Studying adds up to first place for Cloquet economics team

What does it take to make a championship team?

Well, for the members of the Cloquet High School Economics team, it took a lot of lunches together, a stack of 3-inch binders crammed with information and practice tests, hard work, more hard work and some pretty savvy test-taking skills.

And a good teacher, of course.

Econ coach Tim Stark credited the kids: seniors Claire Taubman, Olivia Diver, Payten Schneberger and Johnathan Muhvich. The four were declared the champions of the David Ricardo division at the April 10 Minnesota Economics Challenge, held at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

"It was fun, but it's definitely an extra challenge for the students to take on," said the College in the Schools Economics program teacher, noting that the students started in his class at the end of January. They started studying in early March. "It's a lot of extra effort on top of what's already a pretty hard class. But it's enjoyable to work with students who are really willing to push themselves. And it was fun for me to learn, too."

For their part, the kids said it was a lot of learning, but they benefited from teams gone by. Former economics teacher/coach Tim Prosen compiled much of the content in their folders, economic treasure troves in white plastic. 2018 team member Christian Loeb compiled a 300-question quizlet that they used to study online.

"On the way down, we were doing that [quizlet]," Muhvich said.

The state competition was their second, although the only team they competed against at the regionals was the second team from Cloquet High School.

Diver explained that the teams start the competition by taking three written tests: individual team members take the first two tests in micro- and macro economics, then take a test on international economics as a team. The top three individual and top two team scores are counted.

The top two teams move on to a quiz bowl for the championship, complete with buzzers and microphones, just like a game show, but the questions are a lot more difficult.

"Usually you get like 15 seconds to talk with your team and come up with an answer," Muhvich said, "unless you buzz in before the question is finished, then you have five seconds and you can't talk with your team."

It was a close match between Cloquet and Cristo Rey, a private Catholic School in Minneapolis, with only one or two questions separating them much of the time.

Questions might include complicated math about changes in purchasing power, several yes/no questions, and some that stumped them. They couldn't answer most of the first five questions, but got into a groove later, Muhvich said, pulling out the win.

They surprised themselves, he said.

"Since we only had to compete against ourselves at regionals, and we had spring break between regionals and state, we were like 'It's going to be cool to see the building at least,'" Taubman said.

"And then we were sitting at lunch enjoying the view, and they called the two teams going on to quiz bowl, and they called us first," Muhvich said.

Next up for the Minnesota state champs is an online economics "semi-nationals" exam that every state championship team will take April 17. The top eight teams in the country will go to nationals in New York City.