Mathletes in Nepal

Mathletes in Nepal This year’s MathCounts was held at The Lincoln School in Kathmandu, Nepal from February 2 to 5. “At first, I wasn’t all that happy when I found out that we were going to Nepal for mathcounts. Other kids were going to Abu Dhabi and Dubai… and we were going to ‘Nepal’,” The pre-trip attitude was a little mixed. “At first, I wasn’t all that happy when I found out that we were going to Nepal for mathcounts. Other kids were going to Abu Dhabi and Dubai… and we were going to ‘Nepal’,” said YunHee Lee, a member of the MathCounts team. And to be honest, that was how most of the team felt about going to Nepal. However, after we reached Nepal and participated in the MathCounts competition, we realized that Nepal had left us great memories. AES VS. AES Even though the AES team – Sanghyun Mo, Kargil Behl, Keshav Saigal, YunHee Lee, JinYoung Jung, Dongha Kang and Namkyu Kwon – with eight mathletes, traveled as a team to Kathmandu for the competition, there were many cases in which AES had to compete against AES. The countdown round is an individual round where 10 students with the highest scores from the previous two tests get to compete face to face with one another in front of a large crowd. The teachers and students were thrilled and proud to hear that four out of eight representatives of AES made it to the countdown round. We did know that some of our mathletes might have to compete against AES students. However, what we didn’t realize was that we had gotten third, fourth, fifth and sixth best scores, and everyone from our school had to compete with another person from AES. This countdown round was one of those rounds that made you sit on the edge of your seat. The contestants didn’t take it easy against each other. Some students, like Sanghyun Mo in 8th grade, won against two other AES mathletes that had better scores than he did to start with. Photo credit: Mr.Fumi The results at the end looked quite different from what they did in the beginning. Still, all four of our students performed well, taking 3rd to 6th place. However, there was more competition yet to go. Just like ASIAC tournaments, AES had two teams representing AES. In the team round of the competition, mathletes work with a team of four people to answer 10 questions in 20 minutes. Each team had their own strategies, and performed well, collaborating with team members. We ended up with great results. One of our teams won first place in the team round! Even though the other team was not in the top three, they still did quite well. Photo credit: Lincoln School Photo credit: Ms. Sawkar Wait for it… Next year’s Mathcounts will be held in Cairo, Egypt. If you are a person who enjoys math and challenges, join Mathcounts!