Waiting Is Toughest Test for Quiz Kids : Contest: Brains are drained and on hold as Laguna Hills High’s Academic Decathlon team anxiously waits to hear whether they are state champs again.

To Teddy Chen, the hardest part of the California Academic Decathlon is not the two grueling days of tests, nor is it the month of studying to get ready for the scholastic competition.

“The most difficult thing is waiting to see who won,” said the captain of the Laguna Hills High School team, the state’s two-time defending champion.

After finishing third in the dramatic Super Quiz competition Saturday, Chen and his eight teammates said they feel confident that they are in a good position to become state champs for the third consecutive year.

“That pretty much puts us where we wanted to be,” Chen said as he and his teammates nervously chatted about the event, a competition like a quiz show that pits all of California’s county champions against each other inside the gymnasium at Cal State San Bernardino.

“We didn’t expect to win that event,” Chen said of the Super Quiz segment, “but we wanted to make sure we were competitive.”

That they were, closely following first-place winners El Camino Real High School of Los Angeles and West High School of Torrance, in second.

Today, the scores from the Super Quiz and nine other tests will be tallied, and an overall winner will be announced.

The Laguna Hills team is hoping once again to advance to the national competition of state champs, scheduled in April in Boise, Ida.

The school has finished second nationally for the last two years, finishing behind Texas schools both times.

But on Saturday, the 13th annual California Academic Decathlon was the only event on the minds of the Laguna Hills team members.

“It was intense,” Jeffrey A. Ferrell, 17, a junior on the team, said after finishing the competition. “It was a lot of stress, but I feel we are going to finish in first.”

“We’re definitely in the hunt for the title,” said Kathy Lane, Laguna Hills co-coach.

She added that the third-place finish in the Super Quiz was the team’s goal because the squad performs better in many of the other events.

Even El Camino Real’s coach, Mark Johnson, conceded that Laguna Hills appears to be the team to beat.

“It’s going to be nip and tuck between us and them,” he said. “We feel good, but we don’t feel like we aced this thing.”

As Laguna Hills senior Steve Cary said after the competition: “There’s a lot of luck involved. Probably too much luck.”

Earlier in the day, representatives from 46 state schools took multiple-choice tests in various subjects, from mathematics to science to history. They also submitted essays.

On Friday, they made impromptu and prepared speeches and faced interviews.

But the showcase event was the Super Quiz, fashioned after TV’s old “College Bowl” game show.

This year’s quiz topic was on the environment: “Habitat Earth.” And the questions were far from simple. For example, how many people, if given seven seconds, would know that the natural accumulation of nutrients in lakes is called natural eutrophication?

A student from Laguna Hills did, much to the glee of about 50 parents, friends and faculty who made the trip to the decathlon from Orange County.

“This is all very exciting,” said John Gross, who was cheering his daughter, Karen, 16, the only girl on the Laguna Hills team.

“It’s just like any sporting event,” said Todd Ferrell, father of Jeffrey. “It’s that same kind of competitive feeling.”

Indeed, there were plenty of shouts of encouragement from the bleachers and the victorious pumping of fists from contestants after answering a question correctly.

The California Academic Decathlon originated 12 years ago as an outgrowth of an Orange County competition. Each team is made up of three students with A grade averages, three with B averages and three with C averages. The students are drawn from the school’s junior and senior classes.

The powerhouse in the county in recent years has been Laguna Hills. This is the fourth consecutive year that the school has represented the county in the state competition. But the only member of the current squad returning from a previous state championship team is Chen.

Despite the team’s inexperience, “it has really come together,” Chen said.

Sample Questions

From the California Academic Decathlon:

* 1: Among aquatic ecosystems, the life zones that are generally considered richest in life forms are:

A. Aphotic zones.

B. The open seas.

C. Coastal continental shelves.

D. Estuaries and wetlands.

E. Euphotic zones.

* 2. About 2% of the sun’s energy striking the Earth is converted into:

A. Reflected energy.

B. Radiation.

C. Wind.

D. Tides.

E. Ocean waves.

* 3. What gas would you reduce by controlling its release from landfills?

A. Nitrogen oxides.

B. Ozone.

C. Carbon dioxide.

D. Sulphur dioxide.

E. Methane.

ANSWERS: 1. D; 2. C; 3. E