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A first-year economics challenge team from Mission San Jose High School has the opportunity to become national champions next weekend.

A team of four Mission San Jose High seniors won the regional finals in the National Council on Economics Education's National Education Challenge on April 29.

The challenge was held in conjunction with the Goldman Sachs Foundation and the California Council on Economic Education, and featured teams from 73 schools from across the country.

The Mission San Jose students will compete against teams from Hawaii and Texas in the national finals in New York May 17 to 19.

Nancy Benton, economics teacher at Mission San Jose High, said this was the first time the school had entered the annual contest. She added she attended a workshop at the start of the school year when teachers were informed of the challenge.

The contest is open to all high school seniors, and Benton said she originally had 12 students interested in signing up. But eight actually competed and formed two teams of four a team is limited to four members.

Benton said the students took an online test in March to qualify for the competition, and less than a week later they were informed they would be heading to San Bernardino for the state finals on April 9.

There, the team of Wayne Chen, Lucy Lu, Jimmy Li and Zelin Yang earned the highest score in the lower David Ricardo Division.

Benton said the Ricardo Division was for regular economics classes, while the higher Adam Smith Division was for Advanced Placement classes.

She said because the school does not offer an advanced placement economics course, the team was relegated to the normal division.

"I was expecting them to do well because all the kids at Mission San Jose are competitive and high-achieving," she said. "I just didn't know how far they'd actually go."

Benton added what the team had going for it is that they were very competitive and could take on advanced placement teams if it wanted to. However, Benton said their only setback was her, because she had never entered the contest before and was playing most of it by ear.

Mission San Jose's second team scored second in the state finals April 29, but because the contest only allows one team from each school to advance to nationals, it was declined.

Each round consisted of two parts, with the first section an hour-long written test that included multiple choice and essay questions.

After this round, the teams would break for an hour lunch and return to take the quiz bowl portion of the contest.

In this part of the competition, students were asked questions and were given the chance to "buzz" in their answers much like the local "Quiz Kids" or the national television game show "Jeopardy!"

The regional finals, however, were done online on campus.

Usually held in San Francisco, Benton said the National Council on Economics Education did not have the available funds to transport teams to the regionals this year.

Nevertheless, Mission San Jose pulled out a victory.

The New York national finals will be held before a live audience, something the previous two rounds did not feature.

Benton said a lot of Mission San Jose students are very interested in economics, and hopes to have more students try out next year she's already excited about re-entering the 2009 competition.

"This was a tough competition, and I think the team did really well," she said. "Some students are very disciplined and focused. Some might not be as disciplined, but I think this team was disciplined enough and that's why they won."

For more information on the National Council on Economics Education's National Education Challenge, visit www.economicschallenge.ncee.net or www.regionalchallenge.org.