On February 4, 2012, at Bret Harte High School in Angels Camp, approximately sixty students from four high schools will compete in the 30th Annual Regional Academic Decathlon Competition. Participating high schools include Bret Harte High School from Angels Camp, Mountain Oaks School from San Andreas, Sonora High School from Sonora, and Summerville High School from Tuolumne.
The Academic Decathlon, the premiere national scholastic competition for high school students, was created to provide opportunities for students to experience the challenges of rigorous team and individual academic competition. Each student competes in ten events which are Economics, Essay, Art, Interview, Language and Literature, Math, Music, Science, Social Science and Speech. Each year the Science or Social Science topic is used as the Super Quiz topic. The competition format of the Super Quiz differs from that of the other subject areas. While students take one written test in each of the other six subjects, they will take two tests in the Super Quiz subject; one written and the other oral. The oral relay portion of the Super Quiz is the only part of the actual testing that is open to the public, and it is inevitably one of the most memorable and exciting parts of the Academic Decathlon competition.
