The Academic Decathlon team at Rancho Cucamonga High School had their Academic Pentathlon competition on Saturday, Oct 21. It was held at Chaffey High School. The competitions consisted of different subjects: literature, science, social science, art, music, math, and economics.
At Pentathlon, the RCHS Acadec team competed in everything but math and economics. For this competition, the team competed against two other schools: Chaffey High School and Etiwanda High School. Rancho won second place overall at the competition.
This year’s competition’s theme was technology and humanity. The Academic Pentathlon competition was the first big competition for RCHS’s Acadec team for this 2023-2024 school year. There were feelings of excitement and nervousness for this competition.
According to members of the team, they studied the soundtracks of films such as “Back to the Future,” “Star Wars,” and “Mars Attacks!” They also read “The Lathe of Heaven” to prepare for it. Some specific things they focused on the history of technological advancements that affected art and the history of technological advancements in musical composition/instruments, music theory, and soundtracks of various sci-fi films. For each subject, they studied specific things for it to prepare.
According to senior Ryan Seefeld, the team had been preparing for this competition since June, which is when they received their packets to study for it.
Different students have different ways for how they study for competitions. Some of these ways included flashcards, highlighting the packets they are given, and active recall, and the students usually study together as they are “a team and like a family,” senior Arlene Zhao said.
Seefeld had personally read over his packets by starting with one section to make sure he knew it as best as he could and he usually tried to put in as much time as he could to study and help with the team’s success.
“I’ve been going through our study guides and I’ve also been making little study groups to study with other people in the team,” senior Akshaya Perni said.
Everyone on the team put their most time and effort into preparing for this competition to do good. With everyone studying different subjects, the team felt that they are a good team, with everyone being positive and supportive, according to Perni.
According to Zhao, the competitions are really fun and the students often enjoy them, being able to show their skills and abilities. The students overall feel that they have been preparing for this since the school year has started and putting in all their hard work for it, and were excited for the Academic Pentathlon competition.
