Harker Excels in Feb. and March Math Contests

During a flurry of math contests in February and March, Harker students have been performing admirably. On Feb. 12, Harker participated in the Santa Clara chapter of the MathCounts competition, said to be the most competitive chapter in the country, a notion supported by the 13-way tie for first place. Cindy Liu and Matthew Huang, both grade 8, both scored 45 out of a possible 46 points and finished 15th and 16th, respectively. David Lin, grade 8, received a score of 44 and placed 20th in a four-way tie. Andrew Zhang, grade 8 and Allison Wang, grade 7, had 43 points and placed 24th and 27th, respectively.

In the team competition, Harker’s team, made up of Huang, Liu, Zhang and Celine Liang, grade 7, took third place in the competition, earning a spot in the state competition on March 19 at Stanford University. Lin will participate in the individual competition because of his performance at the Santa Clara chapter.

On Feb. 14, middle school students took either the American Mathematics Competition’s AMC 10 A or AMC 12 A tests, and took the AMC 10 A or AMC 12 B tests on Feb. 24. In this contest, meant for high school sophomores and seniors, abovementioned students Huang, Liang, Lin, Liu and Wang, as well as Suzy Lou and Sriram Somasundaram, both grade 8; David Zhu, grade 6; and Jessica Zhu, grade 7, performed well enough to compete in the American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME).

Several students scored high in the California Math League (CAML) contest, which was administered Feb. 22. Out of a possible 35 points, David Zhu earned a perfect score, while classmates Peter Wu and Kai-Siang Ang scored 34 and 33, respectively. Grade 6 students James He, Neymika Jain and Steven Cao all scored 29.

Seventh graders Wang and Michael Zhao had perfect scores, and classmates Jessica Zhu, Anthony Luo and Jonathan Dai had 34. Jonathan Ma, Celine Liang and Vineet Kosaraju earned 33 points and Rishabh Chandra finished with 32 points.

In grade 8, Cindy Liu and Andrew Jin had 35 points. Andrew Zhang and Aadyot Bhatnagar both earned 34. Scoring 33 points were David Lin, Steven Wang, Suzy Lou and Pranav Reddy. Nikhil Kishore, Helen Wu and Samyukta Yagati all had 32 points.

Harker hosted the 10th annual Diana Nichols Harker Math Invitational in which Harker students also excelled. This was the first contest to also feature international competitors from the World Foreign Language Middle School in China and Viveka School of Excellence in India. Results are contained in the full report of the event.

March 22, 2011Tags: Mathematics, topscience