COBALT SKIES ’09

GENERAL QUIZ FINALS

Quiz-master: Vinay N. Bhushan

 Infinite Bounce

• 10 points for every correct answer

• No negatives
1) Identify..?
 C. B. Muthamma
India’s first woman career diplomat
and first woman Ambassador
2) Identify..?
Ares I is the crew launch vehicle
being developed by NASA as a
component of the Constellation
Program.
3) X’s most famous quirk as Umpire was his habit of lifting one
foot off the ground whenever the score reached 111, or multiples
thereof, they being regarded as unlucky by X in a ritual dating
back to his childhood cricket team days. The number 111 is
known as the “Nelson", and is considered unlucky towards the
Batsman. This superstition has been the major focus of many
pieces of sporting artwork, including a statue dedicated to X near
Lord’s Cricket Ground in London. Also famous was his tendency
to shake his hand while signaling fours; to this day, many fans in
cricket crowds mimic his action while celebrating fours.
Identify X.
David Shepherd
4) Identify..?
 Ida, a fossil discovery that was
supposed to be the link that would
reveal the earliest evolutionary roots of
monkeys, apes and humans. But the
theory was recently debunked.
5) What kind of clouds are these?
Mammatus/Breast Clouds
6) Whose gravesite?
Melvin Jerome
"Mel" Blanc
7) Whose Voice?
Carl Sagan
8) Part of the World Heritage List.
What?
Nazca Lines
9) Which significant event in history is
shown in this picture?
Proclamation of the People’s Republic
of China by Mao Zedong on
October 1st , 1949 in
Tiananmen Square, Beijing
10) What is this hairstyle called?
Rat Tail
11) Robert Jensen, an economist at Brown University,
USA, recently found one of the Holy Grails of
economics. Potato during the Irish famine was long
thought to be an example of this, but this has
been disproved. Jensen found an example of this in the
Hunan and Gansu provinces of China. This
finding has huge implications for how governments
should use consumer price subsidies. What did
Jensen find an example of in China?
Giffen Good, for which demand
increases when price increases.
12) Which Sport?
 Foosball
or
Table Top Football
13) The working mechanism of
what is being shown here?
 Ribosome, molecular machines that
make proteins out of amino acids in a
cell. The 2009 Nobel Prize in
Chemistry was awarded to
Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas
A. Steitz and Ada E. Yonath "for
studies of the structure and function of
the ribosome”
14) Identify..?
 Baskin-Robbins
• Burton Baskin and Irvine Robbins,
founders of the global chain of ice-
cream parlors.
15) This place in Switzerland
has been immortalized by a
fictional series where the
protagonist and his arch rival
meet their apparent end here.
How is this place better
known as?
Reichenbach Falls in
Switzerland is the location
where Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle's hero, Sherlock
Holmes, apparently dies at
the end of The Adventure of
the Final Problem locked in
mortal combat with his arch
nemesis, Professor Moriarty.
 CONNECT
• 20 points for the right answer.
• No negatives.
1)
 Twitter
• “blueprint” of twitter
• Jack Dorsey, creator of twitter
• Shashi Tharoor, politician who got into a
controversy recently for his tweets.
2)
 Trinity College of Music, Oxford
University

• Ilayaraja, A.R. Rahman and Harris Jayaraj

studied there.
• That is the main building of the college.
3)
 Winners of the 2009 Right
Livelihood Award/Alternate Nobel
• Catherine Hamlin from Australia
• Rene Ngongo from D.R of Congo
• David Suzuki from Canada
• Alyn Ware from New Zealand
4)
 Malgudi
• Bull Temple Park in Basavanagudi.
• R.K. Narayan
• Chowdaiah Memorial Hall in Malleshwaram
5)
Various Road Crossings named after
animals/birds
• Puffin Crossing
• Panda Crossing
• Zebra Crossing
• Pelican Crossing
6) GLADIOLUS :- 1925
TORSION :- 1933
DULCIMER :- 1949
SCHRAPPF :- 1957
CHIHUAHUA :- 1967
VOUCHSAFE :- 1973
MILIEU :- 1985
KAMIKAZE :- 1993
POCOCURANTE :- 2003
 The winning words for
the years displayed in the
“Scripps National
Spelling Bee”
competition held in the
USA annually
 BUZZER ROUND
• +10 for the correct answer.
• -5 for an incorrect answer.
1) Name the organization
with this logo.
National Council of Educational
Research and Training
(NCERT)
2) How are these two men
well-known?
Satwant Singh and Beant Singh,
the assassins of Indira Gandhi.
3) Amul’s tribute to whom?
Aravind Adiga for his debut
novel, The White Tiger
which won him the 2008
Man Booker Prize.
4) Name/title of this famous
photograph?
Earth Rise
5) Although this is not his most
famous photograph, Identify.
Ernesto “Che” Guevara
6) This term is used in Mathematics when a function is
undefined at some point. It is also used to refer
to the initial state of the Universe, at the beginning of
the Big Bang. A recent popular use of this term
refers to “a theoretical point in the future of
unprecedented technological progress, caused in part by
the ability of machines to improve themselves using
artificial intelligence”. What term?
Singularity
7) Identify this controversial religious site.
Temple Mount/Noble Sanctuary
in Jerusalem
8) Identify the Game.
GO
9) Identify..?
The first signals sent by Sputnik, first artificial
satellite.
10) This play by William Shakespeare concerns
a maid, Helena, who cures the King of France of
a disease, then asks for Lord Bertram’s hand in
marriage. Bertram obliges, then quickly flees to
Italy to engage in war, hoping for death to avoid
marriage. In the end, after a lot of twists and
turns everything turns out well and they get
married and live happily ever after.
Name the play.
All’s Well That Ends Well!