State Entry Fee

The entry fee for the State competition is $550 per team. This fee partially covers the cost of the following: All testing materials, the competition rooms at the hotel, the student ice breaker, the Saturday Feedback Luncheon for one representative from each team, ten tickets to the awards banquet, awards, and the after banquet dance.

GCI AAD contracts with a hotel in Anchorage to provide a fair and reasonable rate for rooms at the State competition. Housing costs shall be funded by the individual schools. You will need to provide housing for your team and coach. Often additional chaperones will pay their own housing costs. We encourage you to house your students at the contracted hotel when participating at the State competition. By doing so you assist us in meeting our room block.  When we meet our room block our competition space is free. This assists us with keeping team registration fees at a minimum.

Teams must also provide for their transportation to and from the State competition. While some teams have these costs paid by their school or district, many of our participating teams raise their own funds to cover the costs of housing and transportation, as well as the costs of their curriculum materials.

The State Championship Team will have their travel to and from their hometown to the National Competition site and rooming costs paid for by GCI AAD. All extras activities and food not provided by USAD will be at the expense of the team.

Purchasing Your Study Materials

Curriculum materials should be ordered from USAD. They provide curriculum materials in sets of 10 (schools participating with fewer than 10 team members should contact USAD for a per item cost breakdown). Each set of 10 curriculum packets will cost in the $500 range. This will equip a nine-person team plus the coach.  All USAD curriculum materials and test materials are based on the subject area outlines published in the USAD Study Guide.

Competition test writers will derive 50% of the items on each language and literature, music, and science test from the information presented in the Subject Area Resource Guide for that subject; writers have been instructed to derive the remaining 50% of the test items from sources beyond these guides.

Test writers will construct tests such that at least 10—15% of the questions on each test will require the use of higher order thinking skills. USAD's Higher Order Thinking Skills booklet is included in the curriculum package or can be ordered a la carte.

The following items represent the minimum materials recommended for preparing your team to compete and are all included in the USAD Basic Curriculum Package.

The Study Guide

The study guide is the most essential tool for competing in the Academic Decathlon. This document sets forth the basic curriculum for the coming year with topic outlines in each of the six standard subject areas. The general rules for the other three events - speech, interview and essay are included, as well as the eligibility guidelines for participation.

The Study Guide is released on May 1 each year and may be ordered from the USAD office. By submitting your order early (in February or March) you will receive your order in May and be able to distribute them to team members before school is out.

Subject Area Resource Guides

Subject Area Resource Guides in Language and Literature, Music, Science, and Super Quiz are recommended. The Super Quiz Guide will be a compendium of articles and excerpts written by multiple authors. The other guides will each be written by a single content-area expert. ALL of the Super Quiz Test items—both oral and written—will be based on the information presented in the Super Quiz Resource Guide.

Book of Art Reproductions

This booklet is a compendium of reproductions of the nineteen artworks in this year’s art outline.  No text beyond the title, artist, date, etc. will accompany these reprints. Individual artist research will be necessary.

Music CD’s

Covers the music performed by the artists to be studied.

Practice Test Booklet with Tape

Gives students an overview of the types of questions they can expect on the competition tests.

Recommended additional materials not included in the basic curriculum package

The Novel

This year, the novel includes 50 pages of introduction, notes on the text, further reading and a chronology.

Other Materials Available Through USAD

The USAD 2001-2002 Study Guide contains a section on "Essential Information for Coaches" that lists various resources available for studying the topics for this year's competition.