On Feb. 25, 35 MS students took the American Mathematics Competitions AMC-10B test. Some also participated in the AMC-10A contest held on Feb. 10. Sierra Lincoln, Pranav Sharma, Ashvin Swaminathan and Wilbur Yang, all Gr. 8, and Vikram Sundar and Alex Pei, both Gr. 7, each scored 120 or higher and were invited to take the American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME) which was held on March 17. Results of the AIME were not available at Harker News press time.
Angela Gu, Gr. 6, and seventh graders Travis Chen, Rahul Sridhar and Nathan Wong also had very high scores but missed the AIME qualification score by very few points.
MS students also participated in the annual Santa Clara Valley Math Association contest on March 21. Students were competing with high schoolers in the area for the Algebra 1, Algebra 2 and Geometry contests. The team comprising Deniz Celik, Gr. 8 and Pei placed fourth in the Leap Frog contest. Wong placed fifth in the Algebra 2 contest and Chen placed twelfth in Geometry. Allison Wong, Gr. 5, placed 10th in the Algebra 1 contest. Harker MS placed third overall in this competition.
Harker students took five prizes in the 2009 Primary Math World Contest Team Tryouts. Cindy Liu, Gr. 6, David Zhu, Gr. 4 and Shaya Zarkesh, Gr. 3, all took first place in their grades; Aneesh Samineni, Gr. 4, took third place in his grade; and Rachel Wu, Gr. 6, took fourth place in her grade. Zhu, Wu and Liu all finished in the top 10 percent and have been invited to a 12-week training course to prepare them for the next level. “I especially would like to commend David Zhu who is the first fourth grader ever ranked in the top 10 (he was actually tied for first) in the history of this contest for the past five years,” said Ewa Garg of MathEdge, which hosted the event. “Given the highly competitive nature and difficulty of this contest, these students have my deepest congratulations!”
For the second time, the Harker Gr. 3 team, made up of the highest six scorers for the grade level, is a regional winner in the annual Continental Mathematics League contest. Our region includes students from schools in 15 states and 12 countries. A record three students earned scores of 17 out of a possible 18 in the contest this year to push the team to the top with a total score of 103 out of a possible 108. “Worldwide, our total score was in the top three percent of the 481 schools that participated in the contest,” said Stephanie Woolsey, Gr. 3 math teacher and contest advisor.
The test began after the winter break when all students in Gr. 3 math classes began completing a monthly math contest of six questions, earning one point per question. Griffin Ellis and Rishi Iyer, and Rose Guan, who is in Gr. 2 but is taking Gr. 3 math, all earned the almost-perfect scores this year. Each student earned a medal for his or her performance. In addition to the top three scoring students, two others, Adrian Chu and Rajiv Movva, earned total scores of 16, and earned a certificate of recognition. Amy Dunphy, Kaitlin Hsu, Anooshree Sengupta, Sahana Srinivasan and Justin Su were also strong competitors, and earned a total of 15 points each. “This is a difficult problem-solving contest in which students must read carefully and use their logical thinking and reasoning skills, with no rehearsal ahead of time,” reported Woolsey.
“We have participated in this contest for at least five years, and only twice have we had students earn scores of 18. Having three students earn 17 points is impressive!” Woolsey said. Harker also had a record number of students earning scores of six on at least one contest this year, with fifteen different students, or 15 percent of the entire third grade, earning a perfect score on at least one contest. Congratulations to all the students for attempting these problems!