 |
| Victoria Lapp listens to her team mates from Auburn Drive High School.聽(Nick Pearce photo) |
Whoever said multiple choice questions were easy?
Was it:
a)聽Your mother
b)聽Uncle Bob from Cape Breton
c)聽Your Grade 11 biology teacher
d)聽Someone who has never attended Reach for Dalhousie
The answer, of course, is d)聽鈥� consider that a freebie. But there were no freebies to come by on Friday as 40 high schools from Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick faced off in the multiple-choice-question showdown called Reach for Dalhousie.
In a close match at the end of the day, the team from Auburn Drive High School in Cole Harbour emerged the victor over rival Kennebecasis Valley High School near Saint John, N.B. Team members Kaitlin MacDonald, Ruki Watson and Victoria Lapp each won a full bursary to cover tuition fees during their first year of study at Dalhousie. Runners-up Nick Manuel, Will Koncovy and Kale O鈥橬eill from Kennebecasis each won bursaries worth $3,000 should they enroll at Dalhousie.
 |
| The team from Kennebecasis Valley High 鈥� Kale O'Neill, Will Koncovy and Nick Manuel 鈥� discuss their answer before clicking in. (Nick Pearce photo) |
Not bad, not bad at all, says Ruki Watson, who was only expecting a day off of school. Instead, the Grade 12 student with ambitions to study engineering has his first year taken care of.
Perhaps the only one who was grinning broader than Mr. Watson was Kaitlin MacDonald鈥檚 mom, Raylene.
鈥淚鈥檓 gobsmacked,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 was expecting to pick her up at 10:30 this morning and she鈥檇 be done and back at school.鈥�
To succeed, high school competitors needed a broad base of knowledge to draw on, including the New Testament, English literature, the periodic table, Canadian history and pop culture. They had to recognize the sound of Dizzy Gillespie scatting, know what the French term for a person from Saskatchewan is 鈥� it鈥檚 鈥淪askois鈥� 鈥� and identify the philosophy espoused by the Diogenes of Sinope. (Hint: he was known as 鈥渢he Cynic.鈥�)
Dressed in scarlet academic robes, Reach for Dalhousie host Peter O鈥橞rien read off the questions as they appeared on the screen. Audience members could follow along by recording their answers (or guesses) with blue, hand-held clickers. At the end, everyone鈥檚 scores were automatically tabulated.
鈥淚 think the day went really well,鈥� says Dr. O鈥橞rien, professor of classics. 鈥淚 saw some intense competition, but the competitors were very happy. Compared to other years, the students were approaching it in a light-hearted way and really enjoying themselves.鈥�
For those who missed the fun, here are some of the questions posed during the final round: 1. Which direction does the fa莽ade of a Gothic cathedral face?
2. Which of the following is the best example of irony?
3. Alexander Graham Bell invented the:
4. Seventy per cent of the world鈥檚 societies prefer this type of marriage:
5. Alberta is the largest land area in the world largely free of what?
6. In a Seinfeld episode, Jerry jokes about The Three Tenors: Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo and that other guy. Who is the other guy?
7. Who became a Canadian Member of Parliament before becoming a person?
8. Which of the following was not a German invention?
9. Which of these plays features a stage hero with a nose problem?
10. What is the chemical fuel that is most consumed by a contracting muscle?
|
Answers:1. b) west. |