Mahaquizzer 2007
Yesterday, I won the Pune section of the Mahaquizzer quiz, organised by the KQA. I scored 50 points out of 150. A preliminary set of results is available here. The overall winner hasn't been announced yet - I have a couple of guesses who it might be - we'll find out later this week. There are some really big guns who might have won.I had a better outing this year compared to last time (41), where I made quite a few bad errors. The contest is written, and solving 150 questions in 90 minutes isn't all that easy. You hardly get to read most of the questions properly more than once, so it's useful if your internal IR engine is well oiled, in addition to its database size. I had a better go this time, my second attempt, managing to read more patiently than before. The setters tend to ask a lot of questions on science, geography, and physical world, which are not topics that I'm great at. Which means you try to maximise every chance you get, making my 3 silly mistakes all the more galling - I could easily have hit 52 or 53. I completely forgot to fill in one answer on the first page assuming I had filled it in. I also wrote the wrong first name of a scientist when I should have left just the surname in. I then completed this list of aargh-moments by contriving to trip myself over the names of a creator-character pair by not paying proper attention to the wording - I cancelled the answer out. There's a dull pain somewhere as residue.
The win would have been better had we also seen the participation of the two best quizzers in these parts in the last couple of years - Kunal S and Shamanth. We saw a total of 28 people participate from Pune, which was slightly disappointing for me. I had hoped we would hit 30-35. A few of the regulars couldn't make it, though. Worse was the turnout from school kids - was hoping there would be a lot more.
Anyway, back to this year's edition. I'm warming up to this contest, mainly for two reasons. One, quizzes by people outside your (sometimes incestuous) circle exposes you to other areas of interest. And secondly, since it's an all-India event, it's a decent way to see where you stand w.r.t. the others in the land. It's quite a tough job putting the quiz together and getting it out to different places, so congratulations to the KQA on this. Once again, many thanks to PSPL for the use of their gorgeous auditorium.
Update: The results are out here - Samanth S winning in style.
15 comments:
Congrats!
We went for the Mumbai edition, and there were some 60-70 people, few of them pretty famous quizzers as I gather. I think 63 was the winning score here; good thing that came out for us was that Vaibhav had highest in the college section, 41.
The choice of venue was so brilliant. Get 60-70 quizzers in a bookshop, Landmark, and you've sold 30-35 books in no time. Some thought must have gone into that!
Thanks. Good to see so many IIT-B quizzers go for it this time, and good to know Vaibhav topped it. The highest in Pune was 45, by an IIT-Madras lad who happened to be doing a summer project in Pune.
Oh and, Rajiv Rai is as big and famous as they come :-)
Landmark is the bookstore of choice for quizzers :-) - the Pune store is brilliant too.
Congratulation Ramanand..and All the best for All India round. No doubt- you are the best.
Congrats JR. This is cool.. When you mentioned 'quiz over the weekend', I didn't realize that this time it was a Mahaquiz! :) All the best and keep us posted about the overall winner.
yogesh: there is no separate all-india round. I have no doubt that I am not the best :-))
RoPa: quiz, mahaquiz - all the same, really.
congrats .. great going ... Next yr we want to see the all india champ
Badhai ho MahaQuizzer Jee!
Congrats Ramanand...I went to the Chennai round... Samanth Subramanian won that with 71 points, which I thought was a huge score. I didn't even attempt that many :)
nandan: thanks. to become all-India champ next year, I'll have to give out lots of "supaarii"s :-)
daemon: thanks. I'm mere local-mahaquizzer jee
tadatmya: I heard about Samanth - yes, that's a whopper of a score :-) I suppose he's won the overall title.
JR good show mate. I had a gut feel you would win the Pune round(law of averages :) ).
I know victory would have been sweeter if Kunal S and Shamanth Rao (not to be confused with Samanth Subramanian, though of the same pedigree) would have also participated.
In Bombay Alagarswamy did not take part, otherwise he could have given Rajiv a tough fight.
I am also waiting for the questions to be out to give it under simulated test conditions and find out where I stand :)
Congratulations!
Well, I just took it, and I scored a 47, so I'm very glad I avoided the Thane-Andheri commute I would have to have made in order to make it to the quiz. Anyway, I think you have broken the Pune MahaQ record, so let all talk about would-be-sweeter seize. Congratulations!
Uh, sorry, too much fantasy fiction. Make that "let all talk about would-be-sweeter cease".
Kunal S: kind of you, sir. I might add that simulated conditions may still not provide the necessary stimulation to raise your mental gears to optimum, so you may have done better on the day. Also, let me point out that you would have comfortably taken the college section in both Pune and Mumbai with this score :-)
Anyway, speculative conjecture at best. Till next year, then.
So who is the Tangdi Kebab?
Post a Comment