Taft Scholars Cramming for Decathlon of the Brain

Team members from Taft High School have their sights set on the top prize and their noses in their books as the California Academic Decathlon draws near.

The team of six from Woodland Hills, which won the Los Angeles Unified School District Academic Decathlon in November, will be one of 47 squads vying for the state crown in Sacramento next week. If the team wins, it will represent California in the April national tournament in San Antonio, Tex.

The academic decathlon is a 10-event competition pitting high school students in a series of written tests in areas such as mathematics, science, economics and literature. There also is a super quiz, a team relay in which mental recall, speed and teamwork are tested.

Taft won the city title by taking first place in six events--science, speech, literature, social studies, fine arts and the super quiz. The team was second in economics and third in math.

Afternoons of Study

For the past two months, team members--David Hamburger, Jason Lowy, Lillian Morris, Matthew Petach, David Raikow and Jeremy Singer--have spent most of their afternoons studying for the state event.

This week, they intensified the effort with three preparation sessions daily.

On weekdays, team members start by stealing time from regular classes to study alone.

At 3 p.m., when classmates are heading home, team members trudge to Room M-261 where they meet with their coach, Arthur Berchin, for a two-hour, group-study session.

When 5 p.m. rolls around, everyone gets a two-hour dinner break. Then, at 7, it’s back to campus for three hours of test-taking and review.

Hyper Group

“I don’t want to push them much beyond 10 p.m. because that would make it a pretty long day that could tire them out and make them flat for the next day’s work,” Berchin said.

This weekend will be dedicated to studying too. Today, the team plans to meet from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The grueling regimen and the anticipation of the upcoming meet has “made us all hyper,” team member Lowy said.

During the past few weeks, the group has reviewed all the major subjects to be tested during the Sacramento competition, Berchin said. The students spent extra time on physiology and essay writing, two areas they felt they needed to strengthen.

Also, the team has been boning up on the history of flight, the super quiz topic next week.

Taft is considered one of the top contenders for the state title, said Donald Primrose, executive director of the nonprofit state Academic Decathlon.

Other schools Primrose rated as contenders are Palo Alto High School, which finished second last year behind Marshall High of Los Angeles and Torrey Pines High School of San Diego County.

“Los Alamitos of Orange County is always a tough competitor, although they haven’t been in the state competition in the past few years,” he said. “And there’s a new entrant worth watching, Lowell High School, representing San Francisco.”

In the few remaining days before the event, the Taft team is trying to stay loose. There is lot of joking when the team has a few minutes away from the books.

“They’re a good group, and they’ve been working very hard,” Berchin said. “I have very positive feelings about our chances.”