300 kids get quizzical at DH contest

As part of a series of inter-school events organised for more than a decade, Deccan Herald on Wednesday organised a quiz competition at the Bal Bhavan auditorium.

More than 300 students from various schools meticulously prepared and eagerly took part in the competition, organised in association with KMF and MSIL.

Dr Arul Mani, head of the English Department at St Joseph’s College, Langford Road, coordinated the event. Dr Mani, who has years of experience in quizzing, spoke about Deccan Herald’s involvement in organising quiz competitions from 2003.

The competition, held at the St John’s auditorium in Koramangala, had been a zonal event but is now confined to Bengaluru city. Dr Mani asked the participants not to be specialists, but generalists. He said good quizzers are those who make intelligent guesses.

Categorised into juniors and seniors, four teams were filtered through a preliminary round to contest on stage.

Though some students had a tough time finding answers for the questions in the main quiz competition, a few of them confidently responded to the written, audio-visual and oral questions. They spent several nerve-wracking moments, getting tantalising close to the answers.

The audio-visual round held all the intrigue, drawing students out of their comfort zones and making them try-hard. At each round, the points tally changed and tensions heightened. Participants, however, did well to keep their poise.

There were eight teams in the junior category, among which St Joseph’s Boys High School (Museum Road), National Public School (Banashankari) and Rashtrothana Vidya Kendra (Banashankari) finished on the podium.

As for the seniors, Florence Public School (RT Nagar), Rashtrothana Vidya Kendra (Banashankari), St Joseph’s Boys School (Museum Road) and BGS NPS (Hulimavu) captured the top positions.

The programme won wider appreciation from teachers and parents, who lauded DH for offering a platform for the youngsters to display their extracurricular skills.