Going In-Cogni-To - Prelims

Going In-Cogni-To
The Quizzotica General Quiz
Questions by:
M.V.R. Murty
071602, IIT-R’12

Question 1*
• This firebrand owner’s personality was reflected in his enterprise’s anti-
establishment stance, enshrined in its stand against Indira Gandhi during
the Emergency.
• When once asked how he could afford to be so irreverent, Ramnath
______ is said to have quipped “Lota le kar aaya tha, lota lekar waapis
chala jaunga” – a reference to his humble origins.
• After his death in 1991, various factions vied for control of his group and
its assets. By 1995, his adopted son (and natural grandson) Viveck
______, consolidated control over the northern and western parts of the
core business, while the rest went to his cousin who went on to form a
“new” entity.
• What was the core business entity?

The Indian Express
• As Ra’s Al-Ghul used to say – Mind your surroundings. 

Question 2
• The Oxford English Dictionary added this popular word X in 2003,
with the creator saying the etymology stems from the British slang
___, as an “easily fooled person”.
• But the word had been commonly used in America as far back as
1931, where a TIME article on crime titled “Xs”, defined it as a
“variety of hemp weed long common in Mexico”. Users of the
derivative product were known then as “X-heads”.
• The creator, when apprised of this usage, said she was unaware of
this usage.

Muggles
• TIME, in a 2011 article, handled this story with pun-filled glee.
• “To think that all this time muggle-borns were potheads, not Potterheads
(ahem, sorry).”
• “So for those of you who might be Rowling up a joint (ahem, again, sorry)
be aware: you are more magical than you may have thought.”

Question 3
• Till the late 19th century, Americans had the previous night’s leftovers
for breakfast. Predictably, this caused widespread indigestion.
• Wealthy people went to sanitariums for exotic cures like enemas and
hydrotherapy. X’s brother was a doctor who worked at such a health spa
in Battle Creek, Michigan.
• Their family were strict Seventh Day Adventists, which involved strict
vegetarianism. So X’s brother couldn’t serve bacon and eggs to their
patients. So in 1894, they developed the product Y, marketed
eponymously, and the rest, as they say, is history.
• What common food item/brand is this the history of?

Kellogg’s corn flakes
• The elder brother, John Harvey Kellogg, was against the idea of
commercialising their innovation, by the way, and they separated
on a bitter note.

Question 4
• “In response to a request from Tesla for Ford’s assistance with a
trademark issue, Ford and Tesla entered into a contract in 2010 in
which, among other things, Tesla agreed not to register or use
________. When Tesla later sought to register the _______
trademark, Ford insisted that Tesla abide by the parties’ earlier
agreement. The matter has been resolved amicably.”
• Soon after this statement, Tesla Motors’ CEO joked at a
shareholders’ meeting that Ford is “killing sex”, referring to a
“juvenile trifecta”, according to Forbes Magazine.
• Why did Elon Musk say that?

Ford owns the trademark to Model E
• Tesla wanted to name their third car the Model E, to go with their
current models S and X.

Question 5
• This is Marie Marvingt, a remarkable Frenchwoman known little outside her home country.
• She was an ace mountaineer, scaling almost all major French and Swiss Alps peaks by the age of 35.
She also swam the length of the Seine through Paris, and won 20 first-places in different winter sports
between 1908 and 1910, including the world bobsledding championship.
• She was awarded a Gold Medal for all sports by the Académie des Sports, the only multi-sport medal
the French academy has ever awarded.
• In 1908, she was refused entry into a men’s only event, which she defiantly performed and finished a
week after it ended, while only 36 of 114 male participants could.
• This led to a female-only event called the Grande Boucle Feminine, which was shut down for financial
reasons in 2003, and petitions are on to revive the event or let women participate in the men-only
event.
• Which event?

Question 6*
• Who is this posting about their
raison d’etre?

Question 7
• In 1830, X and Y were approached to make a comprehensive German
dictionary spanning the previous 4 centuries, given that they were
scholars studying texts of this time and before.
• They refused then, given their busy stints as professors at the University
of Gottingen. 7 years later, a political upheaval led to them crossing the
King’s paths and not leaving him happy. They soon became political
prisoners at their homes.
• To keep their scholarly efforts alive, which brought to light works such as
Aschenputtel, Der Froschkoenig, and Schneewittchen, amongst many
other fabled names, they agreed to work on the German Dictionary.
• The Deutches Woerterbuch, the result of their efforts, is called the
Oxford English Dictionary of German.
Nice story. How do we better know X and Y?

The Brothers Grimm
• Aschenputtel = Cinderella
• Der Froschkoenig = The Frog Prince
• Schneewittchen = Snow White
• They also collected and published other folk lore such as Hansel
und Gretel, Rumpelstilzchen, and Rapunzel.

Question 8
• In the Old Testament, the children of Israel were led by Joshua,
and were about to enter the Promised Land. Joshua wanted to
ensure their safety, though, so…
• "Joshua son of Nun sent two _____ out from Shittim secretly with
orders to reconnoitre the country. The two men came to Jericho
and went to the house of a prostitute named Rahab...”
• Rahab, was obviously engaged in the oldest profession.
So what’s called the second-oldest profession?

Spying
• “Gentlemen don’t read each other’s mail.”
A former US Secretary of State said this, most ironically.

Question 9
• Due to its rejuvenating powers, X was very highly valued and
strongly protected by its discoverers and early users in North
Africa. Its trade was restricted to North Africa and parts of Arabia.
• Baba Budan was an Indian Sufi saint who experienced these
powers of X during his Haj pilgrimage. Determined to sustain his
usage of X, he smuggled a small quantity out and returned to his
part of India, where X became a daily-use commodity.
• The eponymous Baba Budangiri lies in an Indian region famed for
its X, and is considered X’s spiritual home in India. What’s X?

Coffee
• He allegedly hid 7 green sprouting beans strapped to his chest,
and planted them in Chikmanglur in Karnataka.

Question 10
• A June 2014 essay in Vanity Fair called “Shame and Survival” was
heavily shared on the Internet, was discussed fervently, and has
now been nominated for the prestigious National Magazine Awards
by the American Society of Magazine editors.
• Promoted initially with the phrase “Time to burn the beret and
bury the blue dress”, and hoping to address issues surrounding
victims of Internet shaming, which 41-year-old was the author of
this essay?

Question 11*
• X is an American dessert made of egg yolks, sweetened condensed
milk and citrus aurantifolia in a pie crust.
• Developed by early Bahamian settlers, it was made the official pie
of the state of Florida in 2006. (Yes, they have such a title.)
• It wasn’t, however, chosen for another distinction in 2013,
contrary to most commentators’ expectations.
• "We couldn't imagine a better name for our A B than the tasty
________ that's been a favourite among the team since the early
days of A”, said Marc Vanlerberghe, Director of A Marketing.
• Identify X.

Question 12
• The Golden Kela awards are the Indian equivalent of the Golden
Raspberry awards, popularly known as the Razzies. They honour
the worst in Bollywood every year, and 2015 was the 7th edition.
• The awards have developed their own cult following, and trivia
enthusiasts were licking their lips as X won a third consecutive
Worst Actor (Female) award in 2015.
• She won the award for 3 performances in 2015, for just the one
film (named ostensibly after a stuttering prince) in 2014 and in
2013 for “everything she did”. Which 27-year-old is this?

Sonakshi Sinha
• 2015: Action Jackson, Lingaa and Holiday.
• 2014: R…Rajkumar
• 2013: Every single movie she did.

Question 13
• Here’s an extract from “Last Chance to See”, a fantastic book on
some endangered species co-authored by Douglas Adams.
• “The term X actually comes from falconry… When you train a
falcon, you train it by hunger, using it as a tool to manipulate the
bird’s psychology. So when the bird has had too much to eat it
won’t co-operate and gets annoyed by any attempts to tell it what
to do. It simply sits in the top of a tree and sulks. It is X.”
• What term/phrase is being referred to here?

Question 14
• This World Cup has seen a flurry of big scores, including the first
two double centuries in ODI cricket outside India.
• Listed in reverse chronological order, the ones scored here are:
• Rohit Sharma – Kolkata
• Virender Sehwag – Indore
• Rohit Sharma – Bangalore
• Sachin Tendulkar – Gwalior
• ______ _____– Mumbai
• Fill in the blanks, please.

Question 15
• Sony TV India has been reported to be
working on a period drama called "Rani
Mahal", with soap stars Sakshi Tanwar
(Parvati from Kahaani Ghar Ghar Ki) and
Anita Hassnandani rumoured to be playing
strong female characters.
• News about new dramas on Indian TV isn't
really expected to generate much of a
flutter, but the Internet is ablaze with
curiosity over how this show will turn out.
• What's special about Rani Mahal?

Indian adaptation of Game of Thrones

Question 16*
• An enclave is a territory of a sovereign state that is
completely surrounded by another sovereign state.
• Many countries have had enclaves within other
countries – for example, West Berlin – a territory of
West Germany that lied completely within East
Germany.
• There’s only 3 enclaved countries in the world. One of
them is Vatican City, that lies completely within Italy.
• Name the other two.
A B
A B A

Question 17
• Bloomberg maintains a database of the 200 richest people in the world
on an interactive visualisation on their website called Bloomberg
Billionaires.
• It ranks the top 200 richest people by net worth on a daily basis – so it
isn’t exactly the most reliable indicator of long-term wealth, but is
useful to see how people make their wealth anyway.
• According to this metric, the richest Indian as of Tuesday is neither Azim
Premji, nor LN Mittal or one of the Ambani brothers.
• It’s the largest shareholder in a firm that’s the biggest in its industry by
market value in India, and the second-largest of its kind in the world.
• He began his firm as a two-man operation – now employs 14,000. He’s
also the world’s richest billionaire from this industry.

Question 18
• (Bigger picture on next slide)
• This is a website for food porn
developed by, clearly, a fun
company that works in this space.
• It was launched in 2011 following
an announcement by ICANN, the
Internet Corporation for Assigned
Names and Numbers.
• Just give me the URL for this
website.

Question 19
• This is a grab from the official
Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan website,
capturing the first post made by
the Prime Minister.
• Of the 9 recipients of Mr. Modi’s
challenge, 8 were individuals.
Which was the team I’ve blanked
out here?

They created their own website, too…

The team of “Tarak Mehta ka Ooltah Chashmah”

Question 20
• This question’s contributed by
Abhinav Malhotra, IITR Chem
Dual ’13, now at Georgia Tech.
• Here’s two question papers
from 1876 – one for “Technical
Urdu” and the other for
“Bridges”.
• Just tell us what’s special
about them.

Oldest recorded question papers from the
Thomason College/UoR/IITR

Question 21*
• Al-Hasan Ibn al-Haytham was born in the year 965 in Basra, and died in about
1040 in Cairo. He was one of the earliest scientists to study the characteristics
of light and the mechanism/process of vision.
• Invited to Egypt to build a dam on the Nile, he declined after a field visit. This
led to him being placed under what we now call protective custody. During ten
years of house arrest, he composed one of his most celebrated works, the Kitab
al-Manazir, whose title has the broader meaning Book of Vision.
• Through his studies of earlier work by Galen and others, he gave names to
several parts of the eye, such as the lens, the retina and the cornea.
• His book’s Latin translation, De Aspectibus, influenced many European scholars,
including those of the Renaissance.
• How is his work relevant today?

2015 –International Year of Light
• Hope you’d learnt to mind your surroundings in time. 

Hope you had fun! There’s more in the finals.
The top 8 teams make it. Good luck!

Going In-Cogni-To - Prelims

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Going In-Cogni-To - Prelims