A single point separated the winning and second-placed teams in the Central Otago final of the Otago Daily Times Extra! current events quiz held at Cromwell College last night.
More than 80 year 9 and 10 pupils from five secondary schools in the Central Otago and Queenstown Lakes districts participated in the event, which followed Monday night's finals for year 5-6 and 7-8 pupils.
A Dunstan High School team won the title, scoring 86 out of 100 points after 10 rounds of questions, which ranged from naming prominent people to identifying flags from various countries.
The winning team members, 14-year-olds Sarah Booth, Stine-Lise Budge and Nick Pascoe, of Alexandra, collected a plaque, medals, and book vouchers for their efforts.
Second on 85 points was a Wakatipu High School team, and a Cromwell College team was third with 84 points.
Organiser Ivan Behrnes said the annual quizzes had become more popular each year since they started about six years ago.
About 350 pupils participated in the three Central Otago heats, which will be followed next week by quizzes in Timaru, and finally in Dunedin next term.
A Christchurch quiz last week started the current events round, which was preceded by earlier spelling quizzes in the four South Island areas.
The Otago Daily Times Extra! quizzes are part of the newspaper's Class Act project, which celebrates the excellence of young people.
Extra! is a monthly educational publication produced by the newspaper for senior primary, intermediate, and junior secondary school pupils.
Last week, the Otago Daily Times Class Act/Extra! entry received the top young readers' prize in the 25,001-90,000 circulation category at the Pacific Area Newspaper Publishers Association's Newspaper of the Year awards, presented in Sydney.
