Six members from six schools sat on stage as the audience cheered them on. This was the scene at the Idea Cellular “Kaho what's your idea” competition held at the Asan Memorial School. A nation-wide school contest, the competition aims at developing the child's all round personality and inspire learning in a fun and entertaining way. Logical thinking, application of memory skills and real life skills are some of the skills they want to promote besides general knowledge.
The competition began with the qualifying round that had 36 schools taking part. They were asked to complete a test within the 15- minutes time frame given to them. Six teams made it to the finals and fought it out to get to the top three positions. Among the teams were Sir Sivaswami Kalalaya, PSBB KK Nagar, DAV Velachery, PSBB Nugambakkam, Sishya and Asan Memorial.
Five rounds of tests had to be passed before they were declared winners. Round one was named instant re-charge wherein each team was asked one question which could be passed on. Questions comprised logical reasoning. Round two called Talk time had the teams thinking away and writing out a piece that they had to speak for a minute before the buzzer went off. Each team was given a set of four words each and they had to include all the words into a tale and were marked on the way the story was woven and their oratory skills. Round three was memory. Each team was shown a set of eight pictures for 15 seconds and were asked to recall.
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Round four called Keypad Locked saw the teams racking their brains over the right choice as it tested their analytical skills. These questions were circulated among 350 principals and teachers on what they would do in such a situation and the majority response was marked the right choice. The last round was the buzzer round and it saw some of the schools making up their scores. After the fourth question the last two teams were eliminated and that saw the end to Asan Memorial and DAV Velachery's dreams of winning.
In a crucial fight and a tie breaker round to set the third position PSBB KK Nagar came first, Sir Sivaswamy Kalalaya secured the second position and PSBB Nungambakkam came a close third.
Srinath of Std XII, PSBB, KK Nagar admitted that being a quizzer helped him a lot. But what he really liked was the fact that this contest was very different in format. “Instead of just checking our knowledge on current affairs and general stuff it actually made us think,” adds Srinath.
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For Harini of Std XI, Siva Swamy School, this was her first time on stage and all she needed till the very end was concentration. When asked what made her participate she confidently replied it was just curiosity and interest to know what was actually going on! “But this has given me a lot of incentive to start actively from now,” she says.