Moorpark High School Places 6th in Super Quiz : Education: Team members are happy with their performance in the State Academic Decathlon event in Stockton.

Moorpark High School finished sixth in the State Academic Decathlon’s Super Quiz on Saturday, leaving the team members pleased with their performance, but hoping for higher marks in the competition’s other nine events.

“We did good and I’m happy, “ said Moorpark Coach Larry Jones. “It didn’t matter what they scored, I’m proud of their effort.”

The Super Quiz is the last--and most pressured--of the competition’s 10 events. Students demonstrate their mastery of the chosen subject by answering 10 oral questions, each worth 100 points. Scores are publicly displayed after each question.

Los Angeles Unified, represented by Woodland Hills’ Taft High School, and Los Angeles County, represented by Torrance’s West High School, tied for first place in the quiz.

Second place was taken by Laguna Hills High School, representing Orange County, and Bella Vista High School, of Sacramento County. Casa Grande High, of Sonoma County, came in third.

Final scores in the other nine events will be announced at an award’s banquet today.

This year’s quiz topic, “The Documents of Freedom,” tested students’ knowledge of excerpts from historical documents, including the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, Frederick Douglass’ Address to the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, and the Camp David Accord.

While their teammates, parents and friends looked on, three sets of three students from each of the 43 teams were given seven seconds to choose the correct answer to multiple-choice questions asking what penal code Gandhi was prosecuted under, the attitude of the Mayflower Compact colonists toward King James and why the preamble of the United Nations Charter says people should unite in strength and live in peace.

The decathlon began Friday, with the students taking written tests in math, fine arts, economics, science, literature and social studies. After a short break Friday night for the traditional social, in which the students exchange tokens symbolizing their home region, the teen-agers were back to their work Saturday morning.

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Before the Super Quiz, the students wrote a 60-minute essay, gave a four-minute prepared speech, a two-minute impromptu speech and underwent a seven-minute interview with a panel of judges.

Earlier in the competition, Jones said he was somewhat disheartened both by the kind of advantage afforded to some teams and by what he and other coaches have called unusually difficult tests.

“They were asking square roots and not letting them use calculators,” Jones said at the competition’s Friday night ice cream social. “It’s discouraging. They’ve worked so hard and then they get questions they couldn’t answer.”

The team--the first group to ever represent the high school at the state level--drove to Stockton in a van Thursday, only to discover that several of the heavily favored teams flew into town early in the week to assure extra practice time.

On Saturday, in between events, the team sprawled out in the hotel room of Jonathan Buxton, 17, and Jordan Sickman, 18. One group played poker--seven-card stud--to let off steam. Katie Krzyzewski, 17, gleefully announced that the Ventura County team was planning to host a statewide pillow fight after the day’s events were over.

“At least they’re having a good time,” Jones said.

Also competing for the Moorpark team were Beth Wershba, Nimesh Narayan, Krista Wipff, Jason Gray, Minerva Partida and Lisa Reid, all seniors. Alternate team members were Bryan Gauger and Jennifer Malella.

“It’s been awesome,” Beth said. “The fact that you spend all this time studying and can still come up here and have fun, it’s great.”

The winning team will go on to represent California at the U.S. Academic Decathlon in Newark, N.J., in April.