It was an after school activities back in the secondary school days. It couldn’t have been any other than the great Aquinas College, Akure. One of the auxiliary teachers, Mr. Babalola Jnr had organized inter class quiz competition amongst the senior secondary school 1 (SS1) classes.
This very afternoon, it was the turn of my class SS1:3 versus another class SS1:1.The intellectual competition started normally and each team was entitled to main questions and if you miss it, it becomes a bonus for the opponent and eventually would be thrown to the audience if none of the teams get it correctly.The two teams were performing good, answering their questions correctly and it was a keenly contested one, I guess it was one of the finals, either the quarter or the semis.
The audience was in rapt attention and there came this question to the SS1:1 team: Chemistry: state the general gas law. 3 points! They mentioned Charles’s law! Wrong! Boyl’s law! Wrong! Time was ticking……….. all possible responses came as wrong answers. The 3 points was lost. There was absolute silence in the classroom! Even the audience was waiting for the answer with rapt attention. Seems no one knows the answer in that room.
Then it was now a possible bonus point to the team representing my class SS1:3 . Chemistry: State the general gas law! 30 seconds is the time allowable for the bonus point. The silence in the room was very loud!!!! Then a voice from one of the members of the team, “the answer is P1V1 over T1 is equal to P2 V2 over T2 ”.The Quizmaster responded immediately with excitement……..COOOOOORRECT!!!!!!!!!!
What does that mean😳? Is it French? Latin? English? Words would fail me if I try to describe the mixed feelings that occupied the entire classroom that day. First came the applause and excitement that it was answered correctly and that lasted for not more two minutes. Then suddenly, the classroom was silent again but you can hear some murmurings, whisperings, side talks and different gist.
Fast forwarding to the end of the day’s event, my class eventually won the competition and we all dispersed excited that we won the competition but the earlier drama of P1V1 over T1 is equal to P2 V2 over T2 continued to be in everyone’s mouth as we all journeyed to our different homes 🚶🏾🚶🏾🚶🏾. While some were opening STAN Chemistry textbook, Ababio book became the most sort after textbook. Everyone was searching for the general gas law. The topic, the chapter, the questions and the calculations! What a day!
I usually walk home with Lateef Adebayo and we had nothing to talk about than the drama that ensued earlier in the quiz classroom. P1V1 over T1 is equal to P2 V2 over T2 then arose so many questions:
- That boy is a genius
- He has finished the syllabus!
- How did he get to know the answer?
- Oluwa O! are you sure we are in the same class?
- Are we going to write the same exams?
- Have I not been wasting my parent’s money (Mo ti fowo jona 😔)?
- See your mate. “A fi ko ma mu osan shaa tabi koo ma gba table soka”
Ori mi o! Aye mi O! Baba O! 🙆🏾♂️
Normally Lateef would buy oranges and share with me. On this day, none of us remembered anything called orange. I lost all appetite for anything called food. The truth is. That day was a great day in the life of a good number of us in that set at Aquinas College. It was a TURNNING POINT. Everybody took studying seriously. Name it; Mathematics, Biology, Physics, English, Chemistry textbooks. We discovered we still have so much to do to obtain good results in our SSCE and we do not have the luxury of time.
The race to obtaining good results at WASC started with my set earlier than we thought and at the end of the 3 years in the SS Classes, we had cause to thank God. We had very good results that made a good number to qualify for admissions to higher institutions.
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