A tough one to crack

The south zone finals of inter-collegiate business quiz ‘Tata Crucible Campus Quiz’ were held at the NIMHANS Convention Centre recently. 

 

After the preliminary rounds in which 86 teams took part, six teams battled each other in the Bangalore Regional Finals. 

 

The different teams that took part included ICAI Bangalore, Christ University, Bangalore Institute of Technology, BMS College of Engineering, PES Institute of Technology and IIIT-B. 

 

With his unique style of quizzing, ace quizmaster and host Giri Balasubramaniam ensured that the different rounds, which included normal and business-related questions, were exciting and thrilling.

 

The winning teams from eight cities in the south zone – ICAI Bangalore, TAPMI Manipal, ICAI Chennai, PSG College of Arts and Science, Coimbatore; Sastra University, Trichy; IIM, Kozhikode; Rajagiri Centre for Business Studies, Cochin and KLE Belgaum – competed in a neck-to-neck fight to make it to the National Finals.

 

The students, who participated in the quiz, were more than excited to share their experiences. Himadri Banerjee, a BBM second-year student from Christ University, said that the most challenging round was the ‘lateral connect’ round. 

“It was the most difficult one to crack. Also, the clues for the questions were quite difficult compared to the last editions of the quiz,” he said. Himadri, who was a member of the runner-up team, added, “We tried to focus on Tata and current affairs while preparing,” he explained. 

 

Vijay Kalarickal and Mohit Jain of ICAI emerged as the winning team from Bangalore and will be going to the National Finals. 

 

Sharing their experiences, Mohit, a final-year CA student of ICAI, said, “This was one of the most challenging quizzes.” 

 

He added, “We feel lucky to have been selected for the finals and it was a very good experience. A lot of preparation and hard work went into the quiz.” Explaining more about the preparation that went into it, he said that staying updated of news from all sorts of print and online media was the only way out. Vijay Kalarickal, a second-year CA student of ICAI and Mohit’s teammate, said that they always worked as a team, updating each other about the newest developments. 

“As soon as we saw something unique or new, we would jot it down and look up about it,” said Vijay. He also said that they didn’t create any strategy for this particular event.

Quiz master Giri commented that different trends could be seen in the business quizzing scene now. 

 

“I think the Crucible has got a lot younger with many engineering and undergraduate students taking part. The quiz is going beyond B-schools now and its transformation is noticeable,” he said.  

 

Giri noted that this could also be because many students now keep a B-school in mind while doing other courses. 

 

He added, “Another thing I have noticed is that an increasing number of girls are taking part in business quizzes, which was not seen earlier,” he summed up.