ELS Word Fair

For the past 2 days (29-30 June 2011), UTAR English Language Society has organised an interesting and fun-filled event known as the Word Fair. This six-level competition was held in several blocks within the campus from 10am until 5pm, where there were different word game in each block.

All the participants were given a card where they had to go from block to block to take part in all the games and collect stamps along the way. And they have the chance to win up to RM200 cash prize. But they have to complete all the challenges in 6 stations to determine whether they are in the running to win the cash prizes of RM200 (1st place), RM100 (2nd place) and RM50 (3rd place). The winners of this competition would be determined based on the total scores obtained from all the 6 stations. Of course, they have to submit their cards first to finalise their scores and claim a special gift for themselves.

Referring back to the card, non-members received an orange card while ELS members a blue one. Why it is different? As members, some students have the privilege to play one round absolutely FREE! After completing their trial round, their cards would be switched to the orange ones and they have to pay RM1, just like non-members, if they wanna play again to improve their scores.

As mentioned above, there were a total of 6 games with 10 minutes allocated for each. Let me briefly explain how each of the games is played:

Block B: Lost & Found
A simple question is given and what a participant needs to do is to search for the letters of the answer to given question within the same block. The letters are pasted everywhere on the walls or any objects around the block (except washrooms and classrooms). The participant has to gather all the letters and returns to the station within 10 minutes. 3 points will be given to the participant whether he/she completes the challenge or not. This game is considered the easiest and the maximum score obtained from this station is 10 points and not more than that.

Block C: What's Next?
In this station, a participant is given a word and he/she has to form a word chain by creating the next word using the last letter of the previous word. This sounds easy, doesn't it? Not as easy as you think. All the words listed have to be in the same category. For this game, the participant is given a choice to choose the level of difficulty: easy and hard. In the easy category, the contestant has to form words either in the animate or inanimate objects. Whereas for the hard one, he/she can choose one of the available categories (countries, colours, occupations/careers, fruits, vegetables, animals). Participants have to list down as many words as possible within 10 minutes and they will receive 3 points for each word if the number of words listed is less than 50 and 4 points if more than 50.

Block D: Eureka! I've Done It!
For this game, what participants are required to do is to randomly draw 7 letters from a box and form as many words as possible. If they are stuck with the 7 letters, they have 3 chances of reshuffle, meaning they can change for another set of letters for 3 times. But the following sets of letters are given by the station masters instead. While participants are forming words, the station masters or helpers will write down the words and calculate the total score for all the words formed by the participants. Most of the letters are given 1 point while some letters are either 2 or 3 points.

Block E: Mix Us! (shifted to Block D on 2nd day)
The way this word game is played it that it is almost similar as the previous game, that is forming as many words as they can. But the only differences are that the participants are given a set of 7-letter word and they can only reshuffle once. The scoring system is also the same as the previous game.

Block G: Zebra Crossing
This is actually a game of crossword puzzle. Participants can select which crossword puzzle they want to solve and try their best to fill in the puzzle with as many words as possible, based to the hints given. The number of correct answers will be the score.

Block H: Fun Search
Basically, the game available in this station is word search. A list of words from different categories are given to the participants, which they have to search for those words as much as they can in a sea of words printed on small pieces of paper provided. There are different themes for this word search e.g transportations, occupations, friendship, musical instruments etc. And according to the station masters, there are 2 different themes available for every hour. The score obtained from this game is the number of words that participants could find within the allocated time.


My own personal experiences
Well, as for myself, I find that the Word Fair is very challenging indeed, but yet I really enjoyed it very much. I managed to complete 2 rounds during the 2-day competition. As mentioned earlier, I played the first round FOC as I'm an ELS member. And I forked out an extra RM9 for additional round as I wanna improve my scores.

For the trial round, I managed to obtain a total of 445 points, the highest being 189 from the 3rd game. I decided to play for another time since I have the chance to play for another 3 rounds. But I have to pay, which I don't really mind anyway. I managed to improve my total score this time, especially in 3rd, 4th and 6th game. I don't know what's my total score, but it definitely has improved a lot.

The scores for each station varies. There are 3 key stations in the competition - What's Next?, Eureka! I've Done It! and Mix Us! - where participants can score very high marks, which they could score more than 100 points.

There's one participant who scores over 400 in the What's Next? game. Wow! That's really impressive! I played the game thrice (easy twice, hard one) and the maximum I could get is 102. I think the reason I couldn't score higher marks is that I face difficulties in finding the next appropriate words to continue the word chain. For the hard level, I chose the Countries category and most of the countries I've listed began and ended with the letter A.

As for Mix Us!, I learnt that one participant managed to score over 400 (401 to be exact). Well, I scored over 100 for both my attempts in the game (131 for first time, 186 for second). Then, for Eureka! I've Done It!, I scored 189 in the first time I played and almost doubled my score (325) in the second. Well, I received some help from others while playing this time.

For the remaining three games, the maximum scoretthat participants can obtain from each station does not exceed 50. Lost & Found offers the least points among all the 6 games, 10 points is the maximum. Due to the low score, I learnt that not much students would drop by Block B to walk around the block searching for letters. As for Zebra Crossing, the score obtained is the number of correct answers in the crossword puzzle, in which I believe the limit is 20.

Fun Search is the word game I've played the most throughout the whole competition. I played for a total of 4 times and attempted 4 categories, namely transportations, friendship, musical instruments and Happy New Year! There is one time I managed to locate all the given words. which is the theme of friendship, for a maximum score of 30.

But I almost forgot to pay while I was playing the last round but said that I've paid the RM1 when Gar Wei asked me. Because of this matter, she was furious at me and confessed that she almost have to pay the RM1 herself. Anyway, I apologised and paid her.

Then, the competition came to the end after I completed my last stint. We started packing up and returned the tables, chairs and notice board back to their original places. While in Block B, I walked around and took down all the letters pasted on walls and other objects. Because of my efforts, I was rewarded. And the organising committee had a post-mortem session right after this while I headed home.