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Don Bosco Fiesta 2007 Mensa Quiz: DPS VK Wins!

Apologies folks, for not putting this post up earlier. I got busy with making the presentation for the Matrix-Ecomm 2007 symposium on Thursday, and then preparing for Matrix’s quiz on Friday; so I didn’t get time to put this up earlier.

Don Bosco Fiesta 2007, a cultural event held at Don Bosco School, Alaknanda (it’s the school right next to my old school, St George’s) held its Mensa Quiz on 23rd August 2007. It’s one of the better quizzes in Delhi, and although it has ‘Mensa’ in it, it has nothing to do with the organization of the same name. And DPS Vasant Kunj won! Would be one of the major trophies for DPS VK Quiz Club this year. Come to think of it, Don Bosco is a really really lucky venue for me – for the venue of the Delhi region finals of the Cadbury Bournvita Quiz 2004, which I won, was also held at Don Bosco. 😉

The Don Bosco Fiesta 2007 Mensa Quiz trophy – note the ‘Best Team’ tag 😉

The quiz team had Ankit, Varun and me. As usual [clenches teeth] the driver had gone off to drink tea. Slight delays waiting for him and some gals who were going for other events later, we were off. Reached on time, registered and waited in their auditorium. It’s a whole galaxy compared to DPS VK’s gas chamber (aka mini audi). First they showed us some shitty PowerPoint presentation, with typical drab welcome speeches read out with great gusto. Then they had some dance, which nobody could see because they weren’t doing it on stage. And then some song, by Jal, I think which even a non-Hindi music fan like me could figure that they had messed up.

The announcement for the quiz prelims were made soon. They’ve got a really nice AV hall, where it was held. While the papers were distributed, they took a snap (individually) of all the teams – they do that for putting the pics up on the stage screen when the teams qualify. Don Bosco being an boys’ school, it wasn’t surprising that the chap who was clicking photos suddenly had loads of trouble when it came to taking Carmel Convent’s pic, which meant he spent a lot of time taking it. It was a good question paper, and we had an unaturally high number of flukes hitting right on target. Guess what? We topped in the prelims, while before the answers came out we were scared of not even qualifying! Quite a few good schools came up – including DPS RKP (Ishaan-Tejas-Shraddha), DPS Noida (the Columban Open Quiz 2007 winners) and Shriram (COQ semi-finalists).

Time for refreshments after that. They had Domino’s Pizza, from the store across the road. Bad coordination, because they used to keep only about 10 pizzas and when they finished, used to run across the road to get more. Moreover, after making all the teams salivate over it, they gave us only one fucking slice of a 4″ pizza. Sucks.

Results were announced soon afterwards (before which they showed another shitty ‘presentation’, probably lifted straight from YouTube), and the we qualified, along with the other three schools mentioned earlier, along with the host school and Vasant Valley. They’d put a monitor on each screen, but they were old rusty CRTs with the screen display so much out of foucs that it gave all of us a headache looking at those out-of-focus images. It was a good quiz, very pakau though because it was 15 rounds long. There were some VERY stupid rounds, like a picture round where an image was blocked by a 3×3 grid, with one block being removed at a time when the team asked for it. Dumb, because they deliberately used to take out the pieces which offered no clue at all.

One nice round was their visual round, where a video was shown, but its audio track was stripped off and replaced with a totally unrelated song. Then, the teams were supposed to answer questions on the video AND the song. There was a round on Nobel Prize winners, and we got a wrong question:

In 1901, this person was the first to a win a Nobel Prize for Medicine, for research on diptheria.

And then, they showed a COLOR photo of the person. I protested right then, that a person of 1901 COULDN’T have a color photo (well, he could have, but not of the color quality shown). They stubbornly refused to to change the question, with a stoic ‘quizmaster’s decision is final’.

Final round was a rapid fire round, and just for a good dose of PJ, the quizmaster asked all the fans on stage to be switched off because he ‘wanted the teams to sweat it out in the last round’. It saw some inspired answers from Ankit, and by the end of it, we and DPS RKP were tied for the first place, with DPS Noida third. Went into a tie-breaker, and we WON. Boy, was Ishaan Chugh surprised about losing this one!

So then, that’s a trophy for the DPS VK Quiz Club this year…

21 replies on “Don Bosco Fiesta 2007 Mensa Quiz: DPS VK Wins!”

First of all congrats for winning the quiz.. u actually deserved it and i was more than delighted when u defeated the rkp…u have developed a good blog but i am sorry the ques u are talking about was not an incorrect question in fact that picture can be found on a well published site… for any doubts further u have internet facility to get convinced… well if you think it was a shitty presentation thats your problem cauz u r the only one who thinks that and the only fact it was there was to keep you occupied… secondly if u think that presentation was straight out of youtube you were totally wrong…keeeping in mind the huge scale at which the programme was conducted including a whooping 8 events in total it was among the best… i would comment on 1 more thing.. the pizzas were from domino’s and not the pizza hut across the school…moreover the refreshment facility was one of the best any inter school events have seen so far… the so to say “old crt’s” were accompanied by great quality projections and the crt were only there to provide convenience to you so as to you dont have to strain your neck which you should be happy about…

heylo mr. nerdo……….. dude u shud b glad nd thank ur gud lord 4 gettin an oprtunty 2 visit a skul lik bosco ……..i mean u criticize bout evry fuckin thng as if u ver born in buckingham palace…
vich skul servez pizzas 4m domino’s at der fest???saale 2 khayega bhi den gaaliyan bhi dega……nd bout da monitorz..u sufferin 4m cataract or vat , feel dat ur eyez r really sensitive,,adios !!!!!!!

@Anon 1:
1. Thanks.
2. Please post the link to the picture with the question here if you can, and I’m not being sarcastic. I just want to say that a 1901 guy with a colour photograph is pretty inconceivable. Since you guys didn’t give the answer either, I really can’t search it out.
3. Presentation wasn’t taken from anywhere else? I meant the one where you’d a person running up the side of a building. Don’t tell me you did that.
4. I did say Domino’s Pizza across the road, not Pizza Hut. You may read it again to clarify. Dude, I stayed near that place for a long time, I know what shops / restaurants are there.
5. I never complained about the projections, which IS what we were watching. But I guess even you’ll admit that the CRTs were out-of-focus. I’m happy we’d a projection.
7. All I wanted to say was that nobody would mind getting refreshments from the school canteen, if they were substantial. ONE slice of a small pizza is a joke, although I understand the fact that you had a budget to work with and tried your best. 🙂
6. I guess you’re Ankit, aren’t you? Correct me if I’m wrong. I must say that the event was amazing, And the quiz had some brilliant questions. This post was not to belittle your event at all; but just…well…what I felt. Even we here at DPS VK conduct events, and even I know how much work goes into an event of this scale. But I pointed out a few things which could have been better, please take it constructively and not negatively.

@Anon 2:
1. Which event gives Domino’s Pizzas? Yours ain’t the only one, THAT I can tell you.

@Both Anons: As I said, yours was an amazing event, and there were a few things I found amiss that I pointed out. Why don’t you guys come along to Code Wars at our school this year (invite will be put up on http://www.code-warriors.org), and participate? I’m sure you’ll find more than enough shortcomings in OUR event, and I happily welcome its criticism…so that we can make it better next year.

Fool… we dont even have a domino’s in front of our school…. i am not ankit sharma.. in fact i am not even the 3 of the quiz masters………………..!!!!!@@

u really suck man……
u complained abt the quiz presentation and u r the one who wanted that presentation……..
got ur secret out…..

@Anon: It’s a disgrace you do to your school by not taking feedback constructively. I know that Don Bosco is a good school, and I’ve quite a few friends there. You, apparently, are hell bent at showing how low some people can stoop. Don’t tarnish your school’s reputation. :p

thanx for ur comments and maybe we’ll work on it next year but it would certainly help if u would be a little less sarcastic in ur criticism!!!

@Anon: If I came across as sarcastic, I was misunderstood. I’m NOT trying to mock anyone here. I’m sure you guys will work for a better event next year, because even I know that out own events aren’t perfect. 🙂

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