On Saturday, Jan. 18, St. Mark’s hosted the annual Lions Invitational for Certamen, a quiz-bowl style game for Latin students. Students from schools around the DFW area participated, answering questions and bonuses about Latin-related topics mostly written by St. Mark’s seniors. St. Mark’s had a successful showing, with one team winning in the highest division. Instead of being written by the Latin teachers like in years past, upperclassmen in the Latin program stepped up to write questions for this year’s tournament.
“The thing that we did that is a little bit different from past years is that the vast majority of the questions were student-written this time,” tournament question writer and Latin senior Surya Dinesh said.
The format for the tournament was a three-division tournament where the three top teams in each division after the preliminary rounds would advance to a divisional final. Teams had a maximum of four members, and each match had two or three teams facing each other. In order to score points, players had to buzz in on questions and answer correctly, earning the opportunity to gain extra points through following bonus questions. The Latin department teachers and seniors jointly organized this year’s tournament.
“The event went quite well. On the day of the event, it was run rather smoothly,” Dinesh said.
The St. Mark’s Latin students have more Certamen events to look forward to later this year. There will be a regional tournament in early March, and a state tournament in early April as well.
