Writes Lishane W. (4ths) and Levin W. (4ths)
Last week, between 17th and 21st November, eight teams from Merchant Taylors competed in the National Languages Competition. The NLC is a competition organised by the GCHQ, which is an organisation which oversees the security of the UK. The competition involves a lot of language-based puzzles of ranging difficulties. Over 3000 teams competed and the results will be announced shortly.
My (Lishane’s) team consisted of Yogesh, Levin, Yaneth and myself (all 4ths). Once in the competition began, all the teams had to establish a “game plan” or strategy. This was crucial, as not coming up with a strategy would result in a lack of work, or a massive loss in time. However, most teams dealt with this challenge well, coming up with tactics like writing down questions so they could work on them outside of competition hours.
Tackling the mind-boggling questions of the GCHQ NLC was not easy, and demanded organisation and efficient use of time, as there was a strict time cap of 25 hours. However, our teams scheduled their timings well and were very organised, which got the work done.
An unexpected challenge which I think that many of the Taylors’ teams were excellent with dealing with was staying motivated, as throughout the competition, perseverance to keep on striving for victory was key.
We enjoyed the challenging set of puzzles and thank Mrs White for organising Merchant Taylors’ participation in the competition.
