This weekend, Sean was able to compete in the Arizona state MathCounts competition. He earned the right to compete by finishing 2nd in the regional competition.
Mathlete is what they call the kids who compete. Lol, not sure how accurate that moniker is but its cute.
After registration, they kicked all the coaches (yes, mathletes have coaches) and parents out so the kids would have quiet and concentrate on the tests. The testing went for about 2 1/2 hours. At which time they reviewed the questions and answers.
Now, I know a pretty fair amount of math having been 2 classes short of a math major in college. This were some pretty tough questions for middle school kids. The tests are designed for low scores to weed out the top. No one ever gets them all correct.
After these first two rounds (the 2 1/2 hours), the top 10 kids qualify for the showdown round. This is a one vs one math raceoff with the fastest correct answer winning. Each one vs one match is first to two points (except for last three rounds which is to 3 points). It starts with #10 vs #9 with winner facing #8 and so on. As posted before, Sean was not in the top ten.
These kids were just machines. They were working through these questions in seconds. On many, they were much faster than I in solving the problems.
Several were asked how much time outside of school they spent prepping for the competition. Common answers ranged from 10 – 20 hours a week. Well, that explains why Sean wasn’t in the top ten as his number was more like zero.
Still, great job just to qualify! Despite being in middle school, he has been earning high school credit for his math, so hopefully that will give him a leg up.
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