LA County’s students square off Saturday in Academic Decathlon’s Super Quiz

Ten seconds. That’s how long you get to answer a question on, say, World War I, or water, or society in the time of COVID or… well, just about anything you can think of.

Or you could just watch high school teams do that at Super Quiz, the only public part of the Los Angeles County Academic Decathlon, a team competition that challenges ninth through 12th-graders to demonstrate knowledge and skill in everything from essay writing to interviewing and academics.

The game show-style Super Quiz is set from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 28, at El Rancho High School, 6501 Passons Blvd., Pico Rivera. Admission is free and all are welcome.

Saturday’s competition features schools from all over L.A. County, but not L.A. Unified, which runs its own decathlon tournament and hosts its own Super Quiz next weekend.

“I’m looking forward to seeing what the high school students have learned about the American Revolution (and the New Nation) which is the theme of Super Quiz,” said Marco A. Villegas, superintendent of El Rancho Unified School District. “I spoke with our team from El Rancho High and I asked them to do their best and show what they know. There’s a tradition of our teams doing well, and I’m very proud of them.”

The often-loud and intense contest kicks off the three parts of the Academic Decathlon, with other competitions scheduled for Feb. 1 and 4, with an awards ceremony on Feb. 23. Decathletes will also complete the speech and interview portions of the decathlon this Saturday. The teams will tackle essays on Feb. 1 then objective tests on Feb. 4.

The winner of the county round goes on to the state competition in March and then the national competition in Frisco, Texas in April.

The Super Quiz is optional this year, and it won’t count toward a team’s overall score. But the fun is in the boisterous cheering from the audience when their team scores. The relay style has students getting 10 seconds to answer each question. There are three categories and 14 questions per category, all related to the theme.

Justin Day, a member of Mark Keppel High School’s Academic Decathlon Team, during a training session for an upcoming state competition in March, at Mark Keppel High School in Alhambra on Friday, Feb, 18, 2022. The team recently won the Los Angeles County Decathlon title. (Photo by Trevor Stamp, Contributing Photographer)

Each nine-person team must include students with A, B and C grade point averages. They need to work together and prove their mettle in 10 events: arts, economics, essay, interview, language and literature, math, music, science, social science and speech.

This is the first year that the Los Angeles County Academic Decathlon is being held in person since the start of the pandemic. The event was held virtually for the past two years.

“We haven’t had this opportunity to come together in a while, so we’re happy and proud to have all the schools come to our campus,” Villegas said. “

Vying for gold, silver and bronze medals are 59 teams from 37 schools. The competition is open to public high schools in Los Angeles County, outside of tLA Unified.

Olivia Golightly from Glendora High School celebrates their correct answer as they compete in the 2019 Los Angeles County Academic Decathlon Super Quiz competition at El Rancho High School in Pico Rivera on Saturday February 2, 2019. (Photo by Keith Durflinger, Contributing Photographer)

The team to beat is Mark Keppel High School’s decathletes from Alhambra, which won last year’s countywide decathlon. West Torrance High finished second in last year’s county competition.

Tin Tran, Keppel’s academic decathlon coach and a social science teacher, said he told this year’s team that they are standing on the shoulders of Keppel academic decathlon champions.

“Remember, competition is our oxygen,” he said. “This team is at its best when the competition if fiercest.”

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Debra Duardo, Los Angeles County superintendent of schools, said the competition has a lot to offer students.

“It’s a great way for them to improve their knowledge in many different areas,” she said. “We want students to have fun, make new friends, challenge themselves and strive to keep learning.”