April 2008

After completing six contests throughout the course of the school year, two Taft students--uppermiddler Jenny Jin and middler Toan Phan--finished the year with perfect individual scores. Each contest has six questions, for a possible 36 point total. Only five other students in New England managed this feat. Uppermiddler Susan Weng tied for eighth place with a score of 35.

But these young mathematicians also compete as a team. A team score is the sum of the top 5 scores on a given contest, so a perfect score would be 30 for one contest, and 180 for the year. Taft came in at 175, putting the school in sole possession of ninth place nationwide, with Andover as the only private school ranking higher. (Only one Andover student achieved a perfect score).

"I think team competition is really fun," says Jenny, "especially the guts round at the end of the MIT competition, and we get to work together and discuss. It is a good experience, different from what we did before in China. Also, I feel like doing math problems is kind of getting away from the regular study and is interesting and exciting."

Schools can have any number of students take the test each time, "so larger schools like Andover have a slight advantage," explains adviser Ted Heavenrich, in that they have a larger pool to attact from and can send in more tests.Taft has a number of regular participants but averages about 20 to 25 kids taking the contests in a typical month.

"What I really liked about the competition is that the problems are at various difficulties, so students with different levels of Math can all participate and discuss them," adds Toan. "The last problems of each round are quite interesting and require some deep insights. Being careful is also very important. There were a couple of times when I made a mistake and only realized and corrected it in the last minute!"

Here's a sampling of how other independent schools fared (points missed out of 180 points for the year):

Andover –0
Taft –5
Choate –13
Wheeler –15
Westford Acad. –21
Loomis –25
Kent –26
NMH –29
Brooks –32
St. Paul's –35
Deerfield –36
Berkshire –38
Williston-Northampton –38
Cheshire Acad. –44
Hotchkiss –53
Conv. Sacred Heart –54

Math league contests are available in 47 of the 50 states, and the great majority of competing schools are public. More than 2,000 schools nationwide register to compete each year. For more information, visit the Math League web site.

photo by Yee-Fun Yin