Quiz 12 of Season 1 ...
By -- Suyash
At -- 6pm
In -- Wean Hall 5409 on CMU campus
Monday, March 30, 2009
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Quiz 11 report
This week's quiz, conducted by Shantanu, was another high scoring affair. There were questions on some new topics such as erotica, feminism, and political controversies. It was great to see a quiz that had very succinct and not-so-convulated questions; for instance, einstein's last words, 3-time winner of Nobel prizes and monica lewinsky's much-maligned blue dress were nice short questions that didn't force the participants to read N paragraphs of Wikipedia text -- that was really comfortable! However, such questions were fairly dry in the sense that you had to "guess" the answer and it was hard to actually work out the answer. Questions like these (example, Godfather's auditions and oldest cities, after the clue) boil down to who gets lucky with the right guess (and then your position in the quiz). Overall, the questions were well-researched and some of them got long, diatribes that were far from the real answer :-)
Teams (and standings):
Swapnil/Vinay/Vikram
Murali/Suyash +1
Keshav/Nishtha/Siddharth (third place)
Deepak/Gaurav/Vyas (first place)
Apurva/Pranav/Pranjal (second place)
Satya/Varun/VarunAg
League standings are up at http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pad8OkPTEUANT0-QEnI_oTA
Teams (and standings):
Swapnil/Vinay/Vikram
Murali/Suyash +1
Keshav/Nishtha/Siddharth (third place)
Deepak/Gaurav/Vyas (first place)
Apurva/Pranav/Pranjal (second place)
Satya/Varun/VarunAg
League standings are up at http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pad8OkPTEUANT0-QEnI_oTA
Monday, March 23, 2009
Quiz 11 - Friday March 27th @ 6.45pm in Wean 5409
Quiz 11 of Season 1 ...
By -- Shantanu
At -- 6.45pm
In -- Wean Hall 5409 on CMU campus
By -- Shantanu
At -- 6.45pm
In -- Wean Hall 5409 on CMU campus
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Quiz 10 report - two QMs and their forte
Nishtha and Pranjal conducted the tenth quiz of the season; the first half was peppered with a good variety of questions including music, literature (the QMs forte), and some "pop culture". The long connect was nice, but it left the QM devastated that it wasn't well answered, and even worse, answered by the most unlikely team, which might have led other teams on the wrong track. The QM came up with unique way to avoid cacophonous clarifications: just keep the images so small that everyone is occupied with staring and glaring at the tiny images ;-) Although most answers could be worked out, the QM was generously awarding points even if they were remotely close to the answer :-)
Second part of the quiz had a completely different theme, and a very specific one: computer science. Questions like Akamai (with pic of its founder), a stats paper, among other things made up some real hard core CS stuff ;-). Unfortunately, that left a lot of non-techie crowd in tatters, which opened up the quiz for the "someone-gets-it-once-we-run-out-of-guesses" answering mode with only a few teams involved. Some non-CS questions were really good (but not very "workoutable"), such as the Depression era picture and Primanti Bros. Overall, it was very well-prepared quiz (downloading 12 "popular" youtube videos -- kudos for the effort) and the QM did a great job of controlling the vociferous crowd by doing nothing but patiently waiting for the crowd to shut up, pretty neat :-)
And, both QMs were awesome about keeping this a quiz, and not turning it into a pictionary :-)
UPDATE: There was tie-breaker for the first place, which took ages to finish. First question, no one follows NHL/NFL/MLB/NBA -- both teams missed. Second question, Murali's team got close, before they jumbled up the Xs and Ys. Third question, Keshav blurted out an answer, which if he had penciled, would have won the quiz. Finally, the rockets of Goddard blasted Murali's team to the highest pedestal.
Quiz Teams (and standings):
Ali/Harsha/Kannan/Satya
Shantanu/Shiva/Swapnil/VarunAg
Prananv/Siddharth/Suyash/Utsav
Gaurav/Ravi/Varun + 1 (third place)
Aditya/Murali/Srinivas/Vyas (first place)
Ankit/Deepak/Keshav/Vinay (second place)
Update league standings at http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pad8OkPTEUANT0-QEnI_oTA
Next week's quiz will be organized by Shantanu.
Second part of the quiz had a completely different theme, and a very specific one: computer science. Questions like Akamai (with pic of its founder), a stats paper, among other things made up some real hard core CS stuff ;-). Unfortunately, that left a lot of non-techie crowd in tatters, which opened up the quiz for the "someone-gets-it-once-we-run-out-of-guesses" answering mode with only a few teams involved. Some non-CS questions were really good (but not very "workoutable"), such as the Depression era picture and Primanti Bros. Overall, it was very well-prepared quiz (downloading 12 "popular" youtube videos -- kudos for the effort) and the QM did a great job of controlling the vociferous crowd by doing nothing but patiently waiting for the crowd to shut up, pretty neat :-)
And, both QMs were awesome about keeping this a quiz, and not turning it into a pictionary :-)
UPDATE: There was tie-breaker for the first place, which took ages to finish. First question, no one follows NHL/NFL/MLB/NBA -- both teams missed. Second question, Murali's team got close, before they jumbled up the Xs and Ys. Third question, Keshav blurted out an answer, which if he had penciled, would have won the quiz. Finally, the rockets of Goddard blasted Murali's team to the highest pedestal.
Quiz Teams (and standings):
Ali/Harsha/Kannan/Satya
Shantanu/Shiva/Swapnil/VarunAg
Prananv/Siddharth/Suyash/Utsav
Gaurav/Ravi/Varun + 1 (third place)
Aditya/Murali/Srinivas/Vyas (first place)
Ankit/Deepak/Keshav/Vinay (second place)
Update league standings at http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pad8OkPTEUANT0-QEnI_oTA
Next week's quiz will be organized by Shantanu.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Quiz 10 - Friday March 20th @ 6pm in Wean 5409
Quiz 10 of Season 1 ...
By -- Nishtha and Pranjal
At -- 6pm
In -- Wean Hall 5409 on CMU campus
By -- Nishtha and Pranjal
At -- 6pm
In -- Wean Hall 5409 on CMU campus
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Quiz 9 report - groups of geeks guessing about gadgets, games and gump
This week's quiz was co-organized by Murali and Apurva, but the questions were made separately, without any synchronization. The first half had a strong "geeky" appeal, with quesions about "games" (sudoku, pacman, Jeopardy) and "gadgets" (VCR, cars, planes, browsers); the second half had fair number of questions on "groups" of people (like award winners, the vague "popular Twitter users", Madoff victims, most ducks in cricket).
The quiz was very entertaining and high-scoring; more than 75% answer rate because the QMs wanted teams to work out answers. However, it seemed that the working out part made some of questions look like auctions, i.e. teams start "guessing" on the right track, until someone eventually gets it right after all choices are exhausted. The second half of the quiz was raucous; on more than one occasion the (patient) QM had to explain questions 3-4 times. Perhaps, too much excitement (when teams yell "yes, I know it" and start sledging) or may be the questions were really hard to understand (which was not the case, in my opinion)??
On the lighter side, the QMs suppressed creative-but-preposterous answers to connects and had a very useful "introduction to pictionary connects" for a naive participant :-)
Quiz teams (and standings)
Apurva/Kannan/Murali/Shantanu
Pranjal/Suyash/Swapnil (second place)
Keshav/Nishtha/VarunAg (first place)
Aditya/Deepak/Pranav
Harsha/Ravi/Satya (third place)
Emil/Gaurav/Varun
League standings will be UPDATED SOON at http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pad8OkPTEUANT0-QEnI_oTA
Next week we have another "half-n-half" quiz by Nishtha and Pranjal.
The quiz was very entertaining and high-scoring; more than 75% answer rate because the QMs wanted teams to work out answers. However, it seemed that the working out part made some of questions look like auctions, i.e. teams start "guessing" on the right track, until someone eventually gets it right after all choices are exhausted. The second half of the quiz was raucous; on more than one occasion the (patient) QM had to explain questions 3-4 times. Perhaps, too much excitement (when teams yell "yes, I know it" and start sledging) or may be the questions were really hard to understand (which was not the case, in my opinion)??
On the lighter side, the QMs suppressed creative-but-preposterous answers to connects and had a very useful "introduction to pictionary connects" for a naive participant :-)
Quiz teams (and standings)
Apurva/Kannan/Murali/Shantanu
Pranjal/Suyash/Swapnil (second place)
Keshav/Nishtha/VarunAg (first place)
Aditya/Deepak/Pranav
Harsha/Ravi/Satya (third place)
Emil/Gaurav/Varun
League standings will be UPDATED SOON at http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pad8OkPTEUANT0-QEnI_oTA
Next week we have another "half-n-half" quiz by Nishtha and Pranjal.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Quiz 9 - Friday March 13th @ 6pm in Wean 5409
Quiz 9 of Season 1 ...
By -- Apurva and Murali
At -- 6pm
In -- Wean Hall 5409 on CMU campus
By -- Apurva and Murali
At -- 6pm
In -- Wean Hall 5409 on CMU campus
Monday, March 9, 2009
Quiz 8 report -- midnight (mega) madness
At last, Keshav rolled out his "mega" quiz; and despite the midnight kick-off, there was no dearth of enthusiasts, both to participate and to cheer the QM. To read more about the quiz -- the QMs perspective -- follow the previous entry at http://cmu-quizzing.blogspot.com/2009/03/quiz-8-stats.html
Quiz teams (and standings):
Ankit/Gaurav/Harsha/Swapnil (first place)
Apurva/Deepak/Jugal
Aranya/Varun/Vinay +2 (third place)
Karthik/Nishtha/Pranav/Siddharth
Suyash/Srinivas/Venkat
Murali/Satya +2 (second place)
Pranjal/Shantanu/Ronak
Updated league standings are available at http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pad8OkPTEUANT0-QEnI_oTA
No quiz this week (unless there is yet-another-email-deluge :-)); next meeting on March 20th for Nishtha and Pranjal's quiz.
Quiz teams (and standings):
Ankit/Gaurav/Harsha/Swapnil (first place)
Apurva/Deepak/Jugal
Aranya/Varun/Vinay +2 (third place)
Karthik/Nishtha/Pranav/Siddharth
Suyash/Srinivas/Venkat
Murali/Satya +2 (second place)
Pranjal/Shantanu/Ronak
Updated league standings are available at http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pad8OkPTEUANT0-QEnI_oTA
No quiz this week (unless there is yet-another-email-deluge :-)); next meeting on March 20th for Nishtha and Pranjal's quiz.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Quiz 8 Stats
Stats are as follows
Overall 23 Questions went unanswered out of the 56 (including the long connects) making the percentage of answered questions - 58.93%. Just enough to secure the bonus point (which Swapnil has been good enough to award me).
Total points secured by all teams was 67 (including 3 for 3 teams getting 1 pt each the first long connect) or 64 if the connects are neglected. So 64 out of a possible 108 again gives 59.26. Intentionally leaving out key facts from all questions paid off I guess, otherwise most would have been knocked out of the park.
Best answers of the quiz (in my opinion)
2)Swapnil's team had some great answers (obviously since they won) - best among them SARS, Fevicol,The Abandoned WI-Eng Test, Touchpad and endianness
2)Though the couldn't nail down the full connect (which was doozie) I thought Varun's team getting on to the Bodyline angle in that Bradman connect was top notch and one of the best answers in the quiz since it is really difficult to see Hugo Weaving and jump to Bodyline instead of going for Matrix, LOTR, V for Vendetta etc. Their Trainspotting, Lonely Planet and Foot in the Mouth Prize answers were well worked too.
3)Murali and Satya's team answered some nice ones such as Reverse the Curse, Here be dragons,Terminator and Skynet and 20 Questions and were clinical in that all answers were complete and seldom left anything to do for the quiz master except award them the 2 points and move on to the next question.
4)Apurva's team were unlucky in that they had some good answers but their ideas were used by other teams to get some points. They got on to Yoda which was an awesome answer and the also figured that the question on the abandoned test pertained to cricket which was difficult and their idea was used by Swapnil's team to get the eventual answer. But the best answer was Super Mario which was the fastest answers to a connect in season 1, cracker to get that one in under a sec.
Other good answers were Hushpuppies, Rubik's cube and Hail Mary by Srinivas' team, VISA by Pranav's team and abracadabra and J.K.Rowling (I forget who answered that one).
All in all glad the quiz went of nicely, though it might have screwed up some people's beauty sleep and look forward to Swapnil's report and the next quiz in 2 weeks.
Keshav
PS I have posted both this quiz (quiz 8) and my earlier quiz (quiz 2) as pdfs on the group.
Overall 23 Questions went unanswered out of the 56 (including the long connects) making the percentage of answered questions - 58.93%. Just enough to secure the bonus point (which Swapnil has been good enough to award me).
Total points secured by all teams was 67 (including 3 for 3 teams getting 1 pt each the first long connect) or 64 if the connects are neglected. So 64 out of a possible 108 again gives 59.26. Intentionally leaving out key facts from all questions paid off I guess, otherwise most would have been knocked out of the park.
Best answers of the quiz (in my opinion)
2)Swapnil's team had some great answers (obviously since they won) - best among them SARS, Fevicol,The Abandoned WI-Eng Test, Touchpad and endianness
2)Though the couldn't nail down the full connect (which was doozie) I thought Varun's team getting on to the Bodyline angle in that Bradman connect was top notch and one of the best answers in the quiz since it is really difficult to see Hugo Weaving and jump to Bodyline instead of going for Matrix, LOTR, V for Vendetta etc. Their Trainspotting, Lonely Planet and Foot in the Mouth Prize answers were well worked too.
3)Murali and Satya's team answered some nice ones such as Reverse the Curse, Here be dragons,Terminator and Skynet and 20 Questions and were clinical in that all answers were complete and seldom left anything to do for the quiz master except award them the 2 points and move on to the next question.
4)Apurva's team were unlucky in that they had some good answers but their ideas were used by other teams to get some points. They got on to Yoda which was an awesome answer and the also figured that the question on the abandoned test pertained to cricket which was difficult and their idea was used by Swapnil's team to get the eventual answer. But the best answer was Super Mario which was the fastest answers to a connect in season 1, cracker to get that one in under a sec.
Other good answers were Hushpuppies, Rubik's cube and Hail Mary by Srinivas' team, VISA by Pranav's team and abracadabra and J.K.Rowling (I forget who answered that one).
All in all glad the quiz went of nicely, though it might have screwed up some people's beauty sleep and look forward to Swapnil's report and the next quiz in 2 weeks.
Keshav
PS I have posted both this quiz (quiz 8) and my earlier quiz (quiz 2) as pdfs on the group.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
She's Done and She's Big
Folks
The Midnight quiz is officially done now and since Swapnil stated in his mail that it could contain any number of questions and since some of us wanted a marathon, I was tempted into adding 12 questions bringing the total to 54, including 16 connects (of which 2 are long connects). Overall it looks very balanced, if a tad skewed in favor of entertainment and etymology.
That should be enough to keep going well into the night, subject to abrupt termination in case anyone feels sleepy though I sincerely hope that no one does.
Keshav
The Midnight quiz is officially done now and since Swapnil stated in his mail that it could contain any number of questions and since some of us wanted a marathon, I was tempted into adding 12 questions bringing the total to 54, including 16 connects (of which 2 are long connects). Overall it looks very balanced, if a tad skewed in favor of entertainment and etymology.
That should be enough to keep going well into the night, subject to abrupt termination in case anyone feels sleepy though I sincerely hope that no one does.
Keshav
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Quiz 8 - Friday March 6th @ midnight in Wean 5409
Quiz 8 of Season 1 ...
By -- Keshav
At -- 11.59pm (yes, we are starting at midnight!)
In -- Wean Hall 5409 on CMU campus
By -- Keshav
At -- 11.59pm (yes, we are starting at midnight!)
In -- Wean Hall 5409 on CMU campus
Monday, March 2, 2009
Quiz 7 report -- chawannis, athannis and barahannas
The first co-organized quiz of the season saw Gaurav and Harsha come up with a very contrasting set of questions: a good mix of some highly esoteric ones followed by the much enjoyed populist questions -- everyone had something that they like :-) Considering that both of them were making their debut as a QM, they withstood an unruly and bullyish mob yelling "some points, please". They also repeated the answer to every question, an important quality which is often overlooked by many QMs. The only inconsistency stemmed from their decisions to award partial points (on "connects"). For instance, Pranav's team were a bit unlucky to not get enough points for the "social networking connect", but they were lucky to get points for "tom, dick and harry" connect (without connecting it to anything). Considering the geeky background of the QMs, they often awarded "quarter" and "three-quarters" of a point to partially answered connects; we will soon have fractions like 'Pi' and 'e' :-)
The quiz had many well-researched questions (such as, the Google map of "Pakistan's Siachen training camp", Mendeleev's dissertation, Denver's beer consumption, the impossible "228" connect) and one completely outlandish answer to the last question about a visual that depicted the age of consent across the planet ;-)
Quiz teams (and standings):
Pranav/Siddharth/VarunAg/Vyas
Apurva/Deepak/Swapnil (first place)
Keshav/Satya/Vinay/Vivek (second place)
Ayan/Kannan/Murali/Nishtha
Aditya/Ravi/Shantanu/Varun/ (third place)
Emil/Pranjal/Srinivas/Suyash
Updated league standings are available at:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pad8OkPTEUANT0-QEnI_oTA
PS. The title of the blog consists of three Hindi words which mean "quarter" of a rupee, "half" a rupee and "three quarters" of a rupee, respectively.
PPS. Next week's quiz by Keshav.
The quiz had many well-researched questions (such as, the Google map of "Pakistan's Siachen training camp", Mendeleev's dissertation, Denver's beer consumption, the impossible "228" connect) and one completely outlandish answer to the last question about a visual that depicted the age of consent across the planet ;-)
Quiz teams (and standings):
Pranav/Siddharth/VarunAg/Vyas
Apurva/Deepak/Swapnil (first place)
Keshav/Satya/Vinay/Vivek (second place)
Ayan/Kannan/Murali/Nishtha
Aditya/Ravi/Shantanu/Varun/ (third place)
Emil/Pranjal/Srinivas/Suyash
Updated league standings are available at:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pad8OkPTEUANT0-QEnI_oTA
PS. The title of the blog consists of three Hindi words which mean "quarter" of a rupee, "half" a rupee and "three quarters" of a rupee, respectively.
PPS. Next week's quiz by Keshav.
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