AcaDec Advances to State Competition
Meeting every afternoon in room IA-3, members of Academic Decathlon (AcaDec) worked in preparation for the California Academic Decathlon (CAD) competition. This was their second time advancing to the state competition.
Held in Bakersfield from March 11 to March 15, the CAD competition attracted 60 schools from around the state, all hoping to advance to the national competition.
In order to qualify for the state competition, AHS AcaDec scored 40,047 points out of a possible 60,000 points at the Los Angeles County Academic Decathlon tournament held on Jan. 30 and Feb. 6.
The Moors are currently ahead of the San Gabriel Matadors who scored 24,741 points, but behind the Mark Keppel Aztecs who accrued 43,741 points.
AcaDec’s curriculum changes every year, this year’s theme being the French Revolution. Consequently, members had to read A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.
“We had to cover a lot of Dickens for literature. It almost felt like cramming all of Shakespeare into one quarter,” said sophomore member Matthew Huynh.
While preparing for the CAD competition, members stayed roughly until 6 p.m. every day and met on Saturdays as well.
Although meeting every day can be tiring, there is also relaxation involved. AcaDec has more field trips than any other class at AHS.
This year, they attended a concert in Bakersfield, where all the music selections from AcaDec’s music packet were performed.
“We have fun all the time. [Acadec] is not all about studying. Sometimes ,we play Jeopardy,” said Coach Jennie Malonek.
Making it to the state competition is based on the outcome of the Los Angeles County competition.
Eight students who competed in state last year competed again this year. These eight students include: juniors Bob Qian, Nancy Vong, Clarence Nguyen and seniors Peter Wang, Sally Tran, Celia Wong, Steve Nham and Josh Sam.
Before the competition, the Moors were ranked 37th out of 60 schools, but afterwards, they jumped to 17, largely because they placed third overall in their division.
Divisions were determined by the place of the school coming into the state competition. The top 20 schools were Division 1, 21-40 Division 2, and so on.
Qian placed second in chemistry, essay, math, economics and first in music. Wang placed third in music, while Vong placed second in chemistry. Nguyen placed third in language and literature and second in music.
“I was really quite surprised because we jumped 14 ranks, from 17 to 3 in our division. We were rather anxious in the beginning because there was pressure to do as well as we did last year,” said Wang.