Academic Decathlon

<p>How many of you are in Academic Decathlon? Post how your team studies and stuff. My team is okay. We usually win at Regionals and go off to Nationals. I don't remember how many times we won something at Nationals, but our members have won as much as 10,000 dollars at one time and maybe more. </p>

<p>We have block schedule. So every B day, Ac dec has a class. One of the members teaches a subject. Me and my assistant/friend have to teach Economics (yuk!). We have tuesday afterschool practice from 2:45 to 5. We are taught 2 subjects. We have Thursday evening practice in which we study 2 subjects (I think. Havne't planned those yet) and every time, someone has to bring some of mama's home cookin' so we can eat dinner. The only thing our Ac coach teaches is speech, essay and interview. We give up Saturdays and a few holidays to work on that.
Periodically we will have all day "workouts". Sometimes past Ac Decers will come and teach us. They're all so smart! :D</p>

<p>Our principle funds everything. We get free food (GOOD food. XD), free trips to whereever competitions are being held (convientetly, all competitions are in TEXAS. W00t!!) and rides to other highschools in our district for scrimages. He will also personally talk to each of our teachers whenever we are gone for competitions and tell them to give us a nice big fat A and no homework. ^_^ And we get to have a field trip or two. To where, I don't know. Its a surprise.</p>

<p>When we study, we need to use the SQ3R method. I can't remember if she wants us to do that for Ac Dec or our other classes. She says this method will save us 2/3 of our time and we can use that time instead of doing our normal classes, we can work on Ac Dec.</p>

<p>Our coach gives us all these quotes and inspirational things to keep, highlight, write and memorize. Hm. Oh, we also have birthday and christmas parties. Yay! ^_^</p>

<p>We haven't done any studying since school started. We've only been planning how the whole year will be. We studied in the summer a bit and will begin again next week. So I'll be able to tell you better how we do later.</p>

<p>bump,bump,bumpit up</p>

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<p>wow....that sounds great. I just joined academic decatholon this year , its going to be my schools first year, so it should be interesting, but everyone is sooo competitive I have to pump up my game. lolz good luck</p>

<p>Explain academic decathalon. It sounds like you memorize things? I'm on Knowledge Bowl, the questions are things you've never heard before. My team always goes to State, and about 1/4 of the time to Nationals. Knowledge Bowl is reeaally competitive in my area.</p>

<p>wow...looking at your post quitejaded it looks like you guys put a whole bunch of time into Acadec...we hardly put any time/effort into it...which explains why we don't usually get any awards...</p>

<p>So you guys study ALL of saturday and about 2 hours on Tuesdays and Thursday? WOW!!!</p>

<p>I'm the co-captain of my team, and we don't do excellent, but we always make it to states and finish usually in the top ten, so we're decent. We practice 2 times a week for two hours, but then the rest is all self-studying.</p>

<p>what do you study? You know what the questions are going to be, or do you just study things you think will be asked?</p>

<p>Yes. Tue afternoon 2 hours. Thur night 2 hours. or a little more. We have a nice supply of food and if we linger on eating, we have to stay longer to study.</p>

<p>There are a few saturdays that yes, we give up a good portion of the day to speech, interview and essay (8 to whenever we finish). There are some holidays that we do an all day work out (7 to 5pm) to study and teach. We get out of school to go near competition dates and study throughout the school day.</p>

<p>blumuffin that's pretty good that you guys have less practice than us and make it to state! I am really trying to find effecient study method for my other classes so I can do some self-study for ac dec. We never come in less than 4th at state, so I would really think it'd be awesome if our team placed at <em>nationals</em>. Our coach would be so proud. BUt California, I hear is reallly tough!!</p>

<p>Yes, we memorize things. Haha, yeah I guess that's basically it. Maybe math is more applied. Elpha, we have:
Math
Science
Language and LIterature
Economics
Art
Music
Super Quiz
Each year they focus on a different time period. This year its the Renassaince. So We do the renassance art and music and anatomy and stuff. Superquiz I think is random stuff and some history. (I havne't looked at the stupid packet. XD)</p>

<p>Then, we have to have a SPEECH, an INTERVIEW and an ESSAY.</p>

<p>quitejaded, what school are you from? My school's team is only in its third year and we are determined to make it to state. Could you give us some tips that may help us?</p>

<p>Our school has always made it to state...rarely beyond that though. This is the first year Decathlon is being held as a class, so we get a big advantage in studying every day during school.</p>

<p>Beyond that....it's maybe an hour or two after school a few times a week for now. As we get closer to the County competition we move it to after school everyday, a few hours every Saturday/Sunday at people's houses, and the 3 days before competiton all day long. We have one scrimmage before competition.</p>

<p>Funding...not much there. We're still responsible for all our classes outside of Decathlon, and we have to bring our own food(coach is cool about bringing stuff and so are we...it's like a potluck lol.)</p>

<p>So yeah...not as dedicated as some schools but we do take it seriously.</p>

<p>This will be my schools 8th or 9th year of decathlon...made it to state every year ... it'll be my last year... kind of sad!
ours is basically studying if you want to. We usually do pretty well. we have meetings every monday, now sunday i guess. Its not funded greatly, but since our school has to fund something other than sports we do get a pretty good time...4-5 star hotels at state, dinner and everything paid for. Not great, but im not complaining!</p>

<p>Garland. :)</p>

<p>Okay, I'll give you some tips, but I don't know so much yet. We had our first real 'lesson' today. A girl from our team taught about tissues (that was self research or something) and skeletal system.</p>

<p>What times do you guys study then 07? (07! :D)</p>

<p>Currently we are studying during our class period which is 45 minutes a day. Right now we have some of the returning members giving presentations on the material. For instance, one of our members gave a very extensive presentation on the Anatomy and Physiology portion, and another member did shorter introductory presentations on all of the subjects. Our main obstacle right now is coordinating group study times. About half of our team is in the class and the other half isn't due to a scheduling issue with physics. How does your team deal with scheduling issues such as this?</p>

<p>We've had scheduling issues. The main problem was computer science. 4 of us wanted to do it, but we opted to do Psychology instead so it will fit in our schedule. The boy who decided to stay comp sci used the first part of the period to get instruction from the comp sci teacher then he came to our class when he was done.</p>

<p>Well, get 2 days of group study per week (outside of school). My coach said our team would not be where its always been if we had only 1 day of group study per week.</p>

<p>Thanks alot for the advice! Hopefully with all of these great tips you've given me, our team should make it to state!</p>

<p>Hey, I'll post more as the year goes by. You should post what's going on too!</p>

<p>My school has an AcDec team. This will be my third and final year on it. My first year (sophomore year), we made it to the states. But this is the first year that we will be having a class. The class is going to be Tues and Thurs before school (from 7:20-8). We will also have some after-school practices.</p>

<p>I just saw an episode of Malcolm in the Middle called Academic Octathlon...good lord that is SO funny but SO true!</p>

<p>What state are you motormouth?</p>

<ul>
<li>We have started practicing impromptu speeches</li>
</ul>

<p>New Jersey</p>