Research, hard work, long days and nights, many tests, and one big prize. The golden prize of state champion.

Students on the UIL Science team are steadily preparing for the University Interscholastic League (UIL) Academic Regional meet on April 12-13 at Baylor University in Waco.

The team is confident they will do well and possibly advance to state since many of them are very experienced in the competition and the science field.

“It’s an outstanding group of competitive scientists,” head coach Mrs. Kathleen Rushing said. “ I expect them to do well, but we’re up against very strong competition.”

The team has all been assigned reading material to study in order to prepare for the test and enrich their knowledge on the subject field.

“We have been reading a book called Mapping the Heavens by Frank Hall-Brown about afterphysics,” senior member Damyan Pavlovic said.

The test is two hours long and has 60 questions-20 from biology, 20 from chemistry and 20 from physics.

“Physics [is the hardest part of the test] because we have to memorize all of the formulas and I haven’t got through much physics yet,” sophomore Hubert Jaegy said.

Preparing for the test may not be such a struggle as it seems due to many resources from UIL and all over the internet.

“There are many past practice tests and websites I use to prepare,”  Jaegy said.

In addition to physically preparing for the competition, members are setting mental goals for themselves to improve.

“My goal is to improve on the physics section and I’m shooting for 1st place,” senior Josh Tran said.

Subsequently, students are  joining the team enrich their knowledge of science aligning with the profile of a forever learner.

“I just wanted to express about how interested I was in science,” Pavlovic said. “Some of my science classes weren’t in depth enough; I wanted to go further.”

The team recently had big wins at the UIL District Tournament on March 30 at Conroe High School with Josh Tran placing 6th, Hriman Shah placing 7th, Hubert Jaegy and Frank Malone placing 8th, Rishabh Ghosh placing 10th and  Damyan Pavlovic placing 12th with a 2nd place overall win. This was seen as a sign of how the team will do at the UIL Regional tournament and also shows team members what they need to improve on.

“I think it shows that we are more prepared to take on more,” Pavlovic said. “The questions get harder and I think we can still adapt and do well. We been to state twice and we can do it again.”

From regionals, winners advance to the UIL State Tournament in May at the University of Texas Austin campus.Other academic teams competing include Spelling, Math, and Accounting.