General Quiz Finals

1. Bas Yun Hi
Dhruv Sethi
Sharat Nambissan

2. CLOCKWISE

3. 1
• Well known people having it include Vladimir
Nabokov, Eddie Van Halen, Richard Feynman, Billy
Joel and Stevie Wonder,(and also possibly
Frankenstein's monster) .
• In its most common form, people see things such
as musical notes, or numbers or words in specific
colours.
• It is believed to improve their reaction times in
cognition of these things. Also the focus of the
2009 book - Wednesday is Indigo-blue by Richard
Cytowic and David Eagleman.

4. Answer

5. Synaesthesia

6. 2
• X was the star of a one minute television advertisement for Tooheys Draught Beer during the
mid 1980s. In this advertisement, a fictional touring match between New South Wales and
The West Indies comes down to the final ball. With three runs needed to win X, a tail ender,
manages to hit a cover drive towards the boundary. As he comes back for the third run, the
fielder, Viv Richards, throws the ball back to the bowler's stumps where it breaks the wicket.
X, however, has just made it past the crease and the umpire says not out. New South Wales
have won the match and the crowd cheers as X, makes his way back, holding and drinking a
Toohey's.
• When X was selected to play for Australia again in a Test match in December 1987, the
fictional advertisement almost became reality when X came out to bat against New Zealand
on the final day of the match. With Australia requiring 20 runs to win and New Zealand
needing 1 wicket to win the match and tie the series, X, along with fellow tailender Craig
McDermott, managed to survive the final overs against Richard Hadlee and draw the match,
thus winning the Test series for Australia.
• X is a part of the ICL commentary team and shares his name with a Washington based
columnist and blogger.

7. Answer

8. Mike Whitney

9. 3
• A - Good Evening.
Tell me your problems. Please terminate input with a
period or a question mark.
B - People get on my nerves sometimes.
A - I am not sure I understand you fully.
B - You should pay more attention.
A - Suppose you should pay more attention.
B - You're entitled to your own opinion.
A - What makes you think I am entitled to my own opinion?
B - It bothers me just to be around people in general.
A – Please go on.
………..

10. What’s all this ?
……….
A - Who are you really talking about?
B - The way you repeat yourself is getting ridiculous.
A - Suppose you repeat myself is getting ridiculous.
B - There are some tricky operators down there.
A - Are there really some tricky operators down there?
B - The guys involved in the horseracing racket.
A - Please go on.
B - You are a real nag.
A - Does it please you to believe I am a real nag?
B - I have had enough of this.
A - What does that suggest to you?
B - Goodbye.
A - It's been my pleasure, that's $399.29 please.

11. Answer

12. LISA talking to PARRY

13. 4

14. Answer

17. 5 Connect
• And taught it thus anew to
greet:
'I hate' she alter'd with an
end,
That follow'd it as gentle
day
Doth follow night, who like
a fiend
From heaven to hell is
flown away;
'I hate' from hate away she
threw,
And saved my life, saying
'not you.'

18. Answer

19. Anne Hathaway
William Shakespeare’s Sonnet
referencing his wife Anne Hathaway
Cover of the Princess Diaries

20. 6
• The X café is a concept that has had some
measure of success in the land of its origin,
Japan. X , in Japanese , means ‘to treat
someone to’ and at X, true to its meaning, you
get what the person in front of you ordered
and what you order is delivered to the person
behind you in line.
• X?

21. Answer

22. Ogori Cafes

23. 7
• A famous yesteryear star reciting a close friend and co-star’s
favorite poem at the event of her death. The poem is by an
Indian poet. Name me all 3. <video>

24. Answer

25. Gregory Peck
Audrey Hepburn
Rabindranath Tagore

26. 8
• In October last year, Bhanwad in Jamnagar,
Gujarat to a very strange and rare weather
phenomenon. Local reports say that similar
incidents happened in Bantiya village in Junagadh
district.
• However, this phenomenon has been happening
in Honduras yearly for the past century and is
known there by the name Lluvia de Peces.
• What are we talking of ?

27. Answer

28. Fish Rain

29. 9
• X’s disease is named after X who first described
the disease in his 1849 paper “On the
Constitutional and Local Effects of Disease of the
Suprarenal Capsules”. It occurs when the adrenal
glands do not produce enough steroid hormones.
• John F. Kennedy is believed to be the most
famous patient of X’s disease. There are claims
that Jane Austen and Charles Dickens, and even
Osama bin Laden had/have the disease.
• X’s homophonic counterpart, who is much better
known was born in 1847 and believed in the
strong correlation between sweat and
intelligence.[]

30. Answer

31. Addison’s Disease
(Thomas Addison)
•

32. 10
• Billionaire, hotel operator and real estate investor, best known as the
owner of the Empire State Building.
• She was a flamboyant personality and had a reputation for tyrannical
behavior that earned her the nickname "Queen of Mean".
• She has been heard saying : "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay
taxes.”
• She was investigated and later convicted of federal income tax evasion and
other crimes in 1989.
• Pop Culture Reference : On the television show 30 Rock, the CEO of GE
played by Rip Torn told Tina Fey's character Liz Lemon that she has "got
the charm and spark of a young X."

33. Answer

34. Leona Helmsley

35. Connect Round

36. C1
• John D Barrow , an English cosmologist,
theoretical physicist, and mathematician
introduced a memorable paradox countering
Occam’s Razor , stating “A universe simple
enough to be understood is too simple to
produce a mind capable of understanding it.“
• This was acknowledgedly inspired from the
famous lines "I wouldn't want to belong to any
club that would accept me as a member“
• Who spoke these lines/ What are the above lines
known as ?

37. Answer

38. The Groucho Marx Effect

39. C2
• Antarnaad is a 1991 movie by Shyam Benegal.
It stars Shabana Azmi, Kulbhushan
Kharbanda, Girish Karnad and Om Puri.
• The movie is based on a self-knowledge
movement that was started in Maharashtra in
1954 and spread to nearly 100,000 villages all
over India.
• Which movement ?

40. Answer

41. Swadhyaya Movement
• Pandurang Shastri Athavale

42. C3
• In 1914, in a strange twist of fate, X met Y. Y was
leaving for Cambridge for studies and had come
to seek X's blessings because a goddess came in
his dream and told him to do so before
undertaking the trip.
• When some of X’s students and friends requested
him to allow them to celebrate his birthday. He
replied,
"Instead of celebrating my birthday, it would be
my proud privilege if (date) is observed as Z"

43. Answer

44. X – Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
Y – Srinivasa Ramanujam
Z – Teacher’s Day

45. C4
• This hospital in Tashkent, Uzbekistan inspired
the 1970 Nobel Laureate to write one of his
famous works. Who and What work ?

46. Answer

47. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Cancer Ward

48. C5
• Born on December 26, 1914 as the eldest son of a wealthy
Brahmin landowner, he had an idyllic childhood. By the
time he was fourteen, he owned his own gun and hunted
boar and deer. He developed a special interest in
cinema, wrote reviews for the film magazine The Picture
Goer and even corresponded with Greta Garbo and Norma
Shearer. (Norma Shearer would become one of his first
foreign donors later on) When he was old enough to
drive, he was given a Singer sportscar with cushions
covered with panther skin!
• He went on to do many things radically different from his
childhood exploits.
• Who are we talking about ?

49. Answer

50. Baba Amte

51. C6
• In earlier times, the Vatican appointed a
person as the Devil’s Advocate who would give
testimony against a person being considered
for sainthood.
• The post being abolished in modern times, for
the process for Mother Teresa, the Vatican
called one of her most vocal critics to give
testimony against her work. Who ?

52. Answer

53. Christopher Hitchens
• Author of ‘The Missionary Position’

54. ANSWER

55. Templeton Prize Winners
• John D Barrow
• Pandurang Shastri Athavale
• Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
• Alexander Solzhenitsyn
• Baba Amte
• Mother Teresa
• The Templeton Prize is the single largest monetary prize awarded to
an individual in the world. It is given for significant contributions to
religious and social significance.

56. WRITTEN ROUND

57. Identify A B C D E X and Y
• X was a futurist and an advisor whose theories helped
form America’s Nuclear Strategy.
• He, along with Edward Teller, Robert McNamara, and
Wernher von Braun are believed to be the inspiration
behind the character of A in the movie B by C.
• In the movie A refers to a report by the "BLAND
Corporation“, a reference to Y, which was X’s
organisation.
• X’s 1960 book ‘On Thermonuclear War’ also gives us
the term D. E chose a deliberate misspelling of D to get
their name.

58. Answer

59. • X – Herman Kahn (5 POINTS)
• Y – RAND Corporation (5 POINTS)
• A – Dr. Strangelove
• B – Dr. Strangelove or How I learnt to Stop
Worrying and love the Atomic bomb
• C – Stanley Kubrick
(5 POINTS for A, B and C)
• D – Megadeath
• E – Megadeth (5 POINTS for D and E)

60. Identify X Y Z and A
• X was an American Lawyer who was inspired to
write a poem "The Defence of Fort McHenry“ on
his way back from Baltimore. He intended to fit
the rhythms of composer John Stafford Smith's
"To Anacreon in Heaven". The composition
became Y.
• Z was a distant cousin of X and was named after
him. Z is a member of “The Lost Generation”.
• Mary Surratt is a first removed cousin of Z who
was hanged in 1865 for conspiring to assassinate
US President A.

61. ANSWERS

62. • X – Francis Scott Key
• Y – The Star Spangled Banner
• Z - F. Scott Fitzgerald
• A – Abraham Lincoln
• 5 Points Each

63. ANTICLOCKWISE

64. 11
• In Joseph Heller's Catch 22, Doc Daneeka describes only one experience of
his practice at home: a young newlywed couple who are unable to
procreate. Doc finds out the girl is still a virgin and is cheeky when he asks
about the medal of X that lays between her bosom, and the terrible
temptation that this must be for X. This is, of course a reference to the
story of X.
• The story of X has been described in 'Life of X' by Athanasius of Alexandria
and later recreated as a painting by Hieronymous Bosch, Max Ernst and
famously by Salvador Dali.
• It is also a book by Gustav Flaubert, who considered it his masterpiece and
rated it above the more famous Madame Bovary.

65. Hieronymous Bosch Painting

66. Salvador Dali Painting

67. Answer

68. The Temptation of Saint Anthony

69. 12
• The title of this work is a reference to a quote
from the letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians.
• “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but
then face to face: now I know in part; but then
shall I know even as also I am known.”
• The quote has inspired many other things, an
Ingmar Bergman film being among them.

70. Answer

71. A Scanner Darkly

72. 13
• Shiitake mushrooms ( yeah, the ones that
made life hell at Megawhats), apart from
tasting well when taken from oak trees, have
been used to model one of the most
memorable villains In gaming history. Who ?

73. Answer

74. Super Mario’s Goombas

75. 14
• X (born 1937) is a leading cricket
writer, historian and founding editor of
Wisden Cricket Monthly.
• X famously remarked before the 1983 Cricket
World Cup Final that if India won, then he
would eat his words.
• Who is X ? What happened afterwards ?

76. Answer

77. X -David Frith
• He literally ate the paper he had written the
article on, with a glass of red wine . 

78. 15
• A common myth is that it was named after a room at
CERN, where the original web servers were located.
However, Tom S. tells us: "Having visited CERN myself, I
can tell you that Room X is not on the fourth floor - the
CERN office numbering system doesn't work like that -
the first digit usually refers to the building number, and
the second two to the office number. But, strangely,
there is no room… don't ask me why. Sorry to
disappoint you all, but there is no Room X in CERN - it
simply doesn't exist, and certainly hasn't been
preserved as "the place where the web began". In fact,
there is a display about this, including a model of the
first NeXT server, but the whole "Room X" thing is just
a myth.“
• Whose apparent origin theory is being debunked here?

79. Answer

80. The Room 404 theory

81. 16
• It is a type of prison building designed by English philosopher and
social theorist Jeremy Bentham in 1785. The concept of the design
is to allow an observer to observe all prisoners without the
incarcerated being able to tell whether they are being watched,
thereby conveying what one architect has called the "sentiment of
an invisible omniscience.
• In Bentham’s words :
• "Morals reformed— health preserved — industry invigorated —
instruction diffused — public burthens lightened — Economy seated,
as it were, upon a rock — the Gordian knot of the poor-law not cut,
but untied — all by a simple idea in Architecture!“
• What was this known as ?

82. Answer

83. Panopticon

84. 17
• <Audio>

85. Answer

86. Ali G speaking to Noam Chomsky

87. 18 Which event is being described ?
• <video>

88. Answer

89. Tunguska Explosion

90. 19
• NASA awards pieces of moon-rock to people
who they feel have made a considerable
contribution to their Moon mission. All
people who have been awarded the Moon-
rock award are people who have worked with
NASA, except for one person, who got the
moon rock for his extensive coverage of the
moon landings. Who ?

91. Answer

92. Walter Cronkite

93. 20
Whose grave is this?

94. Answer

95. John Keats

96. Choose What Hurts You The Least
Specialty Round

97. 16th Century England
Sanskrit Literature
Winter Olympics
Music of the 70’s
Spaghetti Westerns
Movies of Sooraj Barjatya

98. Winter Olympics - 1
• Shiva Kesavan, is the sole Indian representing
the country in this sport since 1997 and one of
the only 3 people representing India at the
Winter Olympics. Which sport does he
represent ?

99. Answer

100. Luge

101. Winter Olympics – 2
• On 22nd February, 2010 skaters Meryl Davis
and Charlie White won the Olympic Silver in
the Figure Skating Ice Dance category at the
Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics.
• In the process, they repeated something that
first gained popularity during the Beijing
Olympics via a group of Israeli gymnasts.
• What ?

102. Answer

103. Use of Bollywood Music for Dance
• The duo used ‘Dola re Dola’ from Devdas.
• The Israelis used ‘Dhoom Taana’ from Om
Shanti Om.

104. BACK

105. 16th Century England – 1
• This playwright of the Elizabethan times is
sometimes considered to be the “true” author
behind Shakespeare’s works. These
speculations are primarily based on his
mysterious and possibly fraudulent death.
Who ?

106. Answer

107. Christopher Marlowe

108. 16th Century England – 2
• Mary, the Queen of Scots unsuccessfully
attempted to overthrow the British Monarch (
Elizabeth I) and bring back Catholicism to the
land.
• Another attempt to restore the monarchy by
would –be restorers of Catholicism was carried
out in 1605. Though Robert Catesby was the
mastermind behind this idea, another man took
the primary blame.
• How do we know this event in history as ?

109. Answer

110. Gunpowder Plot, Guy Fawkes

111. BACK

112. Sanskrit Literature 1
• The Uru-Bhanga or ‘Crushed Thighs’ is a play
by a well known Indian playwright. It is one of
the very few tragic plays of ancient India.
• The title refers to a famous Indian literary
character and the play deals with what he
goes through in his final moments.
• Which character, and who is the playwright ?

113. Answer

114. Duryodhana, Bhasa

115. Sanskrit Literature 2
• The Backus Naur form , developed by John
Backus and Peter Naur , is a form of
expression used in compilers theory . It is
widely used for being context free in
application.
• The Backus Naur Form has many similarities to
the rules described in a famous ancient
Sanskrit work. Give me the work and its
author.

116. Answer

117. Panini, Ashtadhyaayi

118. BACK

119. Sooraj Barjatya - 1
• X from the Barjatya movie Y was directly taken
from Swedish rock band Europe's 1986 single,
The Final Countdown and theme from Love
Story, Where Do I Begin.
• X and Y.

120. Answer

121. Mere Rang me rangne waali
Maine Pyar Kiya

122. Sooraj Barjatya - 2
• A 2003 Sooraj Barjatya is a remake of an
earlier 1976 Rajshri Productions movie made
by his grandfather Tarachand Barjatya and
directed by Basu Chatterjee.
• While the 1976 movie was a box office hit, the
2003 one bombed badly.
• Name both.

123. Answer

124. • 1976 – ChitChor
• 2003 – Main Prem ki Diwani Hoon

125. BACK

126. Spaghetti Westerns 1
What is unique about this clip?

127. Answer

128. Only instance when a character from
Seven Samurai meets character from
The Magnificent Seven

129. Spaghetti Westerns 2
• Inglourious Basterds, which draws inspiration
from Spaghetti westerns starts off with a
music piece called ‘La dopa Condona’ which
mixes the works of 2 great artists across time.
• Which two ?

130. Answer

131. • Ludwig van Beethoven
• Ennio Morricone

132. BACK

133. Music of the 70’s - 1
• Excerpt from a book by Karl Dallas:
• “In 1973 X began experimenting with an entirely "musique
concrete" album, which was abandoned after only three
tracks were recorded. "We used rubber bands," recalled
Y, "we actually built a long stretched rubber band
thing, about two feet. There was a G clamp at one end
fixing it to a table and another G clamp at the other end
fixing it to a table. There was a cigarette lighter under one
end for a bridge and there were a set of matchsticks taped
down the other end. You stretch it and you can get a really
good bass sound. "We used aerosol sprays and pulling rolls
of Sellotape out to different lengths. The further away it gets
the note changes." On abandoning the album, Z said: "It
seemed like a good idea at the time, but it didn't really
come together.”

134. Answer

135. X – Pink Floyd
The project is Household Objects

136. Music of the 70’s - 2
• The boyhood friendship of X & Y was forged in 1951 as
classmates in Wentworth Primary School in Dartford,
Kent but got interrupted when both families moved in
the mid-Fifties. While X was at London School of
Economics and Y in Sidcup Art College, they happened
to meet again in October 1960, when the two ran into
each other at a train station.
• With mutual friend Dick Taylor, they formed the band
Little Boy Blue and the Blue Boys. This band eventually
was renamed to ____.
• Which Band?

137. Answer

138. • X – Mick Jagger
Y – Keith Richards
The Rolling Stones

139. BACK

140. Written Round 2
( Differential )

141. W1
• “I think the educational and psychological studies I mentioned are
examples of what I would like to call ____ ______ science. In the South
Seas there is a ____ _______ of people. During the war they saw airplanes
land with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing to happen
now. So they've arranged to imitate things like runways, to put fires along
the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with
two wooden pieces on his head like headphones and bars of bamboo
sticking out like antennas--he's the controller--and they wait for the
airplanes to land. They're doing everything right. The form is perfect. It
looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn't work. No airplanes
land. So I call these things ____ ______ science, because they follow all
the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they're
missing something essential, because the planes don't land.”
• Who is speaking and what are the blanks ?

142. W2
• X joined the MCC ground-staff at Lord's in 1934. By the
late 1930s X was a leading England batsman and
remained at the top of his profession for almost three
decades. As an all-rounder X was a right hand bat and a
slow left arm Chinaman bowler. X scored his first Test
century as a precocious 19 year old in 1938 against Don
Bradman's touring Australians. X also played football,
beginning his career at non-league Nunhead F.C. during
the 1934/35 season before joining Arsenal. A winger, X
made his debut in 1936, and won the League in 1948
and the FA Cup in 1950.
• Who is X?

143. W3
• It was the Andre Courreges show in Paris in
1964 that started it. They debuted in UK in
December 1965 when they were first spotted
in King’s Road, Chelsea. They became an
instant hit and soon became a phenomenon
of ‘swinging’ London. They even created a tax
problem in the UK and rules had to be drawn
up in 1965 to sort it out. What revolutionary
product am I talking about?

144. W4
• They first appeared in USA in 1919, made with
muslin. The idea was introduced by Joseph
Kreiger in San Francisco. They were initially
intended for caterers, but later most were being
brought for the home. They were introduced in
Britain in 1952 & soon became an integral part of
the British daily life. They have also been used as
a variation of the moistening effect of placing
cucumber slices over the eyes in attempts to
stave off the inevitable effects of ageing. What?

145. W5
• “I knew a trade name must be short, vigorous
incapable of being misspelled to extent that it will
destroy its identity and in order to satisfy the
trademark laws, it must mean nothing”.
- X, on naming his company Y
• Hans and Alfred registered their trade-name Z in
1908, possibly inspired by X who in 1884 decided
against naming his then flagship product after
himself in favour of Y.
• Give me X,Y,Z.

146. W6

147. W7
• The phrase has been used in many contexts. Some of them are:
• An album by Confrontation Camp
• Y (very similar to X), a song by Meat Loaf
• A novel by Katherine Weber.
• A Contemporary Ballet by David Fernandez
• An essay by Elizabeth Perry
• The title of a law review article by Aviam Soifer
• In the 1993 film, Jurassic Park the words are clearly visible in a scene where
one of the dinosaurs appears to be right up next to the car.
• The above example from Jurassic Park is itself parodied in the 1999 film Toy
Story 2.
• The game Halo 2 contained a cutscene titled “X" regarding the Covenant's
attitude toward the threat of the Flood.
• More known in the context of the requirements of the US Federal Motor
Carrier Safety Administration, in the United States Department of
Transportation, regulation 571.111.
• What’s X?

148. Answers
15 – X for each question

149. Richard Feynman
Cargo Cult

150. Dennis Compton

151. Mini Skirts

152. Tea Bags

153. X – George Eastman
Y – Kodak
Z – Rolex. Hans Wilsdorf And Alfred Davis
registered it in 1908.

154. The XKCD book is published by BreadPig, a company founded by
Randall Munroe’s friend Alexis, and a portion of the profits will
go to build a school in Laos through the charity Room to Read.

155. X - Objects in Mirror are closer
than they appear. 

156. The End !