QMs – Ankan Bansal and Prakhar Gupta

Prelims

Rules

Written round

20 questions – 24 points

Top 6 teams qualify for the finals

Starred questions act as tie breakers

*Q1.

The ________ is a period of artistic style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, architecture, literature, dance, and music. The style began around 1600 in Rome, Italy and spread to most of Europe. Examples of this include Trevi Fountain in Rome, Bernini's Cornaro chapel, Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons etc.

In modern usage, the term may still be used, usually pejoratively, describing works of art, craft, or design that are thought to have excessive ornamentation or complexity of line, or, as a synonym for "Byzantine", to describe literature, computer software, contracts, or laws that are thought to be excessively complex, indirect, or obscure in language, to the extent of concealing or confusing their meaning.

Answer

Baroque

Q2. X was one of the most trusted of King Arthur's

knights and played a part in many of Arthur's victories. He is best known for his love affair with Arthur's wife Guinevere and the role he played in the search for the Holy Grail.

X has given his name to an experimental Knightmare Frame in the anime series Code Geass. Its pilot is Suzaku Kururugi.

Answer

Lancelot

*Q3.

In 1977, Britain’s The Guardian newspaper created a fictional island nation called ______ _____ as an April Fools’ joke. They provided an elaborate description of the nation, using puns and plays on words relating to typography. These jokes were easily missed by the general public, and many readers were fooled. This was one of the most famous and successful hoaxes of recent decades. The nation was reused for similar hoaxes in 1978, 1980 and 1999. Today, a reader registering on the Guardian website may select the nation as his or her country of origin.

Answer

San Serriffe

Q4.

GRRM is said to have taken inspiration from X to create Y. X was created from wootz steel, a steel developed in India around 300 BC. It was used for sword-making. These swords are characterized by distinctive patterns of banding and mottling reminiscent of flowing water. Such blades were reputed to be tough, resistant to shattering and capable of being honed to a sharp, resilient edge. X and Y? (Image on next slide)

Answer

X – Damascus Steel

Y – Valyrian Steel

*Q5.

Wikipedia entry for X:

X is an anglicised term describing a method of warfare whereby an attacking force spearheaded by a dense concentration of armoured and motorized or mechanized infantry formations, and heavily backed up by close air support, forces a breakthrough into the enemy's rear through a series of deep thrusts; and once in the enemy's rear, proceeds to dislocate them by utilizing speed and surprise, and then encircle them. Through the employment of combined arms in maneuver warfare, the X attempts to unbalance the enemy by making it difficult for them to respond effectively to the continuously changing front, and defeat them through a decisive vernichtungsschlacht (battle of annihilation).

Answer

Blitzkrieg

Q6.

The _______ is made by muddling sugar

with bitters, then adding alcohol, such

as whiskey or brandy, and a twist of

citrus rind. It is traditionally served in

a glass called a __________ glass,

named after the drink. It is the cocktail

of choice of Don Draper, the lead

character on the Mad Men television

series.

Answer

Old Fashioned

Q7.

In media industry, ________ is a period during which a film or other project is "trapped" in development. A film, video game, screenplay, computer program, concept, or idea stranded in _________ takes an especially long time to start production, or never does. Some examples are Alien vs. Predator which was released in 2004 after more than a decade of different scripts, changes to the cast, false starts, orphaned tie-ins, several series of video games and even promotions of the believed-to-be-coming-soon movie; Watchmen: Film rights to the 1986–1987 comic book series were first acquired in 1986; numerous versions were attempted, with a film adaptation finally released in 2009.

Answer

Development Hell / Development Limbo

*Q8.

It was a line of concrete fortifications, obstacles, and weapons installations that France constructed along its borders with Germany during the 1930s. Named after the French Minister of War, it was a response to France's experience in World War I and was constructed during the run-up to World War II. A similar line of defence, called the Alpine Line, faced Italy. While the fortification system did prevent a direct attack, it was strategically ineffective, as the Germans invaded through Belgium, outflanking the line. It was impervious to most forms of attack, and had state-of-the-art living conditions for garrisoned troops. (Image on next slide)

Answer

Maginot Line

Q9. Tribute Question

He was educated at East Central Railway Inter college in Mughalsarai and Varanasi. He graduated with a first-class degree from the Kashi Vidyapeeth and married Lalita Devi of Mirzapur. He was appointed Parliamentary Secretary in Uttar Pradesh and became the Minister of Police and Transport under Govind Ballabh Pant's Chief Ministership.

Answer

Q10. Id the painting and the painter.

Answer

The Raft of Medusa

Théodore Géricault

*Q11.

X was the fifth prime minister of Israel.

In 1994, X won the Nobel Peace Prize together with Y, a future prime minister and Yasser Arafat for signing Oslo Accords.. He was assassinated by right-wing Israeli radical Yigal Amir, who was opposed to X's signing of the Oslo Accords.

He was voted number one in a 2005 Ynet poll of greatest Israelis.

ID X.

Answer

X-Yitzhak Rabin

Y-Shimon Peres

*Q12.

Identify the song being played which

was a popular song of the American

Civil War that expressed people's

longing for the return of their friends and

relatives who were fighting in the war.

Answer

When Johnny Comes Marching Home

Q13.

X was an Italian American Baseball player.

Nicknamed "The Yankee Clipper", he played his entire 13-year career for the New York Yankees. He is perhaps best known for his 56-game hitting streak (May 15 – July 16, 1941), a record that still stands.

He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1955, and was voted the sport's greatest living player in a poll taken during the baseball centennial year of 1969.

Answer

Joe DiMaggio

Q14.

The X Incident, also known as the Manchurian Incident, was a staged event engineered by Japanese military personnel as a pretext for invading the northern part of China, known as Manchuria, in 1931.

On September 18, 1931, a small quantity of dynamite was detonated by Lt. Kawamoto Suemori close to a railroad owned by Japan's South Manchuria Railway near X. Although the explosion was so weak that it failed to destroy the lines and a train passed minutes later, the Imperial Japanese Army, accusing Chinese dissidents of the act, responded with a full invasion that led to the occupation of Manchuria, in which Japan established its puppet state of Manchukuo six months later.

Answer

X- Mukden

*Q15.

X was a politician and reformist leader of the Communist Party of China who, after Mao's death led his country towards a market economy. He opened China to foreign investment, the global market and limited private competition.

X was instrumental in China's economic reconstruction following the Great Leap Forward in the early 1960s. His economic policies, however, were at odds with the political ideologies of Chairman Mao Zedong. As a result, he was purged twice during the Cultural Revolution, but regained prominence in 1978 by outmanoeuvring Mao's chosen successor, Hua Guofeng.

Answer

Deng Xiaoping

Q16.

X is a 1953 war film which tells the story of a group of American airmen held in a German World War II prisoner of war camp, who come to suspect that one of their number is an informant. It was adapted from a Broadway play.

For the movie, Y won the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. His acceptance speech is the shortest on record ("thank you"); the TV broadcast had a strict cut-off time which forced Y's quick remarks. Frustrated Y personally paid for advertisements in the Hollywood trade publications to thank everyone he wanted to on Oscar night.

Answer

X- Stalag 17

Y- William Holden

Q17.

__________ was composed by Pandit Shardha Ram Phillauri in Punjab in the 1870s. He was a Punjabi missionary, social reformer, astrologer, and writer, best remembered for his contributions to Hindi and Punjabi literature. He has been called the “father of modern Punjabi prose”. There are also variants of the song, using the same tune and structure, but with focus on different entities. Translation of the first few line of the song:

Victory to the lord of the universe Who will remove, The sorrow of all his devotees, And the sorrows of all his followers.

Answer

Jai Jagdish Hare

Q18.

X was an ancient Greek astronomer and mathematician who presented the first known model that placed the Sun at the centre of the known universe with the Earth revolving around it. He was influenced by Philolaus of Croton, but he identified the "central fire" with the Sun, and put the other planets in their correct order of distance around the Sun. His astronomical ideas were often rejected in favour of the geocentric theories of Aristotle and Ptolemy. X-?

Answer

Aristarchus of Samos

Q19.

X was an Italian composer, pianist, conductor and academic who is best known for his film scores, notably for the films of Federico Fellini and Luchino Visconti. He also composed the music for two of Franco Zeffirelli's Shakespeare films. Alongside this great body of film work, he composed ten operas, five ballets and dozens of other orchestral, choral and chamber works, the best known being his string concerto. Two of X’s scores were ranked by the American Film Institute on their list of the greatest film scores. X-?

Answer

Nino Rota

Q20.

X was an English mathematician, known for his achievements in number theory and mathematical analysis. He is usually known by those outside the field of mathematics for his essay from 1940 on the aesthetics of mathematics, A Mathematician's Apology, which is often considered one of the best insights into the mind of a working mathematician written for the layman. In an interview by Z, when X was asked what his greatest contribution to mathematics was, X unhesitatingly replied that it was the discovery of Y.

Z’s epitaph reads:

“Finally I am becoming stupider no more.”?

Answer

Godfrey Hardy

Ramanujan

Paul Erdos