2014/08/31 QFI Quiz

By Swaroop Ramaswamy

1

A. Venkatakrishna Reddy, M. Ramaraghava Reddy and A. Shyamasundara Reddy were 3 gentlemen with considerable experience in real estate. In 1965, they acquired 5000 sq.m of land in a prime locality in the city to start their venture.

What did they start?

1

Hotel Savera which takes its name from their first names

2

According to Barbara W. Tuchman, these horses were highly prized and were used exclusively during battle. Until then, they would be led by the knight's squire with his right hand (on knight's right side).

What type of horse?

2

Destrier from dextarius meaning right sided

3

X is a famous English adventurer and holder of many endurance records. He was the first person to visit both the North and South Poles by surface means and the first to completely cross Antarctica on foot. In May 2009, at the age of 65, he climbed to the summit of Mount Everest.

Y is an English actor famous for his roles in Schindler's list, The English Patient, Red Dragon, the James Bond series, and the Harry Potter series among others.

Identify both X and Y.

3

X – Ranulph Fiennes

Y – Ralph Fiennes

4

The X defense is a tactic in corporate finance used to counter a takeover or merger bidder. When the board of directors of the target company meets to consider the bid, they "____ ____ ____."

The phrase refers to a catch-phrase coined by X advocating abstinence from recreational drug use.

Who is X? What is the phrase?

4

X – Nancy Reagan

Phrase – Just say no

5

Approximately 40,000 sets of playing cards were manufactured with the messages like this.

Seven ♠: "Taking pictures is good. Removing artifacts for souvenirs is not!"

Six ♠: "Use your camera to document archaeological and historic sites."

Five ♠: "A looted archaeological site means that details of our common past are lost forever."

Four ♠: "If possible, fill sandbags with clean earth, free of man-made objects.

Who designed them? Why?

5

Issued by the United States Department of Defense to educate members of the United States military serving

in Iraq and Afghanistan about the importance of respecting ancient monuments

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● A Bold Bluff ● A Friend in Need● His Station and Four Aces● Pinched with Four Aces● Poker Sympathy● Post Mortem● Sitting up with a Sick Friend● Stranger in Camp

● Waterloo● Ten Miles to a Garage● Riding the Goat● New Year's Eve in Dogville● One to Tie Two to Win● Breach of Promise Suit● The Reunion● A Bachelor's Dog

Titles of what?

6

Dogs playing poker

7

A was a king of Mauretania, in Libya. He was a wise philosopher, mathematician and astronomer.

B is a famous mythological character.

X is the name of a popular object.

When a famous Belgian made the first X, he named it after the king. The king was depicted prominently in the X.

Later, people assumed that X was named after the character and began to depict the character prominently in the X's they made.

Id X.

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X – Atlas

A – Atlas

B – Atlas

8

Every year, hundreds of people visit this location in death valley. Why?

[Pictures on the next slide]

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U2's 'Joshua Tree' album cover was shot here.

9

This is the flag of Zulia, a state in Venezuela. What is depicted in the flag?(in white)

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Catacumbo lightning

10

_______ is artificial ecosystem linked to the real time dynamics of the stock market.

Stars representing companies and creatures representing speculators are projected into a domed ceiling in a dark room, creating an artificial night sky which visualises the dynamics of the world stock markets.

Its name is a pun on a famous mathematical formula which nearly brought down the US stock markets in 1998. One of the creators of the formula along with Robert Merton set up a company named “Long Term Capital Management” which was wildly succesful for a brief period.

Name either the ecosystem or the formula.

10

The project is called the Black Shoals project, a pun on the Black-Scholes formula

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Estonian: Liah

Portguese: Ió

Esperanto: Ia

Hebrew: Iyyah

German: I-Ah

Italian: Ih-Ho

Swedish: Ior

What is it in English?

11

Eeyore, the donkey from Winnie the Pooh

12

The shoe was orginally called a 'sand shoe' and did not come to be called thus until the 1870s.

This name derived because the coloured horizontal band joining the upper to the sole resembled the _____ line on a ship's hull, or because, just like the ____ line on a ship, if water got above the line of the rubber sole, the wearer would get wet.

What shoe?

12

Plimsoll shoe

13

When Israel is under extreme military threat, many analysts will believe that Israel will destroy all nations that threaten its existence in a massive retaliatory nuclear strike.

The “option” is called the ____ option as a reference to a mythological figure.

Fill in the blanks.

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Samson option, named after Samson who pushed apart the pillars of a Philistine temple, bringing down the roof and killing himself and thousands of Philistines who had

captured him, crying out "Let me die with the Philistines!"

14

This is a antique artificat called a “Sunday Stick”. It served two purposes. What two purposes? Why was it designed?

14

Golf Clubs were disguised as walking sticks, the club head comfortably fitting in the palm of the golfer's hand, until feeling unobserved, the stick was reversed and a

few strokes were played.

Sunday sticks were the golf enthusiasts' answer to the Church of Scotland's discouraging golfing on Sundays.

15

This is an iconic house from the 1958 french movie “Mon Oncle”. Which other house, from the world of entertainment, did it inspire?

15

Prof. Utonium's house in Powerpuff Girls

16

Light at the event horizon of a black hole is “trapped in place”. It is often described as being in an X's race. It is running as fast as it can without actually getting anywhere.

Which literary character is this a reference to?

16

The Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland

"Well, in our country," said Alice, still panting a little, "you'd generally get to somewhere else—if you run very

fast for a long time, as we've been doing."

"A slow sort of country!" said the Queen. "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in

the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"

17

A ___ is a unit of area. Originally used in nuclear physics for expressing the cross sectional area of nuclei and nuclear reactions, today it is also used in all fields of high energy physics. It is equal to 10^-28 sq.m.

It derives from a folk expression used by particle accelerator physicists to refer to the difficulty of achieving a collision between particles.

What unit?

17

“Barn” from the expression “Couldn't hit the broad side of a barn”

18

This is an advertisement by Flamingo Air Inc. What are they advertising?

18

Mile High Club

19

X is term which literally means “high fashion” and is a protected term that can be used only by firms that meet certain well-defined standards in France.

Y is a another term deriving from an English verb analagous to X, albeit in England.

While X is protected by law in England, the British Advertising Standards Authority has ruled it is a fair practice to use the term Y for products which do not fully meet well-defined standards.

Id X and Y.

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X – Haute couture

Y – Bespoke tailoring

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It can only be the thought of verdure to come, which prompts us in the autumn to buy these dormant white lumps of vegetable matter covered by a brown papery skin, and lovingly to plant them and care for them. It is a marvel to me that under this cover they are labouring unseen at such a rate within to give us the sudden awesome beauty of spring flowering bulbs. While winter reigns the earth reposes but these ___________________________.

This is an entry from a literary competition held at Stanford university to do something. What? (or) Fill in the Blanks.

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Providing a meaningful interpretation of “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously”.

21

______ is a spanish word meaning “cooking pot”. It was first introduced into geological vocabulary by the German geologist Leopold von Buch.

It is used to refer to the volcanic feature usually formed by the collapse of land following a volcanic eruption.

What term?

21

Caldera

22

Which mineral gets its name because it was used as a flux in iron smelting ?

22

Fluorite, because it helps in reducing the viscosity of the slag, thereby enabling better “flow”.

23

Many old carpet designs of Middle Eastern origin have seemingly European names attached to them. Why?

Memling carpet Crivelli carpet Bellini carpet

23

More depictions of Oriental carpets in Renaissance painting survive than actual carpets produced before the

17th century.

So the carpets are named after Renaissance artists in whose paintings they feature.

24

He was born Y Makonnen. His given name, Y, means "one who is respected or feared".

As Governor of Harer, he became known as X Y Makonnen. X translates to "head" and is a rank of nobility equivalent to Duke.

He was also known by Janhoy, Talaqu Meri, and Abba Tekel.

Who?

24

Haile Selassie a.k.a Ras Tafari Makonnen, god incarnate of the Rastafarians.

25

The “Curse of the ____” refers to an urban legend regarding a reputed curse placed on Hansin Tigers baseball team by ____.

In 1985, when Hanshin Tigers won the Japan series, a riotous celebration gathered at Ebisubashi Bridge in Osaka. Supporters yelled the players' names, and with every name, a fan resembling a member of the team leaped from the bridge into the canal.

However, they could not find anyone resembling MVP Randy Bass. So they found the closest thing to a bearded American and threw it into the canal, thereby starting the curse.

What did they throw into the canal?

25

They threw a statue of Colonel Sanders from a nearby KFC, thereby starting the “Curse of the Colonel”

26

The ____ effect is an American English expression describing things that are thought to exist only because people believe in them.

For example, in psychology, it just makes people believe that something they believe in will occur.

People believe that they can, with the push of a button, make a random flashing of lights into a coherent pattern, even though the button does nothing.

Fill in the blanks.

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Tinkerbell effect

Takes name from the scene in the stage play of Peter Pan during which Tinkerbell is dying and the audience is told to clap if they believe in fairies. When the audience

claps, Tinkerbell is brought back to life.

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In which city would you find this UNESCO World Heritage structure?

27

Isfahan

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● It has special metres containing 24 categories.● It can only be composed in those special metres, not any other normal

meter.● It consists of only four lines.● First and second line must end in rhyme, third without rhyme.● Fourth line should contain high, strong and complete and deep meanings,

that are related with the above three lines.● Only one point or subject should be addressed.● The rhyme scheme is typically AABA.

Description of what?

28

Ruba'i

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The design was composed by Alton Kelley and Stanley Mouse, who added lettering and color, respectively, to a black and white illustration for a 1913 edition of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

Earlier antecedents include the custom of exhibiting the relic bones of Christian martyrs decorated with flowers on their feast days.

The design originally appeared on posters and later appeared on an album cover.

What design?

29

The Skull and Roses design for Grateful Dead

30

According to most scholars, the name X is be a reference to the cupbearer in the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam. X is also the Farsi word for cupbearer.

Some have suggested that it may be a reference to the South American monkey of that name.

Id X.

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Saki, the pen-name of HH Munro

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The ____ ____ Case, also known as the Mystery of the Somerton Man, is an unsolved case of an unidentified man found dead on 1 December 1948, in Adelaide, South Australia.

It is named after a phrase, ____ ____, meaning "ended" or "finished" in Persian, on a scrap of the final page of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, found in the hidden pocket of the man's trousers.

The case has been the subject of intense speculation over the years regarding the identity of the victim, the events leading up to his death, and the cause of death.

Fill in the blanks.

31

Taman Shud case

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This is verse 51 from Edward FitzGerald's translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam:

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

What is it a reference to?

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Belshazzar's feast / Writing on the wall

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And Having Writ... is a 1978 science fiction/alternate history novel written by Donald R. Bensen that takes its name from verse 51 of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.

According to the novel, the _____ was caused by the crash landing of a alien spaceship in 1908. The aliens then try to jump-start World War I as a means of accelerating Earth's technological advances so that they can get back home.

Fill in the blanks.

33

Tunguska Event

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This bird has been long considered to be tame and unsuspecting. As a consequence of this friendly and unsuspecting nature, the term X carries a negative connotation. It is a contemptuous label used to describe somebody who is considered to be a doting old fool. What bird?

[Picture on the next slide]

34

Dotterel

35

What greasy and waxy substance gets its name from the latin word for apple because it was originally made from mashed apples?

35

Pomode

36

The company was founded by Polish immigrant and Auschwitz survivor, Jack Tramiel. When asked why he named the company thus, Tramiel said,

"I wanted to call my company General, but there's so many Generals in the U.S.: General Electric, General Motors. Then I went to Admiral, but that was taken. So I wind up in Berlin, Germany, with my wife, and we were in a cab, and the cab made a short stop, and in front of us was an Opel ________.”

However, the Opel _______ didn't debut until 1967, years after the company had been named.

Which company?

36

Commodore