5th National Open Quizzing Championships

Mega-Whats 2014
The 5th National Open Quizzing Championships
Conducted by
The Karnataka Quiz Association
Est. 1983
Set by
Arun Hiregange and Kiran Vijayakumar

The Rules
1. +10/-5 on the pounce; +10 on the bounce
2. Part points available on the pounce
3. If you give one part correct and one part
wrong, you get -5
4. If you just attempt one part and if you’re
wrong, you get -5
5. If you just attempt one part and if you’re
right, you get +5 (or as the case maybe)

The Design
Three rounds:
I. Written  5
II. Clockwise  18
III. Anti-clockwise  18

1
Her father was a war hero, a tank leader sergeant
who died in the Finnish Winter War during World
War II in the Lemetti area in Finnish Karelia when
she was two years old. When she was asked how
the country should thank her for her service to the
country, she replied that the government search
for, and publish, the location where her father was
killed in action. This was done, and a monument
(shown here) now stands at the site. Who is she?

2
Anthony Quinn (based on the various roles that he
portrayed).

3
The ____ frog (Conraua ____) is the largest extant
anuran on Earth. The largest known specimens
can grow up to 33 cm in length from snout to vent,
and weighs up to 3 kg. This animal has a relatively
small habitat range, mainly in Cameroon and
Equatorial Guinea. Due to their classification as an
endangered species, the Equatorial Guinean
government has declared that no more than 300
____ may be exported out of the country per year.
Fill in the blank.

4
Ad created by Honda. For which event was it
created?

4
The Isle of Man TT (Tourist Trophy) Race.

5
On 10 October 1789, who proposed the following six articles before the
French National Assembly in favour of the reformation of capital
punishment?
Article 1: All offences of the same kind will be punished by the same type
of punishment irrespective of the rank or status of the guilty party.
Article 2: Whenever the Law imposes the death penalty, irrespective of
the nature of the offence, the punishment shall be the same:
decapitation, effected by means of a simple mechanism.
Article 3: The punishment of the guilty party shall not bring discredit
upon or discrimination against his family.
Article 4: No one shall reproach a citizen with any punishment imposed
on one of his relatives. Such offenders shall be publicly reprimanded by a
judge.
Article 5: The condemned person's property shall not be confiscated.
Article 6: At the request of the family, the corpse of the condemned man
shall be returned to them for burial and no reference to the nature of
death shall be registered.

1
With his brother Robert, he operated an oil company in
Baku, which at one point produced 50% of the world's
oil. He is credited with creating the Russian oil industry
and was the first to experiment with carrying oil in bulk
on single-hulled barges. The world's first successful oil
tanker was his Zoroaster, designed with Sven Almqvist.
The design was widely studied and copied, with him
refusing to patent any part of it. A news article about
him published on April 12, 1888 in the Paris newspaper
Ideotie Quotidienne is perhaps the link to a lasting
legacy, though indirect. Who, or what are we talking
about?

1
Ludvig Immanuel Nobel. His obituary under the
headline "Le Marchand de la Mort est Mort" (“the
drummer of death is dead" / "the merchant of
death is dead") mistakenly mentioned his brother
Alfred’s name. This is supposed to have lead to
the formation of the Nobel prizes.

2
Mahopanishad describes the ‘lakshanas' (characteristics) of great
men who are elevated to the Bramhi sthiti (one who has attained
Brahman while still alive). Fill in the blanks with a phrase that has
been appropriated by Hindutva organisations these days.
“udārah pēśalācārah sarvācārānuvrttimān |
antah-sanga-parityāgī bahih-sambhāravāniva |
antarvairāgyamādāya bahirāśōnmukhēhitah ||
ayam bandhurayam nēti gananā laghucētasām |
udāracaritānām tu ____ ____ ||
bhāvābhāva-vinirmuktam jarāmaranavarjitam |
praśānta-kalanārabhyam nīrāgam padamāśraya ||
esā brāmhī sthitih svacchā niskāmā vigatāmayā |
ādāya viharannēvam samkatēsu na muhyati ||”

3
Shown here is the 1955 debut album of the
Canadian classical pianist Glenn Gould. It
launched Gould’s career as a renowned
international pianist, and became one of the most
well-known piano recordings and was also
Columbia's bestselling classical album. Take a
look at the cover based on a set of photographs
taken by Dan Weiner, and tell us the classical work
it was based on.

3
Bach’s Goldberg Variations, which were 30 in
number.

4
What title was first created in the 1930s when
William Cameron Menzies made revolutionary
contributions to the craft of art direction in the
making of Gone with the Wind?
What title was first granted to Walter Murch by
Francis Ford Coppola in recognition for his
extraordinary contributions to the 1972 film
Apocalypse Now?
Both these titles have been since used commonly
in movie credits.

4
Production designer.
Sound designer.

5
This writer's brush with commercial cinema resulted in
a critical essay in Life titled Mis____d ____. His 1958
novel The ____ was made into a 1965 movie ____. Here's
his description of an early conversation with its little-
known Poland-born American director: "He brushed
aside my comments and went on with his own
explanation of what I must have had in mind when I
created such-and-such character. I began to realise
that monologue is the privilege of the filmmaker, and
that it was futile to try butting in with my own
observations. But for some obscure reason, they
seemed to need my presence, though not my voice. I
must be seen and not heard." Identify the writer. Fill in
the blank. (All blanks are same.)

6
From MCC’s Laws of Cricket:
Law 16 (Start of play; cessation of play)
1. Call of Play
The bowler’s end umpire shall call Play at the start of the match
and on the resumption of play after any interval or interruption.
2. Call of Time
The bowler’s end umpire shall call Time when the ball is dead on
the cessation of play before any interval or interruption and at
the conclusion of the match. See Laws 23.3 (Call of Over or
Time) and 27 (Appeals).
3. Removal of bails
After the call of Time, the bails shall be removed from both
wickets.
What grim symbolism, introduced in 1926, owes its origin to the
highlighted portion here?

6
Old Father Time, the weather vane at Lord’s
Cricket Ground.

7
This illustration shows 19-year old Elizabeth
Siddal at 7 Gower Street in London during the
winter of 1851. Oil lamps were placed under the
tub to warm the water, but she had to face these
harsh conditions on many days for hours. As a
result, she caught a severe cold, and her father
later sent a letter to the person responsible for
this, demanding £50 for medical expenses. Why
did Siddal have to undergo all this? Who made
here do this?

7
Posing for Ophelia. Sir John Everett Millais.

8
S.J. Perelman is best known for his humorous short
pieces written over many years for The New Yorker. He
co-wrote scripts for the Marx Brothers films Monkey
Business (1931) and Horse Feathers (1932), and for the
Academy Award-winning screenplay Around the World
in Eighty Days (1956). He is highly regarded for his
humorous short stories were infused with a sense of
ridicule, irony, and wryness and frequently used his
own misadventures as their theme. Perelman chose to
describe these pieces as ____ — a French literary term
meaning “literary or scientific articles; serial stories”
(literally “little leaves”) — and he defined himself as a
____iste. Connect the blanked word with the term given
to the witty exchange of one-liners as seen here.

8
Feuilleton and Stichomythia – the words which
ended in a tie at the Scripps National Spelling Bee
2014.

9
Born Claes Pieterszoon, he adopted a flower as his
heraldic emblem and changed his name to match it. He
examined and signed the fitness reports for the first
Dutch settlers on the island of Manhattan. His most
impressive work on medicine was his Observationes
Medicae, published in 1641 and again in 1652 by
Lodewijk Elzevir. Some called it the "book of monsters",
because he dissected animals brought back from the
Dutch East India Company's ships and also because of
the fantastic stories that he related. His description of
the symptoms of Beriberi in a Dutch seaman went
unnoticed until the cause (vitamin B1 deficiency) was
recognized two hundred years later by Christiaan
Eijkman. Who?

10
Situated in Aachen Cathedral and made in 1215 at
the command of Frederick II, Holy Roman
Emperor, what does it contain?

10
The remains of Charlemagne.

11
First time visitors to the Kohima War Cemetery
may be surprised to find that this structure is
situated in the middle of a _____. Fill in the blank
with something that provided the centre stage for
an unrelated event on 20 June 1789.

12
Theories about the name of which literary character?
1. From the hero of The Story of Young Renate Fuchs, by
German-Jewish novelist Jakob Wassermann.
2. From Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, who wrote Venus in Furs
(1870), a novel whose hero assumes the first name at one
point. A "Venus in furs" literally recurs in the picture that
the character has hung on his bedroom wall.
3. From the name of the author himself. The character's
surname is similar to the author's surname in its play of
vowels and consonants: "Five letters in each word. The first
and second consonants in the character's name has the
same positions as the first and second consonants in the
author's surname. The same vowel is in the second and
fifth positions in both words."

12
Gregor Samsa, from The Metamorphosis by Franz
Kafka.

13
Contents of The ____ ____ Cookbook published by
the Viking Press in 1973. Fill in the blanks.

14
The term ____ designates the process or event of
accounting for members in a military unit. This
practice of inspections led to the coining of the
English idiom ____ ____, meaning being sufficient.
In Tudor England, these were periodic
assessments of the availability of local militia to
act as a defense force when needed. To some
extent, the system was an outdated remnant of the
feudal system where local lords had their own
armies, which they provided for the King as
required. What term/idiom are we talking about?

15
In France, they are called "le camembert" after the
cheese. Sometimes "un diagramme en fromage" is
also used, though this usage is less popular. What
are we talking about?

16
According to US military lore, what tradition is
followed to ensure that the military dogs are not
mistreated by their trainers?

16
Every military working dog is a noncommissioned
officer – in tradition at least. Some say the custom
was to prevent handlers from mistreating their
dogs; hence, a dog is always one rank higher than
its handler.

17
The austere beauty of ____ has been seen by many in
western culture as a glimpse of an otherworldly system of
perfection and certainty. Abraham Lincoln kept a copy of
____ in his saddlebag, and studied it late at night by
lamplight; he related that he said to himself, "You never
can make a lawyer if you do not understand what
demonstrate means; and I left my situation in Springfield,
went home to my father's house, and stayed there till I
could give any proposition in the six books of ____ at
sight". Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote in her sonnet ____
Alone Has Looked on Beauty Bare, "O blinding hour, O holy,
terrible day, When first the shaft into his vision shone Of
light anatomized!". Einstein recalled a copy of the ____ and
a magnetic compass as two gifts that had a great influence
on him as a boy. What are we talking about?

18
What does this
convey? Where
was this
famously used
in the early part
of the
nineteenth
century?

18
“England expects that every man will do his duty.”
Battle of Trafalgar.

1
This wandering monk, sometimes called Nangta
Baba, was said to have been 250 years old when
he died. This could be because multiple babas had
the same name. He arrived at Dakshineshwar in
1864 and is said to have initiated Ramakrishna
into Advaita Vedanta. Name this monk who shares
his name with a beaked variety of a fruit.

2
This word for a work of literature or art which is a
medley made from fragments of different works or
in a style that imitates another work or
writer/artist, comes from an Italian word for a pie
made of different ingredients which itself
ultimately derives from a Latin word meaning
“dough” that also is the origin of a very common
Italian food item. Give both words: the work of
literature/art and the food item.

3
As a result of the success of a certain
actor/director’s movie in Sweden, most of his
movies were released in Swedish with related
titles. For example: ______ For The Sheriff, ______
For The Lunatics, ______ For World History, ______
For Space, ______ For The Slum, ______ For
Frankenstein etc. Fill (one common word).

4
“Unlike any other running shoe on the market. A
breakthrough in running shoe design, ______ is our first
model designed specifically to promote a more natural,
healthier and more efficient forefoot strike. While many
folks have been running in their Vibram FiveFingers for
years, the ______ is our first model created exclusively
for a more natural running experience.… It also
distributes forefoot impact without compromising
important ground feedback essential to a proper
forefoot-strike running form.” Taken from the Vibram
Five Fingers website. Whose name fills the blank?

5
The French Open men’s trophy is named after The
Musketeers and the women’s trophy after Suzanne
Lenglen. The Australian Open trophies are named
after Norman Brookes (former world No. 1 and
president of LTA of Australia) and Daphne Akhurst
(5-time Australian Open winner). The US Open
trophies don’t have specific names, nor does the
Wimbledon men’s trophy. Lastly, the Wimbledon
women’s trophy is called the Venus Rosewater
dish. What was Venus Rosewater famous for?

5
It is a rosewater dish with the figure of Venus in
the centre.

6
This “invincible rock” is formed over centuries by the
decomposition of plants and the activity of
microrganisms such as Euphorbia royleana and
Trifolium repens. In the variant found in the Caucasas
mountains, it is commonly called mumijo. Studies have
shown that the typical Oxygen Radical Absorbency
Capacity (ORAC) of the variety found in the Andes is
significantly higher than most common foods that are
touted for their antioxidant capacity. If you happen to
visit Himalayan tourist spots like Manali, chances are
good that you will be accosted by hawkers trying to sell
you some. What?

7
Although the League of Nations and other international
meetings had used simultaneous interpretation prior to
1945, its successful use in this place gave the method new
importance. The various participants there spoke four
different languages and it was vital that the proceedings
were understood by everyone. An American company was
brought in that had acquired a Boston businessman’s
patent and modified it. One channel sent out the exact
words of the speaker; other channels transmitted
immediate translations in English, Russian, French, and
German. Events took place at the dictation speed of 60
words per minute. A monitor flashed a yellow light to notify
the speaker if he was going too fast, or a red light if he
should stop and repeat what he had said. Which company
setup this system and where/for what?

8
Cecil Adams (not) answering what question in The Straight Dope?
If I had an honest atom in my body, I would say "I don't know" and
shut up. I don't do this only out of a recognition that if everybody
did likewise 90 percent of all human conversation would cease.
So let me pass along the following comforting admixture of
conjecture and BS.
Noting that the earliest citation of “____ ____ ____” in the Oxford
English Dictionary is from 1903, word detectives William and
Mary Morris guess that it all started with the comic strip The
Katzenjammer Kids, which began around that time. The kids are
named Hans and ____, who make trouble for the Captain. The
Morrises note, “By the end of the strip, their actions had the
effect of putting whatever plans the Captain had made
permanently ____ ____ ____.”

9
One of the oldest national anthems in existence, its fifteen
stanzas are written in first person and tell the tale of the singer:
his life and his struggle against the Spanish. In what non-obvious
way does it pay tribute to him?
Wilhelmus van Nassouwe
Ben ick van Duytschen bloet,
Den Vaderlant getrouwe
…
In Godes vrees te leven
Heb ick altyt betracht,
Daerom ben ick verdreven
...
Lydt u myn Ondersaten
Die oprecht zyn van aert,
Godt sal u niet verlaten
…
Lyf en goet al te samen
Heb ick u niet verschoont,
Mijn broeders hooch van Namen
...
Edel en Hooch gheboren
Van Keyserlicken Stam:
Een Vorst des Rijcks vercoren
...
Mijn Schilt ende betrouwen
Sijt ghy, o Godt mijn Heer,
Op u soo wil ick bouwen
...

9
Van al die my beswaren,
End mijn Vervolghers zijn,
Mijn Godt wilt doch bewaren
...
Als David moeste vluchten
Voor Saul den Tyran:
Soo heb ick moeten suchten
...
Na tsuer sal ick ontfanghen
Van Godt mijn Heer dat soet,
Daer na so doet verlanghen
...
Niet doet my meer erbarmen
In mijnen wederspoet,
Dan dat men siet verarmen
…
Als een Prins op gheseten
Met mijner Heyres cracht,
Van den Tyran vermeten
...
Soo het den wille des Heeren
Op die tyt had gheweest,
Had ick gheern willen keeren
...
Seer Prinslick was ghedreven
Mijn Princelick ghemoet,
Stantvastich is ghebleven
...
Oorlof mijn arme Schapen
Die zijt in grooten noot,
V Herder sal niet slapen
…
Voor Godt wil ick belijden
End zijner grooter Macht,
Dat ick tot gheenen tijden
…

9
Acrostic of starting letters spells Willem Van
Nassov.

10
John Strong, captain of an English expedition which
landed here in 1690, named it after the title of Anthony
Cary, Treasurer of the Navy, who sponsored his
expedition. The title itself came from a Scottish town.
The other name that people have applied to the same
place came via Frenchman Louis-Antoine de
Bougainville who named it after Saint-Malo which was
the town in northwest France where his ships had
started their voyage. The UN documentation for this
place skirts controversy by using both names. Which
place?

11
In recent times we’ve come across this as a first
name, though classic movie fans may know it as
the surname of an actress who didn’t have too
many roles but did star in an all-time great movie.
The name comes from “new” and came for
example to be applied to new settlers to a city,
people who created new arable land or recent
converts to Christianity.
This map may help.
What name?

12
This “hopelessly useless” student went on to
develop:
• a radical theory of radicals
• theory of isomerism e.g. HNCO is isocyanic
acid while HCNO is fulminic acid
• “law of minimum” for plant nutrition
• the silver mirror, replacing the mercury mirror
• a meat extract and baby food
• a precursor to stainless steel using Ni & Fe
• Super-phosphate fertilizer

12
All of us would have first come across his name in
school chemistry labs. Who / why?

13
He was a contrarian in an era when his
competitors usually shaved all their body hair to
decrease drag. When they questioned his choice
and the potential increased drag, he claimed
tongue-in-cheek that it helped create a pocket of
air to breathe. People took him seriously and this
spawned a generation of imitators across Europe.
Who / what trademark look?

13
Mark Spitz’s trademark mustache.

14
William Safire talking on the origin of which phrase?
When did that phrase first become the favorite figure of
speech meaning "incontrovertible incrimination"? The
answer is elementary, Watson. In an 1893 Sherlock
Holmes story, The Gloria Scott, Arthur Conan Doyle
wrote of a grisly murder by a sham chaplain aboard a
prison ship: "We rushed into the captain's cabin . . .
there he lay with his brains smeared over the chart of
the Atlantic... while the chaplain stood with a ____ in his
hand at his elbow." A good copy editor would have
fixed Doyle's awkward "in his hand at his elbow", but
that Holmes citation seems to be the start of the cliché
that grips us today.

15
What is common to the following?
• Splitting the Atom
• Jet Boat
• Stamp-Vending Machine
• Spreadable Butter
• Bungee-Jumping
• Tranquilizer Gun
• Electric Fences
• Zorbing
• Disposable Syringe
• Egg beater
• Women’s vote
• Referee’s whistle

16
In the 1949 Serie A, the team which was leading
with four games left to play in the season fielded
its youth team (Primavera) for those last four
games. Their opponents in each of these matches
also fielded their youth sides though they could
well have played their senior teams. Primavera
won each of the matches and so the scudetto.
Which team was this and why did their opponents
behave so?

16
Torino’s senior team had been wiped out by the
Superga crash.

17
One of Aesop’s fables gave rise to a misogynistic
proverb which has various forms, the most
familiar of which equates three things as having
one similar aspect. Of the three things, one (after
which the fable is named) provides an edible nut,
the second is a spaniel or a dog or a donkey and
the third is what makes the proverb misogynistic.
Recite the proverb.

17
A woman, a dog and a walnut tree; the more you
beat them the better they be.

18
This cartoon
character is
said to have
been named
after the
nickname of
which Nobel
prize winner?

18
Jimmy Neutron from James Chadwick.

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