Tougher than Jeopardy

Victoria Lapp listens to her team mates from Auburn Drive High School. (Nick Pearce photo)

Whoever said multiple choice questions were easy?

Was it:

a) Your mother
b) Uncle Bob from Cape Breton
c) Your Grade 11 biology teacher
d) Someone who has never attended Reach for Dalhousie

The answer, of course, is d) — 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’Neill from Kennebecasis each won bursaries worth $3,000 should they enroll at Dalhousie.

The team from Kennebecasis Valley High — Kale O'Neill, Will Koncovy and Nick Manuel — 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’s mom, Raylene.

“I’m gobsmacked,” she said. “I was expecting to pick her up at 10:30 this morning and she’d be done and back at school.”

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 — it’s “Saskois” — and identify the philosophy espoused by the Diogenes of Sinope. (Hint: he was known as “the Cynic.”)

Dressed in scarlet academic robes, Reach for Dalhousie host Peter O’Brien 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’s scores were automatically tabulated.

“I think the day went really well,” says Dr. O’Brien, professor of classics. “I 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.”