Secret Code

This week’s session was organised by Lydia and myself and was dedicated to a single game called ‘Secret Code’ (even though we had 2 games planned). In this game, the boys were split into 2 teams and each team had to work together to score points by answering questions written on the white board. The catch was that questions were written in code. In the code, each letter that was required for the question was written as the letter that comes before it in the alphabet. If you have no idea what the sentence you just read means, then for example, the word ‘cat’ is ‘dbu’ in code and ‘Singapore’ is ‘Tjohbqpsf’. The concept of the game came from Jian Wen’s list of games (thanks Jian Wen) but Lydia and I came up with the questions and translated them into code.

Getting back to what happened for the session- Team 1 consisted of 8 members while Team 2 was made up of 9 members and both the teams were quick to grasp the concept of the code. Initially, team 2 was a little quicker, and soon, they were leading by 2 points. After the second question was answered, Lydia and I realised that the boys were deciphering the code too easily. Therefore, we improvised and started leaving out letters in the words for the boys to figure out. This was when the scores started evening out. It was great to see determination and competitiveness (although at times a little excessive) in the boys and hopefully, they apply this for their studies, sports and whatever they endeavor to do in the future. At the end of the game, the scores were even, so both teams were winners (however, we did not prepare any prizes). Through the game, there was (or I hope there was) suspense, laughter, disputes over Rabin’s handwritting and, paraphrasing Jun Han, ‘brain cells that were destroyed’. In contrast, I think the game was educational to those who did not know the answers to some of the questions. With any luck, most of us walked out of this week’s session with a little more general knowledge (except for one unlucky boy who had the projector screen fall on him twice).


Here is the list of questions asked:

1. Who is the president of Singapore?
2. Who is the prime minister of Singapore?
3. Who is the minister of education of Singapore? (No team could answer this question and it
was weird that both teams initially gave ‘Simpsons the Movie’. Other answers that were
given include ‘Balakrishnan’ and ‘Lee Kwan Yui’)
4. Who is the most recent FIFA World Cup Winner?
5. Name a book written by the author J. K. Rowling.
6. How many books are there in the Harry Potter series?
7. Who is the director of ‘I Not Stupid’?
8. How many days are there in a leap year?
9. Which month has that extra day?
10. What is the standard value of Earth’s gravitational acceleration?
11. Where will the two proposed casinos of Singapore be located?
12. What is nationally symbolic animal of Singapore?
13. Name another movie starring the lead actor of Diehard4.0.

Answers:
1. Sellapan Rama (S.R.) Nathan
2. Lee Hsien Loong
3. Tharman Shanmugaratnam (Ok, he is a little botak but not completely)
4. Italy
5. Harry Potter and the
5.1 Philosopher's/Sorcerer’s Stone
5.2 Chamber of Secrets
5.3 Prisoner of Azkaban
5.4 Goblet of Fire
5.5 Order of the Phoenix
5.6 Half-Blood Prince
5.7 Deathly Hallows
6. 7
7. Jack Neo
8. 366
9. February
10. 9.81
11. Marina Bay and Sentosa
12. Merlion/lion
13. Armageddon

Trivia on Jian Wen:

1. He was acted in a minor role in the movie ‘I Not Stupid’. He was only 17 then.

Ok..Just kidding

2. He has great taste in choosing cakes

again.. kidding


Yay! I’ve finally contributed my share to the blog! Thanks for the birthday celebration at the end of the session. Hope to have more great sessions with the rest of you guys : )