Belmont Ridge Wins Middle School Academic Challenge

Release, Loudoun County Public Schools:

Belmont Ridge won a three-way tie-breaker round to capture the 2014 Middle School Academic Challenge.

All 14 Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) middle schools participated in the competition, held May 3rd at Stone Hill Middle School.

The members of the winning Belmont Ridge team included:

• Tamun Hanjra
• Ian Jarosz
• Chris Johnson
• Harrison Lian
• Yuki Oyama (alternate)
• Arvind Srinivasan
• Shruthi Srivatsan (alternate)
• Leah Steiner
• Janie Wu
• Megha Yannam

Belmont Ridge, Farmwell Station and River Bend finished regulation competition tied at 80 points. Based on the tie-breaker round, Belmont Ridge placed first, River Bend second and Farmwell Station third. Stone Hill finished fourth with 70 points. 

The first round of the competition featured all 14 teams. The field was narrowed to eight teams in round two and four in round three.

Students answered academic questions using a laptop during the first two rounds of the competition. Their answers were then tallied and scores registered. For the third round, the four top teams were invited on-stage where they were given an envelope containing 10 questions. Teams were awarded 10 points for each of these questions they answered correctly. (The highest score a team could get in the third round was 100 points.)

During the tie-breaker round, teams were asked one question each with a correct answer receiving one point.