State Math Contest

I went to the State Math Contest at BYU.  I knew there would be a lot of really smart people there, but I just wanted to go for the experience.  My parents wanted me to go too, and you can't really argue with your parents.  Also my math teacher thought I should and didn't really give me much of a choice.  There were more kids than I thought would go to this.  I think some of the kids didn't have much of a choice either,


I will say that it was the most stressful test I have ever taken.  If there were seventh graders that could answer all of those questions, then I should just give up.  So much for being good at math.  If that is what people good at math can do, then I am no longer good at math.  They put is in a room and went over the rules.  We had 2 and a half hours to answer what we could.  The test had 40 questions, but it felt like a million when I was taking the test.

There were so many kids from different schools there.  I think the most intimidating ones were the ones wearing a school uniform.  Most of the kids in a uniform were from a private school, and I know that many private schools push kids harder so they probably know more math than I do.

In my math class, there are 5 ninth graders, with me included.  We are in math a year ahead of our grade, so we are in 10th grade math.  The 5 of us went to the state math contest, and we all agreed that it was a crazy hard test.  This was the junior test for seventh, eighth and ninth graders.  Even though we were in tenth grade math,

We also got to get lunch at BYU.  Free food is a good reason to do anything, right?  Being BYU, they didn't have any caffeinated drinks, and a lot of people were complaining.  There were so many kids there to take the test, so the lunch lines were really long and the lunch room was really crowded.

The next math class we had, we tried to go over some of the questions.  A couple of them were a little easier to figure out.  Others, we really couldn't figure out what the answer was.  Even my math teacher had trouble with some of the problems.    

After they posted the answers and I looked at them, I know I got a few correct, but I also know I got a lot of them incorrect.  If you answer a question correctly, you get 6 points.  An incorrect answer gets 0 points, and an unanswered question gets 1.5 points.  They try to discourage guessing on the questions.  The ones I know for sure I missed, I didn't even think to solve the problem the way they did.

I am pretty sure I didn't get a high enough score to win anything, but it was a pretty fun day.  I got to skip normal school for it, and I got to see what the BYU campus looked like.  (It was quite nice.)  Overall, I think it was a great experience, and I might do it again, even though it was very stressful.