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Sunday, September 30, 2012

110.

The _______ Massacre happened at St. Peter's Field, Manchester, England, on 16 August 1819, when the cavalry charged into a crowd of 60,000 - 80,000 people demanding reform of parliamentary representation. The meeting happened during a time when the economy was poor following the Napoleonic wars. Also limited suffrage in Northern England and the harsh corn laws encouraged political radicalism. At a demonstration by the Manchester Patriotic Union, local magistrates charged military authorities to arrest the leaders and disperse the crowd, causing the cavalry to charge into the crowd and killing 15-20 people and injuring 400+ people in the ensuing confusion.

The massacre was given the name ______ in ironic comparison to a glorious event in British military history which happened only 4 years earlier.

Both Blanks are same. Very workoutable.



Ans(Highlight): Peterloo Massacre

Saturday, September 29, 2012

109.

This is a 1968 science fiction novel by Philip K. Dick. The novel is set in a post-apolyptic Earth, suffering from radiation fallout from World War Terminus. The main plot features a bounty hunter with the task of tracking down renegade Xs who have assumed human identity. As the radiation poisoning has wiped out the majority of animals, owning an animal is now considered a status symbol, and people, including the protagonist, unable to afford real animals keep up pretenses by owning electric animals. The novel explores what it is to be a human, as the bounty hunter protagonist explores the existence of defining qualities that separate humans from Xs.

The word X, part of the title of the novel, translates into Greek as "having the likeness of a man", and was shortened and used extensively by George Lucas in Star Wars.

The novel was adapted to the 1982 film Blade Runner, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer and Scott Young.





Ans: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
Good lord, you're right. It's Kandinsky. Wassily Kandinsky, and who's this herewith him? It's Braque. Georges Braque, the Cubist, painting a bird in flight over a cornfield and goingvery fast down the hill towards Kingston and ...
(cyclists pass in front of him)
Piet Mondrian - just behind, Piet Mondrian the Neo-Plasticist, and then a gap, then the main bunch, here they come,Chagall, Max Ernst, Miro, Dufy, Ben Nicholson, Jackson Pollock and Bernard Buffet making a break on the outside here, Brancusi's going with him, so is Gericault, Fernand Leger, Delaunay, DeKooning, Kokoschka's dropping back here by the look of it, and so's Paul KIee dropping back a bitand, right at the back of this group, our very own Kurt Schwitters.
 Who  fell off his bicycle  just outside Ewhurst, trying to get a short cut through to Dorking via Peaslake and Gomshall, and who is painting  his first painting in motion?



Ans: Pablo Picasso (whither Canada sketch of Monty Python)

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

India Quiz

India Quiz took place on tuesday, September 18. The quizmasters were Gagandeep Bhatia, Mayank Gupta and Arnab Dutta. There were prelims for the quiz, from which three teams from Kumaon, Jwala and Zanskar qualified. A total of 15 teams managed to stuff themselves in SAC Committee Room. The first quizmaster of the day was Gagandeep, and his questions were overall well-received. Mayank and Arnab, both from Shivalik House, conducted their quiz together. There was a slight problem during the quiz - Mayank and Arnab's marking scheme was +10 per question, while points in Gagandeep's round were +2 per questions. It was decided that to restore parity between the rounds, the points from Mayank-Arnab's would be divided by 5. Mayank and Arnab introduced a new concept - cards. There were two "Wicked Wango" cards - "Second Chance"  to give an opportunity to give a correct answer when the team had already given one incorrect answer to the same question, and the other "Rocket Science" where a team can opt to score more points for a question while at the risk of getting negatives for incorrect answers. Each card could be used only once. These concepts were appreciated by the Quizzing teams. The questions were good, but were not suitable for an infinite bounce format quiz, as they tended to be on the easier side. Also the round reversal gave an advantage to some teams, and changes are being introduced to reduce the arbitrariness that results from round reversal. The quality of some questions was very much appreciated - for instance there was a question connecting Pushkar and cattle fair to Sunanda Pushkar - the cattle fair bit connecting to Shashi Tharoor's cattle class remark!
At the last question of the quiz, Shivalik were 1.8 points behind the leaders Kumaon. If they got the question, they would have finished first, and failure to answer would have meant they were out of the top 3. After getting an incorrect answer amidst general suspense in CR, they opted for Second Chance card, at which they also got an incorrect answer, much to the relief of the leading teams Kumaon and Satpura. Team Nilgiri got the correct answer, bringing them up to tied third.
The event results were:
1st - Kumaon - 25 points
2nd - Satpura - 18 points
Tied 3rd - Nilgiri and Jwala - 6 points each

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Elementary - QC Non-comp

The second non-comp of the season, Elementary was held on Wednesday, 12th September 2012 in SAC CR. The quizmasters for the event were Aditya Grover, Shivani Sen and Nikhil Mahajan. The prelims started at 8 and saw enthusiastic participation from a lot of teams, especially the freshers who turned out in large numbers. The prelims, with 25 questions(many having multiple parts), was a well balanced set of questions from different themes and turned out to be high scoring affair with a cutoff of 13/35. Eight teams made it to the finals, with an overenthusiastic Nikhil Mahajan lobbying for a ninth team to accomodate his Jwala freshers! 

It was heartening to see a freshers team also making it through. The finals comprised of around 45 questions, split into three rounds, one by each QM. Each round was highly appreciated by the finalists and audience and for any ambiguity, there was one simple rule, Quizmaster is God(ess). The event started and ended on time, in tune with the new QC policy of punctuality. The winning team were QC Veterans Gowtham, Arpit and Shivalik fresher, runners up being Team Nilgiri. The main entertainer of the Quiz award went to Tannishka Singh for jumping up every time an answer he knew was answered before him.

The next event would be India Quiz, to be conducted by Gagandeep Bhatia, Arnab Dutta and Mayank Gupta, on the 18th of August.