Mountain House High School’s academic decathlon just participated in their first mock competition, with promising results, especially since this is only its second year.
“It’s our second year and we aren’t expecting much. Our main goal is to improve competition performance from last year," remarked club president Raymond Lugtu.
Indeed, they do train hard, watching resource videos titled, “From dinos to Dhoni in 5 minutes,” and poring over classic novels such as The Nectar In a Sieve in preparation for their county round in the spring.
“AcaDec,” as it is affectionately dubbed, is a competition is composed of 10 events, including, mathematics, art, economics, essay, interview, language and literature, music, science, social science and the speech portion.
“On the event day, we all go to some classes and take the classes[‘ exams] up there,” said Lugtu. “[They typically] last about 30 minutes, sometimes more.”
Students first compete at the county level, working their way up to state and nationals.
The premier section of the competition is the Super Quiz. The Super Quiz is a team event where team members answer questions from all categories in a Jeopardy!-like format. This is the only event open to the public.
The Mountain House team is very dependent on the individual responsibilities of their members. Teammates are expected to read resource books at home and on their own accord. The club itself gives off a studious vibe during meetings; members are always reading or listening to some new content regarding subjects in the competition.
Every second is seen as a new opportunity to learn for the members, a new chance to prepare for the intensive, academic competition.