The Eight critical questions of the Mauritius Contest
There was many reasons why I launched the Mauritius Contest. But some other aspects started to come up as the contest move on. What seems to be good is that I learned new things while searching for the questions. I think that the participants have learned also from this little game. I hope that it was not just a copy and paste action without even looking at the answers. At first, all the questions would have been related to Mauritius, but some participant was not too keen with that, since the informations was not easily available on the internet, and the first prize was maybe not worth that amount of effort.
I wanted to keep this aspect of the competition (i.e related to Mauritius) at least at the end of the competition, so I asked all questions related to Mauritius and to make matter worse ( not for me but for the participant and to make the point worth it’s 5 units ) I tried questions that was not easily found on the internet. Since this was THE questions that would determine the winners, their corrections was as meticulous as the correction of the CPE exam papers for the top 100 children. So here are the questions as well as their answers and a little report, just like Cambridge use to do with the SC and HSC exams papers
1. What famous stamp, from Mauritius, has also its own museum ?
The answer was Blue Penny also known as the Mauritius Blue Penny. The museum is found at Caudan Waterfront. This is among the rarest stamps in the world and a legend in the world of philately. We, Mauritian, can be proud of this local product. The blue penny can be seen in the following places : The British Library in London, the Museum for Communication in Berlin, The Postal Museum of Sweden in Stockholm and of course at the Blue Penny Museum in Mauritius
2.Where is the Embassy of China found in Mauritius ?
The Embassy of China is found at Belle Rose. A lot of people has answered to that question, but they did not seem to have their 5 points. What I have learned in physics was the difference between precision and accuracy. Precision is the amount of details given whereas accuracy is how near the answer is to the real answer. An answer can be very precise but not accurate and a lot of people has given precision on this answer but it was not accurate. A simple Belle Rose as the answer would have been ok, but why people you had to precise that it was found in Rose Hill. Look at this photo taken just after the bus stop of rose hill at the “Magistrature”
And yes people, this is the boundary between Rose Hill and Quatre Bornes in Mauritius. So an answer like Belle rose, Rose Hill cannot be accepted. Technically that place does not exists. You must be more attentive to such details when traveling.
3. What was the Original name of the hypermarket Jumbo, found at phoenix ?
I think this was the most easy question of that part. Shall I say the answer or you already know it? Of course the answer is Continent. It was the first hypermarket that came to Mauritius.
4. In which building was the old MCB of Beau Bassin found ?
This was the question that give me the most amazing answers. Some people just describe the building exactly as it is but without the vital part i.e it’s name. The Building is called Ahmed Building. Just have a look at it in the picture below. This is a picture taken 1 day ago at the round about of Beau Bassin.
5. What are the towns of Mauritius ?
Here is the list of the towns in Mauritius:
- Curepipe
- Rose Hill
- Quatre Bornes
- Beau Bassin
- Vacoas
- Phoenix
As you may have noticed, Port Louis is not in the list. In fact Port Louis got the status of City in August 1966. I know many people will be complaining about that issue, but just mind people that the questions was in English. If both City and Town mean the same thing in French, in English it is different. So all the people that included Port Louis in the list did not make it for the point. Shazia was the only one to exclude Port Louis from the list.
6. What was the smallest (in terms of value not size) money note in Mauritius ?
For this question, I was really expecting no real good answers. To my great surprise there was 2 positive answers from Mahesh and http://www.lucain.com which was miraculously saved by ebay. The right answer was 25 cents. ( yeah I know, just 5 cents too much )
7. In Trianon, what is the name of the club, behind the margarine factory, where the school leavers party 2007 was organized ?
For this answer I got a lot of answer for palladium. Is it because it was recently used for dance fever ?? But I don’t see any margarine factory in front of Palladium, the factory is to it’s right when facing the palladium. The school leavers that was organized in 2007 was at Hua Lien. Ludovic was the first one to give the good answer on this.
8. On the UBS line, from Port Louis to Curepipe via Rose Hill, what is that bus route number ?
The answer to this question is Route Number 2. The route 2A normally is an extension of this route and it’s destination is Forest Side. Since my question was not which bus to take to go to Curepipe, but the route number from Port Louis to Curepipe Via Rose Hill, there is only one possible answe, which is Route Number 2. I have specially included the part of the UBS line not to make any publicity but to prevent answers such as route 102 ( route 102 is a bus from port louis to curepipe via rose hill but via floreal too from the NTC )
Here you are people with the answers of the last set of questions to the Mauritius Contest. Hope that you don’t mind the severe correction of this last part. This is to give the contest quite a good standard. What I can say is that as long as the answers are given on Google everyone give the answers but when he (or it) cannot give the answers it become harder. You can still use msn (not the search engines but the messenger service) since there are people at the other end. Do not tell me that there is not a single person on your contact list that did not know at least one answer ( in other words, do not tell me that there is not at least one person on your msn, facebook or hi5 list that came to the school leavers party 2007 ). When playing conventional quiz, I know people that ask the questions to every single person that they know and met on their way.
I will be glad if it was possible to have some sort of feedback from people that has participated in the contest. The contest system was not perfect but there is still a lot of room for improvements. Do not hesitate to raise your voice hear until it get into the head of the organizer and other collaborator. If you are shy, don’t be shy and if you cannot keep your mouth shut, keep it open 
May 8th, 2008 at 5:54 am
yeah yeah dude…got 7/8 !!!
But I still don’t agree with Port-Louis…Nevermind, the most important is that I won the contest !!Unbelievable…sorry leading guys such as Blossom, Tom Sawyer etc..
May 8th, 2008 at 5:59 am
Hmm…
the smallest (in terms of value not size) money note in Mauritius is 25 cents!!!!!!!!!! i can’t believe it!!! i shud hav asked my grandma instead of ma mom! lol
so i was the only one to answer the question bout the towns right. TATS GREAT! Thank God i read somtin on demography some time ago.
wasn’t the famous stamp, blue penny, pretty obvious? i thought everyone wud get tat rite
anyway, it was a very interestin contest.
anyway, great job Vincent.keep it up!
cheers
May 8th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Congrats to the winners, just too bad I gave up in the middle of the game else I would have been the winner
May 8th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Something i would like to add:
Your irregularity on the update of questions is just ‘inacceptable’ for top scorers like me who have ‘d’autres chats à fouetter’.
How would u expect busy people to give their max on the contest when your contest’s server was down and no notice had been circulated from your part to inform us when the quiz gonna resume (take the last round of questions for instance which was just released ON THE EVE of the ending date AFTER a looooong period of inactivity on the contest page - thanks to my contacts again- and i’m not even sure the contest ended on the 1st May- huh
)
I’m not saying ‘if this was that and that was this, then i would have been the winner’.No! It’s just that i’ve found the ongoing process of the contest WRONG and some questions too (the nonsense ones - ‘In which building was the old MCB of Beau Bassin found? ‘ - what’s…..gngngngn….ki ena extra avek Ahmed Building?????)
Well, there is much much more to say (or criticize - whatever words u prefer).But i really appreciate the effort u’ve put to create the contest.
May 8th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
Got questions 5, 6, 7 wrong.. But the last part of questions proved to be extremely challenging as well as interesting.. capital of iran, will smith’s last movie, how many legs a butterfly has etc, all these were quite easy and answers could be EASILY found on the internet. thats y i found the last set of questions of this contest superb. am happy to be amongst the first 6 candidates and overall i have obtained 90% of the answers. despite the fact that i missed the first questions of the contest, and others were already 20-25 points ahead of me when i joined
May 9th, 2008 at 6:13 am
D’apres moi sa contest la li définitivement HYPER-NUL!!!
Premier zafer, c ban questions la mem. Facile truver ki missié Vincent en grand adepte Ctrl+C & Ctrl+V. Li copier tou ban questions dépi en site couma quiz-zone.co.uk & li paste sa & après li donne toi mem réponses same 2 same! N’importe ki sanla capav truv ban réponses par en simple Google Search.
& plis pire enkor… ban réponses la faux! Mais missié Vincent li plis ki bon dieu - personne pas capav contester so parole de dieu!
Dans en contest ki bizin 100% Morisien, to pe gagne ban questions couma ki sanlà ine alle lors La Lune? La lune ki pe vine fer dans Moris?
& en plis li zouer ar mots couma dire zako zouer ar la guitare! Si mo mette P. Louis au lieu de Port Louis, li pou refuse li acoz P. Louis veut dire Petit Louis!
Li demane toi kouma appel ancien batiment MCB. Zis en Beau-Bassinois (mo pas pe dire Chinois!) ki capav konne sa non? Missié Vicent kroir ki tou ban dimoune zot bus passe à travers Beau-Bassin & donc zot bizin conner? Kieter sa??? & pas tou dimounes ki manzer-boire pou ki li aller koner ena en discotek appel Tian Li derriere moulin à dibeurre!
Moris la grand sa - explore impé plis ki Plaine Wilhems!
& mo ena ban doutes lors transparans sa contest la - couma fait ki mem dimoune gagne en contest 2 fois? En dimoune ki hors-contest en seul coup vine premier! Ena soy la dans!
May 9th, 2008 at 10:29 am
Hey wah tou sa temps la… hein mo p comment lor ene lot post… enfin pa facile.
Wah moi mon sorti 3eme mai pan gagne nanier, Bizin guet ICAC ene kout kave sa….
Wah Mais Bon…
Moi Mo Kon Vincent Bien …. Ene bon garcon sa… ek ena transparence dan so contest. Pa ve dire ki kan ou premier
Pa veu dire ki kan ou premier ou pou rest premier… NON??
May 9th, 2008 at 10:32 am
@ Stephanie :
I wonder if you are jealous because I won both contest this guy organised…
Just think about this…I lagged behind the winners by 15-17 points, and the last part of the contest gave a total of 40 points. Had you answer all correctly, you’d be First on the contest.
Don’t just say craps, If I won then I won, and in full tranparency !!!
By the Way, Did you participate into the first contest?? I guess not as there was only 3 participants !!!
May 9th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
@Shazia: At least someone who agree with that question and with strong arguments to back up the answer.
@rubeina : yeah too bad, but it was your choice to boycott the contest, now u need to assume fully your choice
@Tom Sawyer: yeah I know that there was some irregularity in the contest. But it is difficult when you are physically in Mauritius as the internet is not that much reliable. Some places were unable to see my server where as other places was good. This is the cost of being a Mauritian, it took me 3 years just to launch that website.
@Neel : It’s good to see people looking at life from the positive side even after a late start of the contest.
@Mahesh : yo mahesh, there is a specific procedure that I have send so that I can dispatch the credit to the phone number. Procedure that you have not completed yet… Some people has used a false email address and now to claim the price they just can’t. I’m obliged to do so, else anyone could claim to be the winners
@Stephanie,Stephane: I personally don’t like to do that, but since you started the fire,need to add water to it. It is sad to see that everytime that some mauritians tried to move forward, there are other trying to retain them or more, make them go backwards. Yes I can affirm that some questions was indeed from those kind of website, but aren’t their purpose there just for that?? It was either those kind of questions or those that I prefer, Infosys type challenges.
Do not jump rapidly to false conclusion with the 100% Mauricien. The fact that all questions should have been related to mauritius was what I personally wanted, the mauritius in the title of “Mauritius Contest” was refering more to the fact that the contest was reserved to people from Mauritius.
I cannot take out the doubt from your head, but just mind you of this: if there was manday (I think that’s what you wanted to say instead of soy ), I would have won the contest myself. It would have been easy for me to play under a nick name and win (in fact rubeina was thinking that i was Tom Sawyer). Else why not even let my brother or my cousin win ?? If this man won twice, it is just because of his determination. As christophe has said, there was only 3 participant for the first contest. The first rule to win (which you may not or have forgot) is to participate. I personally did not appreciate the comment about the fact that people came from nowhere to the first place. You should have watched closely to people that was under you and not only focus to the other that was above you. It is hard to learn the lesson from that hard way, but this is the beauty of life
It is always easier to criticize people, but harder to walk in their shoes for at least one day. I really appreciate when I see people standing up and say what they think, even when they do not agree, I am a very open minded guy and that is why I approved your comment. The only thing that I do not like is when people do that in a cowardly manner, hiding behind other’s people name. This is the fear of taking the responsibility of what has been said.
But anyway Stephanie or Stephane, with the amazing power of wordpress (this program very good and when you master it you can do almost anything) , I know exactly who you are. Just have the courage to stand up and assume your says.
@Christophe : Very good job man, this is where your determination brings you. I would have preferred to be at your place but there was a need to have someone at the other place. I thought that since there was no one, I should take that place. I’m just waiting for you to launch your contest and maybe to be the winner.
May 25th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
I just found your blog…this contest seemed like something interesting…will there be any more?