LIMESTONE, Maine — The Maine School of Science and Mathematics once again earned first place in the 43rd annual Maine State Math Meet for the Maine Association of Math Leagues, which took place April 2 in Augusta.
MSSM scored 846 points out of a possible 920, and nine students won medals. MSSM junior James Hawkes was recognized as top scorer in the state during the regular season.
Hawkes said this year was “filled with difficult questions. I appreciate the time and effort put in by the math teachers, who provided us with practice and taught us what we needed to know for each meet.”
In part one, the individual round, all students did the same six sets of math problems, with scores tallied individually and summed for the team. Ten students competed for up to 72 points each for a maximum score of 720, with MSSM scoring 667 points.
In part two, the relay round, each school split into two teams and completed problems dependent on the other half of the team to provide a partial answer. MSSM earned an 87 out of 100 possible points.
And in part three, the team round, two rounds of eight questions carried a possible score of 50 points per round. MSSM scored a 92 out of possible 100 points.
Ethan Winters (Gardiner) and James Hawkes (Portland) earned all possible 72 points, for which they earned gold medals for grades 12 and 11, respectively. Other seniors to medal were Sandy Kweon (Republic of South Korea) in fifth place and George Johnson (Kennebunk) in 11th. Minjin Lee (Republic of South Korea) earned a silver; Jordan Theriault (Caribou), a bronze; Christian Chagnon (Eliot), fourth; and Oleksii Nikanov (Ukraine) tied for fifth. Madison Albert (North Yarmouth), the only sophomore on the team, earned a silver in her grade category.
The next step for the MSSM Math Team will be by invitation to compete in the American Regions Mathematics League, a competition simultaneously held at four locations around the United States. MSSM will join students who excel in mathematics from high schools in Maine from May 30 to June 2 at Penn State, while other teams will compete at the University of Las Vegas, University of Iowa and University of Georgia.
The ARML has been called the “World Series of Mathematics Competitions” with roughly 2,000 students competing at this event nationwide.
