English News

Australian Computational & Linguistics Olympiad

On a certain Wednesday, approximately 80 Nossal students sat huddled together in groups of four, all working frantically together on a set of word puzzles. Any passerby must have thought it was a strange scene, seeing all these young students trying to pronounce gibberish in a strange Italian accent. But little did they know, it was the day of the Australian Computational and Linguistics Olympiad  (OZCLO). 

It was my first time participating in OZCLO this year, and it was an exhilarating experience. The set of puzzles given to us ranged from deciphering Egyptian cuneiforms, to figuring out  the ten different ways of saying ‘goodbye’ in Swedish. It might sound a little intimidating at first, but if you look closely at the clues and search for some sort of pattern, the answer will come, slowly but surely. 

What I liked most was the sense of satisfaction on finally completing a puzzle, and high-fiving my friends when we finally figured out a difficult word together. While we all knew that the answers we got were possibly incorrect, just working together, and enjoying the challenge of the task, made the experience so much more fun.

Finally, I would like to thank you the English domain for organising this fantastic event, and to all the teachers who were there to supervise us. I would highly recommend every student to participate in this amazing and enriching experience, it will definitely be worth it.

Tram Le

Year 11