Following their absence at the State mathematics competition the past several years, Central’s Mathletes returned to Columbia on Apr. 12 to claim second place overall.
The math team placed second in a field which had 26 schools represented and more than 150 participants. To compete, they first had to qualify.
“This year we went to two local contests. You have to earn at least half of the available points per contest to qualify for state, and we had nine students qualify,” team sponsor Mr. Kurt Lehmann said.
The state contest consisted of problems of many different varieties, most dealing with some sort of problem-solving. The contest kicked off with a large, key problem, according to junior Minki Kim.
“We first had a power question. It was a huge ten-problem question that we had never seen before. We had a team of six people to do it. We worked on it for an hour, but didn’t get [many points] from it because it was really hard,” Kim said.
Following the initial problem, the team went on to finish the rest of the competitions, which included many smaller problems.
“After, we had a team round where it was another ten questions, but it was easier problems. We had around twenty or thirty minutes to do it. We then had individual questions, which is called target. You’re given two questions and you are given five or ten minutes to do it. Basically, one question is going to be ten points. We get four sets of these questions,” Kim said.
Members competed in several other areas as well.
“They compete individually on two events and then they compete as teams of six and teams of three on a couple events. There’s also a general sweepstakes, where the top scores from your school get put into your score,” Lehman said.
Souradip Ghosh participated as the only freshman on the seven member team, and earned the highest individual score on the entire team.
“As a freshman, with the score that I got I placed higher than all the other Central kids,” Ghosh said. “I wasn’t exactly surprised when I placed because I thought I did pretty well. The school did pretty well and I was kind of surprised because we didn’t have that many people, so that means that our people did pretty well.”
The team that competed consisted of seven members: four juniors, two sophomores and a freshman.
“Placing so high as a team was good because everybody contributed. Every single person, on some event, their score helped contribute to the overall score,” Lehmann said.
In addition to placing second overall, Kim felt he received additional benefits from the competition experience.
“It was a lot of teamwork, getting close with the sophomores and freshman. We learned more about math and we got second in state, so we’re building up to get first in state next year,” Kim said.
“Any time the school can separate itself academically, it gives the student body a sense of accomplishment that they’re at a high quality school,” Lehmann said. “It gives the community a sense of accomplishment, and gives the students a way to be honored for their academics, just like they are for their athletics.”
The team will move on to attend a regional competition in Kansas City.
