WELCOME TO THE ACADEMIC OCTATHLON WEBSITE!
Academic Octathlon is an academic competition for ninth and tenth graders. It is an intermediary event between Pentathlon at the junior high level and Decathlon in senior high. Its goals are similar to the other competitions in promoting broad knowledge to supplement existing courses and better prepare students for college. Participating students gain valuable preparation for Decathlon.
Eligibility: Any ninth or tenth grade high school student meeting UIL eligibility standards can participate in Octathlon. Ninth and tenth graders may also participate in Decathlon, but they cannot do both.
Qualifying for the Octathlon Team: The composite scores from a Katy ISD district test determine the selection of the nine team members. Students with lower scores who fail to make the team may still serve as alternates to the regional competition.
Competition Divisions: Each team has an honors, scholastic and varsity division of three students each, based on their school grade point averages. Students will only compete against other students within their same division.
Octathlon Events: The Octathlon subject areas are art, music, science, social studies, math, language and literature and economics. Students will also write an essay concerning either the language and literature or Super Quiz topic. The Super Quiz is both a written and public event of multiple-choice questions from one of the subject areas.
2009-2010 Theme: The theme for the next academic year is the French Revolution. Students will study eighteenth and early nineteenth century art and music, the economic history of revolutionary France and chemistry. The math subject area will include general math, algebra, geometry and trigonometry. The Super Quiz topic will focus on the French Revolution. The literature selection is the novel, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.
Resources: A general study guide provides an outline of the various subject areas. Resource guides for art, music, economics, language and literature, social studies and the Super Quiz topic give specific subject information. Research guides for art, music and social studies focus on independent research areas. Basic guides for math, economics, and music as well as other supplementary materials are available to students who need a stronger general background.
Time Commitment: Octathlon participants may begin picking up and studying the materials in May, 2009. They can also attend practice sessions with the Decathlon participants in the fall. Specifc octathlon practice sessions will commence in January. We meet once a week for about an hour to review practice questions. The district test is all-day in March. The testing is an excused absence and does not count against exemptions. The regional test is all-day on a Saturday in April. Both events are at Seven Lakes High School.
Much of the work involves independent study. There is no class for Octathlon. Top-scoring students have studied as much as five or more hours a week during the Spring in addition to the practice sessions. The overall time commitment is probably less than other extra-curricular activities, such as band or athletics, and knowledge gained from the octathlon experience more closely complements required course work.
Awards: Teams compete for first, second and third place based on overall scores. They also compete for SuperQuiz team awards. Individual students may win first, second or third place medals in individual subject areas or for composite scores by competition division.
Further Information: E-mail Mr. Herzberg at jamesherzberg@katyisd.org or call (281) 237-3538. E-mail Mr. Northcutt at jamesdnorthcutt@katyisd.org or call (281) 237-3588.