Results of Mathcounts competition

I have graded the competition.  The top four students in alphabetical order were Ada, Anna, Colton and Liam.  These four students will compete as individuals and as a team in the chapter competition in February.  The next four students in alphabetical order were Alex, Gabby, Giovanna and Nick.  They will compete as individuals in the chapter competition.  The remaining mathcounts meetings from now until February will focus on getting those 8 students ready for the competition.  To the rest of the students -  I hope you have enjoyed mathcounts and I hope to see you again in the fall when we start up again.

I was expecting to put the solutions up, but since many other schools have not taken the test yet I don't feel like it's a good idea to publish it online.  I have kept the tests, so if any students, whether or not they are in the top 8 want to see the test or the answers or have a question about a particular problem they can see me at the beginning of mathcounts next Tuesday.

I don't know the date of the chapter competition yet, when I do I will let you know.

Mathcounts Competition

The school competition is tomorrow Tuesday Dec 6th in the regular classroom from 3pm - 4pm.  Students should bring a calculator (NOT on a smart device such as a phone or tablet.) If they don't have one, I will have a couple extra and if there aren't enough, they will still be able to do most of the test since on the first part of the test they cannot use a calculator.  I will post the winners on the blog tomorrow (Tuesday) night.

I haven't published any solutions lately since they were given out in class.  If students wish to prepare for tomorrow, they should look over the yellow Many Cheerful Facts page, and go over previous problems and solutions that we've done in class.  Good luck and see you tomorrow!

Meeting Notes from Nov 8th

Another reminder about our school test December 6th 3:00-4:00pm.  Students should make sure to bring a calculator.  After the contest, the top 8 students will go to the regional competition in February.  More details of that will follow.  I will post the names of the top 8 students on this website as soon as I have graded the papers.  

Beginning with the Tuesday December 13th meeting, only the 8 students selected for the regional competition will come to the mathcounts meetings so we can focus on them getting ready for the contest.  For everyone else, we will start up mathcounts again next fall.  

Homework: finish workout 2 and warmup 5.  Solutions below:

Solutions to workout 2

Solutions to warmup 5 

Meeting notes from November 1st

In class we went over adding equations together among other things.

Homework: Finish Warm-up 4, the first half of Workout 2, and watch the following videos:

More about adding equations together: video 

If you're having trouble understanding the probability problems like #57 and #55 from Warm-up 4, watch this video  and if  you want, some of the videos that follow it.

Solutions to Warm-up 4

Solutions to Workout 2 (1st half)

Reminder: School Test to determine who goes to the Chapter competition: December 6th 3:00-4:00pm

Meeting notes from Oct 25th

Video: Adding a sequence of numbers (referred to as "Gauss's trick" on the Many Cheerful Facts handout).

Homework: Finish Warm-up 3 and Workout 1 and check your answers below.


Solutions to Warm-up 3

Solutions to Workout 1 #36 - #40

Meeting notes from October 18th

In our meeting we covered two important concepts: the Pythagorean Theorem and Combinations.

Homework: watching the following 5 videos.  Complete warmup 1, warmup 2 and workout 1 if you haven't already.  Check your answers with the solutions below. 

If you are missing any of those worksheets, see the first post for the link.

Understanding the Pythagorean Theorem

The Distance Formula between two points (This is an extension of the Pythagorean Theorem)


Combinations: This is one of the most difficult concepts we will cover this year.  The videos will help you understand it!

Counting with Combinations 1

Counting with Combinatios 2

Computing Combinations 1

Solutions to the worksheets we have done so far: (It's better for the student to attempt to solve these problems on their own first before looking over the solutions.)

Solutions to Warmup 1

Solutions to Warmup 2

Solutions to Workout 1 (first five problems)

Introduction to Mathcounts and Test Date December 6th

Mathcounts can be overwhelming for students because there are a lot of new concepts for them to understand that they have not covered yet in their regular math classes.  I will make resources available on this blog to try to help them have the tools they need. Each week we will go over new concepts in the meeting.

There will be a school competition in December (Tuesday December 6th from 3-4:00pm) to determine which students will represent our school at the chapter competition in February.  In order to be competitive, a good mathcounts student will do the following:

1.  Attend the weekly meetings. TIME CHANGE: Now Tuesdays 3:00-3:45 (not ending at 3:30)
2.  In the meetings we will go over some of the problems on a worksheet.  The students will finish the worksheet at home and check this blog for solutions.
3. View videos that I post to explain difficult and new concepts.
4.  Read the yellow "Many Cheerful Facts" handout and keep it for further reference.

RESOURCES:

Many Cheerful Facts - This is the handout I made to help students with some new concepts.


If you are missing a worksheet we went over in class, you can use the following link to find it.
Mathcounts handbook


-- Michelle Johnston