7th and 8th Graders Claim the USAP China Round Championship for the 2nd time

On Feb 23rd, SHSID Group 1 won the 8th Grade championship title in the United States Academic Pentathlon China Round for the second year in a row. At the same time, SHSID Group 2 claimed second place within 8th Grade, while Group 4 won the 7th Grade championship. Participating in the competition was an exciting experience on its own, but over these two past years, I have had the privilege of being the team captain of the winning group.

Since this is the second year in which I have held that position, I did have some experience in the competition and some general knowledge about its flow. With that in hand, I checked from time to time on the progress of everyone in the group. I distributed various forms, notices, and sheets that needed to be filled out. I held meetings over WeChat on different subjects and tried my best to answer questions that my fellow competitors had.

The workload seemed to be a lot, so why was it that I wanted to be the group leader in the first place? I think it all comes down to the feeling of satisfaction derived from being able to help those around you, and to be part of a talented, hardworking team that would always strive to be better. Sure, there were some problems along the way. In some circumstances, we lagged behind the basic schedule that was laid out to help with time management. In others, we were not able to fully understand the material at hand. However, we did manage to work our way through the challenges. Last year, the team had some outstanding students who were able to propel the team to the championship title. This year, however, everyone did extremely well in this challenging competition, and that allowed us to be able to retain the championship title, even after the addition of even more talented teams.

USAP China this year was extremely fun. Our team participated and also became champions in the SuperQuiz, which is a 30-question set in which team members had only 10 seconds to discuss and answer. Our team also built a massive tower structure using ping-pong balls, tape, paper, straws etc in the assessment center round. Last but definitely not the least, team members were awarded numerous medals in the process. In a couple more months, my team and I will be heading to Omaha, Nebraska for the USAP National Finals. I hope that the finals will be just as fun as the USAP China round!

(Written by 8(8)Oliver Supervised by Ms Gu)