• There is nothing else at school even remotely like Academic Decathlon. As with everything in life, in Acadec you get out of it in proportion to what you put into it.  So students need to read, study, and read some more.... 

    Acadec is several things at once:
    • Its a class. Each student that takes the class is required to attend and receives a grade and elective credit towards graduation. It is the only elective class for which a student receives honors credit on their Grade Point Average. Unfortunately, this year AcaDec will NOT run as a credit-bearing class. But that doesn't mean you can't complete! Please join our team and we can prepare together for competition!
    • Its a team. In regional and state events, nine individuals perform in the ten events, seven of which involves tests, and three of which involve written and oral communication skills (see event descriptions below).
    • Its a club. Students in the class elect officers and conduct other business and activities to support its core mission as a team.
     
     
    1) Art - basic art history and analysis plus detailed study of art selections related to the year's theme.
    2) Economics - Micro and Macro economics plus a section on the economics issues related to the year's theme
    3) Essay - choose one of three prompts from the year's curriculum. Plan and write your essay in 50 minutes!
    4) Interview - answer questions from a panel of two or three judges about your resume, the acadec curriculum and more. Be charming!
    5) Language and Literature - basic reading comprehension, plus analysis of the selected novel and several shorter selections related to the year's theme.
    6) Math - its different every year, and very challenging. Trigonometry, Algebra, Geometry, Statistics...all kinds of fun stuff!
    7) Music - basic music theory plus a detailed study of music selections related to the year's theme.
    8) Science - its different every year. Usually there is a connection between the science topic and the year's theme.
    9) Social Science - the backbone of the year's theme is the social science curriculum. We usually start with this.
    10) Speech - a four minute prepared speech followed by a 90 second impromptu speech, delivered to a panel of two or three judges.
     
    In addition, the team competes in a "Super Quiz Relay" in which one student at a time for each team answers multiple-choice questions. The questions in the super quiz relay will come from six of the seven testable subjects in the Academic Decathlon curriculum. (all except Math)
     
    The official copyrighted Academic Decathlon curriculum materials are not available on this public website, but only through Canvas upon invitation by Ms. Burleson. Access will be granted once you have been registered in the course.
     
    Information about the current curriculum theme is available at the USAD website Navigate to the page for the current year curriculum - then at the bottom of the page choose "student resources" - then choose "outlines".
     
    Custom-made online flash cards for Acadec are available at Quizlet.com . Search for "Academic Decathlon" or "AcaDec" and a list of available quizzes will show up. Its free! You can also use it on or offline on a mobile device with an i-tunes quizlet app. Also viewable on Android mobile devices online through the mobile version of the website.