La Feria STEM teams advance in UIL

Updated: April 17, 2021

The UIL Academic Meet was held last week. 10 schools participated in this competition to decide which students would move on the compete in the Regional Meet in April.
The La Feria teams trained hard and showed themselves to be some of the best in the area. The Lions advanced teams in the following competitions: Calculator, Science, Computer Science, and Accounting.
In each event students placing 1st, 2nd, and 3rd advance to the regional meet. The top three scores from each team are totaled for a team score. The school with the top team score also advances those three students to the regional meet.
The La Feria Calculator team advanced with members Victor Velasquez (3rd place), Taylor Garza (6th place), and Chris Velasquez (8th place). The Calculator test is 70 questions (35 numerical, 14 word, and 21 geometry) that are designed to be answered with the aid of a hand-held calculator. Problems start out simple and increase in difficulty as the test progresses. Students are given 30 minutes to get the best score they can.
The Lions’ Science Team also advance to regional. The team had very strong performances from Cristian Olivarez (1st place), Jayden Crutchfield (2nd Place), James Crutchfield (3rd place), Taylor Garza (4th place), and Santos Hernadez (6th place). The Science test is 60 multiple choice questions: 20 biology, 20 chemistry, 20 physics. In addition to the three top individual scores and top team, the student with the highest score in each subject area advances also. Olivarez took the top physics score. Jayden Crutchfield took the top chemistry score. James Crutchfield took the top biology score.
The Computer Science team advance with efforts from Gabriel Zepeda (3rd place), Asurias Benavides (4th place) and Emmanuel Rocha (6th place). This competition consists of a 45 minute individual exam, 45 minute team exam and a 2 hour team programming challenge. Questions come from a broad range of computer science topics and the official programing language is Java.
La Feria swept the top places in the accounting event. Team members are Ismena Alvarez (1st place), Asurius Benavidez (2nd place), Norely Ramirez (3rd place), and Noah Guerrero (4th place). The accounting test ranges from 80 to 100 questions on principles and practices of accounting for sole proprietorships, partnerships, and corporations. Students are giving one hour to complete the exam.
Roland Vega placed third in the Spelling and Vocabulary event. The Spelling and Vocabulary competition consists of 3 parts. Part 1 is a multiple choice test with 30 questions on vocabulary and proof reading. Part 2 is a 70 word spelling test where the words are read aloud and students hand
write the word for spelling accuracy. Part 3 is similar to part 2 except there are only 30 words and this part is only used in tie-breaking situations.