KQA MegaWhats 2016 semifinals 1

MEGAWHATS 2016
SEMI FINAL 1
Research By
Mitesh Agarwal and Venkatesh Srinivasan

1. Hammer and Tongs – Kolkata
2. Ingit Bergman – Mumbai
3. Mavericks – Dubai
4. Memory Blank – Chennai
5. Metaquizziks – Bangalore
6. Swami and Friends – Hyderabad
7. The Travelling Pillsburys – Mumbai
8. We Are Like This (W)Only – Bangalore

 16 questions clock-wise on Infinite Pounce
 Written Round with six questions
 16 questions anti-clock-wise on Infinite Pounce
 Top four teams qualify for the finals

 16 questions
 +10 on Infinite Bounce
 +10/-5 on Infinite Pounce
 No part pounces

MegaWhats 2016
Ornithologists Dr Hentati-Sundberg and Dr Olsson of Stockholm University
borrowed an idea that historians of architecture are starting to use to track
changes to buildings.
They used Stora Karlsö in the Baltic Sea for their experiments, as the island is
well known as a nesting site for guillemots and razorbills. They found that the
number of nesting pairs increased from 1918, dropped in the 1960s and
recovered again more recently.
Their hypothesis is – what worked on Stora Karlsö would surely work for
other seabird colonies that have significant tourists visiting.
What simple, yet effective method were they using to collect this data?
1

KQA MegaWhats 2016 semifinals 1

MegaWhats 2016
Tourist photographs

MegaWhats 2016
Recently, this famous cosmetics brand ran an awareness campaign in
South Africa – which has the highest rates of a type of cancer in the
world.
They set up this slide on the beach so that families could solve a
particular problem in a fun way that would require no cajoling on the
part of the parents.
Which brand? What does the slide do?
2

MegaWhats 2016
Nivea
The slide is coated with sunscreen, which kids are
generally loathe to put on

MegaWhats 2016
a) In use since the 1910s, this hyphenated word comes from American English
and is used to denote an aggressive and hard-working person, and is often
used as a desired quality in recruitment advertisements. Which word?
b) In the pic, if red represents the route taken for one commodity, what does
the blue line represent?
Both (a) and (b) find usage today as brand names in a particular niche
publication industry in India. In your answer, please indicate the respective
owners of each “publication”.
Each correct pair gets five points.
3

MegaWhats 2016
a. Go-Getter – Go Air
b. Spice Route – Spice Jet

MegaWhats 2016
The following are the five Indian names honoured in a list of nearly 1000 or
so such names in a particular location far, far away.
1. Avvaiyar – the Tamil poet
2. Dr. Jerusha Jhirad – physician and first woman to be granted a scholarship
by the Indian government to study abroad
3. Anandiben Joshee – first Indian woman to get a US medical degree
4. Pandita Ramabhai – social reformer
5. Dheepa – a common first name for women
What honour has been bestowed on these five people?
4

MegaWhats 2016
Impact Craters onVenus
All craters on Venus are named after famous women or female first names.

MegaWhats 2016
Mariana, by John Everett Millais, was first exhibited at the Royal
Academy in 1851, with the display caption from Tennyson's “Mariana”
She only said, ‘My life is dreary,
He cometh not,’ she said;
She said, ‘I am aweary, aweary,'
I would that I were dead!
The painting and the poem both are inspired from the same work.
Identify
a)the Author
b)the work
5

MegaWhats 2016
William Shakespeare
Measure for Measure

MegaWhats 2016
When this actor was a child in London, his parents divorced, leading to
his grandmother taking him along to a different country.
The community his grandmother moved to was filled with religious and
spiritual personalities: the boy too shaved his head and wore Buddhist
clothes. He became a particular favorite of the old lady who ran the
community, and interacted with some of the leading thinkers and
philosophers of the day. The boy later moved to Sydney to study and
start his career.
Which familiar community is this?
Also identify this well-networked boy.
6

MegaWhats 2016
Theosophical Society
Peter Finch
(the old lady was Annie Besant)

MegaWhats 2016
This is a stunning image of the frozen
Abraham Lake in Alberta, Canada.
What gives the lake its distinct blue colour even when frozen?
7

MegaWhats 2016
Methane gas
The gas, which is emitted by bacteria after they consume
dead organic matter, is fairly harmless but the bubbles
can cause an explosion if lit

MegaWhats 2016
According to the Vlasic website, this “spokes-bird” was chosen by merging a
mythological story about the bird with another common story about certain
women craving for their product.
What is the story? Which real-life person was the “spokes-bird” based on?
8

MegaWhats 2016
Storks have been associated with babies; the other
myth is about pregnant women craving pickles.
Vlasic marketed themselves as “the pickle pregnant women crave...after all,
who's a better pickle expert?”
Groucho Marx was the model

MegaWhats 2016
The term “__A___ ____B_____” entered common usage in the inter-war
years of the 20th century as expanding rail networks and car ownership
helped people use available time for indulging in activities like a race,
a ball, a shoot or a political gathering.
The phrase in polite British circles was still “___X____-to-___Z___”, to
distinguish the leisured class from those who had to be at work on a
particular day.
2015 was considered a bumper year for this kind of “holiday” –
a whopping 58 days (in India).
What is the term? What is the phrase?
9

MegaWhats 2016
LongWeekend
Saturday to Monday

MegaWhats 2016
Far from preaching abstinence from earthly pleasures, Vowz, a Tokyo
bar, encourages the opposite. In a similar vein, Japan’s 77,000 such
“establishments” run cafés, organize fashion shows or host pets in
daycare. Still, hundreds close every year as with an estimated 40%
expected to close down in the next few years.
Their biggest “business” is waning and sociologists estimate that they
need support from 200 families to break even.
What “establishments” are we talking about and how do they break
even?
10

MegaWhats 2016
Japan’s Buddhist temples
Their biggest business is Funerals!
The approx. cost of a funeral is apparently ~25000 US$ (yearly installments)

MegaWhats 2016
In 1995-96, Manchester United were having a torrid phase in the
English Premier League. A change that had been made at the beginning
of the season did not seem to help matters. In one match, away against
Southampton, they were down 0-3 at half-time.
At half-time, Sir Alex Ferguson was so livid, that he ordered the change
that had been made to be reversed. He latter attributed this to
practicality and not superstition.
What change? Please be specific.
What reason did Sir Alex give?
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MegaWhats 2016
Changed the grey away jersey
Players could not pick each other out
Manchester United lost four and drew one of their five (or four
and a half) games in the notorious grey kit. It was officially
retired two days after this game, and they proceeded to win
every remaining fixture to take the title.

MegaWhats 2016
The person in the picture went to meet Bimal Roy for a role in a 1953
film. After meeting him, Bimal Roy, initially rejected him, for a particular
reason. Later on he relented and the actor in question (and pic), went on
to play a memorable lead role.
Why was he rejected?
12

MegaWhats 2016
Balraj Sahni for Do Bigha Zameen
Bimal Roy thought he looked too much like an
Englishman in suit and all!

MegaWhats 2016
This was a T-Shirt released by Disney. It blended the likeness of Mickey
Mouse with the cover artwork from a band's 1979 album.
Name the band/album.
When Disney was informed of the origin of the band’s name and the fact
that the lead singer hanged himself, they withdrew the T-Shirt.
What was the origin of the band name?
13

MegaWhats 2016
Joy Division (Unknown Pleasures) borrowed their name
from the prostitution wing of a Nazi concentration
camp

MegaWhats 2016
Learned travel agents have begun to charge a premium for those
discerning travellers that request for the following room numbers –
16, 22, 100, 105, 401, 434, 449, 525, 609, 3327, and many more.
In this vein, a particular part/feature of Room #306 at the Lorraine Hotel
in Tennessee has been in demand since the late 1960s.
What specific request are the travel agents trying to accommodate?
14

MegaWhats 2016
Hotel Room Numbers that celebrities have died in
The list includes names like Whitney Houston, James Gandolfini,
Anna Nicole Smith, David Carradine and others
The balcony of Room #306 in Lorraine Hotel in Tennessee is where
MLK Jr. was shot

MegaWhats 2016
175 Grams is a short-film made for the Sundance Short Film Challenge
2015; the film is directed by Bharat Mirle and Aravind Iyer and
showcases a sporting team called Flywild in Chennai, which is made up
of a number of young boys and girls from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Chennai is a major hub for the sport – appropriate given one of its
natural features.
The sport in question has caught on widely in India, with a team
representing the country in the World Championships this year.
What is the film about? (2-word answer)
Why is it called 175 Grams?
15

MegaWhats 2016
Ultimate Frisbee
The weight of the Frisbee

MegaWhats 2016
The forest landscape of Portugal produces approximately half of ____
harvested annually worldwide, with Corticeira Amorim being the leading
company in the industry. The company took its name from the local
name of this plant which is a key “object” required for a thriving
Portuguese export. A famous scientist coined a term to describe a basic
building block of life, after examining the walls of the same plant. It
apparently reminded him of the walls of a monastery.
a. Give the common name of the plant/object.
b. Name the scientist and the word he coined.
16

MegaWhats 2016
Cork
Corticeira is the local word for Cork; the export is Port Wine
Robert Hooke coined the term Cell by examining the
walls of Cork

• Six questions in writing
• +5 for each correct answer
• +3 for each part
• Full names needed everywhere

MegaWhats 2016
Fill in the blank with two words.
1

MegaWhats 2016
Identify the two people sparring in the aftermath of a book release.
2

MegaWhats 2016
Identify the two lovers who had a much publicized spat in 2014.
3

MegaWhats 2016
Identify the two brothers-in-law, trading accusations after one of them
released his autobiography in 2014.
4

MegaWhats 2016
This 1843 cartoon called Cartoon No. 1 Substance and Shadow is an
illustration by John Leach. It satirizes the preparation of frescoes to
adorn the revamp of which building?
5

MegaWhats 2016
Identify either of the two economists seen sparring over the NREGA
scheme.
6

MegaWhats 2016
Sanjaya Baru
Upinder Singh / Manmohan Singh’s daughter

MegaWhats 2016
Preity Zinta
NessWadia

MegaWhats 2016
Amarinder Singh
K Natwar Singh

MegaWhats 2016
Palace ofWestminster / Houses of Parliament
Being re-built after the fire

MegaWhats 2016
Jean Dreze/Surjit Bhalla

 16 questions
 +10 on Infinite Bounce
 +10/-5 on Infinite Pounce
 No part pounce

MegaWhats 2016
The person who recently proposed this radical move, Anthony Kent, says
that he got the inspiration from a similar act by Henry VIII in the
16th century – though there are no authentic records of the same.
While records seem to suggest that pulling the item in question was a
punishable offence, there seems to be no record for the item itself.
The well documented instance of this is Peter the Great, who started the
practice after he went to Western Europe, saw the men over there, and
realized that Russia was behind the times and they needed to change.
What are we talking about?
1

MegaWhats 2016
This word is British theatrical slang for unintentionally breaking
character by laughing. In the US, it is referred to as “breaking”.
The Brit usage comes from the fact that an actor playing a particular
kind of character in a play or film could absolutely not laugh, since that
would completely go against the character; actors often try this as a gag
to make their fellow actors laugh and several TV show episodes and film
scenes actually show this happening.
What 8-letter word is this?
2

MegaWhats 2016
Who, talking about a role in a 2014 film?
According to him, he was chosen to play this role, because of a
memorable role he played in a film 28 years prior; he says, “They needed
someone to yell ‘Game over, man,’”. Which older film?
3

MegaWhats 2016
Bill Paxton talking about Edge of Tomorrow
Aliens

MegaWhats 2016
The human body produces a lot of sweat, which is full of sodium
chloride. When silver nitrate solution is coated on any object, it reacts
with the sodium chloride, and produces silver chloride, which is visible
to the eye.
This was the breakthrough technique used by an American organization
in 1933 to help William Hamm, and has since become the standard.
Today, more sophisticated lasers and alternative light sources are used
for the same.
What are we talking about? Please give an exact answer.
4

MegaWhats 2016
Latent Fingerprint identification

MegaWhats 2016
In the William Hamm kidnapping case discussed in the previous
question, the incriminated gang had one very interesting personality,
named Arrie. The person was described by J Edgar Hoover as, “the most
vicious, dangerous and resourceful criminal brain of the 1930s”.
In 1977, a slight variant of Arrie’s nickname was in the limelight again,
where Arrie was described as “the meanest in Chicago town”, and “had
no heart at all”, and described how Arrie died with a gun in hand,
without any friends.
How do we better know Arrie? What was the later work?
5

MegaWhats 2016
Kate “Ma” Barker
Ma Baker by Boney M

MegaWhats 2016
There are three people who can be termed as “jinx breakers”.
In one category, it is only the person on the extreme left who has
broken the jinx in 2014.
In the other category, there are two exceptions from the early days, till
someone joined this list recently.
What are we talking about? Who is the latest ‘jinx-breaker’?
6

MegaWhats 2016
Robin Uthappa – only Orange Cap winner to win the
IPL title
Sohail Tanveer and RP Singh – only Purple Cap
winners to win the title,
till Bhuvaneswar Kumar joined them recently

MegaWhats 2016
The Spanish explorer, Francisco de Orellana, was the first European man
to explore the area of Marañón.
During these travels, Orellana baptized some of the affluents of
Marañón; he also renamed it, while he was attacked during an ensuing
battle.
What exactly did he do?
7

MegaWhats 2016
Named the Amazon
Orellana baptized Rio Negro, Napo and Jurua. The name Amazonas came from
the native warriors that attacked this expedition, mostly women, which reminded
Orellana of the woman warriors – the Amazons – from Hellenic culture.

MegaWhats 2016
The White Motor company steam car in the picture was, in some senses
the first US Presidential car – Howard Taft, in 1909 became a big fan of
the vehicle and started using it as his official transport.
Apart from the luxuries and comfort associated with the car, what very
tactical and useful purpose did it serve, when Taft went out?
8

MegaWhats 2016
Helped him hide from the paparazzi
Taft could conceal himself from pesky press photographers with a carefully timed
burst of steam

MegaWhats 2016
This is a parking spot in the Chinese city of Hangzhou which is fast
catching up across China. The parking spots are around 1.5 times wider
than the others and serve a specific purpose.
What is the reason?
9

MegaWhats 2016
The bigger parking spaces are for
women drivers whose driving skills are not superb

MegaWhats 2016
This Zurich headquartered scientific organization has two main ‘color
publications’, known as the Blue Book and the Red Book.
A third publication, known as the Green Book, describes symbols, while
a fourth, the Gold Book, contains the definitions of technical terms.
Similar compendia exist for various branches – the White Book, the
Orange Book, the Purple Book, the Silver Book – each deriving their
name from the predominant color in the field of study!
What are we talking about and which organization is this?
10

MegaWhats 2016
IUPAC Color Books for
Chemistry nomenclature/symbols/terms

MegaWhats 2016
Vertebrate animals, human beings included, are constantly changing their
skin—producing new layers of it as old cells slough off from the surface.
Understanding this process of regeneration would help the treatment of
skin diseases and of injuries such as burns. A group of researchers have
announced a colorful new technique that should enhance such
understanding. They dub it the “____A_____” (a portmanteau word).
A’s are an adaptation of another portmanteau word called “_____B_____”,
invented almost a decade ago.
B is used to label nerve cells with different colors.
What are A (7 letters) & B (8 letters)?
11

MegaWhats 2016
Skinbow and Brainbow

MegaWhats 2016
Connect and combine to arrive at famous name.
12
26th President of Mexico; the
Mexico City airport is named
after him
Amilcare Cipriani, founder
Of the Democratic Club of Italy
Andrea Costa, co-founder of
The Italian Socialist Party

MegaWhats 2016
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini
Mussolini was named Benito after Mexican reformist President Benito Juárez, while his
middle names "Andrea" and "Amilcare" were from Italian socialists Andrea Costa and
Amilcare Cipriani.

MegaWhats 2016
Identify the novelist (left) who was his country’s first “cleanly” elected
President in 1948. He is widely considered the greatest Spanish language
author to have not won a Nobel Prize in Literature.
For part points name the country.
13

MegaWhats 2016
Rómulo Gallegos, President of Venezuela

MegaWhats 2016
Betty Joan Perske, Margaret Hyra, Shirley Beaty, Margarita Cansino,
Herbert Joseph Abrahams, José Antonio Domínguez, Catherine Fabienne
Dorléac, Ashley Tyler Ciminella, Diane Hall, Norma Jeane Mortenson,
Reema Lamba all made it big in movies after name changes.
What connects the new names they took?
14

MegaWhats 2016
All took their mother’s maiden name when they changed their
first name or surname
Betty Joan Perske (Lauren Bacall), Margaret Hyra (Meg Ryan), Shirley Beaty (Shirley MacLaine),
Margarita Cansino (Rita Hayworth), Herbert Joseph Abrahams (Herbert Baker), José Antonio
Domínguez (Antonio Banderas), Catherine Fabienne Dorléac (Catherine Deneuve), Ashley Tyler
Ciminella (Ashley Judd), Diane Hall (Diane Keaton), Norma Jeane Mortenson (Marilyn Monroe),
Reema Lamba (Mallika Sherawat)

MegaWhats 2016
The term is attributed to Robert Deutsch, a USA Today staff
photographer, in September of 1999 when writing a story for the
Sports Shooter email newsletter.
The phrase is most likely derived from comparison between the sounds
and actions some make while reviewing images and those of an excited
primate (Oooh! Oooh! Aaah!), or when a photographer is completely
absorbed in the act of analysing, admiring or proudly displaying a shot
to others.
What term, familiar to us in a guessable way?
15

MegaWhats 2016
This country is not Islamic and its Muslim population is quite small, yet it
uses an crescent in its flag. It has gone to much length to emphasize that
the crescent is not a representation of Islam but rather that of a country
on the ascent. It remains the only non-Muslim nation to have a crescent
moon in its national flag.
A more honest examination will reveal shades of political correctness
behind the move.
Which nation?
16

KQA MegaWhats 2016 semifinals 1

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KQA MegaWhats 2016 semifinals 1