What happens when children come dressed in school uniforms on a holiday? It had to be something exciting and fun for making so many of them come to Kamarajar Arangam. The XII th edition of The Hindu Young World quiz held recently saw as many as 722 teams from Stds VII to IX from over 200 schools taking part and was organised as a part of The Hindu – N ewspaper In Education initiative.
Did you know which newspaper was the first to go online in 1995? Yes, it is The Hindu . When asked to arrange Zodiac signs in an alphabetical order and name the one that comes second last… many stumbled. But the right answer is Taurus. Few of the toughies that quizmaster V.V. Ramanan asked included naming the team who are also nicknamed “The Pensioners” and if you were walking on the streets of Baku which country would you be in? How many of you guessed the right answer — Team Chelsea and Azerbaijan.
Twenty five questions on various subjects — current affairs, history, chemistry, entertainment, geography, biology and more were asked during the preliminary round. A written round, participants had to answer 20 general questions and an additional of five more to be used in case of tie break. When the answer sheets were collected the audience was given a chance to answer and win lots of goodies from the various sponsors.
The six finalists : IDA SCUDDER , Vellore, BHAVAN'S RAJAJI VIDYASHARAM,KOLA PERUMAL CHETTY,VIDYA MANDIR S.S.S.,SETHU BHASKARA M.S.
SRISHTI , Vellore.
Seated in a order they picked they had a huge task of setting targets and aiming big. Sixty minutes, a big maze that hid the picture of a well- known personality and 25 questions were thrown open to the six finalists. As the rules were explained the teams knew that needed to be alert, think quick and act fast to make it to the top. The maze had questions which were named Do you know, Be the Quiz Master, Galleria, Jai Hind and Sight and Sound. Each question had to be answered on the buzzer and answers needed to be written down after which it was passed to the next team. The team that answered correctly on the buzzer got 15 direct points but if a passed question was answered they would get additional points based on how many times it was passed.
The very first question “Active, Recharge, Recalibration, Capture, Controlled and Self Destruct are the various options of” took all the teams by surprise and they refrained from hitting the buzzer. The answer was from the quizmaster's favourite pick — Ben 10. Some of the other questions were “Which scientist's Google Doodle was used for his 200{+t}{+h} birthday”, and “In which body of water were the Islets of Langerhans found?”. If you got Robert Bunsen and the pancreas right consider yourself among the lucky ones. With every right answer to the questions a part of the maze opened up leading to the face of the personality. All six teams got it right as Novak Djokovic at various points with six questions still remaining.
The winners of the regional round will represent Chennai in the grand all-India finals, scheduled to be held in Thiruvananthapuram on November 14. VIDYA MANDIR SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL emerged winners with a total of 107 points in the regional finals and Kola Perumal Chetty ranked second with 102 points. The team from Bhavan's Rajaji Vidyashram came third with 63 points. DEVI SHRI PRASAD , noted music director and the chief guest gave away the prizes. He said, Young World was his favourite supplement and how he and his siblings would fight over it the day it came out. He said the supplement had also helped him in learning new words, he enjoyed the cartoon strips and though quiz had been last on his mind he agreed to be the chief guest as he regards the supplement to the one of the best the country has today.
What they said: PRANAV ANANTH and VRSHANK SUBRAMANIAN, IX, Vidya Mandir: We have been a team for a while. For Vrshank it was reliving the dream but for Pranav it was living the dream. The Mastermind Series helped us in preparations. Our favourites were “Be the Quiz Master” and the “Audio-Video” round and we did prepare on cartoons as last year too there were questions on Ben 10.
ADITHYA PADMANABHAN and SRI VATSAN M., IX, Bhavan's Rajaji Vidyashram: We have competed as a team for the first time. We have been quizzing for a while now and did not really prepare. We believe that quizzing is all about what we pick up with time. After the prelims we did have a look at countries and capitals and the royal personalities. TINU HAREESHWAR and KIRAN G. BHARADWAJ, IX, Kola Perumal: We read the newspaper everyday. We have been a team for two years now and we know the kind of questions asked. In fact when the quizmaster showed us the picture and asked us to identify the animal it was a miracle as I answered Aye Aye when in fact I had some other name in my mind.
The title sponsor of this year's quiz is the Velammal Educational Trust and Extramarks Education Pvt. Ltd and Indian Overseas Bank are associate sponsors. The national sponsors are Black Thunder, Gold Winner, Amway, Maggi Noodles, Vizag Steel Plant, Wilco, Penguin, Firefox Bikes, Funfills, Reynolds, Cricket Caricatures and Success notebooks. Real Fruit Juice is the beverage sponsor, Bisleri the water sponsor, Tata Nano the car sponsor and I Ads & Events the events manager.
The regional sponsors include Milka Wonder Cake, Roshan Bag Mall, Venfield, Kesar Gift Mart, Sathya Agencies, Instore, Naturals, Mahavir Optics, India Post, Reebok (Velachery and Nungambakkam), VLCC, Sri Krishna Sweets, Turakhia, Donut House, Marry Brown, Balaji Dental and Medimix.The six regional finalists
