Malay Mail, 4 August 2009

WE WON: Jules (in white blouse) and her team of tutors

RUSH Hour's Jules claimed the title of smartest announcer at Fly FM's 'Back To School' challenge, coming up tops against the Pagi Show programme and her smartly dressed co-host Prem.

The challenge, which started as a dare by the Rush Hour crew, saw five announcers including Pagi Show's Phat Fabes, Ben and Nadia battle it out for over two hours at Tropicana City Mall recently.

The tough challenge saw hosts Steve and Hunny Madu pose questions that tested contestants' knowledge (and memory) in English, History and Mathematics at the Penilaian Menengah Rendah (PMR) level.

Completing a total of 21 questions, they were given 30 seconds to answer each question. This proved to be a difficult task for most of the contestants who left school years ago.

"When I was in school, it was still called SRP," admitted Fabes.

UBER-CUTE: Nadia with one of her young fans

Luckily, each announcer had assistance from 10 classmates to help tutor them on chosen topics before the challenge. The helpful class mates, comprising school and tertiary students aged 15 to 18 gave them the opportunity to "copy", "peak" and "save" when in doubt of answers.

Both teams started their tuition classes early last month and have been studying hard since then.

According to a reliable source, the Rush Hour team took pains to get their tutors into the studio to revise subjects that they learnt more than 10 years ago.

Their efforts paid off with both Prem and Jules leading the challenge from the start. The Pagi Show crew just could not get past their counterparts - even though Fabes had plenty of encouragement from his SMKACS Klang tutors. Ben believed bad feng shui was the reason for his low score while Nadia's good grades in History did not help her to get past the tricky questions.

Jules was delighted with her win and gave thanks to her tutors, who received RM2,000 for helping her win the challenge.

"It was a team effort and I really appreciate the efforts of my tutors. Good luck and study smart," she added.

The Pagi Show crew had to walk around the mall wearing a ‘‘Pagi Show is not Smarter than Rush Hour" sandwich board while chanting "Rush Hour Rocks!" much to the delight of many Fly FM fans and mall visitors.

Those at the challenge had a chance to win some interesting prizes including an iPod Shuffle and Nike accessories during recess and at the end of ‘school'.

The announcers remembered how tough it was to go through the examinations and unanimously wished all those sitting for the PMR and SPM examinations best of luck.