AMS Basha welcomes any 6^th, 7^th and 8^th graders who have an interest in Academics to join our very successful club and competitive team. Both our 7th grade team and our 8th grade team were on track to be State Champions last year (2019-2020), but the pandemic preempted the competition. This year the national organization is attempting to facilitate at home competitions online if necessary. Our 7th grade team last year won every competition they entered; we won 3 Competitions including being Regional Champions! Our 8^th grade team finished 3^rd in Region. We were ranked 1^st in state for both our 7^th and 8^th grade teams and we were ranked 3^rd and 5^th  in Nation for our 7^th and 8^th grade teams respectively. We anticipate starting competitions this year in January.

Competition Format: 

Subject              Description
Fine Arts               50 question multiple-choice test (25 minutes)
Literature             35 question multiple-choice test (20 minutes)
Mathematics       35 question multiple-choice test (30 minutes)
Science                 50 question multiple-choice test (30 minutes)
Social Science      50 question multiple-choice test (25 minutes) 

We will meet virtually soon, but no specific date has been decided. There will be a schoolwide announcement for our first few meetings. Students can join at any time up until the state competition. However, those that spend their time studying throughout the year usually score higher. 

Our Curriculum for the 2020-2021 school year is: 

The 2020-21 United States Academic Pentathlon theme is the Cold War. Below is a brief summary of the topics covered. 

SCIENCE: The science topic will be an introduction to astronomy.

LITERATURE: The literature curriculum will include critical reading, one long work of literature, and selected shorter works. The long work of literature will be the novel Spies: Secret Showdown Between America and Russia by Marc Favreau ISBN-10: 0316545929. 

FINE ARTS: The fine arts curriculum is a combination of art and music. The guide will focus on the exploration of the art and music during the Cold War era. 

SOCIAL SCIENCE: The social science curriculum will introduce students to the history of the Cold War.

MATHEMATICS: The mathematics curriculum will cover the number system, rates, ratios and proportions and geometry. 

*All test questions will be derived from the USAP curriculum. 

AcPen, as we affectionately call it is a competition where students have the year to study specific materials and are then tested in a competition format. Much like swimming or track and field there are 5 events (Math, Science, Social Studies, Literature and Fine Arts). Some students may be specialists. They can win medals in areas where their strengths lie. Others are true pentathletes and do well in all subjects. All students Must compete in all 5 disciplines. They cannot pick and choose.  Like wrestling they compete in weight divisions, with the weight being GPA levels. 

Our three GPA groups are: 

Honors:      3.8-4.0 unweighted 

Scholastic: 3.2 -3.79 

Varsity:       Any GPA below 3.19 

A team can only win with teammates in all three weight divisions. A full team consists of 3 honors, 3 scholastic and 3 varsity students.  This provides an opportunity for students who are academically interested, but for some reason, have B or C grades to succeed. It also shows the students at a young age that grades are not necessarily an indicator of intelligence and that they should strive to work with other students at all levels. Students also experience that often the person with the highest GPA is not necessarily the smartest person in the room. I have been pleasantly surprised at how some of our "C" students have scored higher than many of the "A" students. This develops a tolerance for different talents in peers and a greater ability for collaboration. 

The team to beat:

Rio Calaveras Middle School, Stockton, CA

All students will need to acquire and read the following book: 

Spies:The Secret Showdown Between American and Russia. ISBN 978-0-316-54592-1

Much like Battle of the Books, this should be read a few times to do well on the tests, but one read will earn points for sure. Be careful, there are many books titled Spies. 

Below is the link to the resource guides for the 2021 season. Please start reading them in your free time if possible. DO NOT SHARE these with anyone outside of AMS or their parents. We pay for these and are only authorized to use them within our own school.  

We suggest you download these materials so that you can access them offline if necessary. Load them on your phone, tablet, home computer, laptop and/or USB drive. I strongly encourage you to print the resource guides and put them in a binder with dividers for study; especially if you learn better on paper than electronically. Hard copies also give you a format where you can highlight important points for review right before a competition.  If you prefer difital format, I highly recommend that you highlight your PDF as you are reading and remember to save each time you close the file, so that the highlighting is saved and you can review key points, dates, words or ideas before a competition.

You may download materials available in the electronic format at the following link: 

CLICK ON the following link or cut and paste it into your browser:
https://usad.enlyght.com/tc/OrderReview.aspx?DistributionCode=RVQLABCUSVJA
 

1. Read the Licensing agreement. Scroll all the way through it. 
2. Check the box below the licensing agreement that says "I accept . . . ". 
3. Scroll down to see resource guide pdf's/mp3.
4. Download and save the files.
   
   You may also download your materials, if applicable, at https://usad.enlyght.com/tcby clicking on the download materials link and entering the distribution code RVQLABCUSVJA

This year we will be splitting up into study groups similar to what we did last year, but since we are not at school yet, there will be designated group leaders. Please let me know if you wish to be a group leader. There will be responsibilities associated with this position that will include reporting back to me. 

There is a $30 fee that helps to pay for the curriculum that we purchase (links above) and the competition fees for each student. 

I know this is a lot of information. Please ask any questions that you have. I am happy to answer what I can.