Chouaib Saidi also contributed to this article.
On March 7th, Massachusetts Math students from near and far competed at Malden High School in a competition for the ages. The Malden High School’s Math Team competed against six teams, Wakefield, Revere, Marblehead, Ipswich, Swampscott, and St. Johns Prep. Last Thursday’s event marked the school’s first home competition in at least 25 years, and the tournament was hosted in Cafe B and multiple classes across Boyle’s second floor.
The competition started with all 7 teams across Cafe B, with students enjoying pizza and preparing their math skills to compete in their specific rounds.
The competition hosted six individual-based rounds: Simulations, Equations and Determinants, Exponents and radicals, Trigonometry, Algebra I, Plane Geometry, and Probability and the Binomial Theorem. Each round lasted for 10 minutes, with each having 3 questions, increasing with difficulty. Each Malden team member could play as much as 6 rounds and as little as 1 round. Every round included 35 students, or 5 from from each school, who worked individually to get the most points (6) per worksheet for their school, each round also included alternates, whose scores didn’t count for the math team but allowed those who were interested in the math team to explore their interests in math and the club as a whole.
The competition also hosted one group-based round where all students from one team, or school, compete against other schools to solve 1 exceedingly hard question for 12 minutes.
Throughout the 10 minutes where students were working hard by competing in their individual rounds, their teammates simultaneously prepared for their next matches downstairs in the Cafe, by working on practice sheets, given to them at earlier dates. This cycle, continued six times until all events were completed and all members had the opportunity to showcase their skills.
For the final round, all teams left the Cafe and joined together to compete in the team round where two teams fit in a classroom and had 12 minutes to solve the hardest math question of the competition. During this round, teammates were allowed to interact, which created a lively environment for the battle to find the correct answer.
By the end of all the rounds, Math Club advisors from all seven schools tallied up the points, and Malden ended up getting third place, which put them behind Ipswich by 1 point and Swampscott by 10.
As this is the school’s first home Math Competition in decades, freshman, Eric Lin, who showcased his satisfaction with the final result, “the event was thrilling, exciting, and it was pretty fun, the event is always good, and I was looking forward to the competition since it was in Malden.” Ninitha Balamurali, a freshman, and new addition to the team, agreed with Lin as she exclaimed that her experience was “really fun because I got to experience a lot of new things, I got to learn a lot of new stuff like new math problems, new equations, and I got to expand my knowledge overall.”
If you are interested in getting involved with their club and their future competitions, be sure to attend their meetings every Thursday in room B226 or follow their Instagram, @maldenmathclub.
