NSMQ2019:KUMACA strolls into quarter-finals after exiting HOLICO

Kumasi Academy has broken the hearts of yet another girls’ school in the ongoing National Science and Maths Quiz.

Holy Child School, one of the favourites, if a girls’ school is to win the ultimate, has fallen.

In addition, their seeded spot has been snatched away after a brilliant performance from the Kumasi-based school.

The one-eighth contest which featured Holy Child, Anlo SHS and Kumasi Academy was tipped to be a close one but Holico appeared unprepared and have been punished severely

The contest ended with the girls’ school in the last position and the scores: Kumaca, 44 points, Anseco, 28 points, Holico, 24 points.

Round One was not too good for any of the schools and Kumaca surprisingly ended it behind the other two challengers.

Anlo SHS who were classified as underdogs started in the lead and closely matched by Holico. The two top dogs were left trailing the Anloga-based school

R2

Round Two began; the point to start getting a better of the other schools but the contest was still slow.

In this round, known as the Speed Race, a wrong answer is punished with a point deduction. No room for mistake.

Quiz Mistress Dr. Elsie Effah Kaufmann however, wants to see better challenges. “This is a speed race, not a slow race,” she charged the contestants.

Kumaca rises to the occasion and dominates the round. They go from last to leaders with the speed race questions.

Anlo SHS would, however, not give the Kumasi contestants an easy ride; they also picked up some of the questions while Holico watched on.

The girls, however, salvage some points.

The mood in the R.S. Amegashie auditorium of the University of Ghana Business School remained an ambivalent one. All the schools at this point were unable to get the hall shaking with the usual chants that characterise the NSMQ.

Why? None of the top dogs at this point had yet imprinted their identity on the contest yet. It was still very open.

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The Problem of the Day did not change anything about the game; all the schools failed to make the perfect score but salvaged decent marks.

R4

The True or False session, like R2, carries a penalty of one point for a wrong answer.

All schools began on a bad not by answering their first True or False wrong, that’s a total of three points subtracted.

After that, it was a smooth ride for Kumaca, they got everything else right while Anseco’s problems started by getting only two correct. Holico could not match the infallibility of Kumaca and slipped behind.

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Kumasi Academy finished it off in the final round by answering the first and last of four riddles to win the contest. Anlo and Holico are back to the tough task of going through regional qualifiers.