Alemany, El Camino Lead State Decathlon in Oral Super Quiz

Two San Fernando Valley high schools led the top finishers Saturday night in the oral portion of the Super Quiz at the California Academic Decathlon.

According to preliminary results, Alemany High School of Mission Hills was in the lead, with El Camino Real of Woodland Hills second and Los Angeles High third.

“Oh yes,” Alemany junior Mathew Pomeroy said with a shrug. “I knew we’d win. It was easy.”

Decathlon officials cautioned that the final results of the oral Super Quiz, and other events, won’t be announced until today. Scores could change, officials said, because two Super Quiz questions were thrown out after some students previewed them before they were announced.

To compete in the Super Quiz, nine-member decathlon teams divided into three groups of students who alternately answered, in seven seconds, questions about biophysics, neurotransmitters, hormones, cognitive behavior and rat research. The questions were based on this year’s decathlon theme: “The Brain: Looking Inward.”

With cheers, applause, horns and shouts of “Go, go, go!” the oral College Bowl-style Super Quiz is the most popular decathlon event and the only one open to the public. Several hundred parents, teachers and students filled about a third of the Spanos Center at University of the Pacific.

“The only other time I remember a similar feeling is when my wife was having a baby,” said Moorpark High School decathlon coach Larry Jones, “and I couldn’t do anything but wait for the miracle to happen.”

Although results of the oral Super Quiz account for about one-tenth of each team’s total score, it is often a good indicator of a school’s final standing.

In all, 50 teams, or 439 students, competed in the 20th annual state decathlon, giving speeches, writing essays, taking written tests and conducting interviews before a panel of judges. They completed the written portion of the Super Quiz on Friday.

El Camino’s four-time defending champion team hugged and gave each other high-fives when it was announced that they had earned 53 out of 60 possible points, just one point less than Alemany.

“We kicked butt,” said Jared Quinn as he congratulated his teammates.

El Camino is the favored school to sweep the overall contest. Since the Academic Decathlon was started in 1979, the school has won six district championships, four state titles and last year’s national contest.

From preliminary results, other top finishers in the oral Super Quiz were: Marshall and Garfield high schools tied in fourth place, Laguna Hills in fifth, Belmont and Moorpark high schools in sixth, Palisades Charter in seventh and St. Francis in eighth.

At the competition, some coaches criticized some of the questions as too general.

Phil Chase, Marshall High’s coach, said one question that could be thrown out had two correct answers.

The questions is: As men get older they start to lose what part of their brain?

The correct answer was the frontal lobe, but Chase said another choice, the forebrain, is also correct because the frontal lobe is part of the forebrain.

“The U.S. Academic Decathlon needs to proofread its tests,” Chase said. “Students deserve that much.”

Judy Combs, executive director of the California Academic Decathlon, said officials would discuss such matters Sunday. “They want to be right, I understand that,” Combs said Saturday night. “But some of it is nit-picking.”