The Landmark Quiz 2005

This year's quiz threw quite a few surprises. For one, there were 2 quizmasters. As usual, Dr Navin Jayakumar started off with the prelims but after 20 questions introduced Derek O'Brien & said he'll continue! It was a lil' disappointing having Derek but then you don't have much of a choice. May be Mrs Hemu should rope in Basu for the next year.

As usual there was quite a crowd & around 900 teams participated. This was the most successful quiz for us (my cousin, my brother-in-law & myself) as we got 19 of the 40 prelim ?s rite. The first team cracked around 'late twenties' ?s (as its the regular Landmark custom never to give out the actual scores). Our performance wasn't bad by Landmark standards, I should say.

Other surprises - there wasn't no Dr Pravin Ghode as was the conspicuous absence of Arul Mani & his team. And Derek made some nasty changes to the quiz format as with the BQC. V V Ramanan was the Quizzer of the Year as expected.

Ok, the prelims Q&A below.

1. Who was the first to call Mahatma Gandhi as the Father of the Nation?
2. Which is the smallest Greek alphabet (it means miniscule in English)
3. Which islands that Marco Polo visited are named after a monkey god?
4. The rules of which game were formulated based on the front page of The New York Times.
5. Dilbert's boss is named as the PHB. Expand PHB.
6. In earlier days a part of a film was shown last for those who were late to come. How is this part of the film known as now?
7. The currency of Botswana is named Pula after the most precious thing that the nation's people consider as. What is Pula?
8. El Nino commonly occurs in which month
9. Who sang the song 'Kannum Kannum Nokia' in 'Anniyan'?
10. [Audio Clue] Answer was the English opening of Thiruvasagam
11. What euphemistic phrase (of two letters) was coined by the Lifebouy ads in the 1940s?
12. What geographic terms came into being for denoting the rising & setting of the Sun?
13. Connect question - Connect the animal that comes in 'Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secrets' & the colony set up in South Africa by Mahatma Gandhi (in 1912, not sure)
14. Who has been (one of) the sponsor(s) of Wimbledon since the tournament inception in 1902?
15. Which 2 gentlemen first translated Einstein's famous papers on relativity that appeared in from German to English?
16. What got created in Bombay from the debris of an explosion of a ship (in 1940s?)
17. Name the book that has the following quote as its opening - 'What is found here, may be found elsewhere. What is not found here, will not be found elsewhere'
18. What is the claim to fame of the book ''Fluid Concepts & Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought" by Douglas Hofstadter?
19. [Visual Clue] Identify the Indian connected with conservation of Tigers
20. [Visual Clue] Name the film based on a cult classic - Fountain Head.
21. What constitutes almost 70% of a banana?
22. Which of these is born blind a. Hare b. Rabbit c. None of these
23. Which path breaking Hindi film was released 30 years ago, this day?
24. Name the recognised Indian language whcih would come first when arranges alphabetically.
25. Who was TIME magazine's first non-American Person of the Year?
26. Which mineral takes its name from its Greek origins meaning color?
27. Name the vegetation that covers almost 20% of the Earth's land mass.
28. Name the Italian sauce which in Italian means salty.
29. Name the Asian country formed out of the largest number of refugess.
30. How is the Fighting Falcon aircraft better known?
31. Which TV show is advertised as being watched by over a billion people a week?
32. [Visual Clue] Identify the tennis player - Raphael Nadal
33. [Visual Clue] Identify the award - Emmy
34. [Visual Clue] Identify the scientist - Roger Penrose
35. [Visual Clue] Identify the politician - Narayan Rane
36. 'The Base' as its called runs terror in the hearts of all the law enforcement agencies across the world. How do we know it better?
37. Which European city was the first to host the modern Olympics twice?
38. If our Indian flag is to be displayed vertically (officially), what color should come at the right most? (Derek's poor clue - it isn't white)
39. Who was teh most famous private the 34th Infantry division?
40. Which word come from Greek that means "running back again"

Answers:

1 S C Bose
2 Iota
3 The Andamans
4 Scrabble
5 Pointy Head Boss
6 Trialer
7 Water (Pula in the native tongue means rain)
8 December (coz Nino means son & the Christ connection)
9 Leslie Lewis
11 BO (Body Odor)
12 Orient & Occident
13 Phoenix
14 Slazenger
15 Bose & Megnath Saga
16 Nariman Point
17 Mahabaratha
18 First book sold on amazon.com
19 Valmik Thapar
21 Water
22 Rabbit
23 Sholay
24 Assamese (there was another ? on the last language - Derek must have run out of questions - Urdu)
25 Mahatma Gandhi (another ? on Mahatma - who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1948? And the answer - no one, as the Mahatma was shot dead in 1948!)
26 Chromium
27 Grass
28 Salami
29 Afghanistan
30 F-16
31 Bay Watch
36 Al Qaeda
37 Paris
38 Saffron
39 Mangal Pandey
40 Palindrome