From experienced quizzers to debutants, here’s what these champions of ClassAct 2022 Grand Finale say

ClassAct 2022, The Hindustan Times Republic Day Quiz, which concluded with the Grand Finale on 26^th January, emerged to be one of the most successful quizzing events in history with 19,625 students participating from all over the country and the world. The Asia Book of Records and the India Book of Records have officially declared it as Asia’s largest online school quiz. The Prelims round, which took place on 23^rd January, saw 50,611 registrations from Grades I-XII students of 32 countries and 5 continents.  
 

This record-breaking quiz was a great platform for budding quizzers to test and develop their general knowledge skills, under the guidance of revered Indian quizmasters, Dr. Navin Jayakumar and Avinash Mudaliar. ClassAct 2022 has announced 40 champions from the Grand Finale and 40 from the Junior category of the Prelims. Here, we introduce to you our champions from the Grand Finale.  

Riwin was shy of just one spot from entering the top 10. However, he recalls his experience at the ClassAct 2022 quiz as nothing short of thrilling and fun. “In the Prelims, I felt nervous at first. But then, as I started getting the answers correctly, I felt somewhat confident. Looking at the scoreboard changing during the finals made me feel like I was sitting on a hot seat,” he says. According to Mohamed, one of the toughest yet most intriguing questions in the Grand Finale was the one related to the karate belt sequence. “I blanked for a moment, but then, the answer came to my mind all of a sudden,” he recalls. 

With some prior experience in online and offline quizzing, Neelansh decided to participate in ClassAct 2022 after hearing about it from a friend. For him, this online quizzing experience was a truly memorable one. He says, “Through this quiz, people were connected from all over the world. This is a huge thing which is not possible in offline events. It has broadened our horizons.” Neelansh’s quizzing interests lean towards history, specifically historical architecture. “I really loved answering questions related to this subject during the quiz,” he reminisces. 

As someone looking for opportunities to keep learning, Faaz found the quiz to be an amazing experience which allowed him to expand his knowledge base. For him, the toughest question in the Finale was the one on Gryffindor. “I am not too much into films,” he says candidly.  

An experienced quizzer from Chennai, Sanjana has been in the quizzing circuit since Grade IV. She says that ClassAct 2022 was very different from the competitions she had participated in before. “Other online quizzes usually have a preliminary round on a platform like Google forms. They select the best 5 or 6 participants from that, and hold the finals on Zoom. But the format of ClassAct 2022 was different. This is the first quiz of this magnitude that I have come across,” shares Sanjana. Her favourite genre for a quiz is general knowledge. “You find a new quiz every other day in Chennai, probably 10 quizzes on the very same day. I usually find myself shuffling between them, one after the other. It’s a never-ending quizzing calendar over here,” says the young quiz prodigy. 

Ayush has been an avid quizzer throughout school. The young quizzer bagged the first prize in the robotics quiz conducted by Hindustan Times earlier. What he liked about ClassAct 2022 was that it included a vast array of questions covering diverse topics. Moreover, he loved the way this quiz was conducted. “After reading out the questions and sharing the answers, Dr. Jayakumar explained to about why that was this the correct answer. He also shared additional information about each. So, I got to learn more about the topics that I already knew,” says Ayush.