With 19.6k participants, ClassAct 2022 sets new quizzing records

ClassAct 2022, the Republic Day quiz organised by Hindustan Times on Wednesday, has entered the record books for the most participants in an online school quiz. The quiz, which tested the students’ knowledge on a host of topics, ranging from science and pop culture to sport and general information, has been officially declared by the Asia Book of Records and the India Book of Records as the record holder for the “Maximum Participation in an Online School Quiz”, after over 19,600 people took part in its first round.

The quiz saw students from 32 countries across five continents participate in its preliminary round on January 23, and concluded with a resounding success in the grand finale on January 26.

The participants were shortlisted from a preliminary round where over 19,625 students from across 32 countries took part. Over 50,000 students initially registered for the quiz.

Besides the record-breaking turnout, the quiz also saw more female participants than male. Close to 60% of registrations were from girl students.

The quiz concluded with the announcement of 80 champions: 40 overall winners and 40 winners from the “Junior Category” (classes 1 to 5).

Pranjali Mishra, the topper of the Grand Finale of ClassAct 2022, said she enjoyed the range of questions that the quiz had to offer.

“This is the first time that I have participated in an international quiz. I found the question on ‘Baby Shark’ to be fun during the Finale while the one about Taj Mahal was the most interesting on,” said Mishra, a Class 6 student from Delhi Public School, Noida.

Quizmasters Navin Jayakumar and Avinash Mudaliar, who hosted the event, said the impressive turnout demonstrated that quizzing continued to hold an appeal for youngsters even amid the myriad forms of available edutainment.

“I have never seen a quiz with such a large turnout in my life. We have seen students participate from countries like Guatemala and Ethiopia, countries which were previously only answers for us in quizzes. This is not a winner-takes-it-all quiz. We wanted to completely change that format and encourage students from across the globe to participate,” said Mudaliar.

For the preliminary round of the quiz, registrations were received from 50,611 students between classes 1 and 12. Of these, over 19,000 took part in the preliminary round.

The highest number of registrations were recorded from Delhi (20,201) followed by Maharashtra (8,153) and Uttar Pradesh (8,078). Globally, registrations poured in from countries such as the United Arab Emirates, the United States, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and Nepal. Canada, Indonesia, Kuwait, Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Australia and Belgium were among the other countries from where significant registrations were received.