The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Questions nowhere in syllabi; yet pat come answers

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Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Questions nowhere in syllabi; yet pat come answers

Staff Reporter

Photo: S.THANTHONI

Battle of brains: Participants and quizmaster Achintya Sharma at ‘Jack Kilby Science & Technology Quiz’ organised on Friday. —

CHENNAI: Most of the questions asked figure nowhere in their syllabus, but the students from classes VIII, IX and X seemed to know it all at the sixth edition of the ‘Jack Kilby Science & Technology Quiz’ organised by Texas Instruments here.

As many as six teams qualified for the regional final on Friday, from 280 teams from leading schools in the city. When an image of the Duodenum in the digestive system was juxtaposed to a picture of a man with 12 fingers on the screen, S. Varun and Harish Krishna V. almost instantly got the right answer, connecting the number 12 with the size of the Duodenum that is said to be 12 fingerbreadths long. This duo from Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan (Nungambakkam) went on to bag the first place, winning robotic kits for themselves and a microscope for the school.

Many such answers quite stunned the audience, invoking instant applause. For instance, one of the teams from Bala Vidya Mandir comprising Siddarth Srikanth and R. Vignesh identified an evolutionary process rightly as ‘island gigantism’, which explains the growth in size of an animal species isolated in an island, in the absence of predators. This team won the third place and members were presented iPods.

It was a double bonanza for Bala Vidya Mandir as the runners up of the quiz, Rohan Jaishankar and B. Lakshman, were also from the school. The students, who also came up with several impressive answers, went back home carrying telescopes that they won as prizes.

The fourth, fifth and sixth places went to Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan (Nungambakkam), Hindu Senior Secondary School and P.S. Senior Secondary School respectively. Sylvia Subbaiah, head of Texas Instruments India Foundation, gave away the prizes. The winners of the quiz would participate in the national final to be held in Bangalore.

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