Another season of Academic Decathlon has kicked off as students rush to study resource guides, meeting after school every Wednesday. Academic Decathlon is an activity where students study detailed resource guides on math, economics, science, social science, literature, art and music for several months leading up to an invitational and district competition. They then take tests based on each guide, and students move on to regional and state competitions based on their scores. The head coaches are Kyle Wenokur, Quynh Lam and Melody Landrum.
Resource guides are dense, detailed documents that deeply explore each topic, such as this year’s art guide focusing on early American art. Every test question is about something specific mentioned in the guide, which can range from asking about an important figure mentioned, to a year given, to the caption of an image.
“Sometimes you have 15 minutes free and it’s kind of easy to just … scroll for 15 minutes,” AcDec officer Shlok Bhardwaj, 12, said. “But I think that those are the minutes that count. Like those are the minutes where you pull out the resource guide and read a little bit.”
Studying strategies aren’t just formed by individuals. The club as a whole has grown more structured over the past few years. Last year, they started study groups and did biweekly presentations on assigned resource guides. This year, this has been built off of by having students teach content in different fun ways, such as making quizzes or Jeopardy style questions on content they’ve studied.
“When you’re explaining a concept to someone who doesn’t know anything about it, you realize how many layers it is [and] how deep it is,” AcDec officer Aaryaman Chaurasiya, 12, said. “And not only does it increase [your] knowledge but it also helps you understand it better.”
However, despite placing an emphasis on studying, AcDec has maintained a spirited and fun community. The energy at competitions is electric, and it only brings team members closer together.
“The part that I enjoy the most is just bonding with my friends,” Chaurasiya said. “So many times we go [to competitions] and people are quizzing each other last second … I feel like this sense of joint nervousness, or maybe even quizzing each other, that really brings us all together. The sense of community is really, really what makes AcDec super fun.”
As new faces continue to join and old ones continue to leave while the club grows, members are confident that the special environment AcDec has cultivated will remain.
“I don’t think much is gonna change, even as a lot of the original AcDec members continue to leave and new people continue to join,” Bhardwaj said. “I think that atmosphere will always be the same as long as we just … keep being ourselves.”
The first competition will be on Nov. 15 at Nimitz High School. While students will compete with other schools under real competition conditions, this is a practice competition. The students who move on will be determined at the district competition in December.
