Tag: Quizzing

On Thursday, 24th August 2006, the DPSVK Quiz Club Intra 2006 came to an end. The finals were conducted on that day, and I’m somewhat happy with the whole thing.

The day started off badly, with our intra in the morning being cancelled for some stupid house meeting (even after we’d taken permission), in which nothing was done. We protested, saying that the Code Warriors were given one whole day to conduct their intra. The Vice Principal then relented and gave us time during the break and one period.

There was another fiasco again at the later scheduled time, when she told us to move off, as our meeting was clashing with another during the same time. So we, very bravely, decided to leave the environs of the building and go out to cruel harsh outdoors, and conducted our intra on the lawns. There were some pretty amused gardeners (and I bet the flowerpots would’ve felt the same) to see the students sweating it out (literally…) and try to solve the paper made by ME. 42 questions (anyone gets the significance?) to be attempted in about 20 minutes, but then I extended the time to 30 minutes seeing that nobody was getting anything, but mainly because I didn’t want to present my beautiful face to the teacher in the middle of a period only to get pulled up for being not in class.

Cheating galore, hardly anyone was trying on their own. There were some really sincere students, and they did well. At the end of the day, the toppers in the test turned out to be guys who already go for quizzes from our school (like, my pal Prannoy Sablok). There are some promising new members too, whom I want to see flourishing next year.

Point is, I don’t think the guys will be seeing much action this year, as the quizzing season is almost over, and sure they’ll be disappointed with that. But the main point is majority of current members are in class 12th and they’ll be leaving next year; we seriously need trained replacements. Also the new members will have to look at recruiting others, especially those from junior sections who need to start training. Quizzing is not as if you just land up one day at the venue and answer questions – it takes time to learn the ropes, and to get the knack of cracking questions.

Looking forward to a good year next year, when I want to see the current crop to be trained enough to support me (replace me?). You can read about the 2006 Intra here, about the members here, and for Q & A and related files, you can visit my file server here.

I closed off the DPSVK Quiz Club Online Intra 2006 from further entries today, since I think it’s about time we got MOVING on the actual thing, and to get members prepared for upcoming quiz contests. I’d have liked to do this earlier, not bang in the middle of the quizzing season (when many of them are already over), but well, I was given my post late.

The response was er, I’m embarrassed to call 60 entries ‘overwhelming’ (as a quiz-crazy chap anything short of 3000 is not ‘overwhelming’), but yes, it was encouraging. There were more entries too, but some hadn’t given their names, or had submitted blank forms. One of the top-scorers submitted the paper under the name ‘fkfhksdhf’ or something of that sort. But yes, I was happy to see the number of entries pouring in. Mostly from class 11, since I am in constant touch with these guys.

I knew from Day 1 of opening the quiz that there would be lots of cheating going on, in the sense that they’d be looking it up from Google Search (or, maybe my choice, Yahoo! Search), but the point of the exercise was to identify students who were willing to spend even that 15-minute time searching for answers for a quiz. Basically, identify the interested ones, because I’d decided in the beginning that I’d conduct an offline test to follow it up. Scores really don’t make much sense in such a scenario, and I was very lenient in choosing the selected ones because I know many people attempted the test honestly and I did not want them to lose out due to that fact.

In the end, 40 students from the senior category, and 6 students from the junior category were shortlisted. They’ll have their offline test tomorrow. Believe me, it’s going to be really TOUGH. About 40 questions, no choices (ha, go figure!), all to be done within 20 minutes. Which is nothing, because I’ve qualified in quizzes with 60 questions, no choices in 15 minutes. The paper itself has a considerable section on music, something that is asked a lot in quizzes these days; and also because of the fact that we couldn’t bring out the audio equipment so had to put in extra questions to test their in-depth knowledge in the field. It also has a section on movies, sports, a mind-boggling cryptic section, along with the usual general trivia.

Some questions come with hints, but the point is, in most cases the questions are hints themselves. If you think clearly and logically, then you have a bright chance on striking the answer. This is one place where going wrong may also be beneficial – I’ll be looking if a person came close to the actual answer; so leaving an answer unattempted WILL give a bad impression to me. I WANT people who can think and figure out, and personally, I try to attempt as many questions as possible in a quiz.

I conducted a ‘seminar’ today for those selected, and some other interested ones; I took them along even though they hadn’t attempted the test because due to a communication error the whole online event was publicized a second time yesterday. Well, actually we just discussed the answers of the online intra in that, and a bit of general discussion on quizzing. Not much possible with a croaking me, I’ve got a nasty cold that’s done some pretty funny things to my voice. The students seemed to be either very bright, or very good at Google Search (the latter being the correct option probably).

Let me see tomorrow. And if you’re among the selected ones, then best of luck.

| List of selected candidates | Junior Online Intra 2006 Q & A | Senior Online Intra 2006 Q & A |