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| Quizzards at Carmel Junior College on Thursday. Picture by Bhola Prasad |
Arithmetic and algebra took a break from classrooms and instead hit the stage at Carmel Junior College on Thursday.
The event was Mathepedia, an inter-school fun maths quiz organised by the school’s Maths Club to mark the International Year of Mathematics. Mathepedia, conducted and anchored by students, not only tested the numbers skills of participants of 14 schools, but also their speed and accuracy in solving sums.
The quiz was for classes VI, VII and VIII while the participating schools were Loyola School, DBMS English School, Dayanand Public School, Andhra Association English School, Kerala Samajam Model School, Shri Krishna Public School, RVS Academy, Ram Krishna Mission, Kerala Public School-Gamharia, DBMS Kadma High School, Vidya Bharati Chinmaya Vidyalaya, Motilal Nehru Public School, Hill Top School besides the hosts.
“Most students are terrified of maths. Other subjects they can still tackle, but certainly not maths. We wanted to show them that this subject is also easy. Textbook problems were given a fun edge at the quiz,” said Prabha Prakash, co-ordinator of maths club of Carmel Junior College.
The teams, each having three members, took part in the preliminary stage, which was mainly a written round. Out of 14 schools, only five made it to the final. They were Vidya Bharati Chinmaya Vidyalaya, Hill Top School, Motilal Nehru Public School, Carmel Junior College and Loyola School.
The final had four rounds — individual, common, power point presentation and rapid fire. While the individual round saw one team member facing a question, the common round required all three to work on a problem. In the power point presentation, students had to choose a colour representing a sum and solve it. The last round was rapid fire.
Vidya Bharati Chinmaya Vidyalaya emerged the winner followed by Hill Top School and Carmel Junior College. “The sums were from a wide range of topics from arithmetic and algebra to geometry and logical reasoning. The highest score was 70 out of 100,” said Prakash.
The winners received tablets as prizes while the runners-up pocketed watches and scientific calculators.
