We Won!

We won Third place during the recently-concluded CESAFI IT Quiz (last January 31). It was a tough fight, but we were able to get going.

We arrived in the venue earlier. Students are starting to fill up the vacant seats.

The contest started late; they were an hour delayed of schedule. So as not to bore the people, they asked questions to the audience and gives freebies to those who can answer them. Oh my God, these questions are hard; from computer organization to operating system concepts. Damn, I wasn’t able to study about these topics much.

Now I wonder how hard the contest questions are going to be.

And the event has started. The reason for the delay (as told by the chairman) was because they have to revise the questions, for it was too difficult for the students. Hmm, sounds like good news. (^^;) They requested all participants to come to the stage except one. And you got it right; they almost “forgot” about our school. I don’t know if that was intentional, since my school and the host school are tough rivals.

Onto the contest proper…

Easy. The questions for the easy round were too easy. Too basic that even a neophyte knows it. . Imagine, they’re asking questions like “Which among these is an output/input device?” and “Software used to create presentations/slides”, among others. Not to offend the organizers, but, I wasn’t expecting these kinds of questions from a highly-celebrated event. I guess that’s part of the “good news.”

We passed the First Round. And as the rule states, the lowest two will be eliminated.

Five teams remain. Who will be eliminated…next? LOL, Amazing Race quote.

The second round: Programming. We must solve as many problems as we can within a specific time frame. Alas, the organizers even have to revise the questions for this round, since (again) the questions were above average. Hehehe, another good news.

They gave three problems to solve: one is to input GPAs then count the number of occurrences of each GPA, then check if the GPA passed or failed: second is to input a string of text, then output “1” if the number of consonants is greater than or equal to the number of vowels, otherwise print “0”: lastly, we ask the user to input numbers then count how many prime numbers are in it. These questions weren’t really tough, but we have the constraint of time. We must solve this fast!

We solved the last two problems, and the first one unfinished. Now the teams need to defend their solutions to the judges.

This time I’ll use my Fast Forward ticket to proceed directly to the finish line. XD

Now comes the most exciting (but heart-pounding) part: the announcement of the Top Three teams. These three will compete for the PRISAA (inter-city / intra-region) IT Quiz to be held this February 17 in Bohol.

You just can imagine the tension and the nervousness we felt as the judge was reading along the results. Maybe they weren’t satisfied with our solution.

I really want to go to Bohol, much as how my teammate, my coach, and the school want too. Going to Bohol will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I prayed to God that if this isn’t for us, then we’ll accept what His decision is. But still we hoped to win.

After they announced the top two teams, I am becoming more terrified. Please, mention our team. Mention our school.

“University of Cebu!”

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

I shouted out loud and jumped out of my seat as my schoolmates, friends, coaches, and of course my teammate did the same. The loud cheers were so heart-warming. Thank God, You answered our prayers. Now, even if we don’t win Round 3, we wouldn’t mind, for as long as we qualified for Bohol.

And we fell to Third Place in Round Three. The problem we have to solve was to determine the mean, median, maximum and minimum number out of a series of number inputs. We were confident that we did the right solution, but we stand corrected. :P

During the awarding ceremonies, we received a bag of canned goods (courtesy of Virginia Foods Corp. (one of the sponsors)), and medals and certificates for the coaches.

We drove back to school, to deliver the good news. Our chairman was so delighted upon hearing, because all of the contingents for the cultural contests failed, and that we were the school’s last hope. Hmmm, it would’ve been better if we grabbed the bacon.

Our coaches treated us dinner at Chowking. It was a sumptuous feast.

Next week, we will start reviewing for Bohol. For sure, the questions should be tougher than expected and tougher competitors as well. But we will prepare for it.

Bohol, here we come~!