Hi there,
Well, last
week, the decathlon subjects came out. Soon I’ll write about this big
development of Education Test Creators creating the test and charging for study
guides. But this week I want to focus on my first impression of the Super quiz subjects
that were released.
As always,
you can access the study guide at https://academicdecathlon.wikispaces.com/Study+Guide
Logic
For the last
few years this subject has remained relative static with minimal changes.
However this year there are a few additions:
Kenken – a type of math/Sudoku hybrid.
It reminds me of the “24 Game” we used to play in elementary school. May be a bit of a challenge to find two people good at Sudoku type problems on a team.
Rebus Puzzles – using either pictures
or single letters to create a phrase. This one seems to be pretty vague and I
wonder if this would make it worthwhile in invest in the logic study guide. My
immediate concern is that this is a step into a subjective form of logic. Most
other forms of logic are similar to math in the sense that they have one certain
answer. This one may be more – but again that depends on how they test it.
True/False Logic – Not sure what this
means. I think that this is another one like the rebus puzzles that is so vague
that the purchase of the study guided is needed to do well on this part of the
quiz. This can pretty much mean anything.
--
Now for the
rest of the subjects I will include their Lexile rankings if they have them.
For those of you unfamiliar with Lexile, it is a tool used to measure the
reading difficulty of a text. I know that there are many forms of measurement
when it comes to checking reading difficulty, however I choose to use Lexile
because when ITBS scores are returned to the school/parents a Lexile ranking is
included. So, parents and teachers may be more familiar with Lexile than other
forms of measuring reading difficulty.
If you want
to see some data attached to the Lexile score and its correlation to a certain
grade level via Common Core, you can look here:
--
Super
Quiz – Social Studies
Something
New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World
Lexile: None
Cost: $18 on
Amazon, ebook on google, $10
Number of
pages to study: 248 (pages 19-267)
I looked up
the Amazon copy and there appears to be an error on the study guide. The study
guide lists the testable material as Part 2: The Music of the Spheres. However,
on the Amazon preview I notice that it is labeled as Part One: The Music of the
Spheres.
248 pages is
a large sum of pages to study, but not unbearable. It is interesting to note
that this signifies a shift from traditional history to a much more social
science focus in ecology. Looking at the chapter titles (hydrosphere,
lithosphere, pedosphere).
Super
Quiz – Religion
The Life and
Prayers of Saint Francis
Lexile: None
Cost: $9 on
Amazon
Number of
pages to study: 69 (whole book)
Note: The
URL link on the study guide is broken, copy paste the link it make it work.
I am not
familiar with this text, but at first glance, it looks like a nice text. I’m
ordering a copy to review myself.
Super
Quiz – Literature
The Call of
the Wild
Lexile:
1080L (10th Grade)
Cost: $6.50
on Amazon, lots of buying options
Number of
pages to study: 64
Somehow I
was spared reading this when I was in school, so I do not know much about it. However,
the high reading level (unusual for Academic Decathlon) may pose some
difficulties. Nevertheless, it’s a short book, so it can’t be that hard.
Super
Quiz- Fine Arts
The
Annotated Mona Lisa, A Crash Course in Art History from Prehistoric to Post
Modern (2nd edition)
Lexile: None
Cost: $17.15
on Amazon
Number of
pages to study: 14 (!)
I was happy
to see that this is also the individual text. Saves some money for schools.
Too bad it’s
not the first edition – multiple copies of that are available (probably
illegally) online at a few public school district’s websites.
Super
Quiz – Science
DK Science –
the Definitive Visual Guide
Lexile: None
Cost: $16 on
Amazon
Number of
pages to study: 16
It seems
like ecology and the environment is going to be a major theme in this year’s
decathlon. This reminds me of US Academic Decathlon (the high school
equivalent) where they pick one topic across the academic subjects.
Not the same
text for the individual, but was used for the individual last year. Happy to
see that texts are being used so that it saves some money.
---
Except for
the one error I have found so far, it seems like these are some pretty good
choices for the 2015 event. As a social studies teacher, I am a little uneasy
at the selection of such a science-orientated text for the Super Quiz event,
but this may be a good opportunity to expand some horizons for the students in
the field of social science instead of the traditional history.
I’ll do a
short write up on the individual subjects soon. Till next time.
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