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. 

Competition Format: 

Subject              Description
Fine Arts               50 question multiple-choice test (25 minutes) =1000 points
Literature             35 question multiple-choice test (20 minutes) = 600 points                                                                                                       + Essay - 40 minutes= 400 points =1000 points combined
Mathematics       35 question multiple-choice test (30 minutes) = 1000 points
Science                 50 question multiple-choice test (30 minutes) = 1000 points
Social Science      50 question multiple-choice test (25 minutes) = 1000 points 

5000 points possible per individual - individual medals awarded per subject based on individual scores

30000 points possible per team - team trophies awarded for state/nationals top 3 teams

We are meeting in person after school in F217 right now. Mrs. Wuthrich is in the computer lab or F220 after school EVERY DAY. Pentathletes should come as often as possible.

Students can join at any time up until the state competition. However, those that spend their time studying throughout the year usually score higher. 

Curriculum Announcement for 2022-2023:

   The American Revolution and a New Nation

▪ ART: The art curriculum will explore early American art.
▪ LITERATURE: The literature curriculum will include critical reading, one long work of
literature, and selected shorter works. The long work of literature will be Chains, by Laurie Halse Anderson.

▪ MATHEMATICS: The mathematics curriculum will cover algebra and trigonometry.*
▪ MUSIC: The music curriculum will present an introduction to early American music.
▪ SCIENCE: The science topic will be an introduction to chemistry and will include brief
discussions of significant advancements made in chemistry during the last half of the
eighteenth century and the early nineteenth century.**
▪ SOCIAL SCIENCE: The social science topic will be the American Revolution and the
founding of the United States of America.

Our Curriculum for the 2021-2022 school year is: 

"Water A Most Essential Resource"

• SCIENCE: The science topic will be an introduction to Marine Biology.

• LITERATURE: The literature curriculum will include critical reading, one long work of literature, and selected shorter works. The long work of literature will be
  • A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park. Shorter Works will be included in the resource guide.

• ART: The art curriculum will explore the impact of water on art, including subtopics such as ink wash painting, watercolor, water as a subject of art, and the use of water in architecture, sculpture, and environmental art.

• MUSIC: The music curriculum will explore the many ways water has influenced music, from musical instruments that rely on water to compositions inspired by water.

• SOCIAL SCIENCE: The social science topic will be the impact of water on human history.

• MATHEMATICS: The mathematics curriculum will cover permutations and combinations, algebra, and statistics.
  • *All test questions will be derived from the USAP curriculum and resource guides. 

AcPen, as we affectionately call it, is a competition where students have the year to study specific materials under a unified curriculum 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.  

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

A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park ISBN 978-0-547-57731-9.

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.

Resource guides for the 2021-2022 season are posted in the Google Classroom. 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.

This year we will be splitting up into study groups similar to what we did last year. 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. This $30 does NOT cover all Academic Pentathlon costs. For this reason we ask families to donate using tax credit where it is possible.

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