. It’s confounding.”
ID the name of the film. (Blanks indicative)

87. A: Stockholm Syndrome

88. 21.
This literary piece is reckoned to be among the first works to feature a ridiculous number of characters. While
most of the story revolves around the crazy adventures of five males and two females, the cast suddenly
balloons in the final year of the story as the protagonists board up with a royal family, and their hundreds of
servants.
Once the war sequence starts between the main heroes, miscellaneous friends and political allies, their
extended families, and sons and nephews in the double digits each, against the enemy force of one hundred
named villains and their allies, cousins, sons and nephews, the individual story arcs become almost too many
to focus on. And these are just the named characters - mooks are in the thousands.
Which work of writing are we talking about?

89. A: The Mahabharata

90. 22. Whom is the speaker talking about?
Audio removed. Excerpts from following YouTube video.
LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CST629ad4bU

91. A: Rufus the Wimbledon Hawk

92. 23.
Ramie is one of the strongest natural fibers and was widely used in ancient times. Ramie fiber is known
especially for its ability to hold shape, reduce wrinkling, and introduce a silky lustre to the fabric appearance.
However it will not dye as well as cotton.
Though ramie and flax are difficult to distinguish in ancient cloth, ramie's resistance to bacteria and mildew
made it appropriate for what specific purpose?

93. A: Mummy wrapping

94. 24.
This was a cheque
drawn out for $7.2 million
in 1867. What was being
bought?

95. A: USA’s Cheque for Alaska

96. 25.*
According to Hindu mythology, Apasmāra was a dwarf who represented ignorance and epilepsy. He is also
known as Muyalaka or Muyalakan. In order to preserve knowledge in the world, Apasmāra could not be killed;
to do so would throw out the balance of knowledge and ignorance, as to kill Apasmāra would mean attaining
knowledge without effort, dedication and hard work. Consequently, this would lead to the devaluing of
knowledge in all forms. Hence, he could only be ‘suppressed’ and it is in this state, sculptures of him are
generally found.
Where would one see Apasmāra?

97. A: Nataraja idol

98. 26.
As recently as 1903 "Century Dictionary" defined it as "the ancient name of the region lying between
Kurdistan and India."
In 1935, its then leader asked foreign delegates to use the term X, the historical name of the country, used by
its native people. In formal correspondence, X literally translates to Land of Aryans
Id X.

99. A: Iran

100. 27.
Put funda/what is going on?

101. A: Shooting the Star Wars crawl

102. 28.
The School of Athens by Raphael <original image on next slide> served as inspiration for a pair of album
covers.
ID albums and album artist. (0.5+0.5)
<Images on next 2 slides>

105. A: Guns N’ Roses’ Use Your Illusion I & II

106. 29.
_________ is a type of stage lighting once used in theatres and music halls. An intense illumination is created
when an oxyhydrogen flame is directed at a cylinder of calcium oxide, which can be heated to 4,662 °F (2,572
°C) before melting. The light is produced by a combination of incandescence and candoluminescence.
What term did this obsolete technology give rise to?

107. A: Limelight
●*****NO MEMES ONLY STUDIES *****

108. 30.
Id the director & the movie referenced.
(0.5 + 0.5)

109. A: Alfred Hitchcock & Birds

110. TRIXIES
TRIXIES SHALL NOT BE DIGNIFIED WITH MEMES

111. 31.

112. A: Castle Black

113. 32.
ONCE UPON
A TIME
NORTH
EAST
SOUTH

114. A: Once Upon a Time in the West

115. 33.
NOW IN HERE

116. A: In the middle of nowhere

117. 34.
n
Σ GIRLS
i = 1
n

118. A: Mean Girls

119. 35.
VALHALLA EDEN SHANGRI-LA

120. A: Heavens above