POWIIS Hosts WSC Penang Round 2019
Written by Darren Lim Jen Zen
“Simply euphoric!” “One of the best learning events I have experienced in my life!”
Those were some of the reviews from participants, who have made history at POWIIS, as we hosted the sixth edition of the World Scholar’s Cup (WSC) Penang Round, a round that saw long-standing records broken and an amazing display of intellectual talent with some of the highest cumulative team scores ever in the history of the program.
On the beautiful Friday morning of April 19, approximately 530 scholars from 36 schools arrived at POWIIS in high spirits, very eager to start what was expected to be an invigorating and highly competitive WSC round. They were joined by 45 guest adjudicators, many of them returning, some for the fifth time, who continue to sing praises of the POWIIS hospitality. We were privileged to be joined by Mr. Daniel Berdichevsky, the founder of WSC, for a rare opening ceremony that featured almost the entire WSC team. This was a reflection of how the Penang Round has grown into one of the signature rounds in the WSC calendar. Throughout the day, the Penang scholars never failed to show why the Penang WSC community was valued for its commitment and intensity with engaging debates taking place in the classrooms and consistent focus in the testing hall as every scholar takes the challenging essay and quiz questions in their stride.
The events on Saturday, April 20, were held at a larger theatre at Universiti Sains Malaysia. As both junior and senior categories converge for the quiz bowl, there were screams of joy (and groans of disappointment by almost equal measure) as the scholars racked their brains to decipher clues from videos, songs, articles and memes related to their syllabus. In the afternoon’s Un-Talent show, the grand stage was graced by a wonderful line-up of scholars, who demonstrated their lighter side with a wide range of talents (or non-talents); some weird, some more conventional.
Finally, it was time for the awards! The atmosphere at the theatre on the Saturday evening was pure ecstacy, when Penang was revealed to have made WSC history. We had the privilege of honouring the highest scoring Senior category scholar in the history of the program (Sarah Swea - Han Chiang High School), while one of our POWIIS teams was part of the highest scoring Senior category Top 10 in the program. The high praises sang by the WSC team on POWIIS justifies how we have worked together to present what they have called “the best round experience this year”. Our collective achievements as POWIIS, and by extension the wider Penang WSC community, is a testament of how much we can achieve if we Aspire to be great and Believe that we CAN be great! (ABC)
The WSC team wishes to thank Mr. Darren Lim and his organising team for the fantastic work in putting together a memorable qualifying round experience. Special thanks goes out to Mr. Simon Leese and his school leadership team for their unwavering support as well as (befitting our theme this year “A World on the Margins”) the tireless crew behind the scenes for their Herculean efforts: our technical wizard, Ms. Shauni Kaur; Mr. Fazli and his ever dedicated maintenance team as well as the staff from the front office, (continued on pg5)(From pg4 Cont.) ICT Department, cafeteria and of course, the POWIIS teacher and student community.
Key results of the POWIIS WSC Team at the Penang Round 2019:
(Gold medals are awarded to the top 5% of each event, Silver medals to the top 10%, Trophies to the Top 5 placings for each individual and team event)
