C3S Event Report No: 004/2018
View Invitation at this link: Invitation
The second edition of Chennai Centre for China Studies’ (C3S) China Quiz for College Students was jointly conducted with Department of Political Science, Madras Christian College (MCC) on March 1, 2018. It was held as part of the department’s culturals Imperium’18. The China Quiz was held on the morning session of Day-2 of the event and had 34 teams from ten colleges in Chennai and Pondicherry University – 100 students – participating in the written preliminary round. Six teams were chosen for the finals. The China Quiz final was conducted at the Agnes Martin Auditorium, Madras Christian College (MCC).
After five rounds of questions including a rapid fire round and an ‘Identify the Image’ round, the top 3 teams were given cash prizes. The team from MCC’s Department of Public Administration and Department of Political Science (Francis Roy, George Kutty, Nikhil Sharma) won the quiz. The second prize went to the team of B.A. History students from Madras Christian College (Vishnu P.K., Arun Mathew, Megha A. Kumar). The team from Pondicherry University’s Department of History (Sarath Sasimohan, R. Goutham Krishnan, Abdul Azeez) secured the third prize.
The other finalists were the team from Madras University’s Department of Politics and Public Administration; the team from Loyola College with students from both the Physics and Economics departments and the team from Guru Nanak College’s Chemistry Department. It’s indicative of the fact that awareness and interest in China is not limited to the students of International Relations, Politics and History!
A tie-breaker was held using buzzers constructed by students of MCC’s Department of Political Science to select the 6th team for the finals. It was between a team consisting of students from MCC’s English, Economics and Physics departments and the team from Madras University. The team from University of Madras (Department of Politics and Public Administration) got into the finals thanks to their Knowledge of where the Tibetan Government in Exile is headquartered and a quick press of the buzzer.
Quiz participants were from the following educational institutions: Madras Christian College (10 teams participated); SDNB Vaishnav College (9 teams participated); Guru Nanak College (7 teams participated); Loyola College; VIT-Chennai; Quaid e Milleth College for Women; Hindustan Institute of Technology; New College; Vivekananda College; Madras University and Pondicherry University. All participants of the quiz received certificates of participation as well as one year free membership in the Young Minds of C3S.
The quiz was conducted by Raakhee Suryaprakash, Associate Member of C3S. The written preliminary round consisting of 30 multiple choice questions was conducted in two classrooms. After all the participants had submitted the prelims answer sheets, answers were discussed. The students welcomed the answers and reacted cheerfully to answers that they had got right and wrong. The highest score was 18/30 with two teams tying with that score to secure one of the six spots in the finals. Questions for the quiz were from C3S members and researchers- S. Sridharan; Ambassador Ganapathy; LV Krishnan, Asma Masood, Aswini K., Sundeep Kumar S. and Raakhee Suryaprakash. The queries were mostly based on the ten issues of C3S Newsletter Bamboo Shoots August 2017 to February 15, 2018.
The MCC students ‘Imperium team’ handled other event modalities and publicized the event with elan. In the 2016 Quiz, we had 26 teams and 77 students were participating, this year we had 34 teams and 100 students were participating. The event was the success it was, because of the invaluable support of the staffs and students Imperium’18 team, Dr. Ashik Bonofer, Assistant Professor, Dr. K. Palani, the Head of the Department of Political Science and N. Kirubakar, the student coordinator who headed the organizing committee. The event was announced on social media and the C3S and Imperium websites. Online pre-registration was required. The event was promoted on the C3S Twitter handle @C3SChennai.
The Valedictory Function was conducted after the quiz finals presided over by the current head of MCC’s Department of Political Science Dr. K. Palani and former heads of the departments Prof. Ravindernath Chanana and Dr. Ramesh Sundar. Distribution of prizes and certificates for winners of all events of Imperium ’18, the release of the publication Athens, an overview of the Imperium ’18, the C3S China Quiz and an introduction of the Young Minds of C3S programme given by Asma Masood, President of Young Minds of C3S, were all part of the valedictory. Certificates and cash prizes for the winners for the quiz were presented by Prof. Ravindernath Chanana while Dr. Ramesh Sundar presented the awards to winners of other events of the fest.
Sample Questions
The China Quiz questions covered China, Taiwan, Tibet and China’s relations with India and her neighbours.
Some of the questions asked in the prelims consisting of 30 multiple choice questions were as follows:
Which country made Mandarin an official language recently?
(a)Sri Lanka (b) Singapore (c) Pakistan (d) Maldives
Which country recently renamed the South China Sea ‘North Natuna Sea’ in order to emphasize its sovereignty?
(a) Brunei (b) The Philippines (c) Indonesia (d) Singapore
In July 2016, which country won the arbitral tribunal case against China that China’s nine-dash line claim to the South China Sea had no basis in international law?
(a) Vietnam (b) The Philippines (c) Taiwan (d) Indonesia
Questions from the Quiz Finals included the following:
Who is the Chairman of the conglomerate Tencent?
Which company is known as the “FedEx of China”
Taklamakan Desert is located in the Tarim basin in Xinjiang province of China. What does the name mean?
(Compiled by Raakhee Suryaprakash, Associate Member, C3S.)
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