Quizzing Ideas from a Total Rookie at Quizzes…
Posted by Prashanth | Filed under Education, General, Headshot, It's My Life, Quizzing, Readable Enough, School Life, Technology
Right, I just don’t think I am the kind of person who should be referred to for any kind of advice on quizzing, but then since blogs are meant for free speech, I won’t hesitate to blurt things out from my totally arrogant, blatant and erratic opinion!
I basically thought of writing this post when I saw a Great Quizzard coming up with a post on quizzing which didn’t quite digest completely in my tummy. Although I wouldn’t entirely disagree to it, but then I have something different below. I want people to read what really matters in quality quizzing, and not how to ‘prepare’.
Another incident was an inspiration too. On my way to Access, while I hitchhiked the DPS RKPee’s Exunclan’s bus, I mingled along with cute-little kids ranging from class 6th-8th ‘preparing’ for the cadet/sub-junior quizzes. Their method of preparation was what that shocked me the most. These kids were literally cramming up databases ripped off from Wikipedia amongst other places! If just looking at it in kids wasn’t enough, even the seniors in class 11th were mugging in the identical printouts. If this is how Exun trains its future quizzers who are more crammy than passionate about tech quizzing, I am sorry at the clan’s very future (which shows no traits of the kind of people who got Exun to the stage where it is now), really looks dull! Anyway, can’t blame them too, our tech quizzes are becoming more or less tests of grunt mechanical knowledge like acronyms, directly referring to the names of CEOs of corporations, etc… I would just start off this post with one big statement - A quizzer cannot be prepared/trained for any quality quiz in a limited time span.
Quizzing, according to me is something very few people can excel at. The knack for doing well in quizzes is something people just get naturally. It isn’t something that can be developed. People with interest, time and patience but not this so-called God-gifted aptitude can never do well in quizzing even if they have read the entire wikipedia article archive! Quizzers can never be self-made, they can only be self-enhanced. If you have never given your shot at quizzing, or you plan to, just try looking at the following aspects about a good quizzer, his thinking and his so-called ‘gifted abilities’… If you seem to have them, chances are that you would do well in in the current trend in quizzing. 
Thinking…
A quizzer’s observational abilities are a part of his second instinct. A quizzer involuntarily looks at everything around him differently. Like if he visits a shopping mall, he tends to find shops that he wants without reading text on sign boards. That’s because he remembers the logos of international franchises and can locate their flashy logos from anywhere. He does this because he has previously been to a (similar) mall before, not necessarily the same one!
A quizzer has exceptional co-relation abilities. I might refer to it with a little exaggeration metaphorically as the Sherlock Holmes’s thought. A quizzer need not know too much about stuff around him, but ability to co-relate knowledge from multiple sources to come up with a concrete answer is what can make good quizzer. Guessing correctly is one the quizzer’s biggest assets. Hunches just don’t come up, they are a result of very complex efforts to retrieve data from co-relative database.
Like for example, one of my personal experiences,
“Which musician started up a venture called Elevation-Partners?”
Now, I have zilch information about the affairs in the music industry. But then one thing I know is that “Elevation” is a hit track by the (un)popular band, U2. I couldn’t really come up with a better relation the somewhat connects a musical group with the title Elevation, expecting it to be a result of achievements in the band’s career. I also knew the name of just one member of the band U2, Bono. I gave that as the answer, and expectedly, turned out to be right!
Take another one as an example, this one doesn’t give good result with the Jugaad!
“The churchbells at Maranello are rung on what special occasions?”
The only place where I remember reading the word Maranello is on a Formula-1 speedster decal belonging to Ferrari. Assuming the place to be of special importance to the car company, Ferrari, I pick up the following hunches…
- Whenever Ferrari pushes out a new car… Nah, too often!
- On Enzo Ferrari’s (founder of Ferrari) B’Day… Maybe…
- Whenever it wins a Formula-1 championship… Maybe…
And now, after neglecting a few more good guesses, I give out my answer as Enzo’s B’Day! That’s actually the wrong answer and the correct answer is what I had thought, they ring the bells on a victory in a Grand Prix.
As you can see, not knowing things won’t put you in trouble, but clever observation and good co-relation accompanied with intelligent guesswork can save you in a fix. Good quizzes usually test this ability rather than grunt knowledge like “What’s the height of the Qutab Minar?”…
Good English and Lingual Ability…
Watching movies and speaking more than two languages can be a great asset to all quizzers. More than that, being aware of a few terms common between languages especially English can be neat tool in hand. Quite a few questions in quizzes can be solved by the use of grammar and language-syllable co-relation. Like for example,
“ Example - In France, archers were trained with the help of of target boards having concentric circles. The smallest one was in the centre and was coloured in white. The archers used to aim at that and eventually learn the tricks of the bow and arrow. Which term, now in frequent use was adapted by such a process?”
Most would give the answer as Bullseye, but then a bull’s eye is neither white, nor it fits well into this situation. The correct answer is Point Blank. Blanc is the french word the refers to the colour white. I feel that this was a workoutable question!
This very skill applies even more to solving crosswords. Like one of the clues that I came across was -
“ Example - Matt works like a menial worker and writes reports…”
the answer is Drudge Report, a popular site founded by a guy name Matt ‘Drudge’. And drudging means menial labour. This could have been figured in multiple ways, of which the grandest in my opinion would be using English language and filling up the grid! Plus, when you solve questions using such methods on stage while loud thinking, you win loads of respect from the audience as well as the quizmaster. Trust me on this one! Personal experience… 
There are quite a few questions where you are asked to deduce something about a thing/place/person, (especially historical or mythological) named in some regional language. Such questions can be deduced from pronunciation, vernaculars in derivative languages or just by plain awareness.
Example - “In the Mughal Court, a jester /minister once came up with a very innovative idea. He was appreciated so much that his name is now used in everyday language to signify something brilliant. What could have been his name?”
The answer is ‘Shabhaash“, a term frequently used in Hindi to appreciate someone. As you can see, more than knowing etymology, its presence of mind that matters in cut-throat quizzes like the Columban Open.
Many at times, being aware of common catch-phrases in use can be very helpful in quizzes. Reading more things for the sake of the reading pleasure and not forcefully to find/locate/learn catch-phrases is what can help here.
Being Passionate about everything you do…
The problem I see in most people coming to tech quizzes is that they are never passionate about quizzing. Just cramming up stuff doesn’t help. You should ‘feel’ technology more than anything else. there should be a desire from within to know more on things. Desire, interest and ability to grasp can be referred to in one catch-phrase as Aptitude with Attitude (AWA) is something that cannot be generated in everyone. In people compatible, one of the ways to do that is just show them new things that give them that ‘Wow’ feel. Watching documentaries on diverse topics can lead to production of interest. Whenever I read about some award winning documentary/dramatization somewhere on something that I am not aware of, I still look forward to it coming on television. Example: Motorcycle Dairies, courtesy Uma! I just watch the documentary for the sake of interest generation. Even after watching the documentary halfway and finding out that it is not on something in my cup of tea, I continue to watch it observing things in the background, or the way it was shot, or the shoot locations or anything. Most often or not, this generates interest in thinkers like me! More than being passionate about quizzing, you should be that for everything that you experience in life.
The Wiki way to Quizzing applies for those who would be executed in case they don’t win some quiz in the next 5 months. Not for those who would like to have the quizzer’s own distinct personality. General browsing through varied sites out of personal interest, work, or any other reason and observation in a long term gives a person that unique aura that good quizzers possess!
Moral of the story…
A quizzer cannot be created by mugging up different databases like Manorama or in a recent case, Wikipedia articles. Good quizzes never ask you the capital of Albania, which I am quite sure many good quizzers reading this post aren’t aware of!
To be a good quizzer, you should have the mindset compatible with the skills mentioned above. Above all, he should be involved in everything. Knowledge just doesn’t come from newspapers and Wikipedia, but from inconspicuous sources like Movies, Music, or even stuff that we relax with, say TV Shows or Novels. Its just the way you look at things and keep things in mind. Also, a quizzer never does all this willingly or by force, its his second instinct. A good quizzer is never a crammer!
Example - “The seven forms of which martial art are Shii-Cho, Makashi, Soresu, Ataru, Shien and Niman Juyo?”
In the real quiz we heard the name of every famous martial art from Ju-Jitsu to Kung-Fu, but then the answer is Lightsabre Combat in the Star Wars series. Top-notch quizzes can test our capacity to recollect from the most unprobable of sources. Basically, they test the efficiency of your keyword input and search engine skills. Being Google is what can make you say “Yahoo!” in quizzes.
Reading newspapers, magazines, online journals and stuff can take you a step further in increasing your knowledge database. But intelligent thinking and calculated hunches play a greater role IMHO in quality quizzes I had been exposed to in the past year. Usually, the answers to many questions is something you have heard about in the past, or something very common about worldly stuff. So the first step in Jugaad thinking should be trying to co-relate answers within your database, or in other words, a keyword search across your index!
Keep in mind that quizzes are not a test of how many databases you must have gone through in the past month, year or whatever, but a test showcasing all the activities you have been exposed to in you ENTIRE LIFETIME. Being called a quizzer doesn’t refer to his domain of ’skill’ as say an Engineer. What it refers to is, his very personality that makes him compatible enough to be involved in activities quite diverse in nature. You can generally observe this trait in almost all Great Quizzards! 
Code Wars ‘07: So Big.F(inally something in hand!)…
Posted by Prashanth | Filed under Headshot, It's My Life, Quizzing, School Life, Technology
Key:
CW means Code Wars
C/W means Crossword
Ahh, one symposium I have been waiting to attend. Not only because my friend GQ is organizing this, but also because I have had pleasant memories with this one event last year. I love DPS VK and its atmosphere. It feels warmer (in the emotional sense) and cozier here than it feels in any other school. By far, its the most beautiful school I have visited in Delhi. Even the classrooms are so comfy. DPS RKP might be larger in area and student size as well, but DPS VK is nice and spacious. In between events, I did have a nice walk around the premises. That’s one great school there… and another great clan!
CW and its members are fairly close friends of mine, especially the prez - Onkur (a.k.a Open Sourceror), Arjun (a.k.a Lord (Dork) Vader) as well as a few more like Vivek, Karthick. Although that doesn’t mean that they give me away all the answers and stuff and let me get away with their big prize, a Lenovo Y-Series Laptop! One of the neat rules up there was they would give 42 bonus points to the team which registers 3 days before the event and doesn’t change it’s team composition during the event. 42 points are lost if that is done.
Speaking of 42, Onkur, the Prez, is a die hard H2G2 fan. So a part of the ’syllabi’ of attending the event was to thoroughly know the book. Although that wasn’t mentioned, names of the events, the presentation of stuff in the invite, the very nature of the clan and the tentacles of influence of the Prez were enough to deduce this small fact.
Day I: Hopes Up, down again…
I thought I would have an upper hand in this event as I was sure of the fact that it would be an H2G2/Douglas Adams memorial event more than a tech symposium. But then, when I entered the premises, I saw kids from DPS RKPee, and a few more schools mugging up the book, marking stuff on it, discussing heavily about the characters, remembering every ‘proper noun’ in the book and behaving as if their Social Science Bored Exam is gonna start in another 42 minutes!
Our programmer and gamer were sulking after a pathetic (referring to our performance!) event called Exun. The rest of us just went there to have fun. I was sure that I would once again return empty handed. One of the only reasons I wanted to attend this was because the quiz and C/W are made by Onkur and his allies. A quiz by the Great Quizzard himself wasn’t something that I would miss. Plus, I wanted to know if I had to scrap any questions at all. That’s actually very important for my event, DynamiX.
As soon as we went in, we got what ESP told me. The Techathlon paper with an H2G2 puzzle. Check this, its a dumb puzzle I know but then its atleast better than last year’s stupid stuff! I guess we did get around 6-7 of them right. The muggers doing a hefty lot of H2G2 research from DPS RKPee got around 10 of them.
First up was an event called n-Crypton. It consists of a series of coded stuff with something related to IT. We had fun with it. PS - We won it!
Next Tenzin and I headed up again to give in the quiz prelims. One thing I hate about almost all quizzes is that they ask us to expand acronyms. Agreed that they are the most scoring part, but then I suck at them. Plus, I find them really silly as they don’t test your quizzing aptitude. Muggers from anywhere can qualify in a tough quiz by just answering the acronyms. Perhaps that is why we decided to take them off in our quiz prelims at DX. Coming back to this quiz, it was a toughie… We answered very few there. Although it wasn’t entirely a history test, but then I was reminded the fact about how much I sucked at quizzing. My bleak chances of qualifying were removed with Ramjas sitting right behind me. By constantly being in communication with me by jabbering some nonsense or the other, and ranters from all side complaining, I was sort of in trouble. We just got up from there to submit our paper and get away with it. But then these guys got up with us to submit it further increasing their suspicion.
After a dumb quiz, only some good food could light us up. That is something usually not found in DPS VK. With almost all Principals going on a morcha against international franchise of fast food, computer symposiums did lose a lot of participation. Most people usually came to Exun to have free pizzas from Domino’s. Even I went there for the first time for that very reason. We had Paneer Kulcha, with sour paneer filling, a non-branded ketchup, and some juice which a heartly drank. I went in the warm and cozy Chamar Hall and try and solve a few more combinations in the puzzle. I spoke to a few people there. Many didn’t give a good response about the GD. I inquired stuff about it as I wanted the DX GD to be an example.
C/W prelims now. And in this C/W, we just left 2 clues. Got everything else right! A nice one for the prelim, but then Onkur reminded that we will be crying for our nannies in the finals. Sometime later, I got the news that I would after all be crying for my nanny, as Tenzin had to attend a class at his tutorials and he wouldn’t be able to come with me in the finals. As you might have inferred, we DID qualify to the finals outrightly! I decided to take along with a secret partner…
So hopes up in the very first day. The first position in n-Crypton was enough to make parents feel better about missing a day of school. So I would atleast get one pendrive home. Suddenly, my eyes fell at prized laptop at display. I fell in love with it…
Varun, the best Web Spinner and Screen Painter in Delhi was apprehensive about both the events and wasn’t sounding confident before going in despite the fact that the only one who matches him - Arjun, was a non-participant. The reason being was that they only permitted Gimp as the software of choice for the painters and Kompozer for the spinners. Later, they decided to come back to Dreamweaver as too many kids were crying out. Agreed that they are OSS freaks and want to promote them, but then there should be time for it. Honestly speaking, very few OSS projects have grown enough to compete with the industry standard proprietary stuff…
Day - II: Yeah baby! Give me more…
The day started off with the C/W finals, and a few problems with the projector! CW tried everything, even the technique that they master, Jugaad! The projector just didn’t work. Onkur and Arjun were in a sort of panic. Onkur ate tons of chocolates to calm himself down. Arjun ran around the school in his socks to get another projector. Meanwhile, the co-prez Eeshaan entered the hall with another projector he found somewhere. He took the male wire, tried plugging it into another male wire, since it didn’t fit, he took the ‘incompatible’ projector away to fetch for another one with Arjun.
Arjun found a box and gasped in the Chamar Hall. Even after successfully plugging the right wires in, the thing didn’t work. So well, they had a back up. They printed out sheets of the grid and handed it over to the participants and called out the clues with the right cases and punctuation marks. Quite a task for sure… but then the C/W was quite fun. Although it did contain stuff that I had not heard of before, but then was a clever crossword because of which we had to slightly modify a few clues here and there… It felt awkward to see Uma as a competitor in the finals, but then I, along with my secret partner, the Spirit of Douglas Adams won the crossword. People can fairly call it luck, as i perhaps got some of the easier clues and my guesses fell right! I even took a double or nothing for an 8-letter word starting with ‘L’ guessing it to be Linspire considering Onkur’s loyalties towards Karmony and his šhìt called Freespire! Unexpectedly, I got it wrong! Still, got some of the nice passes and now I get another pen drive to take home. Uma finished third in the same C/W. Quite good for someone who has been out of touch with technology since an year. Varun won the Digital Imaging event.
Meanwhile, some jackass deleted Varun’s Web Design entry. Varun went up for the recovery, used some software, and was awarded the first position in that. Had it not been for the recovery, he would have been awarded the third position as these guys had seen him building the site, but not the final thing.
So we guys had 4 first positions in all. We then started praying hard that no other school wins anything else. The prize distribution was actually quite erratic, with quite a few schools winning stuff. Until the Crossword was over, no school seemed to have dominated the scene. We went out to try out our new laptop. Unlike other schools, which give away their prizes to the schools, we as hypocrites, liars, and cheaters, get to keep it with ourselves.
Next up the quiz finals. I DID NOT qualify for the finals. But then i watched the entire thing. Quite brilliant I must say. Onkur and allies made the quiz such that you had to know a lot of general knowledge as well to crack the questions. You had to think beyond tech. That was a trait somewhat true in my quiz at DX as well. Thankfully, I had no questions to scrap and for the first time, I enjoyed watching a quiz final in which I did not qualify. Not that I didn’t know anything in the finals, but the quality of questions made it up…
As expected, we couldn’t do šhìt in gaming, programming and techathlon as well. The second day had two big puzzles. One of them was ripped off my last year’s admission test at FIITJEE. Or in other words, FIITJEE ripped off the same puzzle from somewhere else! Even though we got them right, we didn’t win because everyone did! And Day-I’s techathlon counted too. Didn’t really find tech in this year’s techathlon though!
DPS RKPee won the Babelfish event. That was playing the text-based game of H2G2. ESP had told me that. I could have gone for it had ESP told me that I am not gonna qualify for the quiz. 42 points were quite precious. There went our laptop. Came in the Lenovo Desktop, who’s monitor is currently installed in my place. It feels terrible to lose out by a small margin that too due to an H2G2 related reason in a tech symposium, especially if you have won four 1st positions! 
Yes we won the runner’s up trophie, a nice biiig silver one, a total of 8 pendrives, 8 trophies, a high-end Lenovo desktop, and a nice bunch of videos, pictures and memories. It felt so good to have my self-esteem back on track! Coming to videos, the Code Warriors put up a great motion picture to conclude the thing. Will put up the videos as and when my Internet connection gets more stable. For now, be happy with just pics… 
TCS IT Wiz 2007: Lord, Why me everytime..??
Posted by Prashanth | Filed under Headshot, It's My Life, Quizzing, School Life, Technology
TCS IT Wiz is India’s largest IT quiz organized by Greycaps, and mastered by Giri Balasubramaniam or Pickbrain, in other words… AnkurB+Hair+Moustache+Deep Voice - Lethargy-to-walk-around. And then, my theory about quizzers, their physique and the rest is turning out to be right by the next quiz. The next generation of quiz masters are gonna be that way, its a new sub-species. Anyway, I represented Kalka Public School to this quiz and I ended going there in a bus. Nice…
The venue was Siri Fort Auditorium, which is a leap away from one of the FIITJEE hostels. Even then no one came with me for the quiz. Not only because there aren’t any tech quizzers in our quiz club, but also because the Phase Tests were nearby. So one soul with aptitude named Himadri tagged along with me. I gave him a bunch of acronyms to cram in. The rest was upto me…
TCS IT Wiz is known to be one quiz where you see totally new faces winning. Last time, Sardar Patel, which is never seen in computer symposiums won the TCS. That just shows the fact that there are more geeks in Delhi than we think. Other than that, the prelims are dámn easy, leaving cut-throat competition in the finals. TCS has big prizes too. They had an HP widescreen laptop for the winners of the regional finals, and iPods (Nano) for the runners up. Keep in mind that this is an all-India quizzing show. The national finals would have winners from 12 cities in India. Last time, a team from Kerala won it!
ESP told me that I am going to lose this, I went there only to check the purity of my Dynamix Quiz. Many people can think up the same thing together. So just to see if I need to scrap any questions, I went there.
The quiz prelims were quite easy. Pickbrain gave in hints for the questions I knew. Like for a question - “What is the Ui for Mac OS X called?”, i had the right answer Aqua in my mind, but he gave dumb options to it namely, Earth, Fire and Aqua. Keeping in mind Apple and its naming standards, it wouldn’t be a hard job in guessing aqua especially for one who has seen the UI of OS X. The blue watery gradiented buttons and bars…
Being a rookie at quizzing I didn’t qualify to the finals by just one point. And one of the schools which did qualify was Modern School BK, a school which does attend almost all symposiums but isn’t known to win in quizzes. We had Cambridge Noidea there. And as usual, we had DPS RKPee in the finals.
The finals were quite nice, and I did suffer from minor attacks of WARP ‘06 type fits there. And yes, I had to scrap one visual question in my quiz after all. It was of the inside skeletal structure of the Microsoft Surface which everyone missed. And despite me shouting my throats out the answer when it came to the audience, another girl studying in class 9th got the audience prize. And Pickbrain was like… “Such is the outstanding quality of the students of Delhi… A girl from class 9th knows about Microsoft Surface!” Mr. Pickbrain, please visit one of our symposiums. Also check this particular quiz if its you reading this post… And going there was worthwhile, as the entire horde of Exunites and all other computer clans attended the event. Having a question even vaguely related to something in another symposium would mean deadly embarrassment!
And of course, last year’s Lone Warrior, Gursartaj was remembered there too. The finals were ultimately, evidently and obviously won by Raghav and Vansh from Exun. They had their laptop along with loads of other goodies like a backpack, wrist watch, books, and a lot more nice stuff… Plus a free round trip to Mumbai for the All India Finals, which was telecasted on Television.
Pickbrain also briefed everyone about the IT potential of the country. These people are having a rural version of the TCS IT Wiz as well which aims to reach every small town of the country. There he was astonished to see that the children there weren’t able to answer any of the questions he asked. But then he started getting answers to the same questions as soon as they were asked in their regional language. he believes that language is one of the major barriers to compatibility in India. If what he said is right, we people do have a long way to go.
As almost every other quiz I attended, I returned home empty handed, munching some food for thought. TCS was enlightening, and Pickbrain is a fabulous quiz master and an orator.
PS: Pickbrain has this habit of roaming around the stage and asking children the answer while sneaking up behind them. Note that whenever you give out an answer, and the guy shows lots of interest in it, and speculates it a bit, it means that the answer is right. Although strange that he doesn’t have a regular quizzing show of himself. (Correct me if I am wrong!)
