Smartacus 2022 – The Hindustan Times National Interschool Quiz winds up with a nail-biting National Final
HT School celebrated Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav as well as their relentless passion for quizzing on 15th August 2022 by kicking off Smartacus 2022 – The Hindustan Times National Interschool Quiz with the Selection Round. This mega interschool national quizzing event culminated with the National Final on 17th February. The two top schools that battled it out for the winning spot were Gokuldham High School, Goregaon East, Mumbai (West Zone) and Sri Kumaran Children’s Home, CBSE, Mallasandra, Bengaluru (South Zone) with the later emerging victorious. With three students participating from each school, the quiz was conducted over Zoom by one of India’s most prolific quizmasters, Dr. Navin Jayakumar. “Smartacus 2022 was conceived keeping in mind the paucity of interschool quizzes in India. When we were in school, there was the famous Bournvita Quiz Contest, but that too went missing for years. Smartacus 2022 was meant to fill that prolonged gap and I am thrilled to see what it has turned out to be. May it continue for several years and strengthen the community of young Indian quizzards,” he says.
What started off with over 20,000 students (of grades 5 to 12) from 100 plus schools ended with one school crowned as the champion. In between, there occurred a series of exciting matches involving 64 schools from four zones across the nation. The National Final was also equally interesting and saw a close finish with Sri Kumaran Children’s Home taking a 3-point lead against Gokuldam High School. The players from Sri Kumaran Children’s Home were Satvik RK, Rohan Bharadwaj and Tejas M Harish. Their opponents from Gokuldam High School were Krishiv Khandelwal, Kaveesh Iyer and Avani Gaggar.
“I poured all my past quizzing experiences into Smartacus 2022. It was an amazing learning experience combined with fun at every step on the way. There were blunders along the way but we gave our best. I would like to applaud our opponents too, for giving their best,” says Satvik, the captain of the winning team.
The runners-up of the Smartacus 2022 were equally sporting. Kaveesh, the captain of the runner-up school also congratulated the winning team heartily. For them, the National Final was anti-climactic, yet enjoyable! “It was no less than a rollercoaster journey, with frequent ups and downs. Though there’s disappointment as we didn’t win, we are proud to be among the top two in a school quiz of this stature,” says Kaveesh.
The National Final comprised two rounds, Grid 1 and Grid 2. Each grid had 8 specialised topics and two Mystery Boxes with GK questions. The wide-ranging variety of topics included everything from Chemistry and Animated Movies to Traditional Dresses, Titans from Greek Myth and much more. Both the rounds saw a lot of brain-tickling, challenging questions and a really tight competition. There many hits and a few misses too. The climactic moment was when both the teams challenged each other’s sport questions from the Mystery Box in Grid 2, and got them right. What worked in favour of the champion team was that they earned an early 5-point lead at the end of Grid 1. Nevertheless, both the teams matched wits and battled it out in what unfolded into a National Final worth remembering.
“Both teams in the National Final were extremely well-read and had a wide variety of interests, the hallmark of any good quizzard! From music to multi-sport participation, from astronomy to Greek mythology, their extracurricular curiosities reflected brilliantly in the sheer quality of answers that they delivered with confidence and aplomb,” says Mr. Meghashyam Shirodkar, the host and supporting quizmaster of the National Finale, beaming with joy. More than the answers they knew for sure, what thrilled him as a quizmaster and fellow quizzer were the ones they ‘worked out’, either individually or as a team, through a logical, precise thought process. He adds, “The icing on the cake was the camaraderie, sportsmanship, and mutual respect both teams displayed even amidst such a high stakes battle. From start to finish the teams and their captains were gracious in their good wishes and praise for their opponents.”
The National Final of Smartacus 2022 was followed by another crucial contest: Quizzer of the Year. In this solo round, 12 students, 3 top performers each from the 4 schools that contested in the National Semi-Finals competed against one another. This session was conducted over Zoom on the Kahoot! platform and comprised of 30 questions in type-in and MCQ formats. The winner of this lone-wolf round will be announced on 21st February after a thorough analysis by the quizmasters.
The Quizzer of the Year will be awarded with an Amazon gift voucher worth INR 20,000. Amazon gift vouchers worth INR 3.5 lakh are up for grabs for participants at every level starting from the Selection Round to the National Final.
“I was privileged to have a ringside seat at one of the most exhilarating displays of quizzing and grace under pressure in recent memory. The sheer joie de vivre and delight that the finalists displayed made me almost sad when the quiz ended. All of us would now have to wait another year to experience this quizzing euphoria again,” signs off Shirodkar.