Academic Decathlon triumphs in competition
Two years ago, English teacher Anne-Marie Voegtlin decided to bring back the Academic Decathlon team following a request to do so by former Academic Decathloners who missed the excitement, collaboration and team spirit of the course.
Academic Decathlon is an elective that values academic challenges in multiple subjects. Students use comprehensive, analytical and test-taking abilities to prepare for the United States Academic Decathlon
Competition (USAD). At this two-day competition students give speeches, participate in an interview and take tests in seven different categories. Originally cut because of budget setbacks, Academic Decathlon restarted as an official course a year ago and currently has 20 members. The main objective is to prepare for USAD by taking practice tests that students will be tested on in seven subjects: Art, Economics, Language and Literature, Math, Music, Science and Social Science.
“[Although] cramming for the subject tests is [interesting], [students] have fun doing it as a team,” Voegtlin said.
Within the team, there are three different three-person sub-teams based on grade point average. Competitions are attended by nine students who represent the three sub-teams.
This year’s USAD was held in El Rancho High School on Jan. 30 and Feb. 1. On the first day, students had an interview, a prepared speech, impromptu speech and an essay. On the second day, students took seven subject tests and a super quiz.
“The students are [most enthusiastic] about the prepared speech of the competition,” says Voegtlin. “This is where [students] get to be creative, show off their individual style and that’s definitely the most [interesting] part of [the competition]”.
Every year, the competition is based on a certain theme to challenge students’ ability to study new things. This year’s theme was India; therefore, each of the subject tests had questions pertaining to India. There was also a Super Quiz, in which each sub-team takes a quiz based on all the subject tests that they took. Each school’s sub team is on the floor of the high school auditorium at the same time. They see the question on the jumbotron and as they click their answer the crowd sees the answers from each team.
“The Super Quiz is taken by each of the three different teams,” says Senior Co-President Gordon Zhao. “You collaborate with each other to solve questions [pertaining to the subject tests] and everyone cheers for the team whether they get the questions right or wrong.”
The team’s ultimate goal is to place in the top ten schools in regionals for the USAD and qualify for State. Because only a total of nine students can participate in the competition, the remainder of the students help the participating students by asking interview questions and listening to their speech.
The Peninsula Academic Decathlon team won 19th place out of 52 teams, winning 23 individual awards and 31 medals in total. The team won a total of five gold medals on the subject tests, four silver medals and three bronze medals. On the prepared speech, interview and essay, students brought home two gold medals, three silver medals and three bronze medals. On the super quiz, all three teams placed second. Sophomore Chelsea Liu and Zhao both won the Division II Highest Scoring Decathlete; Liu won silver and Zhao won Bronze.
“I like the fact that we were not just another club that only focused on academics, but a [team] where we would help one another and win medals as a team,” said Academic Decathlon co-president and senior Valeria Park.
