Math standouts at Bob Jones in National Assessment’s top 25

In this year’s first major competition, Bob Jones High School Math Team rated 22nd place in the 2012 Fall Startup Event.

National Assessment & Testing conducts the math contest, which “claims to be nationwide but schools from Singapore and Ontario also won awards,” sponsor Kimberly Cox said. Rebecca Breland also coaches the team.

The testing included 131 schools. Each school can enter only one team, but team number is unlimited.

Victoria Van placed 17th among sophomores nationwide. The team includes these students:

– Seniors — Martin Wang*, Yoo-Jung Yang, Cody Wheeler, Dennis Dergunov, Rain Li, Claire Zhang

– Juniors — Olivia McCoy*, Nisha Patel, Robin Newman, Moriah Lorge

– Sophomores — Victoria Van*, Tina Tian, Vi Dang, Megan Carter, Harper Pannell

– Freshmen — Kevin Duan*, Arvind Draffen, Chan Lee, R.J. Sieja, Wenle Mu, Aditya Mathur, Dan Nguyen, Mathew Ganatra, Michael Foley, Byron He

* Denotes top score for that grade from Bob Jones

Students answering more than 50 questions accurately in 30 minutes were Victoria Van, 68; Martin Wang, 62; Tina Tian, 61; and Yoo-Jung, 58.

The test has 100 written problems covering various concepts from arithmetic to calculus. “Students have only 30 minutes to complete as many problems as they can,” Cox said. The team score is the sum of each grade’s top students.

Speed presents the contest’s major issue. “Students must read quickly and identify the most efficient method to solve a problem. Some problems are fairly quick, but others take (considerable) thought,” Cox said.

One test question: “Mr. Norris puts a cubic equation on the board. James writes incorrect values of X&Y, getting roots of 1, 2 and 3. Cherie writes incorrect values of X&Z, getting roots of 2, 3 and 4. Tom writes incorrect values of Y&Z, getting roots of 3, 4 and 5. What was the sum of X, Y and Z in Norris’s original equation?”

The math team “learns to analyze functions and create shortcuts for efficiency, reason, to prove theorems and problem solve,” Cox said.

Bob Jones team also won second place at the University of Alabama Mathematics Competition in October.