MCS wins middle school academic challenge bowl

Mount Carmel School emerged as this year’s champion in the 10th Annual Academic Challenge Bowl for middle schools, besting seven other teams from private and public schools during intense competition held recently at Saipan Southern High School.

MCS garnered the most points among various categories such as math, science, English, music, sports, computers, and social studies enabling the team to win the first place trophy.

The MCS team was composed of Arron Cushing, Cathryn Javier, Eric Lee, Jonathon Pangelinan, and Veeny Revilla. They were coached by their teacher Frances Taimanao.

The second place winner was the team of Hopwood Junior High School while Marianas Baptist Academy came in third. Each team was awarded trophies and gift items last Feb. 25. Last year’s champion was the team from Calvary Christian Academy.

Members of the Hopwood Junior High team included Masrur Alam, Mikhail Alcantara, Joshua Mendiola, Eliezha Mendoza, and Edna Misola. For MBA team, members were Emily An, Jose Antonio Castro, Delaney Kyle Chua, Yuuki Nishida, and Myoung Ki (Tony) Oh.

Saipan Southern High School chapter of the National Honor Society hosted the competition for the junior high school division. Each of the eight competing schools fielded five-member teams.

According to SSHS National Honor Society chapter president Carmen Borja, the competition has two rounds and a tie-breaker is conducted in case the schools are tied at the end of Round 2. For both rounds, subjects include easy, medium, and hard difficulties.

She said the main purpose of the annual event is to test students’ academic ability and their knowledge of the different subjects.

Because the academic challenge cuts across all subjects, each competitor needs to be knowlegable in different areas.

Borja said eight schools participated in this year’s competition including Tinian Junior High School, Chacha Ocean View Junior High School, Saipan International School, Calvary Christian Academy, Grace Christian Academy, Mount Carmel School, Marianas Baptist Academy, and Hopwood Junior High School. Each school received certificates of recognition from the organizing panel.

“We started organizing this event during November and prepared for three months. Members have put in a significant amount of time to organize this event. This year, in our efforts to apply technological devices and save paper, we used clickers. Clickers are usually used in our Algebra 2 class. Students here are fond of the device and suggested it for the competition,” she told Saipan Tribune yesterday.