Meeting of the Minds : Taft High Team Sets Sights on 4th State Academic Decathlon Title

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March 9, 1994 12 AM PT

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For the second time in two years, nine students from Taft High School in Woodland Hills are heading to Stockton to represent the Los Angeles Unified School District at the state Academic Decathlon. The team leaves today.

The California Academic Decathlon began 14 years ago to encourage and reward academic excellence by motivating and preparing students through competitive events. The competition is made up of 10 events: math, fine arts, economics, science, literature, social studies, speech, essay, interview and the Superquiz--an oral portion of the test that resembles a television game show.

Each high school has a team of nine, three each of A, B and C students, who are identified by their grade-point averages. Each student competes in all 10 subjects and all students take the same tests.

Taft, one of more than 40 teams in the state competition, won the district championship in December with a record-high score of 50,515 points out of a possible 60,000.

The school is no stranger to the spotlight: It took the state title in 1988, 1989 and 1993. It also won the national Academic Decathlon in 1989.

Competing for Taft are: Daniel Berdichevsky, 17; Chris Huie, 17; Michael Michrowski, 17; Sheldon Peregrino, 18; Rebecca Rissman, 17; Andrew Salter, 17; Kimberly Shapiro, 16; Stephen Shaw, 16; Sage Vaugh, 17. All are seniors except for Shaw, a junior.

Mind Benders The following are sample questions from a previous Academic Decathlon. The Super Quiz topic that year was Native Americans.

1. Super Quiz The Onandaga let the Council Fire go out after 200 years because:

a. The Tadodaho had been killed

b. Hiawatha had assumed leadership of the League

c. The tribe had relocated to a reservation in Canada

d. The French were defeated in the French and Indian War

e. The Six Nations had split over their support for the British or Americans in the Revolutionary War 2. Language and Literature: Which author wrote about “flappers and philosophers”?

a. Sinclair Lewis

b. Theodore Dreiser.

c. F. Scott Fitzgerald

d. Ernest Hemingway

e. Willa Cather

3. Mathematics: Tony is given a geometric sequence whose first term is a and nth term is b. He will be able to find the ratio between terms unless

a. a=b

b. a and b have opposite signs

c. a and b are both 0

d. ba

e. the sequence contains irrational terms

4. Science How many single bonds does a nitrogen atom, which has five valence electrons, usually form in covalent compounds?

a. 2

b. 3

c. 4

d. 5

e. 8 5. Social Science The Mellon Tax Plan was judged effective by the business community because Mellon was able to reduce the national debt while

a. Keeping government revenues at a fairly constant level

b. Reducing government revenues and the budget each year

c. Maintaining a 2% per annum growth rate in government revenue

d. Shifting the entire tax burden to the consumer in the form of an ad valorem tax

e. Raising taxes on the middle and lower classes 6. Fine Arts: Which piece shows a continuously dissonant idiom with an unusual combination of Sprechstimme with instruments?

a. “Ein Heldenleben”

b. “Appalachian Spring”

c. “An American in Paris”

d. “Pierrot Lunaire”

e. “Concerto for Orchestra” 7. Economics A government program to guarantee wage levels would most directly impact which determinant(s) of demand?

a. Tastes and preferences of consumers for specific brands

b. Substitutes and complements for items currently available to consumers

c. Population of the economy eligible to hold jobs

d. Income of population within the economy

e. Taxation levels on the working population

Answers: 1. e 2. c 3. c 4. b 5. a 6. d 7. d California Academic Decathlon Champions

1979: Dana Hills High School