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SoM Hosts High School Math Competition 2018

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The School of Mathematics hosted the 2018 Georgia Tech High School Math Competition in the Clough building on March 10, 2018. Over 250 students from 37 schools registered for the day-long event. The competition's four exams covered numerous topics in such subjects as algebra, geometry, combinatorics, and number theory.  Around 35 volunteers from among the Georgia Tech faculty, staff, and students took charge of the day's organization, ranging from registration to proctoring and grading.  Volunteers provided the participants with breakfast and lunch, as well as a t-shirt designed by Georgia Tech Math PhD student Stephen McKean.
 
Each school could send up to five teams of five students each to the event.  A team's score was obtained by taking three times the four best free response scores, then adding the four best ciphering scores.  The free response exam consisted of 20 multiple choice questions given over 90 minutes, while the ciphering exam had 10 individually-timed questions of three minutes each.
 
The top 54 students from the free response exam were invited to take part in a proofs exam during the afternoon in order to determine the individual winners, while the remaining students took a group test for fun.
 
One of the easier questions:  Consider 3 raised to the 100th power.  What is the last digit in its base-7 expansion?
 
A harder question:  Find all functions f from the natural numbers to themselves, for which the equality f(f(m+n))=f(m)+f(n) holds for all natural numbers m and n.
 
 
The winning teams were:
 
1.     Northview High School Team A, with 239 points.
2.     Fulton Science Academy Team A, with 223 points.
3.     GSMST Team A, with 219 points.
4.     Daniel High School Team A, with 201 points.
5.     Kennesaw Mountain High School Team A and Walton High School Team A (tie), with 200 points.
 
 
This year's individual winners were, in order:
 
1.     Shawn Im, from Peachtree Ridge High School, with 36 proof points.
2.     Holden Watson, from Fulton Science Academy, with 21 proof points.
3.     Daniel Chu, from Kennesaw Mountain High School, with 16 proof points.
 
Competitors and volunteers alike had a great time, and we hope to see all schools and returning graduate students again next year for the 2019 event!

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  • Workflow Status:Published
  • Created By:sbarone7
  • Created:03/20/2018
  • Modified By:sbarone7
  • Modified:03/20/2018

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