After a fiercely fought battle, the Express News Quiz League now has its winners!

Overall Winner (Gold): With an astounding 60/60 correct answers, Ashutosh Sharma from Zirakpur, Punjab, has bagged the top spot in the Express News Quiz League. His total score was 1790, with an aggregate solving time of 2 minutes 47 seconds. For his prize, Sharma has won a premium 2-Year All-Access Express Subscription, and boAt’s grand prize: a Wave Stride Voice Bluetooth Smartwatch.

Ashutosh Sharma, winner of the very first Express News Quiz League. Sharma is from Zirakpur, Punjab.

“It was a pleasant surprise to win the League, a fitting testament to my love for the newspaper,” beamed Sharma. “I’m thrilled to have had the chance to compete…a heartfelt thank you to the great staff behind this enriching experience. Looking forward to more of these in the future.”

Runner-up (Silver): Close on Sharma’s heels was Bharat, a mysterious player from Chennai who is yet to share his identity with us. Nevertheless, Bharat put up quite the fight, also managing 60/60 correct answers with a score of 1790, and only falling behind Sharma due to a solving time of 3 minutes and 16 seconds. Bharat will be walking away with a 1-Year All-Access Express Subscription, and boAt’s Stone 650 Bluetooth Speaker.

(From left) ENQL third-ranker Shantanu Sharma, and how we imagine our second-ranker, Bharat. If you’re seeing this, check your email!

Second Runners-up (Bronze): Our final winner is Shantanu Sharma from Mumbai, who cracked 59/60 answers with a score of 1690 and a solving time of 3 minutes 49 seconds. Sharma has won a 1-Year All-Access Express Subscription, and boAt’s Rockerz 558 Wireless Headphones. “Participating in the ENQL was great, as it brought together my passion for quizzing with the newspaper I like the most. Thank you for doing this! I am already enjoying the speaker I won earlier, and await more quizzes,” shared Sharma, who also won Game Week 6.

The ENQL’s prizes were powered by boAt. Our top performers have won (clockwise from left) the Wave Stride Voice smartwatch, Rockerz 558 headphones and a Stone 650 speaker. (Courtesy: boAt)

How did the average reader fare?

Over six weeks, 62,377 Indian Express readers tried their hand at the Express News Quiz League, with each quiz seeing an average solving time of 1.5 to 2 minutes. Out of these players, 1409 submitted complete entries for the contest, allowing us to place them on the ENQL leaderboard. If you were a part of this group, don’t forget to check how you did!

Based on weekly rankings, we have awarded shorter premium subscriptions and boAt’s weekly prizes to 15 players. Here are each game week’s top scorers:

GW1: Riya Bansal, Munindar Ahir, Bharat
GW2: Sunil Bansal, Rajni Sharma, Sandeep Varshney
GW3: Ashutosh Sharma, Pratyush Sharma, Shubham Shekhar
GW4: Jothi N, Christeena M Shaji, Shantanu Sharma
GW6: Shantanu Sharma, Parth Agarwal, Sajith Warrier
GW5’s redo: Vishwas Mathur, Prerna Malik, Akshay Verma

The most easily-solved questions were on politics, nature, and entertainment, while the topics quizzers most struggled with were technology and geography. Many were tied in scores and number of correct answers, making their solving speeds a tie-breaker. All questions were framed from major headlines on indianexpress.com.

 

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Now that the contest period is over, your usual (read: relaxed) Express News Quiz will return in its normal avatar from June 2, 2023. Stay tuned to @iepuzzles for updates, and happy solving!