Junior Math Competition

Vienna - March 14-16, 2008

Wait a minute!  That doesn't look like Amanda is at a Math Competition.....

The Junior Math Team took a trip to Vienna to compete in their yearly competition and our kids went into it with very high hopes!  But first, they had some fun!

They arrived in Vienna on Friday, March 14 (3-14) - which to any math lover is a special day - Pi Day!  What a perfect day to start a math competition...  They were a bit early so their teachers took them out for some fun before the serious stuff got started....

In the airport...

Bumper cars and Ferris wheels on a rainy day in Vienna - They all liked this car on the Ferris wheel.  Notice it is all decked out with a fancy table with flowers....

Then it was time to get down to business....

Question #6 in the Individual section - "A small right circular cone is created by cutting off the top of a larger right circular cone with its vertex pointed up.  The cut is made on a plane parallel to the base of the larger cone.  After the smaller cone is removed, the solid left is a "frustum" - the portion of the larger cone that has two circular bases of different sizes.  In this particular case, the small cone is created by making the cut at a place one-fourth of the way down from the vertex toward the base.  The small cone is then used to fill the frustum with water.  To fill the frustum, the cone must be filled and poured N times.  The value of N is

A) 3        B) 15       C) 63       D) None of these"

If you're still reading, the answer is C!

Hyung Soon, Keun Hong, Kyoung Hee, Young Hyun, Amanda, Eric (Sam is missing...)

Hyung Soon, Keun Hong, Kyoung Hee, Sam, Young Hyun, some guy, Amanda, and Eric

This is the whole team from our school, plus one guy in the back whose teacher told him he should know Amanda, but the two of them couldn't figure out why they were supposed to know each other....

Question #14 Individual section - "A palindromic number is a number that has the same value when its digits are reversed.  (For example, the number 21312 is palendromic.)  How many three-digit palendromic numbers are NOT multiples of 3?

A) 56     B) 60     C) 63     D) 70"

And the answer is.....  B!

The team plus their teacher/coach, Mr. Fielding - you can see he brings out the best in them all!

Question #1 Team Round - "Of all the points in a coordinate plane that are equidistant from P (4,10) and Q (8,2), which one has x-coordinate 2008?  (Answer as an ordered pair.)"

There are no choices in the team round - you have to get there on your own!  The answer to this one is (2008, 1007)

The team waits to hear the results....

Questions 5 from the team round - "If the difference between two numbers is 10 and the product of the two numbers is 12, what is the sum of the squares of the two numbers?"

Well that's a short one - easy right??!!  And the answer is....124!

Amanda and Young Hyun both knew they had a chance to be in the top 10.  The day before they had each been called in to do a tie breaker round, and you only do that for places in the top 10!  The best news was that they both won their tie breaker rounds to finish in the higher spot!  Way to go!!!

Amanda receives her 7th place award!

The Top 10 from the Vienna competition in 2008 - Amanda is 7th and Young Hyun is 3rd!!!  Tenth place starts on the left, first place is on the right.  Look closely at the picture - there is one blonde and one girl and she is the same person!  You go, Amanda!!!

Sonya and Casey and many other parents and family members met the team at the airport with a very big sign announcing to the whole crowd how well they had done - Great job!!

Here's what Mr. Fielding wrote about the kids on the school website -

"All of the ISB Maths teams have performed well in the past and the expectations were very high this year. The students were outstanding in every way…and since it was a math competition let’s have a few statistics.
• Individually all 7 of our students were in the top 40 out of 200.
• The following ISB students were in the top 20: 

Young Hyun 3rd
      Amanda 7th
      Samuel 12th
      Keun Hong 17th
• Our 2 teams were 4th and 5th out of 66 teams.
• Out of a possible 630 points only 5 out of 66 teams achieved over 300 points and both our teams were in that group.
 The Vienna Competition was by far the hardest competition that I have been to in my 7 year’s of taking students to the competition. The students battled against very difficult questions and were a credit to ISB. As always I had a wonderful time with the students and I think they had a good time as well."