In just its second year at San Benito High School, the academic
decathlon team is looking at good news heading into the state
competition.
With rumors of a harder curriculum, the SBHS team managed to
best itself and other teams when compared to last year’s scores.
The team improved at a county competition in Fresno early this
month.
In just its second year at San Benito High School, the academic decathlon team is looking at good news heading into the state competition.
With rumors of a harder curriculum, the SBHS team managed to best itself and other teams when compared to last year’s scores. The team improved at a county competition in Fresno early this month.
Out of a possible 60,000 points, the SBHS team scored 32,847.9 this year – a decent score for the competition, said Amy Brown, academic decathlon team coach and SBHS science teacher. Last year, the team earned 24,726.6 points, almost 10,000 points less.
“We’re doing really well,” Brown said. “This year’s curriculum is supposedly harder, so the scores should be lower.”
Brown isn’t sure what to attribute the higher scores to. The team is working with a different curriculum, took more quizzes and has returning students.
“The returning kids want to do better than last year and know they can,” Brown said.
Junior and returning decathlete Jake Mahan wasn’t surprised by the team’s success in Fresno.
“We have a lot of really bright people on the team – people who are hard workers,” he said. “I think we’ll do better (than last year) at state. Fresno was a big boost of confidence.”
The class meets during zero period – 7:20 to 8:22 p.m. – Tuesday through Friday, so students are taking it on top of their regular class load. There are 17 students enrolled with only nine going to the state competition in March.
Students are broken up into three teams – honor, scholastic and varsity. Those on the honor team usually have a GPA of 3.5 to 4.0, scholastic 3.0 to 3.5 and varsity 3.0 and under. Brown said the class is good because it’s not just geared toward honor students – some are bright, but haven’t excelled grade-wise.
Students participate in 10 subject areas – math, economics, social science, music, art, language and literature, super quiz, essay, speech and interview. The last three are more subjective and are graded by judges while the first seven are objective – the competitors take multiple-choice written tests, except for the super quiz, which is held in front of an audience. Decathletes have compared it to taking 10 different classes in one.
Mahan’s favorite category is speech because it’s not limited to a specific theme. The hardest part of academic decathlon is remembering all of the small details, he said.
“I had fun doing it last year. You get to compete and you don’t have to physically exert yourself and cause yourself pain,” Mahan said.
Each year, the decathlons focus on a specific theme to narrow the amount of knowledge students have to study. This year’s theme is “America, the growth of a nation.” All of the 10 areas of competition will revolve around the theme.
The academic decathlon team members have studied music, art and literature from the time period. For literature, they read “Death Comes for the Archbishop” by Willa Cather. For art, they’ve studied John James Audobon and Ansel Adams. They’ve watched PBS documentaries on Lewis and Clark to prepare for the super quiz.
“They go beyond their other classes. These kids know so much more,” Brown said. “The students broaden their knowledge base.”
Since SBHS has the only academic decathlon in the county, it automatically goes on to the state competition. But, Brown takes the team to Fresno so they can practice competing.
SBHS is in the smallest Division III which is determined by the number of students in the county. There are 14 teams in that division. At last year’s state competition, Sutter County won with 33,000 points. At Fresno this year, SBHS earned 32,847.9, so Brown thinks the team has a good chance to take first or at least be in the top three.
The hardest part of academic decathlon for sophomore and new decathlete Magali Ferare is that not every student can go on to the state competition.
“Only three in each group can go. Everyone in this class is really talented,” she said.
At the California Academic Decathlon, each of the nine team members has the opportunity to score 1,000 points in each of the 10 categories – adding up to a possibility of 10,000 each. The best two scores from each group – honor, scholastic and varsity – are added together to come up with an overall winner with a possibility of 60,000 points.
Winners at the state competition will go on to the United States Academic Decathlon in Boise, Idaho in April.
“Mrs. Brown is all about the learning experience. We’ll improve every year,” Ferare said.
For more information, go to the California Academic Decathlon at www.academicdecathlon.org/ or the United States Academic Decathlon www.usad.org.
