KQA MegaWhats 2016 finals

MEGAWHATS 2016
FINALS
Research By
Mitesh Agarwal and Venkatesh Srinivasan

 Written Round with six questions
 20 questions clock-wise on Infinite Pounce
 Written Theme Round with eight questions
 20 questions anti-clock-wise on Infinite Pounce

• Six questions in writing
• +5 for each correct answer
• +3 for each part

MegaWhats 2016
Identify the book/movie character and
the TV series
1

MegaWhats 2016
Identify the two
blanked out characters.
2

MegaWhats 2016
Name this character – an amalgam of two
characters.
3

MegaWhats 2016
Identify the 1980 film.
4

MegaWhats 2016
Identify the original work and the author.
5

MegaWhats 2016
Identify the original (debut) album and the band.
6

MegaWhats 2016
President Coriolanus Snow
The Simpsons

MegaWhats 2016
Argus Filch
Hermione Granger

MegaWhats 2016
Little Women
Louisa May Alcott

MegaWhats 2016
License to Ill
Beastie Boys

 20 questions
 +10 on Infinite Bounce
 +10/-5 on Infinite Pounce, no part pounce

MegaWhats 2016
This is the iconic photo of Mahatma Gandhi clicked by Margaret
Bourke-White for Life Magazine. Gandhi's secretaries informed White
that she would be allowed to take a photograph only if she fulfilled
three conditions. One was that she was not allowed to use bright lights
as Gandhi didn't like it. What were the other two conditions?
1

MegaWhats 2016
a. She has to learn to use the spinning
wheel/Charkha.
b. She would not be able to talk to him as it was his
day of silence.

MegaWhats 2016
This acid, a key ingredient in tannic acid which is used in various industries, is
produced by plants such as sumac, tea leaves, oak bark, and witch hazel. It takes its
name from the formations below and not from a European country. Such
formations in plants, animals and humans also comes from the same origin.
Name the acid and the source.
2

MegaWhats 2016
Gallic Acid from Galls/Gall nuts
Oak galls are formed when a gall wasp lays her eggs on the tip of an oak branch,
and the tree begins to secrete a fluid that ends up enveloping the egg, and
ultimately becomes a food source for the developing wasp larva.

MegaWhats 2016
A monk from Geneva, François Bonivard was imprisoned with his two brothers
from 1532 to 1536 in a castle. Over the years, he saw his brothers die in front of his
eyes. The castle in which they were imprisoned is a tourist attraction if you go on a
Lake Geneva cruise even today.
Taken up with this story after seeing the castle,
a) Who penned a famous 392-line narrative poem about Bonivard in 1816? (3)
b) Which painter created a work with the same name in 1834? (3)
c) What is the name of the work – common to the poem and the painting? (4)
3

MegaWhats 2016
Lord Byron
Eugene Delacroix
(The) Prisoner of Chillon

MegaWhats 2016
This is an iconic painting by an Iranian woman
artist Oranous Ghasemi which made waves in
2004, as it was sold online without much protest.
Though this would seem blasphemous as per
Islamic law, experts said that this particular
painting was not forbidden due to a key element
in the painting.
What?
4

MegaWhats 2016
It depicts a young Mohammed before he was visited
by the Angel Gabriel and started receiving his visions,
which means that at this stage in his life he is
not yet the Prophet.

MegaWhats 2016
The name of this former capital city literally translates to ‘father of apples’. Some
say this is because the world’s largest variety is found here. Some say it is because
of the rich genetic diversity of apples here. And some others say it is because
Malus sieversii, the wild ancestor of the common apple is endemic to this region.
Identify the city.
5

MegaWhats 2016
Almaty
Capital of Kazakhstan

MegaWhats 2016
Connect the visuals to a critically acclaimed film from 1980, widely considered the
best Gujarati film of all time.
6

MegaWhats 2016
Bhavni Bhavai was dedicated to
Bertolt Brecht and Goscinny
Ketan Mehta filmed Bhavni Bhavai with distancing effect and the use of comic
characters. Hence, the film is dedicated to Bertolt Brecht and
Goscinny, the creator of Astérix.

MegaWhats 2016
The cake (A) shown is filled with dry fruit such as currants, named after
the town in Oxfordshire (B). The town is famous on account of a nursery
rhyme, which you can guess from the pic. Id the cake (or) the rhyme.
7
A B

MegaWhats 2016
Banbury Cross
Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross,
To see a fine lady upon a white horse;
Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,
And she shall have music wherever she goes

MegaWhats 2016
During the 1941 Siege of Leningrad, there were severe hardships faced
by the people in the town, due to the German forces cutting off the city
from any possible outside access and depriving people of basic
necessities.
Resultantly, 2000 people in the city were convicted under
“Special Category Banditry” under Soviet Law.
What was the crime they were accused of, brought about by the
effects of the siege?
8

MegaWhats 2016
Cannibalism
At its worst, daily rations were reduced to 150 grams of
bread (baked with sawdust) with wallpaper used as
seasoning.

MegaWhats 2016
In 2015, some of this company’s businesses like Verily, the
self-driving cars team, the Ventures investment group, Nest and Calico
cumulatively reported a revenue of $448 Million, but failed to make a
profit.
The name given to these businesses collectively, is a reference/pun on
name of the main business of the company and the speculative,
early-stage nature of these businesses.
What’s the name and the reference? Need both parts. No part points
9

MegaWhats 2016
Other Bets – the main business being Alphabet

MegaWhats 2016
This revolution in a European country that resulted in the overthrow of
an authoritarian regime is known by a name that references the unique
way in which it was celebrated, using the Dianthus caryophyllus in a
particular manner.
The Revolution had far-reaching consequences geographically including
in one country in Asia, which was invaded by a neighbour on the pretext
of anti-colonialism, and remained a colony for 27 more years.
Name the revolution and why it was named so.
Name the Asian country that was impacted.
10

MegaWhats 2016
Carnation Revolution in Portugal named so because
Carnations were inserted into muzzles of rifles
East Timor/Timor-Leste
Indonesia invaded East Timor

MegaWhats 2016
There are many small (but divisive) differences between the book and the
film—such as – “a difference of 20” in one of the key locations. But one of the
most significant rifts emerges in the characterization of the protagonist. The
director paints him as mad from the outset, with his wife as a “sort of
screaming dishrag”, according to the author. In the book, he is depicted more
sympathetically, with his alcoholism forming a key part of the problems in the
family and his hallucinations. It gives the story—and its chilling qualities—a
convincing narrative axis; it comes as no surprise that the author found the
director’s film similar to a “big, beautiful Cadillac with no engine inside it”.
Paraphrased and edited extract from a review thanks to a recent opera
version of the book!
Book, Author and Director please.
11

MegaWhats 2016
The Shining, Stanley Kubrick and Stephen King
Room number moves from 217 to 237 in the film.

MegaWhats 2016
In 1985 Conrad Black, a Canadian industrialist, acquired control of
the Telegraph group. A feature of his new regime was the appointment
of Hugh Massingberd to develop a more eclectic and literary approach
to an otherwise dull part of the newspaper, and so outflank the Times.
The Times, which had long been unrivalled in this field had adhered to a
dull prose style and favoured a relatively narrow selection of subjects.
What was the title given to Hugh Massingberd thanks to this job?
12

MegaWhats 2016
Master of Obituaries
Or
Obituaries Editor

MegaWhats 2016
This cucumber species Cucumis humifructus, found in the southern part
of Africa, bears its fruit underground. It is thus dependent on a
particular animal species for seed distribution. This is the only fruit that
the animal eats—thus making for a strange, symbiotic relationship.
Identify the animal.
13

MegaWhats 2016
The Aardvark, wherefore the fruit is known as the
Aardvark pumpkin/cucumber

MegaWhats 2016
Also known as the Paragard, this contrivance is the only one of its kind
that still enjoys official approval in the US.
In India, it takes its name partly from the winding which is really the
business end of the device.
What was it commonly known as in India?
14

MegaWhats 2016
Copper T
(For Birth Control/Contraceptive/intrauterine device, IUD)

MegaWhats 2016
This “wretched instrument,” would have long since been snuffed out had
Mozart not used it in his Requiem. According to the person in the
picture, “Its peculiar watery melancholy ... is just the thing for a funeral,”
and “The devil himself could not make a _____ ______ sparkle.”
What are we talking about? How is this music instrument connected to
the person in pic?
15

MegaWhats 2016
Bassett-Horn
The Italian name for the instrument, corno di bassetto,
was used by George Bernard Shaw as a pseudonym
when writing music criticism.

MegaWhats 2016
Every issue of this magazine has a different message on the spine.
Readers then work out what the message has to do with the contents of
the magazine. This practice — known as the "spine line" — has since
become commonplace among British lifestyle magazines, including its
movie-centric sister magazine Empire.
The magazine was originally named ‘____’, after the button on tape-
recorders. This name was abandoned because it was feared that people
might view it as a magazine catering to aficionados of a specific sport.
What was the original name of the magazine and what was the new
name they adopted?
16

MegaWhats 2016
Cue later became Q
People started associating with Billiards/Snooker

MegaWhats 2016
These Mughal miniatures influenced his later Biblical paintings. The
painter never met any Mughal emperor.
In 1579, some decades after Akbar ascended to the Mughal throne, he
invited a delegation of Portuguese Jesuits from Goa to his court to
discuss their religion. The Jesuits immediately wrote home saying that
they would soon convert the Grand Moghul. While history shows that
Akbar did not convert, he still encouraged interactions between Mughal
and European artists that continued for centuries.
Which artist painted these Mughal miniatures in the 17th century?
17

MegaWhats 2016
The Dutch master Rembrandt van Rijn

MegaWhats 2016
This is the figurative map drawn by Charles Joseph Minard (Inspector
General of Bridges and Roads, Paris) which shows the successive losses
in men of the French Army in the Russian campaign 1812-1813. This
map is now used in Information Graphics and Big Data visualization.
However, its first application was in 1898 by an Irish Mechanical
Engineer – Captain Matthew Riall Sankey (not the Sankey in Sankey
tank). This use led to the next wave of manufacturing and
industrialization and the graphics came to be known as Sankey
Diagrams.
What use that later became a standard in visualization?
18

MegaWhats 2016
Sankey diagrams were first used in Engine Energy Flow
Diagrams that led to engine capacity definitions in the
Automobile industry.
The width of the arrows is shown proportionally to the flow quantity.

MegaWhats 2016
Connect and explain.
19
The Mars Climate Orbiter (1999) The Vasa warship (1628) Gimli Glider (1983)
Sochi biathlon track (2014)

MegaWhats 2016
Fiascos due to the confusion between Metric System
and the English/Roman System of measurement

MegaWhats 2016
When the infamous Killing Fields containing the mass graves of the
people slaughtered by Pol Pot’s regime were found, substantial traces of
the chemical DDT were found. After studying the bodies and hearing
testimonies, researchers have concluded that there were two key
reasons why the chemical was used – both equally morbid.
What were the reasons?
20

MegaWhats 2016
Mask the stench from the bodies
Complete the process of killing the people who were
buried alive

• Eight questions in writing
• +5 for each correct answer, no part points anywhere
• The eight answers form four pairs – every correct pair gets you an
additional two points each
• There is a theme linking the four pairs, which gets you seven more
points

MegaWhats 2016
In 1954, X wrote a lengthy letter to his friend Dorothy Sayers, praising
her recent publication of Introductory Papers on Dante. His opening
sentence reveals his delight. “Your Introductory Papers have given me a
regular feast.”
He specifically commented on a number of insights he found particularly
worthwhile. X was an expert on Dante in his own right, having written a
1933 work inspired by it, which had an “opposite title” to a John Bunyan
book.
Who is X?
1

MegaWhats 2016
Identify the subject of this documentary film.
2

MegaWhats 2016
Identify the Russian on this Time
magazine cover.
3

MegaWhats 2016
Screenshot from a Sega game based on a
pop culture rage. Who and what’s the name of the game?
5

MegaWhats 2016
While numerous films have been made about
this person, this is the only biographical film
that delves into his military career.
Who?
6

MegaWhats 2016
Identify the title of this book.
8

MegaWhats 2016
Sergei Prokofiev

MegaWhats 2016
Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker

MegaWhats 2016
Stalin’s Daughter

MegaWhats 2016
Elia Kazan – Althea Gibson
Sergei Prokofiev – Josef Stalin
Farah Fawcett – Michael Jackson
CS Lewis – John F Kennedy
Died on the same day!
The Theme is…

MegaWhats 2016
1
Reflect on these lovely food items and tell us the connection.

MegaWhats 2016
All three dishes (Scotch Eggs, Jalepeno Poppers and
kwek kwek) are inspired by the Nargisi Kofta
Nargisi comes from Narcissus

MegaWhats 2016
2
The word Yahtzee is shouted when something good happens
or when you don't know what's going on. It derives from the common
expression used in the dice game of the same name (now marketed by
Hasbro). The game’s origins and the original confines of the play area are
supposed to have given it the name.
What is the origin?

MegaWhats 2016
YAHTZEE was invented by a wealthy Canadian
couple to play aboard their yacht
Whenever friends were invited aboard, they were taught how to play the "Yacht"
game.

MegaWhats 2016
3
What story of a natural activity is shown in the two visuals?

MegaWhats 2016
Eruption of Mt. Etna
In the Battle between the Giants and the Gods (GIGANTOMACHY – Pic 1)
- Athena defeated Enceladus in a fight, smashing the island of Sicily on
the Giant.
There he now lies half buried below the mountain of Athena
(Pic 2 - as in the scene in the gardens of Versailles). He is unable to
escape, yet his struggle to do so was believed to shake the earth, thereby
explaining the activity of the volcano to ancient Greeks and Romans.

MegaWhats 2016
4
All the clues below lead you to one word – the other word is derived
from this one and has its use as an object in from the world of science.
Give both words.
?

MegaWhats 2016
Syrinx and Syringe
Syrinx was a nymph and was pursued by the amorous Greek god Pan. She
was transformed into hollow water reeds that made a haunting sound
when the god's frustrated breath blew across them. Pan cut the reeds to
fashion the first set of pan pipes, which were thenceforth known as
syrinx.
Syrinx is the name for the vocal organ of birds.
The song is Rush’s Temple of Syrinx
The word syringe was derived from this word.

MegaWhats 2016
5
As per the USFDA, if the product is labelled as ___A_____, then is should
contain at least 20 percent of the daily value per RACC (“reference
amounts customarily consumed”—essentially serving size) of whatever it
is they’re boasting about.
If a foodstuff is ___B____, it must have 10 percent to 19 percent of the
daily value (per RACC) of that something.
Meanwhile, when labeling features the word(s) ____C_____," that
means that each serving has at least 10 percent of your daily value of
that specific thing”.
What are A,B,C (word/words closest variants are fine)?

MegaWhats 2016
A – High, Rich In or Excellent Source Of
B – Good Source Of, Contains, or Provides
C – More, Fortified, Enriched, Added, Extra, Plus

MegaWhats 2016
6
This is the debut film of Lauren Bacall. It is also the only Hollywood film
till date to have a unique combination in the film credits from a writing
perspective.
Identify the movie and tell us the unique combination.

MegaWhats 2016
To Have and Have Not
The only film to date based on a novel by a
Nobel Prize-winning author (Ernest Hemingway) to
have its screenplay co-written by another Nobel
Prize-winning author (William Faulkner).

MegaWhats 2016
7
This gentleman was a philosopher and writer, who founded the
Philosophy department at the University of Hyderabad. His most famous
and common haunt was the India International Centre in Delhi, where
he was often seen lecturing, either in the auditorium or in the bar!
He died at his room in IIC in 2007.
His major source of income was the royalty stream he inherited from his
mother, accruing from the translation of his maternal grandfather’s
works. His paternal grandfather however, is much more famous.
Identify the person. Full name please.
Identify the works that gave him the royalties.

MegaWhats 2016
Ramachandra (Ramu) Gandhi
Rajaji’s Ramayana / Mahabharata

MegaWhats 2016
8
A feature of Athenian democracy, this process was held once a year.
Citizens were asked to write down the names of the people on a shard
of pottery who they deemed guilty of this punishment. A minimum of
6000 votes was needed, and if this was achieved, then the person would
be ________ and had ten days to comply. Defying this would mean the
death penalty.
What modern day word comes from the shard of pottery used?
What was the main reason to use a shard of pottery for the writing?

MegaWhats 2016
Ostracise
Pottery shards were widely available, and using
papyrus was a much more expensive affair!

MegaWhats 2016
9
The original 1861 piano score of this work features a Gothic typeface
heading, which the composer objected to and had changed. In the
revised text, he wrote a long preface outlining the immense
requirements and cost of bringing this work to life and ended it with,
“Wird Dieser Furst sich finden?”, meaning “Will such a prince be found?”
He did succeed a few years later, finding a patron who funded his works,
including this one in question. For this particular work, the patron
wanted it premiered in Munich, but the composer insisted and got his
way, and had a new venue created for this purpose.
Identify the composer, the work and the location.

MegaWhats 2016
RichardWagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen
Bayreuth Theatre
Ludwig II of Bavaria was the patron

MegaWhats 2016
10
Between 1880 and the end of WW1, this country dominated the global
sales of a particular product. This was unusual, since they had very poor
quality of the raw material crop. One reason for the development of the
industry was the imposition of a state monopoly for this product in the
Ottoman Empire, which resulted in the movement of many Ottoman
merchants to this country. The British officers here liked the product and
it gradually started becoming popular in the UK and the western world.
In 1913, an American brand looking to ape these products incorporated
three motifs from this country into its logo, including the name itself.
Which country and product? What is the famous American brand?

MegaWhats 2016
Egyptian cigarettes
Camel

MegaWhats 2016
11
These are representations of a country, state, a city, a person. Name all parts and
connect.

MegaWhats 2016
Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, Moscow
The Institute for the Physical and Chemical Research
(RIKEN), Japan
Oakridge National Laboratory, Tennessee
Yuri Oganessian
4 new periodic elements named Moscovium,
Nihonium, Tennessine and Oganesson

MegaWhats 2016
Connect and explain (2 Videos)
12

MegaWhats 2016
Stonehenge models that were wrongly sized!
In This is Spinal Tap, the band commissions a Stonehenge set, but
mistakenly asks for a model of 18 inches instead of 18 feet, which tiny
replica then finds its way into a real Tap concert—even though nobody
has informed the band’s members of the mix-up beforehand.
A year earlier, in Aug 1983, Black Sabbath released Born Again
(October 1983 in the U.S.).The second track on the album is a brief
instrumental called “Stonehenge”—and on their 1983 Born Again tour,
Black Sabbath hilariously had to shelve a Stonehenge stage concept
because the scenery was much too big to use—someone had
misinterpreted the requested measurements, making all of the pieces
roughly nine times too large.

MegaWhats 2016
Since it began in 1943, the trophy, named after an actress, has been fought
over by US, British and Canadian ships, often inspiring daring and somewhat
chaotic strategies to obtain her.
Unable to compete in the 1940 Summer Olympics because of the outbreak of
World War II, she made a series of Hollywood films known as
“aqua-musicals”, which featured elaborate performances with synchronized
swimming and diving. This got her pin-up status and one such photograph
became the stuff of legend, and navy officers starting chasing this original
photograph.
Name the Hollywood actress after whom this
Naval Trophy is named.
13

MegaWhats 2016
Connect this tree found in Baja California, Mexico to this character from
poetry whose name has come to mean a task or goal that is elusive or
impossible to achieve.
14

MegaWhats 2016
Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark gives its name to
the Boojum tree and the character Snark is representative of
an unachievable goal
The plot follows a crew of ten trying to hunt the Snark, an animal which may turn out to be a highly
dangerous Boojum. The only one of the crew to find the Snark quickly vanishes, leading the narrator to
explain that it was a Boojum after all.

MegaWhats 2016
The International Space Station (ISS) is getting an ultra-portable inflatable room for
astronauts to live in: the _______ Expandable Activity Module (BEAM). The design
was the product of a series of summer studies at which top academics, scientists,
and engineers gathered to imagine how future space colonies could look.
BEAM is named and created by a billionaire entrepreneur who made his money in
another similar earthly endeavor – a chain found across the US. One could relate
his surname with a post-2000s Best Picture Winning Oscar director.
a. Identify the surname (the ‘B’ in BEAM)
b. What was the “earthly endeavor”?
15

MegaWhats 2016
Robert Bigelow
Budget Suites of America

MegaWhats 201616
Two expressions in the English language have been derived from the
practice of examining the length of horses’ teeth when estimating their
ages. Give us both expressions.

MegaWhats 2016
1. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth
(meaning don't be ungrateful when you receive a gift)
2. Long in the tooth (meaning too old)
Horses’ gums recede with age, leading to longer teeth. A common way to inspect
a horse’s “worth” is to check it’s mouth, hence the phrase.
Receiving a horse as a gift and immediately inspecting its value was considered
offensive, much like inquiring about the worth of a present today is rude.

MegaWhats 2016
In World War II's final moments in Europe, Associated Press
correspondent Edward Kennedy gave his news agency perhaps the
biggest scoop in its history. He reported, a full day ahead of the
competition, that the Germans had surrendered unconditionally at a
former schoolhouse in Reims, France.
For this, he was publicly rebuked by the AP, and then quietly fired. His
competitors likened his action to treason at a massive scale.
What was the reason for his firing?
17

MegaWhats 2016
Kennedy had defied military censors / broken a
pledge to get the story out before the embargo
period.
Winston Churchill and Harry Truman had agreed to suppress news of the
capitulation for a day, in order to allow Josef Stalin to stage a second surrender
ceremony in Berlin. Kennedy was also accused of breaking a pledge that he and
16 other journalists had made to keep the surrender a secret for a time, as a
condition of being allowed to witness it
first-hand.

MegaWhats 2016
The legitimate owner of the trophy,
the African lady on the left, is seen
handing over her winner’s trophy to
the American lady on the right.
Name one of the two people and
explain.
18

MegaWhats 2016
Atsede Baysa, the winner of the
2016 Boston Marathon gave the trophy to Bobbi Gibb,
the lady who first ran the race in 1966
In 1996, she was retroactively recognised as the first women’s winner

MegaWhats 2016
In 2007, the National Archives of India staged an exhibition to celebrate
150 years of the founding of a ‘trinity’. This was appropriately described
by a Kolkata newspaper as, “The Other Revolution of 1857”. The trinity
was based in three of India’s best-known cities.
It was the culmination of a long drawn process which was initiated in
1835 by Macaulay, in his capacity as the President of the General
Committee of Public Instruction and as the Law Member in the
Government.
What was this ‘trinity’?
19

MegaWhats 2016
Universities of Bombay, Madras and Calcutta

MegaWhats 2016
The Khadi duck is an unconventional beige cloth that is woven using
three threads as opposed to the conventional two. There are strong
regulations with respect to the thickness of threads, density, and so on.
In its most famous use in India, the yarn is made of cotton, and woven
on handloom, and some of the measured metrics are “Breaking Load”
and “elongation”.
What is the exact use for the Khadi Duck?
20

MegaWhats 2016
It is the piece of fabric used to
fasten the Indian National Flag to the post and the
rope

KQA MegaWhats 2016 finals

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KQA MegaWhats 2016 finals