It was tense and intense as West Ferris and Chippewa tangled in the annual local high school Reach for the Top Competition. Photo by Dennis Chippa.
It was way tougher than your typical game of Trivial Pursuit.
It was also much more intense.
Two teams of high school students put their brains on overdrive for ninety minutes in a rapid fire trivia competition Monday at West Ferris Secondary School.
In the end, West Ferris’s Reach for the Top team managed to outduel Chippewa Secondary School in a tight three game set to defend the title of Reach for the Top Champions.
Kieran Adamson, one of the West Ferris veterans, was exhausted, but thrilled when it was over.
“Winning is great but ultimately it just allows us to play more games and that’s what I want. It's just more fun.”
The Reach for the Top Competition has been around forever, a format where groups of high school students battle each other in topics as diverse as Elvis Presley to Astronomy, Geography to Latin, and Chemistry to History to Disney bad guys.
Adamson says it takes preparation and practice to know how to play.
“I’d say the more you read you kind of find that you have things sitting almost in mind so when they come up you’re a little bit more prepared. Maybe you read something related to that that day and it makes you more prepared to answer that question. Obviously there’s some degree of luck to it, but after a while you sort of get a feel as to what may come up.”
Kieran Adamson drops his head to concentrate during the competitiion.
AlecTaylor played a key role for the Trojan Trivia experts, with one of his specialties, movie trivia.
“They do ask a lot of questions about old movies. Last year I was in it and I didn’t know all that kind of stuff. So last summer basically I started watching all the classic movies I could and it is just kind of paying off now.”
For West Ferris coach Mark Robertson, Reach for the Top is a great chance for students to get together and exercise their brains, and their strategy.
“They work hard in preparation. A lot of it is how you play the game and anticipating the questions. They practice playing the game. Every second lunch hour we play and the kids take it upon themselves to learn facts in different areas.”
“We try and steer people in certain directions. It makes no sense if everybody knows the capital cities. We kind of have four to six people narrowed down and focus on a couple of individuals.”
With the championship, the Trojans now have a chance to take on the best Trivia experts in the province.
At least forty teams took part last year, with West Ferris finishing in the middle of the pack. The provincial championships are still a few weeks away, giving the Trojan Trivias time to prepare for the unexpected.
