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<title>United States Academic Decathlon</title>
<authors>Wikipedia</authors>
<publisher>wikipedia.org</publisher>
<publishedplace>network</publishedplace>
<publishedyear>2010</publishedyear>
<edition></edition>
<category>Featured articles</category>
<section id="23678" fatherid="0" title="" lv="" priority="-1" level="1">
The United States Academic Decathlon (USAD; often abbreviated to Acadec, AD, Acadeca, AcDec, or AcDc) is an annual high school academic competition organized by the non-profit United States Academic Decathlon Association. It consists of seven multiple choice tests, two performance events, and an essay. Academic Decathlon was created by Robert Peterson in Orange County, California for local schools in 1968 and expanded to a nationwide setting in 1981. That year, 17 states and the District of Columbia participated, a number which has grown to 43 and occasional international schools as of 2009.
A unique aspect of Academic Decathlon is that it is designed to include students from all achievement levels. 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 ten 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. To earn a spot at the national competition in April, teams must advance through local, regional, and state competitions, though some levels of competition may be bypassed for smaller states. For smaller schools, the small school and medium school e-Nationals are available. USAD has also recently experimented with an International Academic Decathlon and has created an Academic Pentathlon for middle schools.
The ten 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.
Over the years, there have been various small controversies, the most infamous being the scandal involving Steinmetz High School in Chicago, Illinois, which was caught cheating at the 1995 Illinois state finals. This event was later dramatized in the 2000 film Cheaters. Academic Decathlon has also been criticized by educators for the large amount of time it forces students to spend on the material. In 2000, USAD's decision to market error-ridden Resource Guides led to a major protest by several coaches.

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<section id="23679" fatherid="0" title="History" lv="" priority="-2" level="1">
Academic Decathlon was formed in 1968 by Dr. Robert Peterson, the superintendent of schools in Orange County, California. Marvin Cobb, the executive director of the California Academic Decathlon in 2003, said after Peterson's death that Peterson intended the competition to encourage not only the highest-level students who already competed in academic competitions, but also to "change C students' lives". The inaugural competition was held in December 1968, and hosted 103 students. Though at first only regional contests were held, in 1979, the first statewide competition was held. In 1981, the newly formed United States Academic Decathlon Association held the first national competition in April 1982 at Loyola Marymount University in California—16 states and the District of Columbia participated. Peterson, inspired by the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, hoped to make Academic Decathlon an international event. At the 1984 Nationals, 32 states as well as Canada, Mexico, New Zealand and South Korea fielded teams. The inclusion of foreign countries did not become a regular occurrence, however. There was no more international participation until 1989, when teams from Northern Ireland and Rio de Janeiro competed. Since then, Burnett Secondary School from British Columbia, Canada, and Southbank International School from London, England are the only two foreign competitors to have competed at Nationals, having done so in 2004 and 2009 respectively. In April 2009, USAD announced that it would be regularly hosting an online international competition, the International Academic Decathlon, after a successful trial event in 2008; however, all 2009 participants but Southbank opted out, leading USAD to issue Southbank an invitation to attend the 2009 U.S. National competition in Memphis instead.
Originally, Academic Decathlon was organized differently from the current competition—the ten events were economics, essay, fine arts, interview, language and literature, math, science, social sciences, speech and Super Quiz. It was not until 1998 that fine arts was split into its two constituent tests: art and music. Due to this division, the Super Quiz took the place of one of the other subjects each year. In 1998, Super Quiz replaced economics; since 1999, it has replaced either science or social science and has alternated replacing the two since 2003.
More than just the events were changed during the 1998–99 season—the style of study required of students changed. Prior to that season, students had performed their own research for each event, and test writers did not have to base their questions on material USAD published. However, after a policy change at the beginning of the 1999–2000 competition year, test writers were required to base the tests on official USAD materials. After the change in policy, scores vastly increased across the country. That year at Nationals, James E. Taylor High School had the highest team score yet seen at the competition. The following season, USAD once again altered their testing policies; 50% of test questions were to come from USAD published "Resource Guides" and 50% were to come from unspecified sources. Economics focused on business organizations and profiles in individual enterprise rather than macroeconomics and microeconomics as it had for the previous 19 years. A decrease in scores followed these changes; the national winner that year, El Camino Real High School, scored 5,923 fewer points than James E. Taylor High School had the previous year. The following year, USAD settled on its current organization of test materials.
Though the events finally stabilized during the 2000–01 season, the USAD administration changed dramatically when the program's executive director, James Alvino, resigned. Alvino had written a religious article that had been included in that year's Super Quiz Resource Guide. His critics and the USAD Board regarded the inclusion as a conflict of interest, as the material was a persuasive essay that heavily pushed Alvino's point of view. The season was also significant in that it was the first year that states were allowed to send both their large and small school champions to the national competition. (Small schools are currently classified as those schools with fewer than 650 students.) However, this practice was short-lived and was discontinued after the 2002 season. Instead, a small school e-Nationals was introduced during the 2005–06 school year. The medium school e-Nationals was established two years later for those schools with between 650 and 1,300 students.
Prior to 1999, math had been based on the principles of algebra, geometry, and trigonometry. For the 1999, 2000 and 2001 curricula, topics such as fractal geometry, chaotic dynamics, logic and set theory, and general statistics were introduced. In 2002, math returned to its roots and again focused on algebra, geometry, trigonometry while adding differential calculus. Before the 2005 national competition, USAD increased the number of math questions per test from 25 to 35. In 2007, it decided to allow graphing calculators for the first time; previously, only scientific or four-function calculators had been permitted.
In 2009, USAD announced the launch of an "Online Middle School Pentathlon Program", a competition similar to Academic Decathlon, with only essay, language and literature, mathematics, geography or social science, and science as events. Either science or social science would be designated as the Super Quiz topic.

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<section id="23680" fatherid="0" title="Participation" lv="" priority="-3" level="1">
<section id="23681" fatherid="23680" title="Team makeup and eligibility" lv="" priority="1" level="2">
The USAD requires a diversity of achievement within each team; teams must have students who fall into three categories determined by GPA. The Honors category is composed of students with GPAs between 3.75 and 4.0. The Scholastic category consists of students with GPAs between 3.0 and 3.74. The final group, the Varsity category, contains students whose GPA ranges from 0.00 to 2.99. USAD uses a modified GPA scale in which performance-based classes such as music, art or physical education are omitted from the GPA calculation. A grade counts for face value regardless of whether it is from an advanced placement, honors, regular or remedial class. An A is counted as a 4.0, a B as a 3.0, a C as a 2.0, a D as a 1.0, and a F as a 0. Only final grades taken from the previous two complete school years are used to calculate GPA.
A team typically consists of nine competitors: three honors, three scholastic and three varsity. However, since only the top two scores from each category count towards the team's total score, a team can compete with as few as six students without any point deduction. Students may compete in a higher category than the one they are assigned to, but generally it is to the students' advantage to compete in the lowest category they can. Scores in Varsity are typically lower than those in Scholastic, and those in Scholastic are typically lower than those in Honors.

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<section id="23682" fatherid="23680" title="Levels of competition" lv="" priority="2" level="2">
There are four official levels of competition: local/scrimmage, regional, state, and national (Rounds 1, 2, 3, and 4 respectively). With the exception of Round 1, only the top finishers in each round advance to the next level. California, the state with the largest Academic Decathlon, holds local scrimmages using the Round 1 tests, which are largely for practice and do not determine whether a team can compete at the regional level, which uses Round 2 tests. In the 2008–09 season, 43 states participated in statewide Academic Decathlons,"Academic Decathlon Study Guide 2008-2009", p. 50 though only 35 and an international school participated in the national competition.
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<section id="23683" fatherid="0" title="Events" lv="" priority="4" level="1">
<section id="23684" fatherid="23683" title="" lv="" priority="-1" level="2">
Like an athletic decathlon, USAD has ten events: art, economics, essay, interview, language and literature, math, music, science, social science, and speech. Each year the Super Quiz replaces one of the seven objective events; since 2003, it has alternated between replacing science and social science. USAD releases the topics and theme of the following year's competition in early March, giving students time to prepare for a competition season that runs from November to April. The curriculum is developed by a ten-member panel of former USAD coaches known as the USAD Curriculum Advisory Group. The group contracts with "curriculum developers", who must have at least a bachelor's degree in their respective subject, to create the subject area outlines, Resource Guides, and Notebook Dividers. The Super Quiz Resource Guide is formed mostly from articles from peer reviewed journals, but also includes non-peer reviewed articles, which are looked over by a panel of five reviewers and then checked for accuracy by another reviewer.
The events are split up into two groups: the seven objective tests (art, economics, language and literature, math, music, science and social science) and the three subjective events (essay, interview and speech). The former seven are given as half-hour multiple choice tests, whereas the latter three are graded by judges. The multiple choice exams consist of 50 questions each, with the exception of math and Super Quiz, which have 35 and 40 questions respectively.

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<section id="23685" fatherid="23683" title="Objective events" lv="" priority="2" level="2">
<section id="23686" fatherid="23685" title="" lv="" priority="-1" level="3">
In general, the objective events follow a set organizational outline from year to year. Language and literature focuses on a single novel or a set of plays in addition to multiple short literary selections which tend to be poems or excerpts from short stories. The art and music sections include several selections with which students must familiarize themselves in addition to historical information. Economics remains fairly static; 85% of the material focuses on a standard course of macroeconomics and microeconomics and the remaining 15% focuses on the year's topic. For example, in 2005 the themed material covered the economics of ancient Egypt and Rome. The math curriculum, which includes general math, geometry, trigonometry, and differential calculus, has remained constant since 2002. Science and social science reflect the season's theme. Unlike the other events, there is no basic information that carries over.
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<section id="23687" fatherid="23685" title="Super Quiz" lv="" priority="2" level="3">
The format of the Super Quiz differs from that of the other subject areas. Added in 1969, it offers a culminating championship event. The Super Quiz consists of a forty-question multiple choice test as well as a relay round. Generally referred to as the Super Quiz Relay, it is the only event viewable by the general public. The relay starts with the Varsity students, followed by the Scholastic and the Honors students. Each group is given 5 or 10 questions, depending on the format decided by the state coordinator. These questions are read aloud to the audience and are printed or projected for the competitors. After the questions and answers are read, the students are allowed seven seconds to select the correct answer. The answer is checked on the spot by a judge and scores are immediately displayed to the audience.
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<section id="23688" fatherid="23683" title="Subjective events" lv="" priority="3" level="2">
The subjective events allow students more creativity than the objective events. The speech event is divided into prepared and impromptu sections. A three-and-a-half to four-minute long prepared speech is delivered. The student is then given one minute to read three prompts and deliver a one-and-a-half to two-minute impromptu speech."Academic Decathlon Study Guide 2008-2009", p.9 Example prompts have included: "It has been said about our modern times that, 'Invention is the mother of necessity.' Please discuss.", "Math has been described as the universal language. Discuss" and "Why is light, light and dark, dark?". In the interview, the students are asked a wide variety of questions in a formal environment. Questions range from: "Who is your role model?" to "How would you alert someone that their zipper is down?" In both the speech and interview, the competitor is not allowed to reveal his hometown. In the essay event, students are given 50 minutes to write an essay responding to one of three prompts derived from the language and literature or the Super Quiz curriculum."Academic Decathlon Study Guide 2008-2009", p.8}}
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<section id="23689" fatherid="23683" title="Themes and topics" lv="" priority="-4" level="2">
As the competition has evolved, more of the events have been tied into a central theme. For example, the 2008–2009 theme was "Latin America with a focus on Mexico". Language and literature was based on six short selections of literature as well as the novel Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya. Art focused on the art of Mexico and featured several pieces of work, ranging from Olmec earthenware to José Guadalupe Posada's La Calavera Catrina. The music event included questions on Latin American music and included works by musicians as varied as Manuel de Zumaya, Silvestre Revueltas, and Xavier Cugat. Social science and economics focused on the history and economy of Mexico respectively. The Super Quiz covered an introduction to evolutionary biology, the historical development of the theory of evolution, natural selection, speciation, mutation, gene flow, genetic drift, and evolutionary developmental biology. Information was also included on Charles Darwin's voyage on the HMS Beagle.
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<section id="23690" fatherid="0" title="Study materials" lv="" priority="5" level="1">
1A critical reading passage forms the basis for the first 10 questions (20%). The remaining 40 questions come from the selected featured work of literature (50%) and the shorter selections (30%)."Academic Decathlon Study Guide 2008-2009", pp. 28–29
The United States Academic Decathlon publishes a variety of study materials for the objective events, the profits from which support the program. The Resource Guides and the Basic Guides constitute the majority of the USAD corpus. An art reproduction booklet and music CD contain a particular year's relevant pieces and are issued separately from the Resource Guides. Study guides are also published and contain detailed topical outlines for each objective subject. These outlines specifically indicate which topics will require independent research beyond the material included in the Resource Guides. USAD also offers Research Guides, which outline the basics of what students ought to research.
Resource Guides are offered for the art, economics, language and literature, music, science/social science, and Super Quiz events. The Super Quiz Resource Guide is a compendium of previously published articles, whereas the other Resource Guides are composed by individual writers under contract with USAD. The aim of the Resource Guide is to assist students in their study of the topics listed in the subject area outlines. As an example, in 2003 the music topic was Romantic music. Subsequently the Music Resource Guide focused on the development of Romantic music, its characteristics and the influence of the Classical era on the Romantic era. A large part of the guide focused on information about that year's composers: Beethoven, Berlioz, Rossini, Chopin, Mendelssohn, Verdi, Mussorgsky, Wagner, Bizet, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Mahler and Strauss. Similarly, the art topic assigned was Romantic art in the European tradition. The Art Resource Guide included sections detailing the lives and works of relevant artists such as Joseph Mallord William Turner, Claude Monet, Albert Bierstadt, and Camille Pissarro.
In the 1990s, various companies were established to research subjects and provide practice tests to teams. Two of the major ones were Acalon Cards and Exams and DemiDec, formed by former coach Dan Spetner and former student Daniel Berdichevsky, respectively. The two offer exams and study guides that can augment or replace USAD's official Resource and Research Guides and exams. USAD explicitly discouraged teams from ordering materials from third-party companies in the late 1998, though it later removed their discouragement from the curriculum page. USAD republished their discouragement just a few weeks after removing it, but did not publish such a warning in 2002.
In 2000, several coaches who had led their teams to Nationals during the 1990s resigned in protest over Academic Decathlon's decision to sell nearly $1,000 of study material rather than simply providing topics for students to independently research. Teams felt obligated to buy the guides because USAD based the official tests on them. Teams also denounced the hundreds of errors they found in the official guides; coaches were sometimes forced to instruct their students to deliberately give the wrong answer in the official competition. Richard Golenko, coach of the 1996 J. Frank Dobie High School team that won the national competition, said that the decision to market guides shifted Academic Decathlon's emphasis to memorization over critical thinking. Coach Jim Hatem of Los Angeles and Coach Mark Johnson of El Camino's 1998 winning team fumed over esoteric "trick" questions that USAD had begun asking. James Alvino, USAD's executive director at that time, argued that the expensive study materials were necessary to continue funding nearly 75% of the program's $1,750,000 operating budget and to provide a fairer playing field for less wealthy schools, but did acknowledge that USAD would attempt to reduce prices, remove the more trivial questions, and base smaller portions of the tests on the official Resource Guide.
Basic Guides are issued for the independent research that, unlike the Resource Guides, remains the same from year to year. The Art Basic Guide focuses on art fundamentals, such as the elements of art, principles of composition, and different 2-D and 3-D techniques. Additionally, a brief introduction to art history is included. The Economics Basic Guide reviews fundamental economic concepts in addition to the basics of macroeconomics and microeconomics. The Language and Literature Basic Guide provides students with a basic grounding in the analysis of literature and introduces key terms such as synecdoche, metonymy, assonance, and aphorism. The Math Basic Guide offers a general overview of major topics in high school math, including algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus, and statistics. The Music Basic Guide begins by introducing the student to topics in music theory such as harmonics, rhythm, tempo, and the circle of fifths. It also includes information on a wide variety of instruments and a brief history of Western music.
The National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) has criticized the intense amount of studying required by students as "excess fact-mongering". The Association does not endorse Academic Decathlon, citing the excessive time commitment involved, though it stated that it is not opposed to the academic portion of the competition, but rather the "national dimension" of it. However, the Association did place USAD on their "National Advisory List of Student Contests and Activities" for the 2008–09 and 2009–10 school years; the list consists of programs that a NASSP committee believes meets their requisite quality standards.

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<section id="23691" fatherid="0" title="Scoring and winning" lv="" priority="-6" level="1">
<section id="23692" fatherid="23691" title="" lv="" priority="-1" level="2">
Each of the ten events is worth 1,000 points, for a possible 10,000-point individual total. Only the top two scores from the Honors, Scholastic and Varsity divisions are counted for the team score, making 60,000 the maximum possible team score. With the exception of math and Super Quiz, the objective tests each have 50 questions worth 20 points a piece. The math test is weighted more heavily, with 35 questions worth approximately 28.6 points per question. The Super Quiz written test contains 40 questions, each worth 15 points. Depending on the state director, the relay component of Super Quiz contains either 5 or 10 questions, each worth 80 or 40 points respectively. The written test may even be omitted at the state level if a state director wishes to weigh the Super Quiz Relay more heavily. Perfect scores of 1,000 in events are recorded regularly, and there have been cases of dozens of medal winners for a single event because of perfect and near-perfect scores. Gold, silver and bronze medals are awarded in each event and for each division (Honors, Scholastic, and Varsity). All tying participants are awarded medals. The medals' design is the "AD" portion of the official USAD logo, encircled by "United States" at the top, "Academic Decathlon" at the bottom, and four stars of increasing size on either side. Though the medals are given out only to winners of the competitions, teams can order them along with other study materials. The medals given at state competitions are of a different design than those given at Nationals.
The interview and speech events are graded by two to three judges. The scores from the judges are averaged to give a maximum of 1,000 points per event. The essay is graded with a rubric and is read by two different judges whose scores are then averaged. If the difference between the judges' scores differs by 200 points or more, then a third reader is asked to grade the student's essay. The two scores that are closest in value are averaged to give the final score.
A benchmark for the Decathlon elite is obtaining an individual score of over 9,000 points. It was not until 1992, 24 years after the program's inception, that Tyson Rogers achieved this feat at the national competition. Since then, numerous students have broken the 9,000 point barrier. The current highest individual score is 9,461.4, achieved by Kris Sankaran from Moorpark High School at the 2009 California state competition. State champion scores vary greatly from year to year. As an example, for the 2002–03 season, scores ranged from 24,785 to 49,910 points. National champion scores have been as low as 45,857.0 points and as high as 53,119.4 points. The 53,119.4 score produced by the 2008 Moorpark High School team stands as the record for the highest team score.

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<section id="23693" fatherid="23691" title="Controversies" lv="" priority="-2" level="2">
Three days before the 1995 Illinois state competition, Steinmetz High School obtained copies of the tests from the DeVry Institute of Technology, where the state finals were being held. The team was therefore able to look up and memorize the answers. Six of the 12 students in the nation who scored over 900 points on the math test came from Steinmetz High School, prompting the Illinois state Academic Decathlon to suspect cheating. The cheating allowed Steinmetz to beat perennial powerhouse Whitney Young Magnet High School, who had won the Illinois state finals 22 of the past 23 years. The Steinmetz team was disqualified after team members refused to take an alternate version of the test, and its coach eventually resigned. The incident was dramatized in the movie Cheaters.
Catholic Memorial High School coach John Burke was at the center of a dispute over the results of the 2003 Wisconsin state final. Confusion arose over a Catholic Memorial student's essay after the results of the competition were released. The essay had only received 390 points out of a possible 1000, and Burke contended that it had been scored improperly. He was well within his s to contest the score; however, Gerhard Fischer, President of Wisconsin Academic Decathlon, said that the way Burke handled the appeal was "highly questionable" and inflammatory. Though Burke was reprimanded, parents of Catholic Memorial students believed the punishment, a three-year suspension for Burke and a one-year suspension for Catholic Memorial, was due to personality differences between coach Burke and Wisconsin Academic Decathlon officials. The controversy eventually led to a more thorough investigation of previous issues involving Burke. The Wisconsin Academic Decathlon Board discovered that Burke had previously been accused of "more than a year of repeated 'attacks' on another school's pupils, including allegations of cheating on tests and ineligibility."

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<section id="23694" fatherid="0" title="National championship" lv="" priority="7" level="1">
<section id="23695" fatherid="23694" title="" lv="" priority="-1" level="2">
The National Championship pits the winning school from each state against all the others for an overall title. Schools compete based on size and are divided into three divisions (I, II, and III). However, this separation is limited to overall team score and overall individual score. Nine overall team medals are awarded: gold, silver and bronze for each division. Similarly, 27 overall individual medals are awarded: gold, silver and bronze for Honors, Scholastic and Varsity in each division. The rest of the medals—for example, gold in art for Honors, or silver in math for Varsity—are awarded to the top scoring persons regardless of division. Since the first national event in 1982, there have been 28 national champions, all of which have come from three states: California, Texas and Wisconsin. The reigning national champion from the 2009 National Championship is Moorpark High School from Ventura, California, led by coach Larry Jones. The 2010 Championship will be held in April 2010 in Omaha, Nebraska.
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<section id="23696" fatherid="23694" title="Virtual competition" lv="" priority="2" level="2">
In 2006, the small school virtual competition was created for schools with 650 or fewer students. Two years later, the medium school virtual competition was added to accommodate schools with a student population between 650 and 1,300. These two separate contests are held via the Internet and, as such, the interview and speech events are excluded. The remaining eight tests are completed on the computer and results are submitted electronically to USAD for scoring. Because only the seven multiple choice tests and essay are used, team scores are out of 48,000 points instead of 60,000. Although it is only a virtual competition, winning schools are awarded trophies and medals for their efforts. According to USAD, the goal of the small and medium school competitions is to "enhance learning, growth and recognition". University High School, California is the current small school champion, and Sandpoint High School is the current medium school champion.
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<section id="23697" fatherid="0" title="References" lv="" priority="-8" level="1">
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<section id="23698" fatherid="0" title="Sources" lv="" priority="-9" level="1">
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<section id="23699" fatherid="0" title="External links" lv="" priority="-10" level="1">
Category:United States Academic Decathlon
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