Allen County-Scottsville High School will
host the 2018 District Governor’s Cup academic competition this week. Academic
teams from Barren County, Glasgow, and Hart County will join AC-SH in two days
of Region 4, District 14 competition.
The competitions start on Tuesday January
23 with Future Problem Solving and Composition competitions. The competitions
will begin at 4:30 at the high school.
“Future Problem Solving is a
team event,” noted AC-SH academic team coach Adam Crabtree, “Teams of four
students are handed a future scene that involves a time, place, and event set
in the future. The scene always has a charge which is a statement to the teams
that they have to identify challenges and possible solutions for the situation
in the scene. The scene could be about various things such as natural
disasters, environmental issues, technology issues, etc. This event depends
heavily on students creative thinking and writing skills. When all the dust settles at the end of the
competition, the top two teams will advance to Regional.”
The Composition Writing
portion of the competition will also be on Tuesday.
“Simply put, this is a writing
competition that students compete individually,” Crabtree explained. “This year
the type of writing that competition is focusing on is argumentative
essays. The top five students after
scoring will advance to Regionals.”
The AC-SH Future Problem
Solving Team consists of Maggie Adams, Chance Baldwin, Tayte Hawkins, and
Jackson Montgomery. Representing ACS in Composition will be Baldwin, Adams, and
Kaleigh Shaw.
Saturday, January 27, the academic teams return
to AC-SH for the final areas of competition---Quick Recall and the Written
Assessments.
“The one that most people are familiar with is
Quick Recall,” Crabtree said. “This is a team event where students compete to
buzz in and answer questions as quickly as possible. Each correct toss-up
question will give their team a chance at a bonus question. If a bonus
isn't answered correctly the other team gets a chance to answer that bonus
question. Teams compete in two rounds of 35 questions each to see who can get
the most points.”
The Quick Recall competition
is set up in a double elimination tournament bracket. This year, Glasgow---who
placed third in the state Quick Recall finals in 2017---will face Hart County. Barren
County is pitted against ACS in the opening round. The losers in the first
round will then face off with the winners also facing each other. When the
bracket plays out, the top two teams will advance to Regional competition.
The AC-S Quick Recall Team
includes Jason Sikes, Harris Gregory, Tyler Hunt, Jackson Montgomery, Madison
Whittle, Chuck Boucher, Gabriel Vander Stroom, Katherine Foster, and Zach
Ansley. Only four students at a time compete.
Saturday will also include the
written assessment competition.
“This is also an individual
event and features assessments that students take,” Crabtree pointed out. “There
are five different assessments that are given. They are Mathematics, Social
Studies, Language Arts, Science, and Arts & Humanities. The exams are 50 minutes in length except for
the math exam which is 60 minutes.
The students with the top five scores will advance to Regionals.”
Students taking the Math exam
will be Jason Sikes, Tayte Hawkins, and Harris Gregory. Students taking the Science exam will be
Tyler Hunt, Jackson Montgomery, and Zach Ansley. Taking the Social Studies exam
will be Harris Gregory, Chance Baldwin, and Chuck Boucher. Students taking the Language Arts exam will
be Madison Whittle, Tyler Hunt, and Ella Burch.
Students taking the Arts and Humanities exam will be Katherine Foster,
Gabriel Vander Stroom, and Maggie Adams.
District Governor’s Cup competition
represents the conclusion of months of practice and preparation.
Quick Recall and Future Problem-Solving
practice two afternoons a week for at least an hour and half each,” Crabtree
explained. “Practice for composition and written assessments is built into this
time as well. We began our season with
league play back in September. We have
been practicing since then. Add that up, and we have spent a lot of time
working towards this.”
The recent winter weather
canceled school practices but students could practice at home for this week’s
competitions.
“I instructed my team to
practice and study on their own,” Crabtree noted. “There are websites out there
such as the Protobowl website where students can compete by answering
questions. Also, I post copies of past
sets of quick recall questions and written assessments on my Academic Team’s
Google Classroom.”
The Quick Recall portion of
the Governor’s Cup competitions is open to the public with the community
encouraged to come and watch the students in competition.
“Parents can be at the school
and spectators are allowed in the room when Quick Recall matches are going on,”
Crabtree said. “However, no spectators allowed at the other events.”
Quick Recall and Written
Assessments will be held on Saturday January 27 starting at 8:30 a.m. with
written assessments first, followed by a break for lunch, with the quick recall
competition starting at 11:30.
The top two teams and the top
five individuals advance to Region 4 Governor’s Cup Competition slated for the
week of February 12 at South Warren High School. Regional Governor’s Cup will
include students and teams from the 17 Region 4 schools. The state Governor’s
Cup finals are in March.