QFI Open 2009

The Quiz Foundation of India (Chennai Chapter), in association with Indian Terrain is proud to announce ‘The QFI Open Quiz 2009′, the fifth edition of the annual open quiz, which has become a fixture on the Chennai quizzing calendar.

The QFI Opens of the last four years have been resounding successes, attracting more than 120 teams each time, including some from Hyderabad, Bangalore, Mumbai and even Ahmedabad. This time, the quiz promises to be both bigger and better. You can read The Hindu’s review of the QFI Open 2006 here, and the 2007 edition here.

Apart from being original, well researched and immensely entertaining, the QFI Open also aims at making quizzing a fun experience for everyone involved. It will try and bring to a wider audience the same mix of light-hearted fun and serious high-standard quizzing that is seen at QFI’s fortnightly meetings.

It is an open quiz with no conditions whatsoever for participation. All are welcome to participate. Prizes include cash and Landmark gift vouchers. do come and have fun. There will a Sports and Entertainment quiz in the morning at 10:30 a.m at the same venue. Plenty of audience prizes from Landmark and DilSeBol also on offer. The details are as follows:

Date: 7th of June, 2009 (Sunday)

Venue: Museum Theatre,
Govt. Museum, Pantheon Road,
Egmore, Chennai – 600008

Schedule of Events

Sports and Entertainment Quiz

Quizmaster: Rajen Prabhu

Research Team: Sreeram, Vijay Sarathy, Vinod Ganesh, Krishnamurti Ganesh, Vikram Rajan, Sivakumar V.V.

Timings: Prelims – 10:30 a.m. and Finals – 11:30 a.m.

Team size: Maximum of 2 members

Registration Fee: Rs. 50 per team. (This fee is waived for school teams. The registration fee must be paid at the registration desk in front before the quiz.)

General Quiz

Quizmaster: Vinod Ganesh

Research Team: Krishnamurti Ganesh, Vikram Rajan

Timings: Prelims – 03:30 p.m. and Finals – 05:00 p.m.

Team size: Maximum of 3 members

Registration Fee: Rs. 50 per team. (This fee is waived for school teams. The registration fee must be paid at the registration desk in front before the quiz.)

Sample Questions from the last edition

Q1. During the 1994 FIFA World Cup in the United States, the teams usually travelled with a group of journalists from their nation. One of these flights had suffered a major delay, and the passengers finally started boarding after a frustrating long wait. During the routine security check, when one of the journalists was asked what he had in his bag, he sarcastically replied that he had a bomb. This sparked off a panic among the passengers, and nearly caused the flight to be cancelled. What did this incident lead to?

Q2. What word comes from the Latin for “I will please”, because it is used to denote something that is given merely to please than to actually benefit?

Q3. The Hellenistic Ptolemaic dynasty, which ruled Egypt from 305 BC to 30 BC, issued a series of decrees over the course of their reign. The first one, issued in 239 BC by Ptolemy III, was called the Decree of Canopus. The second one, issued by Ptolemy IV in 216 BC, was called the Decree of Memphis. The third was issued by Ptolemy V in 196 BC. Why is it famous?

Q4. These are a special kind of military bullets are modified with a small pyrotechnic charge added in their base. Ignited upon firing, the composition burns very brightly making the projectile path visible to the naked eye. This enables the shooter to follow the bullet’s trajectory relative to the target in order to make corrections to his aim for the next shot. The British introduced this in 1915, and the U.S. did it two years later in 1917. What is this type of ammunition called?

Answers

A1. Dennis Bergkamp was traumatised and developed his famous fear of flying that would lead him to miss a number of matches overseas for both club and country.

A2. Placebo

A3. This was the inscription on the Rosetta Stone. It describes the repealing of various taxes and gives instructions to erect statues in temples.

A4. Tracer Bullets, familiar to us through the cricket commentary of Ravi Shastri.

Bij Kwij #19

In spanish this word means explosion or burst when used as a noun.In the vernacular, it is also used to define a very large party or a night on the town. However it is the name of the animal , owned by the Don Rodriguez family , and best known for killing Felix Guzman in 1943. What is the word and what is the connection to the owrld of Business?

Bij Kwij #18

In Australian slang, a person who gets drunk easily is referred by this brand name. The brand is named after a person who in 1824 started vending tea, coffee and later choclate at bull street and then moved to India as well. Which brand?

Cadbury -- from its tagline -- A glass and half full

Bij Kwij #17

Singen (Hohentwiel) is an industrial city in the very south of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany and just north of the German-Swiss border. It is also situated within close proximity of Lake Constance and is the most important city in the Hegau area. The most famous landmark of Singen is Hohentwiel, a volcanic stub on which there are the ruins of a fortress destroyed by French troops during the Napoleonic Wars. What is the city's connection to Business?

Julius Maggi set up the headquarters for his company in 1897 at this place and it is often called the Maggi Town.

Bij Kwij #16

The name and Logo of this company refer to a place mentioned in the Bible which was famed for its small trees that produced a resin used in medicine and considered to be the world's first Pharamceutical product. They were the developers of Oseltamivir, which  was the first orally active neuraminidase inhibitor commercially developed. Which company and what was the products popular name?

No attempts for this question -- the answer was Gilead Sciences. the company that discovered Tamiflu and licensed to Roche.

Bij Kwij #15

Connect

Bij Kwij #14

Rajiv Rao,executive Director , explains that the name just had to be something fun, memorable and catchy, and not a clever one that’s difficult to pronounce. Created by making Humas wear body suits , what are these characters?

ZooZoos from the Vodaphone ads.

Bij Kwij #13

The effect is named after a particular image that appeared, with variations, on the tins and boxes of X cocoa powder, X being one of the main Dutch brands. It displayed a nurse carrying a serving tray with a cup of hot chocolate and a box of the same brand.An Image exhibiting the effect depicts a smaller version of itself in a place where a similar picture would realistically be expected to appear. This smaller version then depicts an even smaller version of itself in the same place, and so on.  It is a visual example of stange Loop ( proposed by Douglas Hofstader in Godel , Escher and Bach). What is this brand after which this effect is named?

Droste was the right answer

Landmark Quiz Mumbai 2009 Questions

LANDMARK QUIZ MUMBAI 2009

Thanks to the Quizmaster (Navin Jayakumar) for Sharing the prelims question. 

PRELIMS
What internationally accepted emergency radio communication derives from the French meaning 'come help me'?

May Day (from venez m’aider”)

Which part of Delhi is “Delhi 6?

Chandni Chowk

Which Indian reality show on MTV has the tagline “Where love is war”?

MTV Splitsvilla

There are only three rivers in India that run from east to west. One of these is the Mahi. Which are the other two?

Narmada and Tapti

Which popular style of devotional music was originally performed at Sufi shrines and dargahs?

Qawwali

What term used to describe perfect eyesight is also the name of a version of a popular sport?

20/20

It is named the Nishan-e-Haider in Pakistan and the Bir Shreshto in Bangladesh. What is the Indian equivalent?

Param Vir Chakra

What canine species once existed all along the Atlantic coast of this European country, where they were taught to herd fish into fishermen's nets, to retrieve lost tackle or broken nets, and to act as couriers from ships?

Portuguese water dog. They are popular nowadays because they are hypoallergenic.

Charles Dickens wrote only two historical novels, one of which was Barnaby Rudge. Which was the other?

Tale of Two Cities

Which warrior in Indian mythology is believed to have originated the Chhath Puja festival (popular in Bihar) in honour of the Sun God?

Karna

 Referred to in medieval times as Bilad al Barbar ("Land of the Berbers"), what is the commonly used name to refer to the region of Africa containing the countries of Eritrea, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Somalia?

Horn of Africa

According to the Jahangir Nama, the emperor was impressed by the performance of certain performers from Bengal. Their leader Krishna Chandra Dev was presented an entire village called Sutigram near Dhaka and the Dev family became the landlords of the village. Being landlords they were called ________ , a term that became their family name. Currently, the eighth generation of this family still continues the tradition of entertainment. Fill in the blank.

Sarkar. (PC Sorcar)

In keeping with the times what word did the American Dialect Society choose as the Word of the Year for 2008?

Bailout

What 2009 international event was nicknamed “The Big Flick”?

Earth Hour

 Which IT guru famously does not have a business card. Instead, he hands out what he calls 'pleasure cards'. They list his address - '545, Tech Square, Rm. 425, Cambridge, MA 02139', and his other interests - 'sharing good books, good food and exotic music and dance, tender embraces and unusual sense of humor'. Who are we talking about?

Richard M. Stallman, founder of the Free Software Movement, who still stays in a room on the MIT campus!

 What “in-the-news” word was popularized by Veer Savarkar in an ideological pamphlet written while imprisoned in Ratnagiri jail, smuggled out of the prison, and published in 1923 by his supporters under his alias “Mahratta”?

Hindutva. The pamphlet was titled Hindutva: Who is a Hindu?

 In 2008, who or what replied to a question with this answer, "There's water here; I've tasted it"

Phoenix Mars Lander

Which part of Mumbai featured by NDTV as one of the Seven Wonders of Maharashtra got its name from the nearby St Thomas Cathedral?

Churchgate

Which European football club was founded as a cricket club in 1899 by British expatriates Alfred Edwards and Herbert Kilpin from Nottingham, and in honor of its origins, retained the English spelling of its city's name, instead of changing it to the local spelling?

AC Milan

What term in serial fiction, derived from computer science, means a discarding of much or even all previous continuity and storyline in the series, to start anew, recent examples being Batman Returns, and Casino Royale (2006)?

Reboot

The Indian Order of Precedence is the protocol list of seating Indian government officials according to their rank. Where in this order does the Prime Minister figure?

Third, after President and Vice-President

In 1982, toothpaste salesman Dietrich Mateschitz was surprised that certain Mr Taisho was in the top 10 list of tax payers in Japan and that he owned Krating daeng (“water buffalo”). This product that listed taurine as one of its ingredients was effective for jet lag. Mr M inspired by this idea created his empire based on Krating daeng. He said, “I was most fascinated by Zeus the king of Gods-the way he came to see Europa and got transformed.” By what name is Krating daeng known to us?

Red Bull

Whose 2009 Lok Sabha election symbol is a harmonium?

Mallika Sarabhai

In 1923 the Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded for the practical extraction of ________. The winners felt that the committee had insulted their co-workers – Charles Best and James Collip – by not including them for the prize and so they shared the prize money with them. In a 2007 cross-Canada survey by the CBC, _________ topped the list of the10 Greatest Canadian Inventions. Fill in the blank.

Insulin

What incident led to the creation of the Nuclear Suppliers Group in 1974?

Pokharan nuclear test by India.

In which state of India is the Penal Code named the Ranbir Penal Code?

Jammu and Kashmir; named after Ranbir Singh (grandfather of Maharaja Hari Singh).

The original of this was developed after a worker at Rowntree's factory in York put a suggestion in the suggestion box for a snack that a 'man could have in his lunch box for work'. It was launched in September 1935 in the UK as Rowntree's Chocolate Crisp. It was later renamed in 1937 to a brand that we are all familiar with. What?

Kit Kat

What name was given to the second son of King Rishabha because of the immense strength of his arms?

Bahubali (bahu = arm ; bali = strong)

What word was coined by Dr. Kenneth H. Cooper, a physician at the San Antonio Air Force Hospital in Texas, to denote a system of exercise he developed to help prevent coronary artery disease?

Aerobics. Cooper's book about the exercise system, Aerobics, was published in 1968.

Which is the only field in which women have not yet won a Nobel Prize?

Economics.

The Gahirmatha beach in Orissa is considered the world’s most important site for the nesting of what endangered species?

Olive Ridley turtle

What did Stanley Morison, together with Starling Burgess and Victor Lardent, design for Britain’s The Times newspaper in 1931?

Times New Roman serif typeface.

VISUAL: Identify the person. (Clue today’s quiz)

St. Andrew

Where is this picture taken and which book is being autographed?

Leopold Café / Shantaram

VISUAL: Name this animal which is the largest land-dwelling species of the weasel family.

Wolverine/Glutton

VISUAL: What is depicted on this Google doodle that appeared on September 10, 2008? (Answer in 3 words)

Large Hadron Collider

TRACK 1 MUSIC VIDEO: Name this group whose song "Human" was voted the Best Song of 2008 by the readers of Rolling Stone magazine.

The Killers

TRACK 2 VIDEO: (a) Name this award-winning film. (b) What international charitable organization is featured in this film?

Smile Pinki b. Smile Train

TRACK 3 VIDEO: What extreme sport is this?

Zorbing

TRACK 4 MUSIC VIDEO: Where is this song shot?(song Kabhi Kabhi Aditi from the movie Jaane tu ya Jaane Na?)

St Xavier’s College

Answers to Random Question 05/Apr/2009

Q1. This building was constructed as the new headquarters of the Standard Oil company of Indiana ( which later became AMOCO). The structure of the building is very similar to the WTC and was the tallest marble clad structure when it was built. It was initially sheathed entirely by 43000 slabs of Italian Carrara Marble. But the architecture team had made a mistake as the marble was very light. In later years they had to resurface the entire building with marbles from Mount Airey at a cost of $80 million(almost half the cost of the building itself). Which Building is it?

A : Aon Center in Chicago


Q2. Prior to 1994 , the engine displacement made up the first three digits and the last letter indicated the type of Chassis/Engine. Post 1994 , The three digits still stand for the Engine Displacement while the digits are prefixed with the Class of the vehicle rather than the type of engine. What am I talking about?

A: naming of Mercedes Benz Car Models

Q3. This company’s first product was the Yubiwa Pipe , a finger ring that would hold a cigarette allowing the wearer to smoke the cigarette down to its nub while also leaving the wearer's hands free. The company however entered into a totally different field for which it is now known after the owner visited a business show in Ginza. Which Company?

A: Casio

Q4.It is a village on the shore of a well-protected bay of the Sea of Okhotsk. The settlement was founded by the Russian-American Company in 1843 and the highway through this place was the shortest route from Yakutsk to the Pacific Ocean and was used for shipping furs from the heartland of Yakutia.It was one of the centres of the Yakut Revolt against Lenin's government. Which Place?

A: Ayan

Q5. A branch of the Punjab Police specializing in Counter-Terrorist operations and VIP security duties, as well as acting against serious crime and performing high-risk operations which can't be carried out by the regular police. It was formed in 1998 as a counterterrorism unit, but over time its duties expanded to VIP escort. Created based on an order of the then Punjab Chief Minister , this unit got immense criticism early 2009. What is the branch?

A: The Elite Force

Bij Kwij #12

The original logo carried these words taken from Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan part 1, Chapter 6: “Man is distinguished, not only by this reason, but by this singular passion from other animals which is a lust of the mind, that by a perseverance of delight in the continual and indefatigable generation of knowledge exceeds the short vehemence of any carnal pleasure.” Because of this English text, this logo had a drawback. An International logo contest was conducted to find a new logo that was suitable for all languages. Paul Stansifer developed the winning “Puzzle Sphere” design. The logo was then discussed with a user, Nohat and one of his variants was chosen as the final version. What logo are we talking about?

A: The Wikipedia Logo