El Vaquero

Issue date: 5/28/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Allan Beglarian Team Baja, from left: Jacob Spruill, 18, biology; Ailin Pedrossian, 18, English; Maral Hovasepian, 19, psychology; Armig Khodaian, 18, English; and Nolan Ku, 18, economics, winners of the ASGCC academic decathlon proudly pose with their trophy and team sign on May 15.

With only 60 seconds to put five presidents - John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson - in proper order, Team Baja succeeded and won first place.


They won the grand prize of $500 along with a trophy and medals for each teammate. 12 teams competed at the third annual Academic Decathlon on May 16 from 5 to 8 p.m. in the Verdugo Gym, coordinated by the Associated Students.


Glendale is the only community college in the nation to hold an academic decathlon. The college hopes to continue the tradition for years to come.


The teams registered to participate were: Blood Diamonds, the Conservative Club, Debate, Flip Status, Honors Biology Club, Scholars Program, Speech, Team Baja, The Dog Pound, Voces del Manana, Wronskians, and Getting Pumped. The Blood Diamonds did not show up.


The two teams with the highest score from each round advanced to the final round. The teams had a variety of categories to choose from with each question worth 100 points. If a team answered a question incorrectly, it cost them 50 points.


Topics for the questions consisted of English, psychology, chemistry, biology, physics, political science and art history.


The decathlon began with the first five groups: Conservative Club, Flip Status, Honors Biology Club, Speech, and the Dog Pound. The Dog Pound won the first round with 400 points followed by the Conservative Club with 150 points.


The second round consisted of the Debate team, Team Scholars, Team Baja, Voces, Wronskians, and Getting Pumped. The
Wronskians finished with 650 points and Team Baja with 300 points sending both to the final round.


"I'm very disappointed that we lost, however three other members who are in scholars have qualified into the next round, for this I am very grateful," said Jackie Felix, 20, global studies major, a Team Scholars member.

Continued...

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