There was tension and excitement as teams got ready to battle it out to become the winners of The Hindu Young World quiz.
The Young World Quiz was a birthday gift on its 10th year. And the 11th edition was to be held in Chennai to celebrate Young World's 20th birthday. After the regional rounds, 16 teams from all over India assembled at the Kamaraj Arangam Hall for the semi-finals.
The six teams who made it to the grand finale were R. Avinaash and R. Guru Dharshane of Petit Seminaire Higher Secondary School, Puducherry; A. Ashwin Natraj and S.K. Nithya Sri Murugan from SBIOA Matric H.S. School, Tiruchi; Anish P. and Arnav Chandrasekhar of Vidhya Niketan School, Coimbatore;Ashwin Menon and Rishikesh K. from Bhavan's Vidya Mandir, Elamakkara, Kochi; Anand Vishnu K. and Aravind M. of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Chevayur, Kozhikode; and Preetham and Jayanth from The Oxford Senior Secondary School (CBSE), Bangalore.
The quiz
Quizmaster V.V. Ramanan kept the adrenalin running started the quiz very similar to the Chennai regional final. Squares numbered from 1-24 filled the grid. A personality formed the backdrop to this grid and each team would be allowed to choose any four numbers, one in each cycle. All the 24 questions were on the buzzer and the teams would get 15 points for the correct answer on the buzzer and the team who had their direct question would get a score of ten. Though there were negative marking on a wrong answer on the buzzer the questions could be passed but the direct team would not be marked negatively if they gave the wrong answer. The teams were shown clipping both audio-visual, grilled on questions from India, tested on their geography and history and they also got to become the quizmaster by framing their question to the answer given.
Kochi topped the scoring tables with a whopping score of 119 points and were clearly the winners. Ashwin Menon and Rishikesh K. from Bhavan's Vidya Mandir, Kochi said that they have been quizzing for a long time now and one could clearly see it as their bags were loaded with Mastermind Quiz books. “We brush up our general knowledge watching television, reading newspapers and other books. While Ashwin loves Science questions, for Rishikesh it is social subjects that get his grey cells ticking. They both added that the one thing that probably helped them win was their calculated risks which were both necessary and important. The team from Kochi, the winners of the Grand finale were awarded a Tata Nano car each, 50,000 cash award and lots of other goodies from the other sponsors.
Arnav Chandrasekaran and P. Anish of Vidhya Niketan M.H.S.S., Coimbatore, were first runners up. They won a Yo Bike each, Rs. 40,000 cash award and several other goodies.
R. Avinash and R. Gurudarashane of Petit Seminaire H.S.S., Puduchery were the second runners-up and won a cash award of Rs. 30,000 and Firefox Bikes besides several other goodies.
Teams from Bangalore, Tiruchi and Kozhikode coming 4th, 5th and 6th won a cash awards of RS. 10,000 each and goodies.
The title sponsor was Velammal Educational Trust, The Associate Sponsor was Pepsodent, car sponsor was Tata Motors, the national sponsors include Eureka Forbes, Black Thunder, Gold Winner, YO Bikes, Tamil Nadu Mercantile Bank, Vizag Steel Plant, Cherry Blossom, Reynolds, Britannica Encyclopaedia, Penguin Books, Seshasayee Paper Board (Success Books) and Firefox Bikes and the beverage sponsor was Dabur. The Regional sponsors were Shriram Chits, Rajan Eye Care, Balaji Dental, Crocs, India post, Textile India, Anoushka, Globus, Lotte, Medimix, Flora, Jeans Park, Mahavir Optics, Pix-delite, Reebok, Viveks and Techknowledge education. Hospitality partners were Deccan Plaza, food partner was Sri Krishna Sweets, travel partner was Parveen Travels and water partner was Repute.
