1. Qriosity
Prelims – With Answers
Highest: 19.5
Cut-off: 11.5
QM: Anmol Dhawan
Silhouettes 2014

2. Acknowledgements 
• Ashwin Mahesh, for contributing the LVC of the
final round
• Surg Sub Lt Hitesh Kumar Mahato Sir, for giving two
great questions
• Maj Chandrakant Nair Sir (for giving some great
ideas about organisation)
• Wg Cmdr Anurakshat Gupta Sir
(for guinea-pigging this quiz)
• All members of the Sulci & Gyri Quiz Club of AFMC
for their support

3. What This Quiz Is About
• This is not a large and boring quiz about things
you’ve got nothing to do with.
• Most questions are kind of workable, so think
laterally.
• You would have seen or heard of almost every
answer in the quiz, so don’t think TOO MUCH!


4. Rules
Preliminary round consists of 25 questions.
Each question is worth one point.
Six teams will qualify to the final round.
Starred questions will be used to resolve ties.
Last five questions are starred.
• In case of equal number of starred questions,
Sudden Death from first question will be used.
•
•
•
•
• The quizmaster’s decision is FINAL and
BINDING.

5. 1
• The word __________ derives from the name of a
French finance minister who, in 1759, was forced by
France's credit crisis during the Seven Years War to
impose severe economic demands upon the French
people, particularly the wealthy. Because of his austere
economies, his name became synonymous with
anything done or made with not much grandeur and so
gave his name to these outline portraits, which is now
an art form in itself.
• FITB.
• Hint: Most happening thing right now 

6. Silhouette

7. 2
• In the following
picture is an
advertisement of a
shampoo product by
Park Avenue.
• What is the unique
ingredient in this
product they are
advertising?

8. Beer!

9. 3
• The name of this country links it directly to its
original religion, Zoroastrianism. It comes from
Persian phrase ____ _______, meaning “Guardians
of Fire,” as fire was sacred to its followers.
• After the Muslim conquest of Persia, many Persian
words lost their original form, as in Arabic there
are no letters for pronouncing "G / P / ZH / CH";
and hence, “____ ______" came to be known as
__________.
• Which country?

10. Azerbaijan
• The word comes from the Persian phrase, “Azar
Payagan” which means “Guardians of Fire”.
Since Arabic does not inlcude the phonetic
sounds for P / G, “Azar Payagan” in Arabic
became “Azar bayajan”.

11. 4
• NIMBY (an acronym for a particular phrase) is
a characterization of opposition by residents of
a particular area to a proposal for a new
development because it is close to them, often
with the connotation that such residents
believe that the developments are needed in
society but should be further away.
• Expand “NIMBY”.

12. “Not In My Back Yard”

13. 5
• The use of this word/phrase X was first
reported in 1919 by the British admiral Lord
Fisher, in a letter to then Prime Minister
Winston Churchill.
• A small excerpt from the letter says,
“I hear that a new order of Knighthood is on the
tapis – X! Shower it on the admiralty!”
• ID X.

14. First use of “OMG” for “Oh My God!”

15. 6
• Connect:
•
•
•
•
•
1936: Wallis Simpson (USA)
1937: Soong May-Ling (China)
1952: Queen Elizabeth II (UK)
1975: American women (USA)
1986: Corazon C. Aquino (Philippines)

16. The only TIME Woman-of-the-Year
ladies
• TIME Magazine came out with “Man of the
Year,” every year, until 1999, when they
changed it to “Person of the Year” to make it
more gender-neutral.
• These were the only 5 instances when they
shifted from “Man of the Year” to “Woman of
the Year”.

17. 7
• Give me their last names.

18. Lennon & Harrison
• Sean Lennon & Dhani Harrison
(sons of John Lennon & George Harrison

19. 8
• This three word phrase that we are all familiar
with, originally described the movement of a ship
on the ocean, and was also used in the early
twentieth century both to describe the spiritual
fervour of black church rituals and as a sexual
analogy.
• ID this phrase that we now associate with
something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from the above
mentioned things.
• (Think music)

20. Rock and Roll

21. 9
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Nigambodh
Kashmiri
Mori
Kabuli
Lahori
Ajmeri
Turkman
Dilli
List of what?
(Non-exhaustive selection of an exhaustive list)

22. Gates of the Walled City of Delhi

23. 10
• What is the subject of this graphical article?

24. 10

25. Things missing at the Sochi Winter
Olympic Games 2014

26. 11
• ID the Google doodle (for Google UK only) – to
mark the 255th anniversary of which
establishment in London?

27. The British Museum, London

28. 12
• ______ are said to have originated at a restaurant
called the Victory Club, in a small Mexican town. In
1943, the wives of a few U.S. soldiers stationed nearby
arrived at the restaurant after it had already closed for
the day. The waiter Ignacio “_____” Anaya, invented a
new snack for them with what little he had available in
the kitchen.
• When asked what the dish was called, he answered,
“_____'s especiales”. As word of the dish travelled, the
apostrophe was lost, and _____’s “specials” became
“Special ______”.
• FITB.

29. Nachos

30. 13
• This popular TV show often tweaks its opening
sequence based on the cultural theme of the episode.
• In one particular episode, it featured the names of all
actors in its opening theme in Hindi owing to the large
number of Indian actors in that one episode.
• However, they got their Hindi spellings wrong (probably
by using Google Transliteration on a browser that does
not support Indic fonts) and were criticised for that and
for unreal pronunciation.
• ID the TV show. Clip on next slide.

32. Psych

33. 14
• Ella Maria Lani Yelich-O'Connor is a New
Zealand singer-songwriter.
• She adopted her stage name due to her
fascination with “royals and aristocracy”, but
felt the name ____ was too masculine, so she
added an 'e' to make it more feminine.
• ID the popular singer. Very solid clue given in
the question.

34. Lorde

35. 15
• Identify the logo of this newly-started service.

36. Mumbai Monorail

37. 16
• According to some, it was a girl called “Neeru
Deshpande”; some claim it was “Gunjan
Gundaniya,” and Mayank Shah, group product
manager at a particular company claims that it
is actually just an illustration by an Everest
creative back in the 60s.
• You’ve probably never heard of the above
names, but you’ve definitely seen this girl.
Where?

38. The girl on Parle-G biscuits!

39. 17
• This English word comes from the Sanskrit word
“palanga” meaning “bed” and has a similar
sounding equivalent in Hindi.
• The Latin word “phalanga” and Spanish
“palanca” are of a similar etymology.
• What is this word, also a form of transport?

40. Palanquin 

41. 18
• Before 1930s, designer logos were confined to the
inside and non-visible parts of shirts.
• René _______, a professional tennis player,
invented the world’s first logo shirt. Known for his
on-court tenacity, he added a symbol (which
happened to be his nickname) to his clothes in the
1930s – the first time a designer logo is known to
have appeared on the outside of a shirt.
• ID the brand.

42. Lacoste
• Rene Lacoste was a
professional tennis player.
He was known as “Le
Crocodile” for his tenacity
on court, so made a
crocodile logo on his Tshirt. Later when he
started his own apparel
company, the crocodile
became a standard
feature.

43. 19
• X was a businessman said to have died of sepsis
when an infection in his toe flared up after he
tried to kick open a safe he could not remember
the combination to.
• The irony is that in his hometown of Lynchburg,
Tennessee, where his “workshop” is located, you
can get all sorts of X memorabilia but you are not
allowed to buy what his “workshop” produces.
• ID X.

44. Jack Daniel
• “Workshop” here refers to his distillery. According to
the story, impatient Jack on having forgotten the
combination to a safe lock, kicked it open, and he
developed an infection. The joke that you’d hear at a
guided tour of his distillery is that all he needed to do
to stop the infection was to pour some whiskey, which
was lying all around, over his injured foot.
• The irony is that in his hometown of Lynchburg,
Tennessee where the distillery is situated, you
get all sorts of Jack Daniel memorabilia, but
strangely it lies in a “dry county,” where
alcohol is prohibited.

45. 20
• Officially “30 St Mary Axe”, what is this famous
London monument more popularly known as,
owing to its structural resemblance to a
savoury pickled cucumber?
• (Picture on next slide)

47. The Gherkin

48. 21*
• The flag of this North American city has been
designed to represent the four main European
ethnic groups that were settled in the city in
the 19th century.
• ID the city.
• Flag on next slide.

49. 21*

50. Montreal
•
•
•
•
Fleur-de-lis for the French
Rose for the English
Thistle for the Scottish
Shamrock for the Irish

51. 22*
• Lou Majaw is a guitarist, highly influenced by X, who
organised a “Birthday Concert” for X in the city of Y in
1972.
• What started as a humble tribute has now become an
annual festival and the streets of Y are flooded with
people every year on 24 May to celebrate X’s birthday.
• Although X has never commented on the matter, a
number of music connoisseurs (and certainly the
residents of Y) believe that the city of Y is his greatest
fan base in the world.
• ID X and Y.

52. X – Bob Dylan, Y - Shillong

53. 23*
• This famous photograph of X known as “Young
Lion,” clicked by Joel Brodsky in 1966, is probably
one of the world’s most iconic photographs.
• In the words of the photographer, “Initially, there
seemed to be a little jealously that X was being
put so up front in the photos, but basically the
others understood that X was the sex symbol and
an important visual focus for the band.”
• Identify X, the subject of this photograph that we
have all come across a lot of times.

54. Jim Morrison
Young Lion

55. 24*
• John Bissell came to India in 1958, as a consultant for the Ford
Foundation to advise the Government of India to run Central
Cottage Industries Corporation. He was given a two-year grant to
instruct Indian villagers in making goods for export.
• He first started X as a one-man export company of home
furnishings, in his flat in Golf Links, New Delhi, using his recently
deceased grandmother's $20,000 legacy as start-up capital. It was
incorporated in Connecticut, USA.
• It was awarded as being the “Best Retail Brand” in 2004 by The
Economic Times.
• ID X.

56. Fabindia

57. 25*
• X is a device traditionally used to restrain
horses. The X skirt is named after it because it
has a narrow hem, thus restraining the person
wearing it from moving about freely.
• What is X?

58. Hobble Skirt