Quiz Week 15

A few announcements first...
During my class 10 board exams, I remember spending a considerable amount of time making questions for my daily sports quiz. Since I did somewhat well in those exams, I will probably make a few questions this time around too...but won't spend too much time .

 Aadithya was supposed to prepare this week's set and he began well, but it looks like he's busy. I hope he completes that set.

And most importantly, this blog has done something in 13 or 14 weeks that some dude named Sachin Tendulkar has not been able to achieve in about a year... We've hit a century of questions!
So hurrahs ! 


ANSWERS AT THE END OF THE POST
1) Sometime in the 13th century, when the Indian poet and singer Amir Khursaro was playing the Pakhawaj pretty hard, it broke into two. He picked up the two pieces and continued playing. He went on to explain that it 'spoke even when it was broken'. One of the several theories for the origin of what?



2) This lady did something in 1942 that prompted a new rule to be created. 

These two men did quite the opposite of what she did.

What was the rule?


3)  This Iron Maiden concert is in a cultural center in Bali. This 11 storey entertainment complex was supposed to be surmounted by something which if completed would be the largest of its kind in the world. The project came under criticism because a few groups beleived that it would destroy the harmony in the island. Tell me the name of the complex.

 

What you can see there now

4) What did he introduce during the Crimean war so that his soldiers felt warm ?

 

5) Could not find the video...anyway, these two speeches started something called the yngwen re in China. So, what is yngwen re? 

6) This Australian singer was named after the city she was born in. After every performance in London, she would come to the Ritz hotel (or is it the Savoy Hotel?) for dinner. A french chef invented something new for her and named it after her. What did he create?

7) These are witty statements which convey a lot of meaning with just few words. They probably get their name from this famous example :
Philip of Macedon: "If I enter _________ , I shall raze Sparta to the ground."
Ephor the Spartan: "If."
There are plenty of other examples of these in history. What are these called?



8) These two videos depict a certain new year's eve Buddhist tradition that is popular is Japan. A bell is rung 108 times to chase the 108 temptations in order to achieve Nirvana. But X couldn't resist the temptations and was bound to a stone. So, identify the creature X (anime).

Answers:
1) Tabla
2) longest oscar speech (approx 7 minutes) which prompted a 45 seconds limit.
3) garuda wisnu kencana
4) Cardigan
5) urge to learn English
6) peach melba
7) Laconic
8) Spiritomb

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Quiz Week 14

this is part 2

1) Gaddafi had some hatred against Italians. So he renamed the months July and August. What were the new names of these months?


2) New York was named after King James II , who was the duke of York. After whom is Albany, the capital of the New York State named after?


3) Antoine Galland was the first to translate the Thousand And One Nights. But his version had two stories references of whom were not to be found in any Syrian or Arabian manuscript. Who are these two characters? Also, who illustrated these books?


4) X is a literary or musical work (often musical theatre) characterized by freedom of style and structure and usually containing elements of burlesque, pantomime, music hall and parody. It sometimes also has elements of cabaret, circus, revue, variety, vaudeville and mime. X may more broadly refer to an elaborate, spectacular, and expensive theatrical production.
Identify X.



5) X was a polymath of the 19th century and a cousin of Darwin. As the initiator of scientific meteorology, he devised the first weather map, proposed a theory of anticyclones, and was the first to establish a complete record of short-term climatic phenomena on a European scale.
He was the first to apply statistical methods to the study of human differences and inheritance of intelligence, and introduced the use of questionnaires and surveys for collecting data on human communities, which he needed for genealogical and biographical works and for his anthropometric studies. His book, Hereditary Genius (1869), was the first social scientific attempt to study genius and greatness. As an investigator of the human mind, he founded psychometrics (the science of measuring mental faculties) and differential psychology and the lexical hypothesis of personality.  He invented a whistle for testing hearing ability.
He also devised the methods which are used a lot in India it seems.
Who is X and what did he devise?



6) Called the four gentlemen or the four noble ones, Chinese art symbolises these four plants as the seasons.
If two of these plants are the orchid (spring) and the plum blossom (winter), which plants signify summer and autumn?
                          

     



7) Mahatna Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, Nizam of Hyderabad, Praveen Babi, Rajiv Gandhi,  _______



8)  When Rai Sodhi was born in 1666 in Bihar, his father was travelling across Bengal and Assam. Returning to Patna in 1670, the father asked his family to return to the Punjab. How is Rai Sodhi more well known as?


9) Whose memorial?

10) Who designed this perfume bottle? What was the inspiration for it?



11) The term first appeared in a short story by David Gerrold in Galaxy magazine in 1969 and later in his 1972 novel, When HARLIE Was One. Michael Crichton's The Terminal Man also had a sideline story of this concept. What are we talking about?






12) Written by _______X_______  of _________Y________ in circa 5th century BC this book is considered is considered to have laid the foundations of a certain subject or study. 

The book was divided into 9 sub books with these specifications.

• Cyrus, 557-530 BC: Book 1;
• Cambyses, 530-522 BC: Book 2 and part of Book 3;
• Darius, 521-486 BC: the rest of Book 3 then Books 4,5,6;
• Xerxes, 486-479 BC: Books 7, 8, 9.

Who is this X of Y and what subject did he found?

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Quiz Week 13

Answers May Be Given Next Week... Meanwhile Drop Down Your Answers... PS: DON'T POST YOUR ANSWERS AS ANON

This week's questions are mostly from the prelims of the rather boring kurukshetra open quiz. Though the questions were superb and of a high standard, a boring auditorium and a visibly tired quizmaster made even guys at the first row fall asleep. Also, the quiz started at about the time it was scheduled to end...
So here's whatever we could remember from that evening.

1) You must have probably heard of the BRIC economies. Economists like Robert Ward are of the opinion that the next set of emerging economies are South Africa, Turkey, Vietnam, Indonesia, Colombia and Egypt. The economies that are part of this group are considered to be very promising because they have reasonably sophisticated financial systems, controlled inflation, and a soaring young population. By what term are these economies collectively referred to as?

2) Who got his Nobel prize for this contribution?

all right, I confess...I am feeling very lazy

3) This part of the brain is named after the creature. What is its name?

on the left is the part of the brain

4) This is a board game called 'You're hired' . A certain trademarking attempt was denied in 2004 because of it. What was trademark attempt for? (I think the question was something along these lines)

5) 1 star  = "worth a stop",
    2 stars = "take a detour,"
    3 stars = "justifies specific dedicated journey". 
What are all these?


6) Disinterested to blacken out. This phenomenon that this cartoon parodies is probably the best explanation to whose charisma?
(I don't think this is how the question was...it was framed in such a way that it was pretty hard ; only guy in the entire hall knew the answer).

7) In the summer of 1981, Mark Ellingham, just graduated from Bristol University, was travelling around Greece and couldn’t find a guidebook that remotely met his needs. It was here that he met Martin Dunford, who was in Greece teaching English at the time. On their return to the UK, in a bid to avoid getting ‘real jobs’, Mark, Martin and a small group of writers set about creating their own guidebook series; a series that aimed to combine a journalistic approach to description with a practical approach to travellers’ needs.
What began thus?


8) Why did this sandwich shop and cafe suddenly witness a huge surge in popularity in 2010?

9) These were powerful bombs that were used in Vietnam and Afghanistan.The nickname given to the nose or the entire bomb itself is also a cricket term. What?

10) X, who died in 1976 is said to have made more profit out of murder than any other woman since Y.  Identify X and Y.


Part 2 should be up shortly.

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Quiz week 12

Many of these week's questions are based on contributions.

1) When X was busy attending to his parents, a visitor knocked at his door. X told the visitor that he was busy attending to his parents. He threw a brick and asked the visitor to stand on the brick and wait for him. And that's how the visitor got his name.
Identify the visitor and X.

Answer: The visitor was Panduranga Vittala. Pundalika (X) told him to 'Vittal'  (wait here in Marathi)

2) Connect

Answer: Sunrise : the Elvis album, MK Kalaignar Karunanidhi and Hitachi which literally means sunrise. 

3) The making of this Tamil movie involved transporting huge chariots from Chennai to Kurukshetra in Haryana. The war scenes had real soldiers from the Indian army charging on horseback and on the back of elephants. Name this movie which starred two of South India's greatest heroes.
Answer: Karnan(1963)

4) Connect

No one in specific in the third picture.


Answer: Barbie's friends who were introduced to keep with the times - a Hispanic, Baywatch and an African American.

5) Connect.

Answer = These are what Steve Jobs and Wozniak mortgaged to start Apple - a Volksvagen van and a programmable calculator respectively.

6) Which historic battle was fought on this narrow coastal pass, whose name literally means 'the hot gates' ?

 

where the road is was where the coastline was

Answer = Thermopylae, where the Battle of Thermopylae was fought. This battle, as you know was the inspiration for movies like 300 and the 300 spartans.

7) Connect. Or rather, who is missing?

 

Answer: A R Rahman. A relatie of these legends appeared in the ads for Union Bank of India which had the slogan 'Your dreams are not yours alone'.







8) This Biblical incident is the origin of which phrase?

Answer = Passing the mantle.
ANSWERS POSTED.

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