The Hindu Young World Quiz 2011 held at the Shree Baldevdas Kikani Vidya Mandir High School here on Wednesday had all the ingredients of an edge-of-the-seat contest. The students were there with their contagious enthusiasm. And, the parents and teachers were there too, applauding every progress the participants made.
The 12th edition of the annual event in the city saw Stanes All India Higher Secondary School emerge winners. They will represent the textile city in the finals to be held in Thiruvananthapuram on November 14.
They beat 325 teams from 87 schools to reach the top spot. Winners Keshava Narayan and Prithvi Raj of Class IX received Rs.15,000 in cash and plenty of goodies.
The gifts came from associate sponsors Extramarks and Indian Overseas Bank and national sponsors Black Thunder, Gold Winner, Amway, Vizag Steel Plant, Maggi Noodles, Wilco Picture Library, Firefox Bikes, Reynolds, Funfills, Cricket Caricatures.com, Success Note Books and Penguin Books.
Bisleri and Real Fruit Juices joined them as water and beverage sponsors respectively. The regional sponsors are Milka Wonder Cake, Banana Slice, The Boston, Shree Devi Textiles, Zimson, Sri Krishna Sweets, Vamana Oil and Zen Marketers (Phoenix).
The Stanes students defeated their nearest rivals – V. Tony Sam and C.S. Sathya Mukesh of S.B.O.A. Higher Secondary School – by 21 points. They scored 77 and the S.B.O.A. boys 56.
The victory came after a closely fought battle in the final that saw the scales tilt in their favour towards the end. Kongu Matriculation Higher Secondary School, Uttukuli, Tirupur district, secured the third place.
E. Sakthivel and S.N. Vignesh of the school scored 39 for the third place.
The fourth place went to Emmanuel Boby and Hareesh S.P. of Palghat Lions School, Palakkad, the fifth to P. Vishnu and K. Kirubash of Satchidananda Jothi Niketan Matriculation Higher Secondary School and the sixth to Sangeeth Raaj S.R. and Veerappan of Srinivasa Vidhyalaya, Udumalpet.
The finals, a buzzer round, had all the elements in it for the students to activate every corner of their brain. They had to choose questions from a 6x4 grid. Hidden behind the 24 squares was the picture of a famous personality.
The students had to identify the personality and that carried extra points. The questions Quiz Master V.V. Ramanan shot at the participants also had audio-visual ones from a variety of subjects – from comics to history to politics to Indian mythology. He had a few for the participants as well.
The preliminary round with 25 questions, which were to be written down on an answer sheet, was as interesting as the finals.
Varun M., a Class IX student of Kendriya Vidyalaya, Ottapalam, Kerala, said this was his first time at the Young World Quiz and it had been a good learning experience.
City Police Commissioner Amaresh Pujari who gave away the prizes asked the students to prepare well and participate in more such events. B. Baskaran, Chief Regional Manager, Indian Overseas Bank, Coimbatore, was also present.
