It's that time of year again, time for the students on the Cranston High School West Academic Decathlon team to buckle down for their final weeks of preparation for the March state competition, an event their faculty advisor, Christine Luther-Morris, describes as being similar to a giant SAT test.

This year's team, which consists of Christopher Dodd, Noah Cohen, Jacob Meyerson, Logan Chin, Noah Levin, John Lemme, Christine Rivera and Mirim Ji, has been working hard under Luther-Morris' direction, readying for the competition. There is also a team of alternates that consists of Isabella Corso, Elizabeth Delvecchio, Taleen Donoyan, Cory Dottor, Sophia Kue, Sofia Mancini, Olivia Perrotta, Tina Sindwani and Jessica Tennentt.

"The Academic Decathlon is a nationwide competition and last year Rhode Island had 22 districts competing," Luther-Morris said.

Despite the name, which can be intimidating, the Academic Decathlon team is one that is all-inclusive.

"This isn't just for A/B students," she said. "We need students who are in the C range in order for the team to be complete. We need nine members, three students in each of the three groups: the Honors group, which is 3.9 GPA and up, the Scholastic group, which is 3.0 to 3.89, and the Varsity group, which is 2.9 or below. The students' grades in their core classes are used to determine their eligibility for the team, and we struggle to find students who want to compete in that Varsity group. We always have plenty of Honors and Scholastic students, but the Varsity students are our gold. They are very necessary and we can't possibly win without them."

Each year, Luther-Morris and her team have to actively go out and find students for the Varsity group.

"Oftentimes, those are the students who are bright but don't apply themselves, but for this competition they have to really apply themselves. It's a very individual effort to work as part of the team and the group practices as a team with everyone putting in a lot of effort preparing and competing," she said.

The team practices twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which Luther-Morris notes is a slight disadvantage for her students because several of the schools they compete against have a dedicated class specifically for Academic Decathlon which meets for full class periods during the school day, giving them an edge over teams that are extra-curricular in nature, such as the one at West.

"There are 10 categories in the competition and each year there is a specific theme, so this year's theme is World War II, and the categories often lend connect their questions to the theme, so for example the science questions might be about atomic energy in order to relate to the theme. The Social Science section will be about World War II and the essay topics will be based on the theme."

The other categories include Mathematics, Language and Literature, Art History, Music, Economics, Speech and Interview.

This year's competition will be held on March 12 and it takes place at the Community College of Rhode Island for a full day.

"The students rotate through rooms for each portion of the test, spending 30 minutes in each room," she said. "They write their essays ahead of time and they are judged that day. At 4:00 p.m. they compete in the Super Quiz in the auditorium, which is very similar to a College Bowl event. There is a PowerPoint and they must answer the questions in each section as a team, 15 questions each, but they can pool their resources. It's a lot of fun and they cheer each other on as their scores change."

Luther-Morris has been the faculty advisor for 10 years and that very first year her team placed second in the competition and third the following year in 2008.

"My original core group was from the Future Problem Solvers group that I used to coach, and we always won that competition, that group of kids wanted to have an Academic Decathlon team and they went on to do some amazing things after graduation," she said. "The students on the team form a very close bond, and it's such a great experience for them. If they gold as a senior, they are invited to a reception at the State House and they receive a $500 check. Almost every year I have at least one student who goes to the reception. I'm always so proud of them. It's the result of a lot of effort that they have put in, and it pays off."

To learn more about the Academic Decathlon competition, visit the website at www.usad.org.