BBS KJ World Scholar’s Cup 2020

BBS (Kebon Jeruk) hosted the inaugural World Scholar’s Cup on 15 and 16 January 2020. It was truly a bizarre concoction of team building, quirky knowledge and flurry alpacas!

Written by: Shannon (3 Taylor)

Those two days were definitely something I did not regret engrossing in. I totally wished for another event entirely similar to this. I have always dreamt about being in such an event sooner ever since the event, my passion for debate competitions and writing has grown beyond measure.

WSC comprises of four team events: collaborative writing, scholar’s challenge, scholar’s bowl, and last but not least the debate competition.

First and foremost, before the event commences, an opening ceremony was held when they inaugurated themselves and the all the events that would follow.

For the collaborative writing, five topics were given to each group. For instance, Science and a subtopic about it or even Sociology and a subtopic related to it. Before the writing starts, there will be a timespan of at most fifteen minutes. This time was used for team members to discuss thoroughly and efficaciously about the different topics they chose. From my personal standpoint, I suppose that this helps create a bond between our team members, particularly if the case was that we just met with new team members.

For the scholar’s Challenge, we were given a hundred and twenty questions about different subjects and we have to answer each and ever one of them. Despite the fact that most of the questions weren’t related to academics or we might not have an intimation on the answer, choosing all the choices from A right up until D in the multiple choice question was already one of the finest things to do because unlike any other academic exams, this was different.

Subsequent to our first and last break during Day 1, we had our debate competition which ceased after three rounds, through this, the best debaters and the best teams were scrutinized for the award ceremony and the debate showcase in the latter. Likewise, this debate also helped us wholeheartedly receive both positive and constructive feedbacks which would immediately make us better speakers for our next rounds.

Day 2 started off uproariously with the Scholar’s Bowl, which is fundamentally almost similar to Scholar’s Challenge. The merely difference is that you will work with the groups assigned to and not individually. There was only a mere difference between the topics, which indicates that they were almost the same. Given a clicker, we must answer all questions with it. This pushed us to define teamwork and participation in our minds.

One of the most endearing and engaging parts of the event was the “Adopt an Alpaca” where each one of us got alpacas of different colours. Notwithstanding, we were not given the liberty to choose alpacas of our own choice of colours just as how one does not get to choose their child. Learning to love our alpacas unconditionally is the informal WSC slogan!

Summing all the activities up, the talent show also added entertainment to day 2, where people would sing, dance , and manifest their gifts from God.

Last but not least, we ended it all with the award ceremony which lead to both feelings of gloom and contentment ascribable to winning or not winning any awards and also to the farewell of newly acquainted friends – some from Bali and Malaysia.

I truly believe the World’s Scholar’s Cup has made a great difference. It would be one of the best opportunities in life getting to join an event like this. Not only does it improve our knowledge about the world, but it also helps us gain experience through all the activities.

Personally, if given the chance, I would love to share my experience on how events like this could play a major role in our future.

PWAA!