比赛培养了我的第一个好习惯就是时间管理。在妈妈的协助下，我制定了20周的阅读计划，阅读5个科目的材料，即每个科目大约4周。

第二个好习惯是阅读和做笔记。开始我需要父母辅导我学习社会科学和数学，但一个月后，我就能通过阅读和独立观看网上课程来自学了。最后我提交了近40页的新词汇和术语、当时的重大事件、计算方法等笔记。

要完成学术写作的任务并不容易。我和队友每周都要开会，提出可能的题目，选择方法，对选定的题目进行研究。Jenny老师和Aviva老师提供了很多帮助，帮助我们润色英语，完善研究问题。我们甚至还学会了参考文献的格式!

在比赛前的两周，我们还为45分钟的海报和10分钟的演讲进行了大量排练。Florez老师也教授了我们优秀演讲的技巧。对我来说，我学到的最重要的知识就是掌握正确的身体语言。

比赛在5月1日开始。我变得非常紧张，因为所有的竞争者都非常强，而且大部分年龄都比我们大。超级问答是我们的第一场比赛。我们不认为我们做得很好，因为我们犯了相当多的错误。但是我们并没有失去信心，因为我们还有机会在海报和演讲中获得更好的分数。第二场比赛是学术海报。我们团队努力保持专注，以应对非常健谈的主持人和其他参赛选手的干扰，并在最后一秒顺利完成比赛！这再次告诉我们管理时间是多么重要。最后是学术演讲。通过之前大量的练习和良好的团队合作，我们对此很有信心。

最后，我们赢得了USAP全国学术大满贯的第一名，这对我来说是一个很大的惊喜。在近8个月的时间里，我学到的东西比我预期多得多。为了赢得比赛，我们需要良好的准备工作，团队合作和排练。我们需要自信，永不放弃。当然，还有最重要的一课，团队合作。

USAP is nothing like the math Contests I ever participated in before. My excitement to try something new could not last when I received the hundreds of pages of Resource Guide, covering Social Sciences, Literature, Fine Arts, Sciences, and Math. I was overwhelmed and didn’t know how to start or where to start. I took the online courses on how to form good learning habits, especially on time management, taking notes, and team collaboration.

I started with the first good habit, say time management. With my mom’s assistance, I made the reading plan in 20 weeks to read RG of 5 subjects, or about 4 weeks for each subject.

The second good habit is reading and taking better notes. My parents tutored me in learning social science and math, but one month later, I was able to self-study by reading the RG and watching online courses independently. In the end, I submitted nearly 40 pages of notes for new vocabulary and terminology, the major events of the time, the calculations, etc.

It’s not easy to complete the task of academic writing. Four of us have weekly meetings to propose possible topics, raise questions, select methods and conduct research on the selected topic. Ms. Jenny and Ms. Aviva offered a lot of help to polish our English and refine the research question. We even learned that the references got formatted! MLA and APA are commonly used.

We have had a lot of rehearsals in the last 2 weeks, for the 45-minutes poster and 10-minute speech. Mr. Florez taught us tips for good speech. For me, the most important thing I have learned is the proper body language.

The race starts on May 1st. I became very nervous because all the competitors were really strong and most of them were older than us. Super Quiz came first. We don’t think we did well on it since we made quite a lot of mistakes. However, we didn’t lose confidence as still have chance to get a better score for poster and speech. The second round was the Academic Poster. We tried to stay focused to deal with the distraction of the very talkative host and voices from other tables. We finished it at the last second with only 3 of us on site. It again told us how important to manage the time wisely. The last is the Academic Speech. We were confident with the practice and good team cooperation.

We were very happy for being awarded the First Place of National Academic Grand Slam Award. It was a big surprise to me! In the nearly 8 months period, I learned much more than I expected. To win in the competition, we need good preps, team collaboration and rehearsals. We need to be confident and never quit. I think we could have done better in the Super Quiz by reading more times of RG. Each of us can spend more time on 1 or 2 subjects according to our strengths or interests. The most important lesson I learned is the team collaboration.

然而，我在网上参加了活动。虽然我不在盛大的颁奖典礼现场，但我很高兴看到全国各地的人们在那一刻聚集在一起，凝视着屏幕。有些人欢呼，有些人笑，有些人甚至唱歌，那里的一切都让我感到温暖……因为我们在过去几个月所做的工作终于得到了回报。

虽然我不在现场，但我看到无论比赛有多容易或多难，我的队友总是非常努力。甚至在轮到我们团队演讲前的最后30分钟，我的队友们仍然在和我联系反复排练。我感到自豪的另一件事是我获得了最佳演讲者，我感到非常自豪。

从比赛中，我真正感觉到我长大了，结识了新朋友，学会了如何控制自己的紧张情绪。整个经历非常奇妙，虽然我应该说’我们’是在网上，但我们得到了同样的待遇。虽然我们不能去体验上台的快乐和幸福，但我们仍然能够通过现场直播进行观看。

虽然我们得到了一个很好的分数，但可以肯定的是，这些题目并不容易。通过比赛，我们设法在短短几个月内理解和学习了它们，并将我们的主题定为美国革命期间的性别问题。

从白天到晚上,我的队友都在高效工作，他们甚至能在短短的40分钟内设计完成一张包括图片、文字和精美版面的海报。对于这一部分，我为自己是设计师和管理者而感到自豪。

不管是第一次见面还是在比赛过程中，我们都不会想到我们能走到这一步。事实上，我们当之无愧！虽然我们团队一开始有很多争论，也有很多混乱的讨论，但我们在Aviva老师的帮助下，每时每刻都在努力使事情变得更好。

最后，我想对我们的对手、我们的老师、以及所有在比赛中帮助我们、鼓励我们、甚至困扰我们的人说声谢谢。

谢谢你们！

Over the past 6 months my team and I have been working on a project named ‘USAP’ which we proudly took part in and have been preparing just for the May 1st 2023. Though I did not get to go to Hainan, which was where it was set. However, I participated online and though I wasn’t there during the grand award-ceremony, I was glad to see people around China gather together in that very place at that very moment gazing at the screen, some cheering, some laughing, some even singing!

Everything there warmed my heart as the work we’ve done over the past few months have finally paid off and we finally got the First Place of National Academic Grand Slam Award.

Though I wasn’t there, I noticed a lot. I remember that no matter how easy or hard the competition was, my team was always working extremely hard, even in the last 30 minutes before it’s our team’s turn to give a speech, it’s still ye team-mates who contacted me and rehearsed the whole thing again and again.

Another thing I was proud of was that I got the best presenter award, which I was proud to be the only one in my group to get!

From the competition, I truly feel that I grew older, made new friends and learned how to control my feelings of being nervous. The whole experience was fantastic, though I or shall I say ‘we’ were online, we were being treated the same and sometimes even better by the organizers, which was really unexpected as though we couldn’t go and experience the joy and happiness of going on stage, we were still able to watch at the same time through live-streaming.

Even after the competition, it is still revisable about the people who participated there, and through the pictures posted, I can see everyone working amazingly.

Though we got a great result, it is sure that the topics are not easy, which is a shame. However, through the competition we managed to understand and learn them in just a few months and set our topic on gender during the American Revolution based on the book chains.

Just as I said we even linked color to gender and worked efficiently from day to night. My team did a lot! They even managed to finish a poster including pictures, writing and beautiful layouts in just a short 40 minutes. For this part, I am proud to be the designer and manager.

No matter if it is our first meeting or during the competition, we will have never dreamed of getting this far and indeed, we deserved it! Though our team had a lot of arguments at first and a lot of chaotic meetings, we managed with our teacher Miss. Aviva to make everything better every second.

Finally, I wish to say thank you to our opponents, our teachers, and everyone who helped us through the game, encouraged us and even those who troubled us. Thank you!

首先，最重要的是，我收获了友谊，这也是团队合作的基础。现在回想起来，如果没有Angela，我们的海报就不会这么精彩。以前我认为领导力只是一个团队领导者的智慧，但现在我发现领导力其实是一个团队领导者根据自己对团队成员的了解，分配自己在团队中能做的工作，并与团队成员和平合作的能力。除了这些，我还通过USAP的学术资料获得了一些专业的学术知识。总的来说，我认为我在USAP的经历是非常有意义的。

I think I also gained some other things in this USAP besides awards. The first and most important thing is that I gained friendship, which is also the basis of teamwork for me. Looking back now, if there was no Angela, our poster would not be so wonderful. I used to think that leadership was just the wisdom of a team leader, but now I find that leadership is actually the ability of a team leader to customize the work he/she can do in the team based on his/her understanding of team members, and to cooperate peacefully with team members. Besides these, I also gained some professional academic knowledge through the academic materials in USAP. Overall, I think I’ve had a very rewarding experience with USAP.

在备赛阶段，通过孩子们的学习笔记、小组讨论以及阶段性的反思，我看到了他们对自我掌控力和解决问题能力的提升。这包括了他们对情绪控制和时间管理的能力、领导力、沟通力以及合作的能力。解决问题的能力也至关重要。经典组的同学需要在假期参加线上综合知识测评，但有不少同学遇到了电脑技术障碍。孩子们通过和老师沟通，在IT部门老师的帮助下解决了问题，顺利参赛。更有同学在线上参赛时遇到了无法进入演讲会议或正常提交海报等问题，但他们通过交流都一一把问题解决了！以积极的心态面对问题，遇到问题时能迅速作出反应，想办法解决问题，这会让孩子们在未来更敢于接受挑战。

孩子们取得了优异的成绩是我的骄傲！这是对大家在过去8个月里的学习以及长久以来所培养出的各种能力的肯定！与此同时，我也为部分并没有获奖的同学感到自豪。因为，当他们面对失败时，没有丧气、更没有抱怨，而是在第一时间把消极的结果转化为了积极的行动，通过反思、复盘、虚心请教等已经开始规划自己的下一步学习和备战！正如赵玉莲校长所讲：“人在失败中收获成长”。USAP比赛带给我们的除了华丽的奖杯和沉甸甸的奖牌外，更重要的是眼界的开拓、能力的提升、态度的转变以及自我的不断突破！愿我们都成为更好的自己！