IITM Open '24 Prelims Answers

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IIT Madras

Quiz 2024
Prelims
Rules
● 30 questions (last 3 are AVs)
● Top 9 open teams qualify for finals
● Top 3 college/school teams get drafted by drawing lots
● Clearly indicate your names, one phone number, and category
(Open/School/College)
● There are 8 starred questions which will be used to break ties
● Please don’t use unfair means
● QM is God.
Formats
● Starred questions are starred at the question number
● What is asked is bolded
● Key-points are underlined
● Wordplay is italicized
Ready ah?
1.
The eight letter title of this Edmund Leighton painting is actually a contraction of what
can be translated from Middle English as "May ___ _____ ye", when the verb form of
the latter word was often used to mean "cause to advance towards success", and not
something irresponsible. FITB.
Godspeed
2.
The UCL University Challenge team (like a lot of UC teams) have a plushie on their
table of their school’s mascot. In this instance, their plushie represented a certain 19th
century philosopher, who was the spiritual founder of UCL. He put forward a certain
hypothetical structure, which, nearly a century and a half after publication, was used by
another philosopher to explain the cultures and dynamics of places like UCL. Who?
Jeremy Bentham
3.
This 2021 ICLR paper by Google Brain, subtitled “Transformers for Image Recognition at
Scale”, is quite revolutionary and important as it is the paper to put forward the concept of
Vision Transformers (ViT).

While the transformer architecture had become the de-facto standard for dealing with Natural
Language Processing tasks, its applications to Computer Vision had been largely limited. This
paper applies transformers on square patches of size 256 during the training process in
conjunction with standard Convolutional layers to outperform the existing SOTA.

What is the paper aptly titled?

Replace a quantity in a common phrase with another quantity, representing the characteristic
dimensions of the above patch.
4.
What is the artwork of this book cover
inspired by?

The hobby of collecting <...> is known as


Phillumeny.
Matchbox Art
5.
This community migrated to the United States in the 19th century, with a large
population in a particular state. However, due to hostilities towards their language
following the world wars, it is now close to extinction. Watch the video and ID with a
two word term.
Texas German
6.
Chromolaena odorata, or X pacha is an invasive plant aptly found in a particular state.
The plant entered the state through labourers returning from Assam from WWII efforts.
It is said to have earned its name due its rapid spread, much like a certain local entity’s
rise in 1957.

ID X.
Communist Pacha
*7.
_____ ___ is a food startup that delivers in Delhi, Bangalore, and has just expanded into
Mumbai. Unlike what it may seem like, it’s not simply named after its primary offering,
but after a Shakespearean idiom.

The idiom (same as startup) refers to a period of youth that is carefree and innocent. It
was first used in ‘Antony and Cleopatra’ and was also used by the Queen (rip) in her 1977
Silver Jubilee royal address. It is speculated that the metaphor is based on the ‘raw’ nature
of both youth and the offering.

ID the startup/idiom.
Salad Days
8.
Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As The Light has been in the news lately, due to it being
nominated for the Palme D’Or in the Cannes Film Festival. It thus joins a select group of
Indian films which have been nominated for the award, and the first Indian film in 30
years to be in contestation for it.

The last Indian film to be nominated was Shaji Karun’s Swaham, which follows a
bereaved widow, her son, and her daughter after the patriarch of a family died. It,
however, did not win the award, losing out to another iconic movie which was released
in that year.

Which movie?
9.
The next slide shows a photo of the Pavalar Brothers, a music troupe from the 1950’s.
Helmed by Varadarajan, they were known for their performances for a certain party. In
fact, a leader from a nearby state attributed his party’s historic electoral success partly to
the writings of Varadarajan.

Which party?

On the extreme right is a man playing the harmonium, who was yet to assume the name
or the occupation that would bring him fame.

Who?
Communist Party of India
Ilayaraja
10.
X is an occasion that was innovated first by a certain entertainment entity. Centred around
celebrating feminity and female friendship, it occurs a day before another occasion that
celebrates romantic relationships. Appropriately, X plays on the name of the day that
follows it by changing the first letter to something that reflects its feminine focus.

When describing X, a certain person compared it to Y, but without the angst. Y too was an
occasion that emphasized feminist solidarity against concert promoters and radio stations
which refused to feature two female artists back to back. Taking its name from the first wife
of Adam who refused to be subservient to him in Jewish lore, this was a veritable travelling
carnival of artists like Tracy Chapman, Lisa Loeb, and The Cardigans.

ID X and Y.
Galentine’s Day
Lilith Fair
11.*
In 2014, Google announced that they were developing a certain wearable technology to
help patients better manage a particular symptom of this fairly common disease. It
allowed for a continuous monitoring of this quantity, and was pain-free unlike the usual
method. It included a miniature sensor between two soft layers of ____ material,
essentially using the aid for a different bodily impairment to help with monitoring a
quantity relevant to the first disease. However, scientists were skeptical about the accuracy
of measuring it through this new bodily fluid- studies reported a weak correlation at best.

Who were the target users of the device and what was being measured? (0.5)

What was the device? (0.5)


Contact lenses to measure blood sugar levels of
people suffering from diabetes
12*.
By the maps that got published as a result, this became at the same time a teacher, in
printing a map of the contours of the country - which was rare at least until the Great War
- and populist in portraying the country as a *redacted*, a country not only amputated
from 1903 of its "lost provinces" but also its overseas possessions like the island of
*redacted*, never visited in a century and still missing from maps of the nation.

The above is from a book by academic historians Jean-Luc Boeuf and Yves Leonard who
credited this with teaching the natives about the geography of a particular nation. What is
being spoken about?
Tour de France
13.
According to the novel, this character was named so because she was born “on a very
stormy evening”, her name coming from the latin word meaning evening

According to the author, the character was based of off Krystyna Skarbek, a Polish Special
Operations Executive.

It is also apt that her name is a pun on a certain city, referencing how her loyalties are split
down the middle.

ID character (5) and city (5)


Vesper Lynd, West Berlin
14.
He was an instrumental player for the Chicago Bulls during the 70s and was hence given
the title “The Original Bull”. This is ironic considering he eventually went on to coach a
team for 22 years in the western conference which consistently got smacked around by
Michael Jordan's bulls in the 90s. Who? (0.5)

Capitalising on the animosity between the 2 teams following a series in the late 90s, World
Championship Wrestling would organise a match between the power forwards of the two
teams. It was an attempt by WCW to rebound from their losses and revenue decline in the
late 90s but it was ultimately not very successful.

Who was the match between? (0.5)


Jerry Sloan, Dennis Rodman, Karl Malone
15.
Sultan + Shepard is an Canadian electronic duo consisting of Mr. Sultan and Ned
Shepard. Before Mr. Sultan’s success as a musician, he starred in a 2004 documentary
along with 5 other men from Montreal.

All these 5 men had something in common. Due to a recent prior event, their lives
changed drastically. The recount their experiences about this in the documentary.

What is the documentary titled / What do these men have


in common?
Being Osama/ First Name Osama after 9/11
16.
It is suggested that their name came from the French word for citizen. It has also
been said that it came from the Czech phrase meaning ‘it is he’ – ’to je on’. This
surrealist painter used this word as their name since it was gender-neutral, and
notably preferred not to identify as a single gender category. They would wear
both skirts and more masculine attire, displaying themselves as ambiguously
gendered.

Who?
Toyen
17.
#Bizconnect. What is the sanskrit word for artificial?
Krutim (OLA Krutim AI)
18.
In the tenements of New York City in the late 19th and early 20th century,
apartments were built with bedrooms on top of one another. It was common to
hear your upstairs neighbour do a certain action and then repeat the action,
usually after a long day or after they just came back home. This gave rise to a
certain phrase, which became shorthand for waiting for something you knew
was coming.

What phrase?
The other shoe just dropped
19*.
Connect (Exhaustive List):

Nicole + Felicia Versace

Jessica Jones Ashish

Roberto Cavalli Zuhair Murad

Alberta Feretti Oscar de la Renta

Elie Saab Etro


Eras Tour Outfit designers
20.
The reason for the official name of the sport being X is due to trademark laws. The
word Y is trademarked by the toy company Wham-O, and the sport is referred to as
XY or simply X. Give X, Y. (0.5)

Given that Y is trademarked, also give me the second and third words of WFDF,
the sport's international governing body. (0.5)
Ultimate Frisbee
Flying Disc
21.
The Dacia Sandero is a car produced and marketed jointly by a company, X and
Romanian company Dacia, which was acquired by X in 1999. Dacia cars in India are
marketed as cars by X. Who is X? The Sandero and another famous Dacia car (which
one would have seen in India) are shown in the following images.

The information about the release of the Dacia Sandero in 2007, specifically an
unfortunate delay, led to it becoming part of a famous meme. What meme?
Renault
When you realize you have a deadline in
the middle of the IITM Open Quiz
22.
The painting in the next slide is titled the Death of Procris but is wrong on many counts,
mainly the presence of the dog on the right, Laelaps. Laelaps was given as a gift to Procris
by Artemis and was blessed with the ability to hunt down any given prey. The presence
of Laelaps in this image is suspect, as it was assigned to a problematic task before this,
which soon led to it being immortalized in the usual Greek way.

What was the task (explanation or quote from a 2008 film works), and how do we
know Laelaps now?
Laelaps was sent out to catch the Teumessian
Fox, which had been blessed to never be caught
Zeus cast them to form Canis major/minor to
solve the paradox
*23.
The gentleman standing on the left in the still from Love Actually is Simon Finch, who
in 2021 was appointed as a replacement to Billy Cooper. It’s in this same role that we
would have last heard him in the beginning of this year - where was he appointed?

He was recently hired again to lend this same skill set to another body, where he might be
required to play “The Great Escape” quite a few times. Where is this, where we will get
to hear him from next week on?
Barmy Army Trumpeter
World Snooker Championships
24.
Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams (1990) is a magical realist anthology film of eight vignettes, which were
inspired by recurring dreams that Kurosawa had. The movie addresses themes of spirituality, art,
death, and also about transgressions made by humans against nature.

One of the more bleak episodes in the anthology, titled “Mount Fuji in Red”, deals with a
post-apocalyptic scenario. In a panic-fuelled rant, one of the characters points out how foolish
humans were to color-code certain entities blue (137), yellow (90), and the titular red (239) -
pointing out that they would be invisible otherwise, but due to their colorful nature, they symbolize
“death’s calling card”. This is not exactly accurate in practise, and is definitely a stretch of
Kurosawa’s imagination.

What did the scientists supposedly color-code?


Additionally, what do either the yellow or the blue represent?
Poisonous Fumes from Nuclear Fallout,
Strontium-90/Caesium-137
25.
What event from the world of business has led to
something changing its brand identity colour in the US
to teal a couple of weeks ago?
Disney+ and Hulu merger
26.
When ownership of a ghostwritten memoir was transferred to the winning plaintiffs of a
civil suit in 2006, they altered the four word title of the book by shrinking the first word
If to a near-unreadable size.

Who is the author or subject of the book?

What is the title?


27.*
Yasujiro Ozu used 50mm lenses throughout his career, the focal length in commercial use
lenses that is closest to human vision.

He is also credited with the invention of the ______ shot, a technique wherein he would
consistently position the camera very low- just about two or three feet above the ground.

FITB or explain what Ozu wanted to emulate with this shot.


Tatami/Sitting on the floor
28.
This 2013 song by Mika (not the Indian one) featuring X samples a famous song from
the 90s musical Y.

The song has come full circle for X now, as she is playing one of the nice leads in the
upcoming 2024 movie adaptation of Y. Listen to the song and ID X and Y.
Ariana Grande, Wicked
29.
The following slide is the music video for “Magnetic North” by Alestorm. Which other
music video (of a 2009 song) by which far more famous artist is this parodying?

The subject (and title) of the 2009 song is prominent in the first few moments, and was
sung by the original artist at the Super Bowl LI halftime show.
Telephone by Lady Gaga
30*.
You will see the music video of a song by an artist called Vedan.

What recent pop-culture phenomenon has resulted in the artist coming into
popular consciousness?

What is the central setting of the above entity nicknamed?

It was first recorded in 1821 by British officer BS Ward, who gave it this nickname,
which might remind you of a neighborhood on the westside of Manhattan.
Kuthanthram from Manjummel Boys,
The Devil’s Kitchen
THAT’S ALL FOLKS!
Results will be announced soon

Finals coming up

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