Bhubaneswar: Sixteen brilliant teams Saturday won the tough battle of wits on the first day of Odisha’s mega quiz extravaganza – the Mettle Meet 2019 – and made it to the grand finale scheduled for Sunday. The select teams of students will now battle it out to bag the prestigious trophy.
This has been the fourth edition of the mega quiz competition, being hosted by this newspaper wherein 88 teams of students from various schools and colleges – junior and senior categories – took part and competed with each other to prove their mettle.
The event kick-started with a preliminary round involving 43 junior teams of students out of which eight succeeded to qualify for the finals.
Welcoming the participants, Adyasha Satpathy, CEO, Orissa POST, said “The need for Mettle Meet arose in view of the death of quiz shows in Eastern India in general and Odisha in particular. Keeping in mind the vacuum, the show was launched in 2016. In the passage of time, we have seen an overwhelming and increased interest from the participating teams.”
The quiz event began with the junior round wherein eight school teams were chosen for the Grand Finale – Mother’s Public School, DAV Public School, Unit-8, St Paul’s School, Rourkela, SAI International School, ODM Public School, DAV Public School, CDA-Cuttack, Buxi Jagabandhu EM School and DAV Pokhariput.
The prelims for junior category was based on 35 questions with no negative marks with the rider benefit of double marks for 15 selected questions wherein the teams were sure of their answer. However, for the senior category the wrong double benefit rider was awarded negative marks.
With the convergence of talented young minds, the ambience of energy was also visible. With excitement surging with each levels of the quiz, the adrenaline rush among the students was evident.
“I am thrilled seeing the excitement of the participating students. The Mettle Meet is an attempt to boost the quizzing culture in the state. I want that quizzing should reach all school levels. Hope, in future we can also see participation from students outside the state too,” said Tathagata Satpathy, Editor, Orissa POST.
In the senior category, the leading teams who made their presence felt represented institutions of engineering, medical and other disciplines. The colleges which were selected for the grand finale included – AIIMS, Bhubaneswar, NIT-Rourkela, IIT-Bhubaneswar, NISER-Khurda, SCB Medical College -Cuttack, CET-Bhubaneswar, XIMB and IGIT, Sarang.
Quiz Master Ajay Poonia was overwhelmed with the response of the students and their levels of preparedness.
“The response of the participating students to the questions revealed the brilliance this region has to offer. They are in no way less than the best quizzing teams from premier colleges from any bigger cities and regions,” Poonia pointed out.
The finalists however, are waiting with baited breath for the final round scheduled for the D-day. Three DAV schools from the state – DAV Pokhariput, DAV Unit-8 and DAV, CDA, Cuttack – and five other teams have made it to the finals under junior category. Finalists also claim that the neck-to-neck competition could be interesting to watch.
“Now that we have been selected in the finale, we are focused on winning, but situation can change at any point of time, so we have to adapt to the situation,” said Himanshu Shekhar Nayak, a participant from the DAV Pokhariput.
The questions posed at the Mettle Meet 2019 prelims ranged from diverse subjects relating to politics, sports, culture, international affairs, health and others. Use of texts, audio and video mediums was allowed to make the competition more interactive and interesting for the students as well as for the audience. All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS), Bhubaneswar, and Mother’s Public School led the prelim show Saturday with the top most points in the senior as well as junior levels respectively.