East Union High School’s Lancer Battalion Academic team captured second place in the 8th Brigade Academic Test. The test was created by the 8th Brigade to promote a centralized academic focus and curriculum.

They were tested on their knowledge of mathematics, grammar, current events, science, JROTC curriculum, and SAT material.

“To prepare for this test, we took two practice rounds,” said Akio Jones, one of the academic team members.

All members felt confident about the test so much that they missed only three questions out of 90, and received an overall score of 94 percent. They were just a question away from beating the first-place school, a question that could have correctly been answered.

“In the science section, there was this one question we had a disagreement on. Half of us thought it was one answer, the more confident half of the team is the answer we selected which turned out to be incorrect,” says team leader Alyssa Arnaud.

The method they test with is majority rules. When answering the question, the team works so that all agree on one answer, and if they cannot all agree, they take a vote to establish majority rule. They assigned one person to watch the time and click and answer before time ran out.

The test takes about one hour and 30 minutes and is broken down into four sections. The team received between one-minute and 30-second tests depending on the question they were answering. Members of the team expressed the team effort, saying, “We couldn’t have gotten such a high score on our own.”

They felt that it was difficult but not impossible to achieve.

“Eighth brigade really challenged my skills on an intellectual level,” said Jones.