Three Dunedin boys were two points shy of a perfect quiz score last night.
Logan Park High School pupils Max Riddle, Ben Clayton and Cameron Bayne scored the highest of the 45 teams, from nine schools, which competed in the Otago Daily Times Extra! Otago regional current events quiz at the Kaikorai Valley College gymnasium in Dunedin last night.
Ben said the team dropped the two points because they had difficulty hearing a geography question.
And geography was the team's strongest subject, he said Besides geography, Ben's specialty subject was birthdates, Max's was history and Cameron's current affairs.
Collectively, the team had studied for 120 hours for the competition.
The boys studied individually for about four hours a night and then ''communicated'' their progress the next day, Ben said.
The team agreed on most answers yesterday but had ''some debate'' on whether the answer to one question was Pakistan or Afghanistan, and more debate on the date of the race to the South Pole.
Max said a celebratory pizza dinner had been planned.
Two teams tied for second place, Columba College and Otago Girls' High School - both with 92 points.
Columba College pupil Alice Jones (14) said she, Selena Ballantyne (14) and Maxine Bainbridge (14) had improved in the face recognition quiz category this year.
Otago Girls' High School pupil Edie Benny (15) said that she and schoolmates Amelia Meredith (14) and Charlotte Becconsall-Ryan (14) had lost crucial points by making ''stupid mistakes''.
An example was answering with the name of a country, when the name of a city was asked for, she said.
