Paraclete High School in the Antelope Valley was among the top 22 campuses who sent teams to the 2016 California Academic Decathlon this weekend.
There were three different events held last weekend in Los Angeles County, and the top teams as well as selected wild-card squads will meet during the state championship the weekend of March 17-20 in Sacramento.
Paraclete, which collected 11 individual medals, competed against 44 other schools in the private school division at Bishop Alemany High School in Mission Hills.
Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana was the overall winner of this level of the competition and also claimed the coveted Super Quiz title.
In the private schools division, the decathlon is not a class so the students study extra hours on top of their regular school work.
The California Academic Decathlon created a separate competition open to all private high schools and magnet schools in Southern California. The private schools competition winner is invited to compete for the state championship along with the other 49 county competition winners and selected invited teams. The California State Champion competes in the United States Academic Decathlon competition, held annually in April.
Teams generally consist of nine members, who are divided into three divisions based on grade point average: Honors (3.75-4.0 GPA), Scholastic (3.00-3.74 GPA), and Varsity (0.00-2.99 GPA). Each team member competes in all 10 events against other students in his or her division. Overall team scores are calculated using the top two overall individual scores from each division. Gold, silver, and bronze medals are awarded for individual events as well as for overall scores.
The 10 events require knowledge in many academic disciplines. Students must take seven multiple choice tests in art, economics, language and literature, math, music, science and social science. These topics, with the exception of math, are thematically linked each year. One of the multiple choice events, usually science or social science, is chosen for the Super Quiz. In addition to the seven objective events, there are three subjective events graded by judges: essay, interview and speech.
This year’s overall curricular theme was India.
