Moorpark Team Takes 6th in State Super Quiz Event

While Moorpark High School celebrated its apparent tie for sixth place in the oral Super Quiz portion of the Academic Decathlon, its popular co-coach said he would resign from the team.

Larry Jones, co-coach for the highly regarded Moorpark team, said his anger over inaccurate or trivial questions is one reason why, after seven years, he decided this weekend to quit as a decathlon coach.

Part of his anger stemmed from two questions on the social studies written test of the Academic Decathlon that were invalidated Saturday.

“These kids work so hard preparing for the decathlon,” Jones said. “They deserve to be tested on accurate information. What does this teach them? It seems as if the decathlon is less about learning and more about winning.”

From preliminary results Saturday night, the top finishers in the oral Super Quiz were: Alemany High School of Mission Hills in first, El Camino Real of Woodland Hills in second, Los Angeles High in third, Marshall and Garfield highs tied for fourth, Laguna Hills in fifth, Belmont and Moorpark highs in sixth, Palisades Charter in seventh and St. Francis in eighth.

Decathlon officials cautioned that the final results of the oral Super Quiz, and the overall winners, won’t be announced until today. Scores could change after final results are tallied, officials said.

In the Super Quiz, the nine-member decathlon teams are divided into three groups which take turns answering 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, claps, horns blowing 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 the University of the Pacific.

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

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

Fifty teams, or 439 students, competed in the 20th annual decathlon, giving speeches, writing essays, taking written tests and conducting interviews before a panel of judges.

El Camino is favored to sweep the overall decathlon. Since the contest began in 1979, the Woodland Hills school has won six district championships, four state titles and last year’s nationals.

*

Even before the Super Quiz competition, the hot topic Saturday was news that officials had invalidated two questions on the previous day’s social studies test, a written multiple-choice exam, because of erroneous information. Several angry students and coaches said they had recognized the errors during the test.

“They were poor questions,” acknowledged Judy Combs, executive director of the California Academic Decathlons. “They were confusing. They should not have been on the test.”

Coaches said the same two questions were invalidated two weeks ago during the Texas state decathlon competition and that officials should have corrected them for the California contest.

“I’m not going there,” Combs said Saturday, noting that the U.S. Academic Decathlon, the Orange County group that oversees the competitions, failed to notify her about the erroneous questions.

Combs said the invalidated questions will not affect scores.

On Saturday, several coaches and students said they were furious because of inaccuracies and trivial questions on the seven written tests during the fierce competition that drew 50 teams from across the state.

The overall winning team, to be announced at an awards banquet today), will represent California in the national decathlon finals at Cal State Fullerton next month.

Students and coaches said one invalidated question asked what form of government was practiced in ancient Egypt.

Of the choices available, the “correct” answer was dynasty, but decathlon officials on Saturday said that was inaccurate.

Some students and coaches said Saturday they knew that a dynasty is not a form of government, but that was the best pick of the multiple choices.

The other invalidated question was about an Egyptian pharaoh who took control over a capital city. Coaches and students said the city should have been Thebes, not Memphis.