mega-whats 2012

Mega-Whats 2012 The 4th National Open Quizzing Championships

Conducted by

The Karnataka Quiz Association Est. 1983

Set by

Arun Hiregange and Kiran Vijayakumar

Be Careful!

These Are the Answer Slides

In association with Quiz Foundation of India, Chennai

Bombay Quiz Club, Mumbai

Boat Club Quiz Club, Pune

Kutub Quizzers, New Delhi

Sunday Evening Quiz Club, Goa

Hyderabad Quiz Club and K-Circle, Hyderabad

Grey Cells, Kerala

Coimbatore Quiz Circle

And the quizzing communities in Bhubaneshwar,

Chandigarh, Thiruvananthapuram, Thrissur,

Kolkata and Guwahati

1. No negatives.

2. No part points.

3. Last names will suffice.

4. Write legibly.

5. Use of electronic devices prohibited.

The Rules

Three sections leading to 100 points:

Section 1 40 x 1 = 40

Section 2 25 x (1 + 1) = 50

Section 3 5 x (1 + 1) = 10

indicates that the question continues

on the next slide.

The Design

Section 1

40 questions – 1 point for each

Variants of this contraption have

been used for centuries. One version,

built in 1818 by English civil engineer

Sir William Cubitt, was used in prisons

to crush grains. This form of hard

labour was discontinued in the late

19th century, but the name survived

thanks to a health fad in the 1960s.

What 9-letter term are we talking

about?

1

Treadmill. 1

This practice was started to counter

the anti-India propaganda following the

War of 1965. It gained prominence in 1973

when the Indian government discouraged

sea travel and began providing the

difference between sea and air fares. It cost

the government in excess of 900 crores

(covering about 125,000 people) last year.

The Supreme Court has ordered the practice

to be stopped saying that the original

purpose has changed with the passage of

time. What are we talking about?

2

Hajj subsidy. 2

What is special about this test

match – the only time in test match

history this has happened?

3

All the players, except for the

wicket-keepers, on each team bowled!

3

In a rare, retrospective critique in the 11

August 2011 edition of Nature, written by Emma

Marris upon the 40th anniversary of the

publication of this work, it was described as "a

kind of Silent Spring for the playground set". The

article described its central character to be "a

parody of a misanthropic ecologist: 'He was

shortish. And oldish. And brownish. And mossy.

And he spoke with a voice that was sharpish and

bossy.'" The work was adapted into a movie this

year and grossed nearly $350 million. Identify the

work.

4

The Lorax by Dr. Suess. 4

These radio-controlled, electric

mini-Mini Coopers were used at the

London 2012 Olympics to save valuable

time during competition. Roughly a

quarter scale of the full-sized car with

sunroof, these battery-powered cars

can carry up to about 18 pounds each.

They were used as replacements for

what task done by humans earlier in

track and field events?

5

To carry javelin/discus/shot/

hammer back to the athletes.

5

The first public apology came in

2012 during the unveiling of this

bronze statue in the west German city

of Stolberg. Harald Stock said, "We ask

for forgiveness that for nearly 50 years

we didn't find a way of reaching out to

you from human being to human

being. We ask that you regard our long

silence as a sign of the shock that your

fate caused in us." What are we talking

about?

6

The Thalidomide tragedy. 6

According to legend, this phrase stems from

a meeting in 1680 between the powerful French

finance minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert and a

group of businessmen led by a certain M. Le

Gendre. When the eager mercantilist minister

asked how the state could be of service to the

merchants and help promote their commerce, Le

Gendre replied simply to the effect of "Leave us

be". The incident was related in a 1751 article in

the Journal Oeconomique by the French minister

and champion of free trade, René de Voyer,

Marquis d'Argenson — which happens to be the

phrase's first known appearance in print. Identify.

7

Laissez-faire. 7

The first known attestation of this

phrase/usage is in a letter from the

Admiral of the Fleet Lord John Fisher to

Winston Churchill. It makes frequent

appearances in social media and other

modern day communication. Also the

title of a critically and commercially

successful 2012 Bollywood movie. What

is blanked out here?

8

OMG (Oh My God!). 8

Considered a key Hellenic social institution, these

drinking parties were held by men of good family to

debate, plot, boast, or simply to revel with others. They

were frequently held to celebrate the introduction of

young men into aristocratic society. Usually held in the

andrōn, the men's quarters of the household, poetry and

music were central to these events. They frequently

featured a game called kottabos, in which players swirled

the dregs of their wine in a kylix, a platter-like stemmed

drinking vessel, and flung them at a target. Rhetorical

contests were sometimes a part of them and thus the

word for these events passed on to the English language.

Identify.

9

Symposia/Symposium (meaning

"drink together").

9

There are in excess of 1500 of these

according to the gazetteer which maintains this

list. Most of these result from high velocity

impacts, natural or manmade. They are generally

named after deceased scientists, scholars, artists

and explorers who have made outstanding or

fundamental contributions to their field. Indians

who have been accorded the honour include

Homi J. Bhabha, J.C. Bose, Amil Kumar Das, Sisir

Kumar Mitra, C.V. Raman, Meghnad Saha and

Vikram Sarabhai. What are we talking about?

10

Lunar craters or Impact craters on

Moon.

10

It started off with the American Civil

Liberties Union (ACLU) announcing that it would

finance a test case challenging the

constitutionality of the Butler Act. A bunch of

businessmen in Dayton, Tennessee, led by

engineer and geologist George Rappleyea, saw

this as an opportunity to get publicity for their

town and approached the Rhea County High

School's football coach who occasionally filled in

as substitute teacher when regular members of

staff were off work. George William Hunter's 1914

work A Civic Biology: Presented in Problems was

used. What 1925 event are we talking about?

11

Scopes Trial or Scopes Monkey Trial

where John T. Scopes was accused of

teaching evolution.

11

Which landmark work begins thus: "Dr.

P. was a musician of distinction, well-known

for many years as a singer, and then, at the

local School of Music, as a teacher. It was

here, in relation to his students, that certain

strange problems were first observed.

Sometimes a student would present himself,

and Dr. P. would not recognise him; or,

specifically, would not recognise his face.

The moment the student spoke, he would

be recognised by his voice."?

12

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a

Hat by Oliver Sacks.

12

A bit of 19th century sentimentalism is

attached to the decision of "the first Tuesday after

the first Monday in November" which seems to

make no sense now. Monday was out because

people would have to travel in their buggies on

Sunday, the Sabbath (this is where the buggies

come in). In a mostly farming society, Wednesday

wouldn't work because that was often market day.

So, Tuesday was the day, and that seemed to

work great—there was a lot of hoopla, there were

parades. Whole families would come on wagons

from the farms, people would get dressed up for

the occasion. What are we talking about?

13

The voting day for the US federal

elections.

13

If 2 Roman Gods, 2 Roman

Goddesses, the Estrucan god of death,

the numbers 7 to 10 and 'other' make

up the original list, which 2 later

additions (also related to each other)

would complete it?

14

Julius Caesar and Augustus who

lend their names to months (July and

August). The remaining are Janus

(January), Februus (February), Mars

(March), Other (April), Maia Maiestas

(May), Juno (June), 7 – septem

(September), 8 – octo (October), 9 –

novem (November), 10 – decem

(December). Give points for July and

August also.

14

This tree is cultivated in Spain,

Portugal, Algeria, Morocco, France, Italy

and Tunisia and can be harvested every

9 to 12 years. Harvesting starts once a

tree reaches about 25 years of age and

a tree can be harvested about twelve

times in its lifetime. Identify.

15

Cork oaks. 15

The design of this complex was

inspired by "War of the Sons of Light

Against the Sons of Darkness". Its

construction was funded by the family

of David Samuel Gottesman to house

his most famous gift to a country. What

gift are we talking about?

16

Dead Sea Scrolls. 16

Given that the name of a famous

geographical entity's name translates to

"sulphur island" in Japanese, what is the

Japanese word for "sulphur"?

17

Iwo (as in Iwo Jima). 17

It is the term for a salmon fillet which

has been cured. In fact, it comes from the

German/Yiddish words for "salmon".

Typically served as shown below. Name it.

18

Lox. 18

If one kind are composed of these

(three pictures below), then what are

the other kind composed of?

19

Sugar and Spice and all things Nice.

"What are little boys made of?

What are little boys made of?

Slugs and snails

And puppy-dogs' tails,

That's what little boys are made of.

What are little girls made of?

What are little girls made of?

Sugar and spice

And everything nice,

That's what little girls are made of."

19

General Sheridan, who later

became the general-in-chief of the US

Army, camped at a particular location in

1882 along with his troops. They

experimented with a novel way of

getting their laundry done. They found

that linen and cotton garments were

cleaned without any harm. However

woolen fabrics got shredded. What

specific location?

20

Old Faithful geyser in Yellowstone

National Park.

20

Take a look at the next slide and

tell us the area whose name is blanked

out. You could say that it has a closer

relation to its namesake in New York

than to the one in London.

21

SoHo (in Hong Kong). 21

If you take a look at Cricinfo's list of

the 20 players with the highest run

aggregates in Test matches, you will

find an extra annotation for a few

players: Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid,

Graeme Smith, Jacques Kallis, Brian

Lara, Inzamam-ul-Haq. Simple: what 3-

letter annotation?

22

ICC. 22

He served in the army in 1965 to fulfill the

one year compulsory military service required at

that time for all 18-year-old males in his country.

He went AWOL during basic training so that he

could take part in an all-Europe competition at

the junior level. This earned him a week in military

prison, but it helped that he had won the title. In

a couple of years he became the world's youngest

ever title winner at the senior level. Now, many

years later, he has a star on the Hollywood Walk

of Fame. Name him.

23

Arnold Schwarzenegger. 23

How Democratic is the American

Constitution is a book by political scientist

Robert A. Dahl. In it he lists 23 countries as

being steadily democratic since at least

1950. A large number of European

countries plus USA, Canada, Australia and

New Zealand make the list. No country in

Africa or South America is represented. The

only Latin American country in the list is

Costa Rica. Only three countries from Asia:

India, Japan and one more, which you have

to name.

24

Israel. 24

The term refers to a type of

organism whose cells don't have a

nucleus or any other organelles with a

membrane. So all of the matter in the

cell is just enclosed by the cell

membrane. Most current theories hold

that the first living organisms were this

type of organism. What is the term?

25

Prokaryote (meaning "before

kernel" i.e. before nucleus).

25

This family of birds breeds in

south-eastern Siberia and Northern

China, wintering in Southern Africa.

About 120,000 to 140,000 of them are

killed in Nagaland during an annual

two-week hunt every fall, during their

passage between breeding and

wintering grounds. Identify this species

which shares a part of its name with a

river bordering Russia and China.

26

Amur Falcon. 26

In 1978, this brand was launched

with 16 generic items in black and

yellow packaging. This packaging had

only text with a basic product

description and name, such as "freshly

ground coffee" or "fabric softener," on a

solid background. By the mid '80s, it

had become the largest selling brand in

Canada. Now there are more than 2900

different products under this brand

name. Name it.

27

No Name. 27

Its scientific name, Procyon lotor,

means "before-dog washer" or "dog-

like washer". Carl Linnaeus had placed it

in the genus Ursus, calling it Ursus lotor

("washer bear"). Its English name has

similar origins and comes from a native

Indian word, incidentally also recorded

by Captain John Smith of Pocahontas

fame, meaning "one who rubs, scrubs

and scratches with its hands". Which

animal?

28

Raccoon. 28

The whole shoreline of Namibia

used to be known by this name, which

comes from the remains of whales and

seals on its beaches. The large number

of rusted hulls of wrecked ships only

adds to the name. The Bushmen called

this area "The Land God Made in

Anger" and the Portuguese knew it as

"The Gates of Hell". But what has been

blanked out in the tourism ad here?

29

Skeleton Coast. 29

These Oxidation Paintings were

created by Andy Warhol spreading

metallic copper paint on canvases and

then oxidizing the metal. What did he

use to cause the oxidation?

30

Urine: he peed on them. 30

This logo consists of twenty dots or

circles. Eight of them form a line at 45o

to the horizontal. From the third dot

from the top, four dots each form two

lines at 45o to the first line. So as you

can guess, these sets of four form a

right angle. Similarly, starting from the

bottom dot, but with two dots each. All

this forms a simple representation of

the contraption which the company

uses. Name the company.

31

IndiGo. 31

This is a set of numbers which goes

from 100 to 1599 in nine categories.

Numbers 100-199 are allotted to

colours, 700-799 to antibiotics and so

on. What categorization is this? You

can give either the specific name or the

purpose.

32

E Numbers or Food Additives.

Numbers 200-299 are for

preservatives and 600-699 for flavour

enhancers.

32

The documented story of the birth of a physics unit. All

blanks are the same – fill up.

"Some time in December of 1942, the authors, being hungry and

deprived temporarily of domestic cooking, were eating dinner in

the cafeteria of the Union Building of Purdue University… In the

course of the conversation it was lamented that there was no

name for the unit of cross sections of 10-24 cm2… The tradition of

naming a unit after some great man closely associated with the

field ran into difficulties… The "Oppenheimer" was discarded

because of its length… The "Bethe" was thought to lend itself to

confusion because of the widespread use of the Greek letter... The

"John" was considered, but was discarded because of the use of

the term for purposes other than as the name of a person. The

rural background of one of the authors then led to the bridging of

the gap between the "John" and the "_____." This immediately

seemed good, and further it was pointed out that a cross section

of 10-24 cm2 for nuclear processes was really as big as a _____. Such

was the birth of the _____."

33

Barn.

The story that it was chosen because

someone said "you couldn't hit the

broad side of a barn" is apocryphal

but made the unit popular, given the

difficulty of hitting a nucleus with a

neutron.

33

The Schiehallion experiment was a famous

experiment to determine the mean density of the

Earth. Funded by the Royal Society, it involved

measuring the tiny deflection of a pendulum due

to the gravitational attraction of a nearby

mountain. It was conducted in 1774 around the

Scottish mountain of Schiehallion, which was

suggested by one of a pair of people as the ideal

location after a search for candidate mountains,

thanks to its isolation and almost symmetrical

shape. Identify the pair who had noticed some

anomalies, that were one trigger for this

experiment, during their famous survey about 10

years earlier.

34

Charles Mason and Jeremiah

Dixon of the Mason-Dixon Line fame.

34

Ram Dass Katari was the first Indian to

hold the office of the Chief of the Naval Staff.

He also led the Indian Navy in the conflict

during the liberation of Goa against the

Portuguese Navy. At the behest of the then

The Hindu editor Gopalan Kasturi, he started

on a quest on 15 February, 1971 which he

single-handedly continued almost till the end

of the decade without any public recognition.

Some of the by-products of his creativity are

on display at the Katari Memorial Hall in

Sainikpuri near Secunderabad. What is his

lesser known claim to fame?

35

The first Indian cryptic crossword

setter (for an English newspaper).

Newspapers used to run only re-prints

of British crosswords till then.

35

His first book was The Philosophy of

Rabindranath Tagore (1918) and he believed

Tagore's philosophy to be the "genuine

manifestation of the Indian spirit". In 1929, he

delivered the prestigious Hibbert Lecture,

subsequently published in book form as An

Idealist View of Life. Tagore himself would deliver

it the next year. He was nominated for the Nobel

Prize in Literature by Hjalmar Hammarskjöld

(Dag's father) continuously from 1933 to 1937. He

is perhaps best known among the current

generation for suggesting a humble way to

celebrate his birthday in 1962. Who?

36

Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. His

birthday is celebrated as Teacher's

day.

36

This work, which the author probably

hesitated to publish until he was in his deathbed,

contains the warning "Let no one untrained in

geometry enter here" (inspired by the inscription

above Plato's Academy entrance) on the title

page. Historians long believed that, at its first

publication, it had not been widely read. Owen

Gingerich spent 35 years examining every

surviving copy of the first two editions to

disprove this. Due largely to Gingerich's

scholarship, it is believed to be researched and

catalogued better than any other first-edition

historic text except for the original Gutenberg

Bible. Identify the author.

37

Nicolaus Copernicus. The work was

De revolutionibus orbium coelestium

(On the Revolutions of the Celestial

Spheres).

37

His first names were Sidney Luxton,

and he wrote a number of texts

including some on statics and

dynamics. His name is quite well-

known in certain circles in India, and

one Indian in particular found his life

changed forever in the late 1890s

because of this scholar. Just give us the

author's surname.

38

Loney. The Indian was of course

Srinivasa Ramanujan, who came

across a trigonometry textbook by S.L.

Loney.

38

Some time back The Guardian ran a competition

to find a replacement name for what they termed

"the most wince-inducing nickname" in physics. One

person suggested "Your Mother", as in "Your Mother

is so fat, she has a mass greater than 114.4 GeV at

95% confidence level." Another went all Prince on

them with "The particle formerly known as the God

particle". Rockon, Mastodon, Esperon, Non-existon

were some of the less exciting entries. The winner

was chosen because "the bottom of a _______ is in the

shape of the Higgs potential, and is often used as an

illustration in physics lectures. So it's not an

embarrassingly grandiose name, it is memorable and

it has a physics connection."

39

39 One can only imagine that this "physics

connection" is in the celebration following the

discovery of a new particle. Fill up. (Pictures of the

Higgs potential below.)

Champagne Bottle (Boson). 39

Italian Fosco Mariani argues that

while it owes its name to chance and

probably because it is not visible from

the nearest villages to the north and

the south, it is appropriate: "... just the

bare bones of a name, all rock and ice

and storm and abyss. It makes no

attempt to sound human. It is atoms

and stars. It has the nakedness of the

world before the first man – or of the

cindered planet after the last." What?

40

Mt. K2. 40

Section 2

25 questions with 2 parts – 1 point for each

part

Shown here is a scene from 17 July

1717 as painted by Edouard Jean

Conrad Hamman.

(a) Identify the occasion.

(b) Identify the gentleman (in the

centre) holding the hat in his arms. The

other gentleman is King George I in

case it helps.

1

(a) Premiere of the Water Music.

(b) George Frideric Handel.

1

Its classical name (also the name of the

species) was coined by Greek botanist

Theophrastus, and means "divine flower". Some

scholars believe that the common name comes

from the Greek for "flower garlands" as it was one

of the flowers used in ceremonial crowns. Others

think the name stems from the Latin for "flesh",

which refers to the original colour of the flower or

the 'divine embodiment' of flesh. In a split form, it

could even be a tongue-in-cheek sobriquet

applied to the USA for its over-dependence on

privately-owned automobiles. (a) Identify the

common name of the flower and (b) the species.

2

(a) Carnation.

(b) Dianthus.

2

Indologist Professor Philip Lutgendorf draws parallels

between these 2 movies: "Both concern orphans of uncertain

background who come to Mumbai and initially take demeaning

jobs, from which they gradually advance into more lucrative but

illegal pursuits. Each falls in love with an innocent middle-class

young woman named 'Vidya' (knowledge), who is struggling to

make ends meet as the sole support of her family. Each Vidya

has a wheelchair-bound father to whom she is devoted, and

each awakens in the hero the hope for a better life. Each man,

at one point, takes his Vidya out to see Diwali illuminations and

for a meal in a streetside restaurant. Each becomes involved

with a corrupt politician who spouts Hindu nationalist rhetoric,

and rises to a position of great power and influence, before

ultimately falling. Each then has a final opportunity to flee the

country before the police close in on him. Each one returns, in

one way or another, to Vidya in the end." Identify both movies,

each a classic in its own way.

3

(a) Shree 420 (1955).

(b) Satya (1998).

Answers can be in any order.

3

This anthropometric scale of proportions was

developed as a visual bridge between two

incompatible scales, the Imperial system and the

Metric system. Based on human measurements (the

height of an English man with his arm raised

because "in English detective novels, the good-

looking men, such as policemen, are always six feet

tall!"), the double unit, the Fibonacci numbers, and

the golden ratio, its creator described it as a "range

of harmonious measurements to suit the human

scale, universally applicable to architecture and to

mechanical things". Codified in 2 volumes published

in 1948 and 1955, it can be seen here on 2 currency

specimens. (a) Identify the scale and (b) its creator.

4

(a) Modulor.

(b) Le Corbusier.

4

One of the earliest appearances of this

phrase was in a 1926 book regarding the Middle

East by Basil Mathews, Young Islam on Trek: A

Study in ____. The theory associated with the

phrase was originally formulated in a 1992 lecture

at the American Enterprise Institute, which was

then developed in a 1993 Foreign Affairs article of

the same name in response to Francis Fukuyama's

1992 book, The End of History and the Last Man.

The proponent expanded his thesis in a landmark

1996 book. (a) Identify him and (b) the work. The

following visual may help you in identifying both.

5

(a) Samuel P. Huntington.

(b) The Clash of Civilizations.

5

(a) Who wrote this sonnet with this

accompanying illustration? (b) What is he

complaining about?

"I've grown a goitre by dwelling in this den–

As cats from stagnant streams in Lombardy,

Or in what other land they hap to be–

Which drives the belly close beneath the chin:

My beard turns up to heaven; my nape falls in,

Fixed on my spine: my breast-bone visibly

Grows like a harp: a rich embroidery

Bedews my face from brush-drops thick and thin.

6

My loins into my paunch like levers grind:

My buttock like a crupper bears my weight;

My feet unguided wander to and fro;

In front my skin grows loose and long; behind,

By bending it becomes more taut and strait;

Crosswise I strain me like a Syrian bow:

Whence false and quaint, I know,

Must be the fruit of squinting brain and eye;

For ill can aim the gun that bends awry.

Come then, Giovanni, try

To succour my dead pictures and my fame;

Since foul I fare and painting is my shame. "

6

(a) Michelangelo.

(b) About painting the Sistine Chapel

ceiling.

6

An 1806 invention by Ralph

Wedgewood lead to it being used in many

professional transactions till the last few

decades of the 20th century. Its

manufacture was formerly the largest

consumer of montan wax or lignite wax. Its

usage has almost come to an end these

days, but the name of the associated

practice has survived and is an integral part

of a form of modern-day communications.

(a) Identify the invention. (b) How does it

survive now?

7

(a) Carbon paper.

(b) Cc or Bcc in e-mails.

7

We know this class of creatures by

a shortened form of a Latin word

which means "cut into" because their

body is divided into parts. We may not

know it, but we all know the Greek

word for these creatures quite well, in

the answer to a quiz question. Either

the Latin and Greek words please, or

the two English words.

8

(a) Insectum OR Insect.

(b) Entomon OR Entomology.

8

Metal works company (a) was started in 1942 as a

joint venture between the Nizam's Hyderabad

government and Alladin & Company while company (b)

was the first Indian company to have manufactured a

safe, in 1902. Parliamentary records note that "During

the general elections held in 1962, it was noticed that the

__(a)__ type of ballot boxes had a mechanical defect

which permitted the box being opened without breaking

the paper seal by banging it in a special way. Since the

defect could not be removed by the manufacturers, all

boxes of this type which were in use in the States of

Andhra Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Madras were

discarded and replaced by the __(b)__ type of ballot

boxes procured from other States having surplus stock."

Name both companies.

9

(a) Hyderabad Allwyn.

(b) Godrej.

9

Irish-American writer Leonard

Wibberley wrote a novel satirizing the Cold

War about an imaginary country in Europe

which takes action when the United States

stops buying its Pinot Grand Fenwick and

starts producing a counterfeit of its own. It

was later made into a movie with Peter

Sellers playing three roles. (a) Name the

novel. (b) Also provide the title of its British

edition that used the author's original

intended title, a play on the title of a John

Steinbeck novel.

10

(a) The Mouse That Roared.

(b) The Wrath of Grapes.

10

The 'A' in the football club's name is the

same as the pattern on the right. (a) What is

it? Note the object in the club's logo and (b)

work out the club's nickname.

11

(a) Argyle.

(b) "Pilgrims".

The club is Plymouth Argyle and the

object in the logo is the Mayflower

which set off from Plymouth with the

pilgrims bound for America.

11

This is an exhaustive list of people who have

held a certain post in a movement – fill up. 1. __(a)__, from 1920 till his death in 1941

2. Arthur Somers-Cocks, 6th Baron Somers, from

1942

3. Thomas Corbett, 2nd Baron Rowallan, from 1945

4. Sir Charles Maclean, later Lord Maclean, from

1959

5. Sir William Gladstone, from 1972

6. Major-General Michael J. H. Walsh, from 1982

7. Sir Garth Morrison, from 1988

8. George Purdy, from 1996

9. Peter Duncan, from 2004

10.__(b)__, from 2009

12

The post was specifically created for (a)

(who started the movement), while (b) is the

youngest ever to hold it. The extremely apt

nickname everyone knows (b) by was given to

him by his sister when he was just a week old.

Get (a) and (b).

12

(a) Lord Baden-Powell.

(b) Bear Grylls.

This is the list of Chief Scouts of the

scout movement.

12

There are fourteen of them, each

being a portrayal of someone. Most

have names like C.A.E., H.D.S.-P., R.B.T.,

W.M.B. and so on, usually but not

always representing the initials of the

person portrayed. You have to name (a)

the ninth one and (b) who the

fourteenth one (E.D.U.) is named for.

13

(a) Nimrod.

(b) Edward Elgar himself.

These are the Enigma Variations.

13

To most of the world, Keirin was largely

an unknown type of sport but was very

popular in Japan for gambling. It became

well-known when it was introduced in the

2000 Olympics. In Japan, all the contraptions

used in Keirin are required to have been

made in Japan to promote the local industry.

Keirin involves the use of a "derny", now used

as a generic name, though originally a

product made by Roger Derny et fils of Paris.

(a) Name the sport. (b) What is a derny, that

makes Keirin rather unique within this sport?

14

(a) Cycling.

(b) A pace bike.

14

Michael Chabon's The Yiddish

Policeman's Union and Philip Roth's The

Plot Against America are two of the

novels that have won an award that has

been given since 1995. The award gets

its evocative name from a 1934 short

story by Murray Leinster. (a) Name the

award. (b) What kind of fiction is it

given for?

15

(a) Sidewise award.

(b) Alternate History fiction.

15

A type of two-colour (usually

black and white) pattern using pointed

shapes instead of squares, said to be

named for what the basic shape

resembles. People of a particular

occupation quite often have trousers

and cuffs of this design, because it

apparently hides stains well. (a)

Identify the pattern and (b) the

occupation.

16

(a) Houndstooth OR dogstooth

pattern.

(b) Cooks OR chefs.

16

Excerpt from a 1967 letter: "March 22, 1967 Dear WW:

Goodie Ace told some unemployed friend of

mine that you were disappointed or annoyed or

happy or drunk that I hadn't answered the letter

you wrote me some years ago. You know, of

course, there is no money in answering letters --

unless they're letters of credit from Switzerland or

the Mafia. I write you reluctantly, for I know you

are doing six things simultaneously -- five

including sex. I don't know where you get the

time to correspond.

17

Your play, I trust, will still be running when I

arrive in New York the first or second week in

April. This must be terribly annoying to the critics

who, if I remember correctly, said it wouldn't go

because it was too funny. Since it's still running,

they must be even more annoyed. ... The moral is:

don't write a comedy that makes an audience

laugh."

When the person who wrote this died 10

years later, the recipient admonished TIME

magazine for their all too short obit. Identify

both.

17

(a) Groucho Marx.

(b) Woody Allen.


17

This is the cross-section of a 2000

year old building. As shown here, it is

designed so that a sphere can fit

exactly under its large dome. (a)

Identify the building. (b) Also name

the Roman emperor, whom we know

for other constructions, who re-built it

in its current form.

18

(a) Pantheon.

(b) Emperor Hadrian.

18

This is a Punch cartoon from 1894

depicting the little guy as a giant-killer.

(a) What two entities do the two people

in the cartoon represent? (b) What had

they gone to battle over?

19

(a) Japan and China.

(b) Possession of Korea. (Japan

wrested Korea from China in this war.)

19

In 1855 a scholar asked someone whom he

used to know from childhood as chacha, to

write a taqriz (a laudatory foreword) for his

revision of Ain-e-Akbari. The venerable chacha

instead wrote a Persian poem in which he took

the writer to task for worshipping a dead

empire and their obsolete institutions. It was

perhaps this jolt coming from an intellectually

honest giant that forced the writer to undergo

a metamorphosis from a conservative to a

rationalist reformer. Identify (a) the scholar and

(b) the chacha.

20

(a) Sir Syed Ahmed Khan.

(b) Mirza Ghalib.

20

2nd October is celebrated as Gandhi

Jayanti in India. Many other interesting

people share the same birthday, like

Groucho Marx, Yokozuna and Graham

Greene. It doesn't seem to be well

known that another famous Indian

statesman was born on 2nd October, but

in the year 1904. (a) Who? (b) This

person also holds a distinction as far as

the Bharat Ratna is concerned. What

distinction?

21

(a) Lal Bahadur Shastri

(b) First person to be awarded the

Bharat Ratna posthumously.

21

In ancient times the Greeks fed the

one on the left (a) to their horses before a

race, believing it would help them to run

faster. They also ate it to reduce the effects

of eating a part of a plant whose flower is

shown here on the right (b). In fact even

now in the West, dishes and spreads which

include (b) tend to include the leaf (a) for

the same reason the ancient Greeks did,

though the effect is only temporary. Just

name both plants.

22

22 Want a clue? Both have been used in

different ways as deterrents, one in fiction

and one in comics.

(a) Parsley.

(b) Garlic.

Parsley was used by Cacofonix's

Roman captors to avoid hearing his

singing. Garlic was used by van

Helsing to protect Lucy from the

vampire Count by placing it in her

room and around her neck.

22

A bacteriologist was studying staining, a

procedure that is used in many microscopic

studies to make fine biological structures visible

using chemical dyes. When he injected some of

these dyes (notably the aniline dyes that were

then widely-used), the dye would stain all of the

organs of some kinds of animals except for one

organ. At that time, he attributed this lack of

staining to that organ's simply not picking up as

much of the dye. (a) This was actually the first

evidence of what alliterative phenomenon? (b)

Who was the bacteriologist?

23

(a) Blood Brain Barrier.

(b) Paul Ehrlich.

23

Nowadays it is a tourist resort and

part of the Arcipelago Toscano National

Park. Its flag, featuring 3 or 4 golden

bees on a diagonal stripe, dates from

the early 1800s when it was adopted by

the person who was granted

sovereignty over this place. The flag

and a map of sorts are on the following

slide. (a) Name the place. (b) Who was

its sovereign who adopted this flag?

24

(a) Elba.

(b) Napoleon.

24

Complete this list with two place

names from India: Childhood, ____,

Forest, ____, Beauty, War. Some people

might want to call this list exhaustive,

but some might prefer adding 'Last' to

the end of the list to make it

exhaustive.

25

(a) Ayodhya.

(b) Kishkindha.

These are the kandas (books) in Ramayana

– Bala kanda, Ayodhya kanda, Aranya

kanda, Kishkindha kanda, Sundara kanda

and Yudha kanda. Some versions have

Uttara kanda as well.


25

Section 3

5 pairs of questions – each pair of answers

are anagrams – 1 point per answer

(a) Jared Diamond argues in Guns,

Germs and Steel that this African animal,

seemingly an obvious choice for

domestication, has remained wild because

of its bad temper. He said they "have the

unpleasant habit of biting a person and not

letting go". Which animal?

(b) To ______ is to use heat to join metallic

objects by applying nonferrous solders to

keep the parts together. The picture shows

a bad example of it. Fill up.

1

(a) Zebra.

(b) Braze.

1

(a) The spot price of this Rajasthani crop crashed 40% over six weeks in September-October 2012, on concern of high output and a drastic decline in import orders from USA, the Gulf and Europe, the three biggest destinations. The crop is exported either as a gum or as seeds. What? (b) A sauce of meat, poultry, or a combination of the two and finely diced vegetables seasoned and simmered for a long time in liquids, such as water, milk, cream, wine, broth or stock. Name it.

2

(a) Guar.

(b) Ragu.

2

(a) The ____ languages are related

languages derived from Vulgar Latin

and forming a subgroup of the Italic

languages within the Indo-European

language family. The five most widely

spoken of these are Spanish,

Portuguese, French, Italian and

Romanian. Fill up.

(b) In which European city can you find

this statue of a master craftsman?

3

(a) Romance.

(b) Cremona. (The statue is

Stradivarius'.)

3

(a) In ancient times, an obolus or

danake was used as a fee for services

rendered during a "journey". Who was

the intended recipient?

(b) Mushroom, Danforth, grapnel, Hall,

Northill, Admirality, Stockless, Bruce,

Union, Spek, Pool, Kedge and plough

are types of what?

4

(a) Charon.

(b) Anchor.

4

(a) A chemist named Eugene

Rimmel developed a variety of this

using petroleum jelly. It became

popular and the name Rimmel became

synonymous with the substance and

still translates to it in the Italian,

Portuguese, Spanish, Greek, Turkish,

Romanian, and Persian languages

today. The company founded by him

1834 still exists with the tag line "Get

the London look". What product?

5

(b) They are usually played in pairs.

Often one is pitched high, and the

other is pitched low. They used to be

made with dried calabash or gourd

shell or coconut shell filled with seeds

or dried beans, but these days are

made of leather, wood or plastic. What

are they called?

5

(a) Mascara.

(b) Maracas.

5

The End

mega-whats 2012

Entertainment & Humor