Analysis: Season 1, Game-week 1

-Paul Pop

Once the first game-week started rolling, we realized that some of the questions were too hard for people to crack, but that didn't stop some of you from cracking it. No questions went unanswered in the first week.

The most answered questions in Game-Week 1, with them being answered in every game (i.e. 29 games) were 12 in number. That means 25% of the questions in the set were answered in every single game without fail.

The least correct answer of game-week 1 was surprisingly "luxury" effect! It would have been such a facepalm moment for players in 28 of the games. Reitesh Raman was the only one to crack this question. After this, the least answered question was the one with Zero Gauss Chamber/MuChamber which I thought would be answered by 0 people. But congrats on answering this toughie, Jimmy Li and Praveen VR! Another tough one with only three answers was the question about the etymology of the name of Bateleur/their courtship behaviour. It was answered by Dinesh Krithivasan , Ravi Mundoli and Praveen VR.

In terms of quads, the toughest quad was the 'Gardening and gradient studies' with only 15.59% answer rate (corrects/opportunities). This quad came about as a result of me refereeing a journal article about a gradient study and therefore having to read up extensively on the subject. So, some of the fundas might have been too niche, although many people seem to have enjoyed it.

The most answered quad was the 'Volcanoes in paintings' with an answer rate of 51% because almost all of it were "Peters" (answers which have come in a different way in other quizzes). This was another quad I really enjoyed setting, as I had enjoyed reading Pompeii by Robert Harris, which I was able to sneak as a clue to the Vesuvius question.

Thanks to two people not turning up, Eric Mukherjee was able to get an unbroken record of 34 points! This record is likely to remain unbroken for some time, as such perfect situations for scoring heavily don't come often. Thanks to this, Eric was one of the theme leaders for all themes except Physical Geography and Engineering and Technology in first week. And one of the quads leaders for all quads except "National Parks in Jammu and Kashmir", "Artificial Intelligence" and "Biology of Bateleur Eagles". Eric was also the only one to crack 5 muskeeters, only one of which is shared by another person.

The muskeeters cracked were (congrats to cracking all four questions in a quad. Musketeers will be rare since only one question per quad is direct to a person):

1) Materials and their Moh's scale of hardness - Eric Mukherjee

2) Elementary particles - Eric Mukherjee

3) Artificial Intelligence - Prakhar Gupta

4) Eponymously named fractal concepts - Eric Mukherjee

5) Contact - Eric Mukherjee

6) Volcanoes in paintings - Eric Mukherjee and Shankha Ghosh Dastidar

Themewise (T) and quad (Q, primary quad relating to a theme) leaders (other than the ones which already appear as musketeers):

1) Physical Geography - National Parks in Jammu & Kashmir (max = 3/4 (75%)) - Ravi Mundoli , Ramakrishnan Ranganathan , Shashank T. , and Venkatesh Srinivasan.

2T) History and Literature (max = 7/8 (87.5%)) - Eric Mukherjee

2Q) Colonial nomenclature of butterflies in India (max = 3/4 (75%)) - John van Maris , Dinesh Krithivasan, Ravi Mundoli, Eric Mukherjee and Sanat Pai Raikar

3T) Biology (max = 7/12 (58.33%)) - Eric Mukherjee

3Q) Biology of Bateleur Eagles (max = 3/4 (75%)) - Gaurav Sinha and Akshay Gurumoorthi

4) Chemistry (max = 4/4 (100%)) - Eric Mukherjee

5) Physics (max = 7/8 (87.5%)) - Eric Mukherjee

6) Engineering & Technology (max = 4/4 (100%)) - Prakhar Gupta

7) Mathematics (max = 4/4 (100%)) - Eric Mukherjee

8) Movies & TV (max = 4/4 (100%)) - Eric Mukherjee

9) Music, Art and Architecture (max = 4/4 (100%)) - Eric Mukherjee and Shankha Ghosh Dastidar

10) Mythbusting (max = 3/4 (75%)) - Flat Earth - Eric Mukherjee and Nikhil Sonde

11) Social Science & Psychology - Psychology of Argumentation (max = 2/4 (50%)) - Manoj Saranathan , Aditya Sankaran, Daivat Bhatt , Harman Singh , Jayakanthan R, Movin Miranda , Eric Mukherjee, Sanat Pai Raikar , Mukunth Raghavan , Subrat Mohanty, Utkarsh Rastogi, and Venkatesh Srinivasan

12) Home & Hobbies - Gardening and gradient studies (max = 3/4 (75%)) - Eric Mukherjee