Sparks of Brilliance Fly in AMPS Test of Mastery

Author: 
Sameen Tahir-Khan, Arab News
Publication Date: 
Sun, 2005-04-10 03:00

JUBAIL, 10 April 2005 — Who is the richest woman of India? Kiran Majumdar. Which slogan of famous products resulted from childhood memories of being beaten by a teacher? Bajaj’s “You just can’t beat a Bajaj.”

These and many interesting facts were revealed in the India Quiz 2005. The India International School, Riyadh won the quiz competition by beating seven other teams, bagging a beautiful trophy.

The quiz competition was organized by the Association of Malayalee Professionals in Saudi Arabia (AMPS) on Friday at the Petrochemia Beach Camp.

The all-female team from IIS, Dammam came second while the very popular local team of IIS, Jubail came third.

Earlier in the day, in a marathon session 74 teams competed against each other in a written quiz competition.

Triple post graduate and winner of the Hindu Ratna Award P.J.R Nair was the quizmaster. His easy style, punched with humor and immaculate language made him a crowd favorite.

The quiz questions were interesting and covered a variety of subjects from what Aishwarya Rai’s first movie was to why Lalu Yadav was in the Limca’s Book of World Records... “For his foolishness?” answered one contestant.

The right answer was for being president of a political party for the longest period — 7 years.

Any questions that the contestants could not answer were thrown open to the audience and correct answers got prizes. This really got the large crowd going.

The one question, which no one could answer, was what did Calcutta’s trams run on prior to electricity. Horses was the correct answer.

The Vice President of AMPS, Benny Jose thanked the participants and welcomed the chief guest, Mohammad Anwer, principal of the Indian school, Dammam. Jose said that AMPS was less than a year old and it had already made useful contribution to the Malayalee community. It had organized science workshops, family picnics and also collected SR30,000 for tsunami victims.

He told the students “Learning is more fun than winning a trophy. So just by participating in today’s quiz, you are all winners.”

The chief guest told the students that knowledge was power and that they must “learn to learn. We have become a marks worshipping society. We must get away from that. Students must make an effort to learn on their own and parents have a responsibility too. Stress is now on learning, not on teaching.”

Sanjay George, a 10th grader of IIS, Jubail, who is considered a ‘computer whiz’, got special commendation for making a buzzer for the quiz. His buzzer not only made a loud sound but it also projected on the screen the team number which had hit the buzzer first.

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