MindSweep and MegaWhats on 11 May 2025
The KQA is pleased to announce the return of its annual multi-city written open quizzing championships, Mindsweep and Megawhats.
Both quizzes will be conducted on Sunday, 11th May, 2025 in various cities.
Mindsweep, the international solo quizzing championship, is a written quiz for solo participants that will require takers to answer around 200 questions in two back-to-back sessions of 75 min each. The quiz will commence at 10.30 AM IST.
MindSweep is set by a team led by Dr Arul Mani.
Registration form and further details are here.
Megawhats, the national team quizzing championship, is a written quiz for teams of up to four that will commence at 3.30 PM IST. Do note that the top winners of Megawhats will also be invited to take part in the Megawhats National Final on June 27 at AsKQAnce 2025.
Registration form and further details are here.
MegaWhats is set by a team led by Thejaswi Udupa.
Venue details for each city will be notified soon. The venue in Bangalore is IAT, Queen’s Road.
If your location isn’t listed and you would like your city to conduct Mindsweep and Megawhats, or for any clarifications, please write to Hrishi Varma at kqaquizzes@gmail.com The more the merrier, and the only reason your city is not yet on the list is that the organising details have not yet been ironed out with the local quiz club so lean on them and tell them to get their act together
Prior registration is required for both quizzes, so please register at the earliest using the links mentioned above, and do spread the word.
KQA’s AsKQAnce quiz fest on 27-29 June, 2025
The KQA is happy to announce the return of its 3-day quizzing extravaganza in Bangalore, Askqance 2025! With 8 quizzes over 3 days, there’s really something for everyone!
The schedule:
Friday (27th June)
10 AM to 1 PM: Mahamahaquizzer
The national final for the top 16 qualifiers from KQA’s inter-city written quiz, Mahaquizzer. Come watch the best minds duke it out etc etc.
2 PM onwards: MegaWhats National Final
The 16 qualifiers from cities across India converge for the national final of MegaWhats, the KQA’s inter-city team written quiz (duke, best minds etc.).
2 PM to 330 PM: Semifinal 1
345 PM to 515 PM: Semifinal 2
530 PM to 730 PM: Final
8 PM: 4 Edge Pub Quiz
A pub quiz in association with Bangalore pub quizzing royalty 4 Edge Quizzing! A fun pub quiz that’s open to all.
Saturday (28th June)
930 AM to 1 PM: the KQA Science and Technology Quiz
SciTech quizzes are a mainstay of festivals, and this one won’t be any different.
A prelims/finals open quiz for teams of up to four.
2 PM to 330 PM: Turned Pages, a quiz on adaptations
If you ever thought literature quizzes these days were movie quizzes in disguise, this is for you. A quiz on stories that have been adapted for stage/TV/movies from books/plays, all from the “lit” angle.
A written open quiz for teams of up to two.
345 PM to 845 PM: Son of Lumiere – the Movie Quiz
After a brief pause, the venerable movie quiz rides again at Askqance! Hollywood, not-just-Bollywood Indian movies, world cinema, independent productions… it’s all here.
A prelims/finals open quiz for teams of up to four.
Sunday (29th June)
930 AM to 1 PM: The G.S. Hiranyappa Memorial quiz
A quiz on topics near and dear to his quizzing heart: history, geography and the social sciences.
A prelims/finals open quiz for teams of up to four.
2 PM to 7 PM: Sesame — the Open General Quiz
Our flagship general quiz is back in a new avatar… that’s the same well-received avatar as last year.
Sesame will have a tiered format with a prelim, a play-in semi final, and a nine-team final incorporating the top 6 from the prelim and top 3 from the semi-final.
A prelims/semi/finals open quiz for teams of up to four.
QM, registration, venue and prize details to be announced soon!
For further details, updates or any queries on AsKQAnce and other quizzes, follow us on Twitter and IG at @kqaquizzes or join our Quiz Announcement WhatsApp group using the link https://chat.whatsapp.com/EEsx1FuBmWCLqqwR408CWc
RESULTS – MahaQuizzer 2024
A total of 252 quizzers attempted MahaQuizzer this year.
The winner, for a barely believable fifth time, is Vinoo Sanjay from Mumbai. Vinoo reclaims his title with a score of 80 points out of 150.
Two quizzers tied for 77, but in the end, youth beat out experience. Ravi Mundoli (Chennai) pips ahead of Preetham Upadhya (Bengaluru) on stars. The defending champion, Jayakanthan, finishes fourth with 76 points.
A new entrant into the top ten is also comfortably its youngest. Calvin Christ finishes with 70 points in sixth place. He will celebrate it with a bottle of champagne when he is old enough to.
Two other former MQ champions, Dr Arul Mani and Shouvik Guha (Kolkata), round off the top ten with 65 points. Another former champ, Jayashree Jaykar Mohanka (Kolkata), was the highest-scoring woman, with 59.
The top 16 automatically qualify for Mahamahaquizzer at AsKQAnce 2025.
The KQA thanks all quizzing communities and proctors who helped conduct MQ smoothly.
The Q&A can be found here.
MahaQuizzer 2024 was set by Sachin Deshpande, Santosh J Swaminathan, Sreyashi Dastidar, Sujata Sharma, and Venkataraman R.
See you in 2025!
MegaWhats Semi-final lineups @ AsKQAnce 2024
This is the semi-final lineup for the MegaWhats semifinals:
SF1:
| 1 | QED | Chennai |
| 2 | United Separatists | Mumbai |
| 3 | Zero Gravitas | Bengaluru |
| 4 | Quizzaholics Anonymous | Chennai |
| 5 | Sainted & Dented | Mumbai |
| 6 | Laapataa Ladies | Delhi |
| 7 | Congrats All | Bengaluru |
| 8 | Triple S with a B | Hyderabad |
SF2:
| 1 | Aardvarks | Delhi |
| 2 | CIDs From Kerala | Bengaluru |
| 3 | So Far So Good So Megawhats | Bengaluru |
| 4 | Insignificant Others | Chennai |
| 5 | Hammer & Tongs | Kolkata |
| 6 | Zulfiqar-e-Fidel | Pune |
| 7 | Peter Panchali | Bengaluru |
| 8 | KSI | Coimbatore |
KQA’S QUIZ FESTIVAL ASKQANCE 2024 ON JUNE 28-30
With little under two months remaining for KQA’s 3-day quizzing extravaganza AsKQAnce, here’s the schedule in full detail!
Friday (28th June)
10 AM to 1 PM: Mahamahaquizzer The national final for the top 16 qualifiers from KQA’s inter-city written quiz, Mahaquizzer. Come watch the best minds duke it out etc etc.
QMs: Navin Rajaram, Sreyashi Dastidar, Sujata Sharma, Venkatraman Ravindra
2 PM onwards: MegaWhats National Final: The 16 qualifiers from cities across India converge for the national final of MegaWhats, the KQA’s inter-city team written quiz (duke, best minds etc.).
2 PM to 330 PM: Semifinal 1
345 PM to 515 PM: Semifinal 2
530 PM to 730 PM: Final
QMs: Krittika Adhikary, Manish Achuth, Rashmi Vallabhajosyula, Thejaswi Udupa
8-830ish PM: 4 Edge Pub Quiz A pub quiz in association with Bangalore pub quizzing royalty 4 Edge Quizzing! A fun pub quiz that’s open to all, venue and details TBD. Note: This quiz is still ironing out venue gremlins; exact time and location will be notified closer to the date.
QM: 4 Edge Quizzing
Saturday (29th June)
930 AM to 1 PM: Parts Unknown — the Travel and Living quiz. What is travel and living, you ask? A journey or destination or anything there is travel, anything that happens during a journey or at a destination is living.
QMs: Jaidev K, Jayaprakash, Nikhita Thomas
A prelims/finals open quiz for teams of up to four.
2 PM to 330 PM: As Seen on TV Quiz, a quiz on um, things seen on TV. So that’s not just TV shows but also live events, news, even the static. Anything that our QMs deem fit to tenuously connect to the topic at hand.
QMs: Mahendra Balu, Nagaratna Patil, Vivek Karthikeyan
A written open quiz for teams of up to two.
345 PM to 715 PM: Bizkashi – the Business Quiz Once again we attempt to bridge the gap between business quizzing and quizzing for pleasure with a quiz that will be accessible to all but flavoured by the world of business. That is, we’re disrupting business quizzes. Seeing as this is late-stage capitalism’s world and we merely live in it, a quiz on business is a quiz on life itself.
QMs: After a corporate boardroom coup that has resulted in exiling their co-QMs to Mumbai, Rohit Suresh and Venky Srinivasan take sole control
A prelims/finals open quiz for teams of up to four.
Sunday (30th June)
930 AM to 1 PM: The G.S. Hiranyappa Memorial quiz on topics near and dear to his quizzing heart: history, geography and the social sciences.
QMs: Debashree Mitra, Keshav Athreya, Maitrey Deshpande
A prelims/finals open quiz for teams of up to four.
2 PM to 7 PM: Sesame — the Open General Quiz Our flagship general quiz is back in a new avatar… that’s the same well-received avatar as last year.
Sesame will have a tiered format with a prelim, a play-in semi final, and a nine-team final incorporating the top 6 from the prelim and top 3 from the semi-final.
QMs: Abid Abdulla, Mollika Maiti, Preetham Upadhya, Sachin Deshpande, Sripradha S
A prelims/semi/finals open quiz for teams of up to four.
Venue: The Institute of Agricultural Technologists (IAT) on Queen’s Road https://goo.gl/maps/YndqYDAGH1giNi3U6
There will be prizes for all the finalists, and slightly better prizes for 1-2-3. Book coupons galore, so keep your suitcase empty if you fancy your chances.
Registration for each quiz is Rs. 200/team — only on-the-spot registrations, so just turn up on the day!
Hope to see you (yes, you) there, and please spread the word on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Discord, Hood (is anyone on Hood?)… even send this along with a “GM 
” to your quiz and non-quiz WhatsApp groups.
For further details, updates or any queries on AsKQAnce and other quizzes, follow us on Twitter and IG at @kqaquizzes or join our Quiz Announcement WhatsApp group using the link https://chat.whatsapp.com/EEsx1FuBmWCLqqwR408CWc
MegaWhats 2024 – RESULTS & RANKINGS
Here are the results of prelims of MegaWhats 2024, the KQA’s annual inter-city written quiz. The top ten city winners are invited to participate in the MW semifinals on 28 June 2024. The MW face-off will be part of AsKQAnce, KQA’s annual quiz fest.
Qualifiers will be contacted by the KQA to confirm participation at AsKQAnce. Each team is allowed a maximum of one change per team. In case of a city winner dropping out, the next team to qualify will NOT be the second highest scoring team in that city, but the highest scoring team overall that has not qualified.
Our congratulations to QED from Chennai for topping the prelims. The other qualifiers are listed below.
Top ten city winners:
1. QED (Chennai, 53.5 with 10*)
2. Aardvarks (Delhi, 53 with 10*)
3. United Separatists (Mumbai, 50.5 with 9*)
4. CIDs From Kerala (Bangalore, 48.5 with 7*)
5. Feni Vidi Vici (Goa, 46.5 with 6*)
6. Hammer & Tongs (Kolkata, 44.5 with 9*)
7. Zulfiqar-e-Fidel (Pune, 44 with 5*)
8. Triple S with a B (Hyderabad, 42 with 6*)
9. Baibaswata Ritwik Toyada Adarsh (Bhubaneshwar, 38.5 with 7*)
10. KSI (Coimbatore, 37.5 with 6*)
Other qualifiers
1. Dada Kondke & His Lamp (Mumbai, 50 with 8*)
2, Zero Gravitas (Bangalore, 48 with 9*)
3. So Far So Good So Megawhats (Bangalore, 47.5 with 9*)
4. Quizzaholics Anonymous (Chennai, 47.5 with 9*)
5. Insignificant Others (Chennai, 46.5 with 9*)
6. Sainted & Dented (Mumbai, 46 with 9*)
*UPDATED 27 MAY: Coimbatore is the 10th qualifier among city winners, beating out Ahmedabad by a point. Apologies for any confusion.
MAHAQUIZZER 2023 – RESULTS & RANKINGS
The results of the 18th edition of MahaQuizzer are below. Nearly 300 people took Mahaquizzer.
Jayakanthan of Chennai has won the title of MahaQuizzer with a score of 112, the highest in the competition’s history. This is his first title. Our congratulations to him.
Two former champions also reached the century score: Vinoo Sanjay (100 (12*), Mumbai), and Rahul Kottalgi (100 (9*), Bengaluru). The highest-scoring woman is 2012 champ Jayashree Jayakar Mohanka, who made 79.
The next four highest scorers in Bengaluru were Thejaswi Udupa (94), Santosh Swaminathan (92), Achyuth Sanjay (88) and Anustup Datta (83).
Due to some unfortunate circumstances, we did not receive the answer sheets from Delhi. They are presented as we received them. We are yet to receive scores from Siliguri and Raiganj. Scores will be updated if we receive them.
The top sixteen players also qualify for Mahamahaquizzer 2024. The winners will be given the trophy at AsKQAnce 2024, which will be held in June 2024.
We thank all our quiz setters, proctors, and fellow quizzing organisations for making this edition a success.
We’ll see you again in December 2024.
AsKQAnce – Winter of this Content 2023
With less than a month remaining for KQA’s special 40th anniversary “all the nice topics” quizzing extravaganza The Winter of This Content, here’s the schedule in full detail!
Saturday (16th December)
915 AM: Registration starts
930 AM: Y Tu MoMA Tambien — the Arts Quiz
As the name suggests, art does not stop at paintings or with the Renaissance. A quiz about all walks of art, from still life with fruit to bananas taped to walls!
QMs: Anush Iyer, Mahendra Balu, Nikhita Thomas
A prelims/finals open quiz for teams of up to four.
145 PM: The Extremely Online offline quiz
Whether you know the phrase “extremely online” or are thinking “huh this is some gen Z yooth play”, this is a quiz for you — for every MostlySane posting content, there is a pre-millennial struggling with caps lock on Twitter/X. From T-Series subscription numbers to T-4826 (and counting; IYKYK), if it’s online, it’s fair game.
QMs: Abid Abdulla, Nagaratna Patil
A written open quiz for teams of up to two.
330 PM – 830 PM: SoL — the Movie Quiz
Son. Of. Lumiere. Is. Back. The venerable movie quiz rides again! Hollywood, not-just-Bollywood Indian movies, world cinema, independent productions… it’s all here.
QMs: Anustup, Sripradha, Varun
A prelims/finals open quiz for teams of up to four.
Sunday (17th December)
915 AM: Registration starts
930 AM: Persiflage — the Books Quiz
Another long-standing favourite, the books quiz is back and off the chain with low/high brow and everything in between, from Murdoch to BookTok and beyond!
QMs: Mollika, Sreyashi, Urmila
A prelims/finals open quiz for teams of up to four.
2 PM – 7 PM: Sesame Mucho — the Music Quiz
Another banger is back and promises to be an all-killer, no-filler music quiz!
QMs: Anuradha, Santosh, Udupa
A prelims/finals open quiz for teams of up to four.
Venue: The Institute of Agricultural Technologists (IAT) on Queen’s Road (https://goo.gl/maps/YndqYDAGH1giNi3U6)
There will be prizes for all the finalists and slightly better prizes for 1-2-3. Book coupons galore, so keep your suitcase empty if you fancy your chances.
Every quiz is open to all!
Registration for the written quiz is Rs. 200/team and each prelim/finals quiz is Rs. 300/team (waived for school and college teams) — only on-the-spot registrations, so just turn up on the day!
Hope to see you (yes, you) there, and please spread the word on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Discord, Hood (is anyone on Hood?)… even send this along with a “GM ” to your quiz and non-quiz WhatsApp groups.
MahaMahaQuizzer and MegaWhats Finals 2023
The finals of MahaMahaQuizzer 2023 will take place at 10 am on 30 June, the first day of Askqance 2023. The participants are listed below.
- Sachin Deshpande
- Jayakanthan (Chennai)
- Rahul Kottalgi (Bangalore)
- Santosh JS (Bangalore)
- Thejaswi Udupa (Bangalore)
- Jayashree Jayakar Mohanka (Kolkata)
- Keshava Guha (Delhi)
- Amrit P C (Delhi)
- Nikhil Sonde (Mumbai)
- Rajiv Rai (Mumbai)
- Praveen VR (Bangalore)
- Manu Sudhakar (Kochi)
- Dinesh Krithivasan (Chennai)
- Chandrakant Nair (Thrissur)
- Sourjo Sengupta (Kolkata)
- Abhinav Dasgupta (Mumbai)
The semifinals of MegaWhats 2023 will take place on the first day of Askqance 2023. The teams for each semifinal are listed below.
Semifinal 1 @ 230pm
1. ZeF
2. Zero Gravitas
3. Hammer and tongs
4. Feni vidi vici
5. String quartet
6. QA, Bangalore
7. CIDs
8. Nexus
Semifinal 2 @ 345pm
1. Adutha Varsham
2. Matunga Manram
3. Aardvarks
4. In search of lost prime
5. QED
6. QA, Chennai
7. BMQJ
8. Peter Panchali
Junior Askqance on July 28
As part of AsKQAnce – KQA’s 36th anniversary quiz fest – three general quizzes for school/college students will be held on Sunday, July 28, 2019 at the Institute of Agricultural Technologists, Queen’s Road, Bangalore.
The events are as below:
Inter-Middle School Quiz for students in classes 5, 6 and 7 – reporting time 0900 Hours – quiz starts at 0930 Hours. QMs: Hrishikesh, Urmila and Venkat. Teams of 2.
Cognito, the Inter-High School Quiz for students in classes 8, 9 and 10 – reporting time 1115 Hours – quiz starts at 1145 Hours. QMs: Gautam and Nagaratna. Teams of 2.
PUC/College Quiz for students in classes 11 and 12 (or Junior College / PU) or in college – reporting time 1400 Hours – quiz starts at 1430 Hours. There will be a common prelim but separate finals for teams from classes 11 and 12 (or junior college/PU) and for teams from college. QMs: Ajay, Manish, Meghavi. Teams of 3.
All members of a team need to be from the same school/college. A maximum of two teams from one school will qualify for the Middle School and High School quizzes, and a maximum of three teams from one PU/college will qualify for their respective finals.
Students can also attempt the prelims of quizzes in an age category higher than their own – for example, middle school students can also attempt the high school and PUC/college prelims, and high school students can also attempt the PUC/college prelims.
The newly released 2018-19 KQA Yearbook will be available at the venue.
You can also get the latest updates on the KQA by following us at www.facebook.com/kqaquizzes or www.instagram.com/kqaquizzes
If you know of anyone who would like to be a part of the *KQA Quiz Announcements WhatsApp group, please have them send a WhatsApp message to +91 9902444486
