Madison math students out-perform peers statewide, nationally
(CONTRIBUTED)
MADISON – Students in three Madison schools have excelled in one of the school year’s first national math competitions.Discovery middle and Bob Jones and James Clemens high schools entered the 2014 Fall Startup Event, the first of four national mathematics contests that National Assessment & Testing administers annually. (natassessment.com)
Among middle schools, Discovery ranked in second place nationally. In the Top 10, Bob Jones ranked in seventh place, while James Clemens finished in ninth nationally.
From Discovery, Tony Tian tied in tenth place and Aditi Lamaye tied in twelfth nationally among eighth-graders. Students had 30 minutes to answer as many problems correctly as possible. “The difficulty level goes all the way up to calculus,” Julie Goldston said.
Goldston coaches the Discovery seventh-graders. Carrie Maxwell teaches the eighth-grade math team.
All participants take the same test, regardless of grade. The individual score indicates the number of correctly answered problems from a possible 100 questions in 30 minutes. The team score is the total of the four highest individual scores from the team.
Bob Jones had a first-place individual winner, freshman Joey Li. Other stellar students were sophomore Winston Van in ninth place and freshman Shantanu Kadam as 17th.
Coached by Kimberly Cox, Bob Jones placed seventh overall. “We were the top high school in Alabama,” Cox said. In comparison, Grissom High School placed 17th and Hoover High School was in 20th place.
Coach Shaun Bardell led the James Clemens math wizards. Sharath Narayan placed 25th among freshmen. Pratheek Bobba was in 15th place for juniors. Sunny Chennupati placed sixth in the division for seniors.
Contest director Tom Clymer compared students in the competition to a musician practicing scales. “Many skills can become almost instinctual. With so many questions and so little time, competitors must not only have strong mathematical skills but quickly decide which problems to solve and which to skip.”
