Local team set for national competition

Catholic Central High School group to compete at Academic WorldQuest Competition

TROY, N.Y. » A group of four sophomores from Catholic Central High School qualified to advance to the national Academic WorldQuest Competition.

They will compete against 225 other schools in Washington, D.C. on April 28.

Students Paul Barnas, Lucas Kania, Sebastian Kania, and Michael Paglia took first place in this year’s local Academic WorldQuest Competition at Sage College on March 17. This was Catholic High’s fourth year participating, but first year winning the local competition, qualifying them for nationals.

The local competition allows for 12 maximum students from a school to compete on teams of four. Catholic High’s two teams both placed in the competition. Students Colby Beach, Spencer Daley, Zoe Henzel, and Amber Fisher took fourth place.

Academic WorldQuest is a global affairs and U.S. foreign policy-based knowledge competition. Students must answer 100 questions over the course of 10 rounds. Over 4,000 high school students across the U. S. compete in the competition. The local winners then travel to Washington D.C. to compete against teams from across the country.

The students on the Catholic High WorldQuest team have been studying since December, preparing with both individual studying and group studying, with the help of their co-advisors Lexi Cuomo and Andrew Krakat.

Cuomo has been teaching at the school for four years, and taught several of the students in her AP World History class last year.

Krakat has been at Catholic High for nine years, teaching AP World History, senior Government Economics, and acting as Dean of Academics. Krakat said he and Cuomo receive the study materials from the World Affairs Council and then distribute them to the team to use in preparation for the competition. He said the team dedicates time to studying and learning the information.

“We review some of the materials and try to create some sam-

ple questions that might be asked,” Andrew Krakat said. “But a lot of it is selfdriven by them.”

The students have to balance their schoolwork with their WorldQuest preparation. The team divided up the topics for the local competition among one another, each becoming an ex-

pert in one to two topics.

Several of the topics included “India’s Bid for Global Power,” “Cybersecurity,” “The Peacebuilding Toolkit,” and “American’s Diplomats.”

Sophomore Michael Paglia said he plans ahead for the week to make sure he will have time to finish his schoolwork and prepare for WorldQuest.

“I usually make a week plan for myself.” said Paglia. “I’ll use a planner and or-

ganize everything because I know I have stuff coming up during the week.”

Some of the students have extracurricular activities to fit into their schedule along with their other schoolwork. Sebastian Kania, for example, runs track at the high school.

“I have track practice after school,” said Kania. “Then, I divide my time up into schoolwork first and then WorldQuest.”

After winning the lo-

cal competition, the team was given a briefing book with more topics to review for the national competition. The students have until the end of April to prepare to compete against almost 1,000 students from around the country.

“There’s so many different schools and students from around the country competing,” said Paglia. “We have a month to refine our work and really push forward.”