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