First Blood 2017 (February, 2017) was a quiz hosted by the freshers of BITS ELAS, BITS Pilani's quizzing and literary club.

2. First Blood 2017
Prelims
Aswin Anilkumar
Adit Chandra
Mustansir Mama
Anushka Pathak
Neel Shah
Saurav Shenoy
Naveen Unnikrishnan
Ayush Yembarwar

3. Rules and Format
1. 29 questions in the prelims.
2. Ties will be settled by the square-numbered questions (1,4,9,16,25).
3. Teams of two, or less.
4. Top 6 teams make it to the finals.
5. Cheating is not cool.

4. 1.
• This ceremony is known as Langa Davani in
Kannada, Pavadai Dhavani in Tamil and Langa
Voni in Telugu, and generally as Ritu Kala
Sanskaram, and is a celebration of a certain
event.
What event?

5. 2. X’s Number.
X's number is a 'unit' of measurement. Wikipedia defines X's number to be a
large quantity of anything.
The unit is derived from a phrase frequently attributed to X. The lower
bound of a number must be two billion plus two billion, or four billion.
ID X, and the phrase.

6. 3. Flyting
• Older versions of X were practiced mainly between the 5th and 16th centuries
and was called flyting or fliting. Examples of flyting are found throughout Norse,
Anglo-Saxon and Medieval literature involving both historical and mythological
figures.
• In Anglo-Saxon England, flyting would take place in a feasting hall. The winner
would be decided by the reactions of those watching the exchange. The winner
would drink a large cup of beer or mead in victory, then invite the loser to drink
as well.
• Flytings appear in several of William Shakespeare's plays. Margaret Galway
analysed 13 comic flytings and several other ritual exchanges in the tragedies.
• Id X, the modern equivalent of flyting.

7. 4.
A Swedish woman, Eija-Riitta, married X in
1979, in the presence of a few guests.
The marriage lasted 10 years before her
husband was lynched in public.
ID X.
<Family photo attached>

8. 5.
• First performed by Jerry Lee Lewis, it was incorporated as a performance
technique by The Who’s Townshend and Keith Moon. Other notable
instances of it include those by Charles Mingus at Five Spot Jazz Club.
• The current world record for a certain version of it is held by Muse’s
Bellamy.
• What is being talked about?

9. 6.
• The remains of an individual
that would have stood about
3.5 feet (1.1 m) in height
were discovered in 2003
at Liang Bua on the island
of Flores in Indonesia. The
new species, named Homo
floresiensis was soon
nicknamed ______.
• FITB

10. 7.
What is
depicted
here?

11. 8.
• The characters were intended to be named "NY"
and "LA" respectively, intended as homage to the
heavy pollution of New York City and Los Angeles.
The current names, however, are X and Y – a play
on the symptoms caused by excessive pollution.
• X & Y?

12. - Bicycle
- Sunglasses
- A portrait
- Newspaper
- Donut
- Airplane
- Bottle
- Astronaut
- Burning heart with a ‘W’ on it
- Coffee mug
9. What is this a list of? (List is inexhaustive)
- Baguette
- Gloves
- Bells
- Burger
- Calendar with 24 on it
- Compass
- Betel leaf
- Sandwich with a bite on the left
corner
- Submarine
- Octopus

13. 10. ID the object.

14. 11.
What’s been blanked out?

15. 12.
In the USA, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, slaves were
forbidden from owning drums as they were used as a means of
communication.
X was the only city where slaves could legally own drums.
Hundreds of slaves would gather each Sunday to trade, sing, dance and play
music.
This led to the birth of Y.
ID X and Y.

16. 13.
Gandhara was an ancient city-state which governed Taxila, Suvastu, and Purusapura in
modern-day Pakistan and Afghanistan, famous for having been the birthplace of
Gandhari and Shakuni from the Mahabharata.
The mythical Gandharvas are said to have been from here, too.
By what names are Gandhara, Suvastu and Purusapura known today?
Half-point for Gandhara and Purusapura, and half for Suvastu.

17. 14.
INSERT THE AUDIO TRACK
Who is the speaker, and what is he reading?

18. 15.
• Latvia has banned citizens from making use of the _____,
despite only three people being known to make use of them in
the entire country.
• Latvian lawmakers justified that the use of a _____ posed a
serious security risk to the country, adding that one could easily
hide a rocket launcher using it.
FITB.

19. 16.
According to Urban Dictionary,
____ ___ ______ is a colloquialism used to refer to the moment in a film
series that is so incredible that it lessens the excitement of subsequent
scenes that rely on more understated action or suspense, and it becomes
apparent that a certain instalment is not as good as a previous instalments,
due to ridiculous or low quality storylines, events or characters.
ID the phrase

20. 17.
In the mid 20th century, the BBC ran a contest
asking for photos of French beach holiday
photographs.
For what purpose were they later used?

21. 18.
• According to a study by the Carnegie Institution's Department
of Global Energy, X, in the late 12th century, may have
scrubbed 700m tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere –
roughly the quantity of carbon dioxide generated in a year
through global petrol consumption – by allowing previously
populated and cultivated land to return to carbon-absorbing
forest, thus being one of the biggest eco-warriors ever.
ID X.

22. 19.
ID the logo.

23. 20.
X in Spanish means to play hooky, to skip school. The name derives from its first
documented performance by Ricardo Infante in a game between two Argentinian
teams in 1948. The magazine El Gráfico published a front cover showing Infante
dressed as a schoolboy with the caption "El infante que se hizo la X" (In English:
"The infant plays hooky").
Another supposed origin for the name is that X is derived from the Spanish word
for tail, and that the move resembled the swishing of a cow's tail between or
around its legs.

24. 21.
Muslim Man Dabs After Massacring 11 Pakistanis On Live Television
• A Muslim-Australian man has massacred eleven high-profile Pakistanis in the
centre of Sydney, it has been confirmed.
• The man, an Australian citizen who was also born in Pakistan, took up to
three hours slowly murdering the victims with the help of several other non-
Muslims. The entire ordeal was broadcast live on Channel Nine.
Who is the Muslim man being referred to here?

25. 22.
VIDEO QUESTION
Who is marketing what?

26. 23.
Funda.

27. 24.
We did not invent the algorithm.
The algorithm consistently finds Jesus.
The algorithm killed Jeeves.
The algorithm is banned in China.
The algorithm is from Jersey.
The algorithm constantly finds Jesus.
The algorithm constantly finds Jesus.
____ is best viewed with Netscape Navigator
4.0 or below on a Pentium 3±1 emulated in
Javascript on an Apple IIGS at a screen
resolution of 1024x1. Please enable your ad
blockers, disable high-heat drying, and
remove your device from Airplane Mode and
set it to Boat Mode. For security reasons,
please leave caps lock on while browsing.
The text on the left was changed to the one on the right in October 2016. Where would you see these
texts?

28. 25.
Andrew Scott Waugh was a British Army officer and the Surveyor-General of India
after Sir George Everest, and is credited to have named Mt. Everest after his
predecessor.
Waugh is sometimes credited with being "the first person to put two feet on top of
Mount Everest", because of something he did during his tenure as Surveyor-
General. What did he do?

29. 26.
Pike #1, Pike #2, Pike #3, Pike #4, Pike #5, Pike #6, Pike #7, Pike #8, Pike #9, Pike #10, Pike #11, Pike #12, Pike #13, Pike #14, Pike
#15, Pike #16, Pike #17, Pike #18, Pike #19, Pike #20, Pike #21, Pike #22, Pike #23, Pike #24, Pike #25, Pike #26, Pike #27, Pike
#28, Pike #29, Pike #30, Pike #31, Pike #32, Pike #33, Pike #34, Pike #35, Pike #36, Pike #37, Pike #38, Pike #39, Pike #40, Pike
#41, Pike #42, Pike #43, Pike #44, Pike #45, Pike #46, Pike #47, Pike #48, Pike #49, Pike #50, Pike #51, Pike #52, Pike #53, Pike
#54, Pike #55, Pike #56, Pike #57, Pike #58, Pike #59, Pike #60, Pike #61, Pike #62, Pike #63, Pike #64, Pike #65, Pike #66, Pike
#67, Pike #68, Pike #69, Pike #70, Pike #71, Pike #72, Pike #73, Pike #74, Pike #75, Pike #76, Pike #77, Pike #78, Pike #79, Pike
#80, Pike #81, Pike #82, Pike #83, Pike #84, Pike #85, Pike #86, Pike #87, Pike #88, Pike #89, Pike #90, Pike #91, Pike #92, Pike
#93, Pike #94, Pike #95, Pike #96, Pike #97, Pike #98, Pike #99, Pike #100, Pike #101, Pike #102, Pike #103, Pike #104, Pike #105,
Pike #106, Pike #107, Pike #108, Pike #109, Pike #110, Pike #111, Pike #112, Pike #113, Pike #114, Pike #115, Pike #116, Pike
#117, Pike #118, Pike #119, Pike #120, Pike #121, Pike #122, Pike #123, Pike #124, Pike #125, Pike #126, Pike #127, Pike #128,
Pike #129, Pike #130, Pike #131, Pike #132, Pike #133, Pike #134, Pike #135, Pike #136, Pike #137, Pike #138, Pike #139, Pike
#140, Pike #141, Pike #142, Pike #143, Pike #144, Pike #145, Pike #146, Pike #147, Pike #148, Pike #149, Pike #150, Pike #151,
Pike #152, Pike #153, Pike #154, Pike #155, Pike #156, Pike #157, Pike #158, Pike #159, Pike #160, Pike #161, Pike #162, Pike
#163, Pike #164, Pike #165, Pike #166, Pike #167, Pike #168, Pike #169, Pike #170, Pike #171, Pike #172, Pike #173, Pike #174,
Pike #175, Pike #176, Pike #177, Pike #178, Pike #179, Pike #180, Pike #181, Pike #182, Pike #183, Pike #184, Pike #185, Pike
#186, Pike #187, Pike #188, Pike #189, Pike #190, Pike #191, Pike #192, Pike #193, Pike #194, Pike #195, Pike #196, Pike #197,
Pike #198, Pike #199, Pike #200, Pike #201, Pike #202, Pike #203, Pike #204, Pike #205, Pike #206, Pike #207, Pike #208, Pike
#209, Pike #210, Pike #211, Pike #212, Pike #213, Pike #214, Pike #215, Pike #216, Pike #217, Pike #218, Pike #219, Pike #220,
Pike #221, Pike #222, Pike #223, Pike #224, Pike #225, Pike #226, Pike #227, Pike #228, Pike #229, Pike #230, Pike #231, Pike
#232, Pike #233, Pike #234, Pike #235, Pike #236, Pike #237, Pike #238, Pike #239, Pike #240, Pike #241, Pike #242, Pike #243,
Pike #244, Pike #245
Which artist created these albums?

30. 27.
The Nachthexen were an all-female Russian Night Bomber Regiment from WW2.
Though women were initially barred from combat, Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin
issued an order on October 8, 1941 to deploy three women's air force units,
including the 588th regiment.
If they stalled in mid-flight, they had to climb out on the wing to restart them. They
flew to great heights with no parachute and 2 bombs and then glided down,
dropped the bombs on German emplacements, restarted their engines and went
home. The leader flew over 200 missions and was never shot down or captured.
Nachthexen is what the Germans called them. What did this translate to?

31. 28.
__________ is a subgenre of indie rock, alternative rock, and neo-psychedelia that
emerged in the United Kingdom in the late 1980s.
The term "__________" was coined by the British music press to ridicule the stage
presence of a wave of groups who stood still during live performances in a
detached, introspective, non-confrontational state, often with their heads down;
the heavy use of effects pedals meant the performers were often gazing at their
shoes during concerts.
FITB.

32. 29.
Glenn Theodore Seaborg,
The Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory,
The University of California, Berkeley,
California,
The United States of America
What’s so special about this address?

33. ANSWERS

34. 1.
• This ceremony is known as Langa Davani in
Kannada, Pavadai Dhavani in Tamil and Langa
Voni in Telugu, and generally as Ritu Kala
Sanskaram, and is a celebration of a certain
event.
What event?

35. Answer
First Blood (First menstruation)

36. 2. X’s Number.
X's number is a 'unit' of measurement. Wikipedia defines X's number to be a
large quantity of anything.
The unit is derived from a phrase frequently attributed to X. The lower
bound of a number must be two billion plus two billion, or four billion.
ID X, and the phrase.

37. Answer
X – Carl Sagan
Billions and billions

38. 3. Flyting
• Older versions of X were practiced mainly between the 5th and 16th centuries
and was called flyting or fliting. Examples of flyting are found throughout Norse,
Anglo-Saxon and Medieval literature involving both historical and mythological
figures.
• In Anglo-Saxon England, flyting would take place in a feasting hall. The winner
would be decided by the reactions of those watching the exchange. The winner
would drink a large cup of beer or mead in victory, then invite the loser to drink
as well.
• Flytings appear in several of William Shakespeare's plays. Margaret Galway
analysed 13 comic flytings and several other ritual exchanges in the tragedies.
• Id X, the modern equivalent of flyting.

39. Answer
Rap battles

40. 4.
A Swedish woman, Eija-Riitta, married X in
1979, in the presence of a few guests.
The marriage lasted 10 years before her
husband was lynched in public.
ID X.
<Family photo attached>

41. Answer
The Berlin Wall

42. 5.
• First performed by Jerry Lee Lewis, it was incorporated as a performance
technique by The Who’s Townshend and Keith Moon. Other notable
instances of it include those by Charles Mingus at Five Spot Jazz Club.
• The current world record for a certain version of it is held by Muse’s
Bellamy.
• What is being talked about?

43. Answer
Instrument destruction

44. 6.
• The remains of an individual
that would have stood about
3.5 feet (1.1 m) in height
were discovered in 2003
at Liang Bua on the island
of Flores in Indonesia. The
new species, named Homo
floresiensis was soon
nicknamed ______.
• FITB

45. Answer
Hobbit

46. 7.
What is
depicted
here?

47. Answer
Permitted hairstyles in the DPRK.

48. 8.
• The characters were intended to be named "NY"
and "LA" respectively, intended as homage to the
heavy pollution of New York City and Los Angeles.
The current names, however, are X and Y – a play
on the symptoms caused by excessive pollution.
• X & Y?

49. Answer
Koffing and Weezing

50. - Bicycle
- Sunglasses
- A portrait
- Newspaper
- Donut
- Airplane
- Bottle
- Astronaut
- Burning heart with a ‘W’ on it
- Coffee mug
9. What is this a list of? (List is inexhaustive)
- Baguette
- Gloves
- Bells
- Burger
- Calendar with 24 on it
- Compass
- Betel leaf
- Sandwich with a bite on the left
corner
- Submarine
- Octopus

51. Answer
Objects in the default WhatsApp chat background

52. 10. ID the object.

53. Answer
Fidget Cube

54. 11.
What’s been blanked out?

55. Answer
Brexit lane

56. 12.
In the USA, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, slaves were
forbidden from owning drums as they were used as a means of
communication.
X was the only city where slaves could legally own drums.
Hundreds of slaves would gather each Sunday to trade, sing, dance and play
music.
This led to the birth of Y.
ID X and Y.

57. Answer
X – New Orleans
Y - Jazz music

58. 13.
Gandhara was an ancient city-state which governed Taxila, Suvastu, and Purusapura in
modern-day Pakistan and Afghanistan, famous for having been the birthplace of
Gandhari and Shakuni from the Mahabharata.
The mythical Gandharvas are said to have been from here, too.
By what names are Gandhara, Suvastu and Purusapura known today?
Half-point for Gandhara and Purusapura, and half for Suvastu.

59. Answer
Gandhara – Qandahar
Purushapura – Peshawar
Suvastu – Swat Valley

60. 14.
Who is the speaker, and what is he reading?

61. Answer
Mark Hamill, reading Donald Trump’s tweets

62. 15.
• Latvia has banned citizens from making use of the _____,
despite only three people being known to make use of them in
the entire country.
• Latvian lawmakers justified that the use of a _____ posed a
serious security risk to the country, adding that one could easily
hide a rocket launcher using it.
FITB.

63. Answer
Burqa

64. 16.
According to Urban Dictionary,
____ ___ ______ is a colloquialism used to refer to the moment in a film
series that is so incredible that it lessens the excitement of subsequent
scenes that rely on more understated action or suspense, and it becomes
apparent that a certain instalment is not as good as a previous instalments,
due to ridiculous or low quality storylines, events or characters.
ID the phrase

65. Answer
Nuke the fridge

66. 17.
In the mid 20th century, the BBC ran a contest
asking for photos of French beach holiday
photographs.
For what purpose were they later used?

67. Answer
D-Day landings

68. 18.
• According to a study by the Carnegie Institution's Department
of Global Energy, X, in the late 12th century, may have
scrubbed 700m tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere –
roughly the quantity of carbon dioxide generated in a year
through global petrol consumption – by allowing previously
populated and cultivated land to return to carbon-absorbing
forest, thus being one of the biggest eco-warriors ever.
ID X.

69. Answer
Genghis Khan

70. 19.
ID the logo.

71. Answer
Juventus’ new logo

72. 20.
X in Spanish means to play hooky, to skip school. The name derives from its first
documented performance by Ricardo Infante in a game between two Argentinian
teams in 1948. The magazine El Gráfico published a front cover showing Infante
dressed as a schoolboy with the caption "El infante que se hizo la X" (In English:
"The infant plays hooky").
Another supposed origin for the name is that X is derived from the Spanish word
for tail, and that the move resembled the swishing of a cow's tail between or
around its legs.

73. Answer
Rabona

74. 21.
Muslim Man Dabs After Massacring 11 Pakistanis On Live Television
• A Muslim-Australian man has massacred eleven high-profile Pakistanis in the
centre of Sydney, it has been confirmed.
• The man, an Australian citizen who was also born in Pakistan, took up to
three hours slowly murdering the victims with the help of several other non-
Muslims. The entire ordeal was broadcast live on Channel Nine.
Who is the Muslim man being referred to here?

75. Answer
Usman Khawaja

76. 22.
VIDEO QUESTION
Who is marketing what?

77. Answer
Bill Gates
Windows 98

78. 23.
Funda.

79. 24.
We did not invent the algorithm.
The algorithm consistently finds Jesus.
The algorithm killed Jeeves.
The algorithm is banned in China.
The algorithm is from Jersey.
The algorithm constantly finds Jesus.
The algorithm constantly finds Jesus.
____ is best viewed with Netscape Navigator
4.0 or below on a Pentium 3±1 emulated in
Javascript on an Apple IIGS at a screen
resolution of 1024x1. Please enable your ad
blockers, disable high-heat drying, and
remove your device from Airplane Mode and
set it to Boat Mode. For security reasons,
please leave caps lock on while browsing.
The text on the left was changed to the one on the right in October 2016. Where would you see these
texts?

80. Answer
xkcd.com

81. 25.
Andrew Scott Waugh was a British Army officer and the Surveyor-General of India
after Sir George Everest, and is credited to have named Mt. Everest after his
predecessor.
Waugh is sometimes credited with being "the first person to put two feet on top of
Mount Everest", because of something he did during his tenure as Surveyor-
General. What did he do?

82. Answer
He found the height of Mt. Everest to be exactly 29,000ft but reported it to be
29,002ft so that it doesn’t look like a rounded figure.

83. 26.
Pike #1, Pike #2, Pike #3, Pike #4, Pike #5, Pike #6, Pike #7, Pike #8, Pike #9, Pike #10, Pike #11, Pike #12, Pike #13, Pike #14, Pike
#15, Pike #16, Pike #17, Pike #18, Pike #19, Pike #20, Pike #21, Pike #22, Pike #23, Pike #24, Pike #25, Pike #26, Pike #27, Pike
#28, Pike #29, Pike #30, Pike #31, Pike #32, Pike #33, Pike #34, Pike #35, Pike #36, Pike #37, Pike #38, Pike #39, Pike #40, Pike
#41, Pike #42, Pike #43, Pike #44, Pike #45, Pike #46, Pike #47, Pike #48, Pike #49, Pike #50, Pike #51, Pike #52, Pike #53, Pike
#54, Pike #55, Pike #56, Pike #57, Pike #58, Pike #59, Pike #60, Pike #61, Pike #62, Pike #63, Pike #64, Pike #65, Pike #66, Pike
#67, Pike #68, Pike #69, Pike #70, Pike #71, Pike #72, Pike #73, Pike #74, Pike #75, Pike #76, Pike #77, Pike #78, Pike #79, Pike
#80, Pike #81, Pike #82, Pike #83, Pike #84, Pike #85, Pike #86, Pike #87, Pike #88, Pike #89, Pike #90, Pike #91, Pike #92, Pike
#93, Pike #94, Pike #95, Pike #96, Pike #97, Pike #98, Pike #99, Pike #100, Pike #101, Pike #102, Pike #103, Pike #104, Pike #105,
Pike #106, Pike #107, Pike #108, Pike #109, Pike #110, Pike #111, Pike #112, Pike #113, Pike #114, Pike #115, Pike #116, Pike
#117, Pike #118, Pike #119, Pike #120, Pike #121, Pike #122, Pike #123, Pike #124, Pike #125, Pike #126, Pike #127, Pike #128,
Pike #129, Pike #130, Pike #131, Pike #132, Pike #133, Pike #134, Pike #135, Pike #136, Pike #137, Pike #138, Pike #139, Pike
#140, Pike #141, Pike #142, Pike #143, Pike #144, Pike #145, Pike #146, Pike #147, Pike #148, Pike #149, Pike #150, Pike #151,
Pike #152, Pike #153, Pike #154, Pike #155, Pike #156, Pike #157, Pike #158, Pike #159, Pike #160, Pike #161, Pike #162, Pike
#163, Pike #164, Pike #165, Pike #166, Pike #167, Pike #168, Pike #169, Pike #170, Pike #171, Pike #172, Pike #173, Pike #174,
Pike #175, Pike #176, Pike #177, Pike #178, Pike #179, Pike #180, Pike #181, Pike #182, Pike #183, Pike #184, Pike #185, Pike
#186, Pike #187, Pike #188, Pike #189, Pike #190, Pike #191, Pike #192, Pike #193, Pike #194, Pike #195, Pike #196, Pike #197,
Pike #198, Pike #199, Pike #200, Pike #201, Pike #202, Pike #203, Pike #204, Pike #205, Pike #206, Pike #207, Pike #208, Pike
#209, Pike #210, Pike #211, Pike #212, Pike #213, Pike #214, Pike #215, Pike #216, Pike #217, Pike #218, Pike #219, Pike #220,
Pike #221, Pike #222, Pike #223, Pike #224, Pike #225, Pike #226, Pike #227, Pike #228, Pike #229, Pike #230, Pike #231, Pike
#232, Pike #233, Pike #234, Pike #235, Pike #236, Pike #237, Pike #238, Pike #239, Pike #240, Pike #241, Pike #242, Pike #243,
Pike #244, Pike #245

84. Answer
Buckethead

85. 27.
The Nachthexen were an all-female Russian Night Bomber Regiment from WW2.
Though women were initially barred from combat, Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin
issued an order on October 8, 1941 to deploy three women's air force units,
including the 588th regiment.
If they stalled in mid-flight, they had to climb out on the wing to restart them. They
flew to great heights with no parachute and 2 bombs and then glided down,
dropped the bombs on German emplacements, restarted their engines and went
home. The leader flew over 200 missions and was never shot down or captured.
Nachthexen is what the Germans called them. What did this translate to?

86. Answer
The Night Witches

87. 28.
__________ is a subgenre of indie rock, alternative rock, and neo-psychedelia that
emerged in the United Kingdom in the late 1980s.
The term "__________" was coined by the British music press to ridicule the stage
presence of a wave of groups who stood still during live performances in a
detached, introspective, non-confrontational state, often with their heads down;
the heavy use of effects pedals meant the performers were often gazing at their
shoes during concerts.
FITB.

88. Answer
Shoegaze

89. 29.
Glenn Theodore Seaborg,
The Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory,
The University of California, Berkeley,
California,
The United States of America
What’s so special about this address?

90. Answer
Every line of the address has an element named after it