Middle School Academic Challenge Team Shines at Local Tournament

Are you smarter than a middle schooler? Take the Middle School Academic Team Challenge by answering this question: “It is the third person, singular, perfect, indicative form of the Latin verb meaning ‘to declare an oath.’ What is this legal term for a written statement of fact, made voluntarily, and confirmed by an oath?”

This is the type of question that was posed to students on the Middle School Academic Challenge Team on April 25th, 2009, when the Cleveland Middle School Academic Challenge League held their local area tournament at Hawken Middle School. Eleven teams from four schools participated in this event, answering questions both as teams and individual members of their team. After five rounds consisting of 4 quarters, the winners received ribbons and certificates to celebrate their achievements.

The Hawken Middle School teams, coached by Hawken senior Alec Lai, did extremely well in the three divisions. In the Red Division, the Hawken A team came in 1st place with Cleveland Heights Monticello Team A winning the 2nd place position. The Gray Division was won by Hawken B team and Mentor Memorial A taking 2nd place. In the Green Division, Cleveland Heights Monticello B was in 1st place with the Richmond Heights A team achieving the 2nd place. For the overall competition among all teams, the Hawken A team won 1st place, the Hawken B team secured 2nd place, and the Cleveland Heights Monticello B team won 3 rd place.

These teams all worked extremely well to achieve these results. Congratulations to Team A members Jared Berg, Russell Cohen, Justin Faulhaber, and Alex Kaufman; Team B members Shang-Shang Chen, Anna Du, Sindhura Vallabhaneni, and Jack Weisman; and other Hawken team members including Michael Holstein, Kush Khosla, Katelyn Long, Sam Rao, and Max Schachere. (These are students who, incidentally, know that the answer to the question posed earlier is affidavit.) Many of these students will be traveling to Arlington, Virginia in June to compete in the National Middle School Academic Challenge. They were invited based on their strengths in both the Knowledge Master competition and on Hawken’s having placed 5th in the Nationals last year. Good luck to all team members!