Academic Team

At the beginning of the school year, Tanner asked me to join the Academic Team. I was unable to join because I could not make it to all the practices. The team meets every Tuesday and Thursday from 2:30 to 4:00. I was disappointed because it would have been an honor to be working with another excellent group of ROTC students.

This year is the first year Tanner has run the team, and it has been a challenge for him. On every advisement day, I hear him reminding people about practices and encouraging the members to come. It is important for the team to meet and study for the academic tests they take because teams from all over Area 5 compete. Each team has the best students from their ROTC unit, and the competition is intense

If a person from our team places, he/she gets a medal the wear on his/her uniform. The medal is a symbol of pride and achievement in the ROTC program. Unfortunately, many of the fist year students (NS1s) do not understand this, as they have not been coming to study the material or take the tests.

The Academic tests cover all material learned in a ROTC course. This includes military and drill knowledge, sailing, first aid, history, and many other subjects. There are different levels for students who have completed additional ROTC courses. This makes the test harder, but also makes the achievement greater.

The Linganore Academic Team sends in postal scores. This means that the students take the test at school and mail their answers to the administrator of the test. It is then graded and the score is compared to the scores of other cadets who sent their tests. These postal scores qualify our team for further academic tests. If our team places in a postal match, we get to advance to other competitions.

I have not been able to find out from Tanner whether the Academic Team has won any awards this year. I do know that some NS1 tests have been sent off recently and should be getting scored. I hope the NS1s did well and can earn a medal to wear with pride!