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Home Tri-State Certamen Catapult Contest Classics Day National Convention State Convention |
by Mark Bandies, Boston Latin Academy, Class of 2001 On May 5, 2001 Roger Williams University in Rhode Island celebrated its Classics Day with a certamen competition. The University invited schools from Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island to compete in novice, lower, and upper divisions. Representing Massachusetts were the novice, lower, and upper teams of Boston Latin Academy, a novice team from Pierce Middle School, and Yiting Jin of Boston Latin School who competed with an upper team from Connecticut. The University welcomed the competitors with breakfast of pastries and juices. After all the schools were registered, the competition began. At stake, the first prize, were 1st century Roman coins and blue ribbons for each member of the winning teams. The winning teams' coaches would receive a trophy bearing the lamp of knowledge. Most importantly, this TriState competition was a practice for the states and national competitions. The tournament was like that of States and Nationals but with the preliminaries and finals in the same day. The questions from the preliminaries came from Quizmate CD-Rom, which was available for purchase. The top 3 teams based on points during the preliminaries then moved on to the final round. The final round was made up of a different set of questions much like the States' finals. The questions were also harder and more technical than that of the Quizmate CD-Rom. BLA's novice and lower teams had no trouble in winning their finals. With nerves and nervousness on their minds, the upper team had a bumpier ride into winning their final, the fact that their 2 opponents came from the same school did not help. But the upper team prevailed and won their division as well. |