This was my first time at the quiz… Never having been to an Open quiz before..this was a new experience.And how good it turned out to be!Just watching all those smart minds in action in the finals was just a treat. Our team got 17 and a half in the preliminaries…(dont know how good or bad it is…).But for a first timer at an open quiz….it felt very satisfying!Without going too much into other stuff and descriptions..here are the questions from the prelims(as much stuff as I could recollect…and in no proper order)….

1.Sportspersons from which sport have been awarded the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award the maximum number of times-four?

Ans:Shooting(Abhinav Bindra,Anjali Bhagwat,Rajyavardhan Rathore and Manavjit Singh Sandhu)

2.Which two countries apart from India celebrate their Independence Day on August 15th?

Ans:Republic of the Congo and South Korea

3.The religious heads of a religion get their name because they “act as a “ford” across the “river of human misery”.”?

Ans:The Tirthankaras of Jainism

4.This African country had its name changed to its present one …after its independence.Its present name,in Shona language means ” “great houses of stone”.Which country?

Ans:Zimbabwe

5.What is the name given to a a tomb or monument erected in honour of a person or group of persons whose remains are elsewhere?

(clue:it’s the name of a road in Chennai)

Ans:Cenotaph

6.Video-From a movie where a man’s eating a carrot and is talking to a woman.What was inspired from this?

Ans: Bugs Bunny

7.Audio-Kuselan’s theme music

8.Audio- Barack Obama reading from his book” Dreams from my father”

9.Audio-Identify the artist and the instrument

Ans:(dont rem the artist s name right),Instrument Balalaika

10.Who,apart from Arjuna,were the only two people to have listen to Bhagavad Gita directly from Lord Krishna?

Ans:Sanjaya and Hanuman(who’s on Arjuna s flag)

11.What object would u find on the top of the Wimbledon Men’s singles trophy?

Ans:A pineapple

12.Which Hans Christian Andersen tale begins thus: “There once was a woman who wanted so very much to have a tiny little child, but she did not know where to find one.”??

Ans:Thumbelina

13.Which website labels its movie reviews as “Certified Fresh”?

Ans:rottentomatoes.com

14. Scott Fahlman of the US,in September 1982,created which highly popular internet phenomenon?

Ans:The first smiley emoticon :-)

15.Which modern word owes its origin from the Latin term for mask or character? (Other etymological details were given…but this is all I could recollect)?

Ans:Persona

16.James Conolly was the first ever Olympic Gold medallist.For which discipline did he get the gold?

Ans:Triple Jump

17.In Buddhism,what are included in the included in the Khuddaka Nikaya of the Sutta Pitaka,containing literature concerning the previous births of Buddha?

Ans:The Jatakas

18.Pic of Amazon s ebook reader….Kindle

19.Pic of the Red Panda ,also called Firefox

20.Video…Connect Pirates of the Caribbean with Haunted House

Ans:Both are rides in Disneyland

21.In 1987, there was a project to save the Silent Valley in Kerala.Which animal was used as the mascot (if that’s the right word) for this project?

Ans: The lion-tailed Macaque

22.Video from Qayamat se Qayamat Tak..Idenify the child artist

Ans:Imran Khan

23.Which 94-year building in Chennai was used by Annie Besant , is now facing demolition?

Ans: Gokhale Hall

24.Which novel in 1902 rose to the top of the Bestseller lists, thus becoming the first ever detective novel to do so?

Ans: The Hound of Baskervilles

25.Who was declared the patron saint of Delhi in 1857, when any Catholic in the town was stoned to death?

Ans: St.Stephen

26.The bob cut, a style which was created in 1909 by a hairdresser named Antoine,was inspired by whom?

Ans:Joan of Arc

27.Which other team,apart from Manchester United,Arsenal and Chelsea has won the English Premier League?

Ans:Blackburn Rovers

28.What syndrome was first observed in the 1980s,when it turned out that people who had traveled long distances by airplane were at an increased risk for thrombosis, especially deep venous thrombosis and its main complication, pulmonary embolism?

Ans:Economy Class Syndrome

29.Antrix Corp is the marketing arm of which Indian organization?

Ans:ISRO(Antrix comes from the Sanskrit root “Antariksh” which means “Space”)

30.Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw’s nickname came because of the regiment he served over a long period of time..What was it?

Ans:Sam ‘Bahadur’(he served the Gurkha regiment)

31.In Geometry,what is the name given to an egg-shaped figure?

Ans:Oval(ovum in latin means egg….ellipse was what mot people guessed!)

32.Pic of Ilavazhagi,the world carrom champ

33.What weapon, used in the future in Armies,was first written about in the  novel “Daring Adventures in Elephant Land”?

Ans: TASER(Tom A Swift’s Electric Rifle)

34.Pic(s)-A german architect firm has been awarded the rights to construct which building and has proposed the following plans(as shown in the pics)?

Ans:The Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly complex

35.What word gets its origin from France,where it was “used to describe anything which brought luck to a household”?(again…couldn’t recollect the minute ety details from the quiz)

Ans:Mascot

36.What geographical feature is the Shiv Ling at Amarnath an example of?

Ans:Stalagmite

37.According to The Economist,which is the toughest management school in the world to get into?

Ans:IIM-Ahmedabad

38.Which Tamil word,meaning “to avoid doing work” gets its origins from the British Army where retired officials where called so?

Ans: OB (adikkaradhu)…gets its origin from OB , which stood for “Off Beat” in the British Army

39.Vinobha Bhave described which period in Indian History as Anushasan Parva or “Time for Discipline”?

Ans: The Emergency period in 1975

Thats all I could remember from the prelims…If you find any errors in the questions..pls write them in comments section

Urs

Srinath S