COPQUEST 2007

September 29, 30 and October 1st. These have been three of the best days I spent in the Quizzing world. After all, eight quizzes in the span of four days don’t happen every other day. That too in the North-East. The organizers- Trivia Bytes Creations, the Quizmaster, the participants and the sponsors deserve rich accolades for this feat.

Close on the heels of IQuations 2007 came COPQUEST – Assam’s biggest quiz organized by Assam Police in association with Trivia Bytes Creations on the occasion of Assam Police day. The quiz was a treat for the quizzical mind and the participants and audience alike feasted on the knowledge that came their way in an effort to satiate their voracious appetites. The quiz was conducted by Mr Manimugdha Sharma of Trivia Bytes Creations.

The quiz started, as usual, with QUIZLING, the school quiz. Six teams from different schools qualified for the finals. It was a treat to watch as the kids strove forth to excel in the quiz and some mind-boggling questions were answered. The first and second positions were bagged by Army School, Narengi while the third position was taken by St Stephen’s school. It bodes well for the quizzing scenario in Assam that such youngsters are there and that efforts are being done to nurture and encourage them by means of such competitions.

EX-QUIZ ME ! – the open quiz (how do they come up with such names?) followed Quizling. A total of 460 teams participated in the prelims (which is a sort of record, I believe.) Six of the best teams qualified for the finals which was of the highest quality and keenly contested. After 12 rounds of quizzing, defending champions Dr Ruben Chowdhury and Dr Abhijit Hazarika retained the title. The second place went to Mit Chowdhury and Deepjyoti Deka while Abhra Das and Amrit Chetia took the third place.

As with all things, this quiz also had its plus and minus points, though the minus points were relatively few.

Plus points:

1. Professional arrangements, good publicity and great environment.
2. A great Quizmaster who has refined himself as time goes by and who has a distinctive and attractive style of presentation and who possesses one of the traits lacked by most quizmasters- good English.
3. Use of technology to the utmost without hampering the quality of questions.
4. Questions on display- makes it easier for all the people to follow the questions.
5. Great prizes – both in form of cash and gifts.
6. Novel rounds and procedures
7. Complete transparency in the matters


Negative points:

1. The best audience prize this year exceeded that which each of the 3rd prize winners individually won. In my view, this is faulty as any member of the audience should not gain benefits more than the finalists. After all, the finalists qualified among so many teams and had to wreck their minds to score points!
2. Overall decreased prize money (compared to last year- at least for the first three teams)
3. Crowd behaviour. This is a point of concern on the part of the crowd because a decent behaviour is expected from them in such events. A lot of shouting and shoving occurred which was totally avoidable.
4. On the personal front, I got a John Players shirt as prize but alas, it was two sizes too short!!!!

Modified Infinite Bounce: This new system of asking questions was used in the quiz. I personally believe that using this system with a one-off buzzer is not justified. If the system was used with a buzzer where serial timings could be ascertained, then it would have been okay. Otherwise, Infinite Bounce seems fair enough.

Copquest has been one of the benchmark quizzes in Assam in recent years and has not only maintained, but also improved its standard. It is a matter of prestige for the quizzards to even qualify for the event. We can only hope that this high standard will be maintained in the coming years and that new stars will be produced in this arena where the brightest test their wits against each other



By VinayU
Dibrugarh

IQuations 2007

This was a Quiz festival stretched over two days and covered six quizzes. The first three quizzes were held on the 29th of September at Lakhsmiram Baruah Sadan and the next three were held at Don Bosco Auditorium the next day. A total of around 175 teams participated in the various quizzes.

The first quiz of the festival was N-E WAYS conducted by Mr Dilip Kumar Sharma, sub-editor of Amar Axom. This quiz was dedicated to a particular topic- Assam and North East. It was great to see people trying their hands (minds rather) at one of the least frequent topics of Quizzing (as some people don’t tire of pointing out). Even better was to see a lady playing the finals alone and winning the quiz!. And the knowledge that one gleaned even by sitting in the audience was the real bonus. The only negative point that I felt was that the number of participating teams was quite low, specially compared to the din that some people make about quizzes not containing questions from Assam.

This was followed by MYTHOMATIX – the religion and mythology quiz. The quiz was conducted by Dr Yasholankaar Bhagawati from New Delhi, a member of the quiz website www.quriozzity.com. The quiz was a huge hit as it garnered the maximum number of participating teams and combined religion and mythology with other subjects like geography, day to day life and beliefs etc. The Quizmaster specially thanked Mr Pankaj Phukan and Mr Kaustabh Bora of Quriozzity for helping with the research work.

Close on the heels of Mythomatix came POTPOURRI- the mixed bag quiz that dealt with an assortment of subjects like Entertainment, Word Origins, Literature etc. The quiz was conducted by yours truly on behalf of www.quriozzity.com.

The following day saw more quizzing action with TOONAMI – the comics, cartoons and culture quiz. This thoroughly enjoyable quiz was conducted by Mr Manimugdha Sharma from Delhi who is also one of the founding members of Trivia Bytes Creations. It brought back fond memories as well as hitherto unknown (and interesting) facts to light about the toon world.

The afternoon saw veteran quizzer Mr Abhra Das don the mantle of Quizmaster and quiz the participants on the subject of sports in the quiz titled MASTERSTROKE.

The grand finale came in the form of INQUIZZITION GENERAL – the general quiz that was conducted by two of the great names in Assam Quizzing circuit- Mr Dhruvarka Deka and Dr Ruben Chowdhury. Questions on various subjects flew thick and fast with the participants answering with equal fervor. It was a delight to watch and in my humble opinion, the Quizmasters surpassed themselves in that quiz.


Plus points of the festival:

1. First of its kind.
2. Six different quizzes in two days is a remarkable feat to achieve considering the logistics involved.
3. Exposure of the participants to six different quizmasters, each with their unique style of presentation and questions.
4. A platform for launching new Quizmasters
5. A huge step in the Quizzing arena of the region with a new concept and proper execution.

Negative points:

As such, it is difficult to point out the negatives but one of them may be the comparatively low turn out of participating teams and audience. A decent number participated but a better turnout was hoped for considering the Quiz craze in the region. There were one or two minor organizational glitches (which really don’t count, actually, considering that it was the first such effort- I am putting it just for the sake of enumerating.)


Overall, the festival was a real treat and a great beginning to what may be a regular trend and a feast for the quizzards. It can only be hoped that such events continue in the future in an attempt to satiate the unquenchable thirst of the quiz enthusiasts.

I would like to conclude by congratulating the organizers- Trivia Bytes Creations, the Quizmasters, the participants, the sponsors and all the involved people and imparting this simple message….. LAGE RAHO……..

By VinayU

Dibrugarh