Every Tuesday lunch, RM’s Math Team gathers in room 314 with math team sponsor and math teacher Matthew Davis to explore the world of competition math. Led by captains senior Richard Zhu, junior Ojas Bailey and junior Sophia Li, the meetings are filled with practice drills, candy for the fastest respondents, slideshows with complex math concepts and even groups of students eating and chatting in the welcoming environment the club creates.
Bailey joined the club in his freshman year in search of a community to improve his competition math skills. “I started competition math by doing Alcumus problems on Art of Problem Solving (AoPS). I found the idea of academic competitions interesting, so I trained to get better,” he said. “At first, I enjoyed math simply because of the competitions it presented. However, as I learned more concepts, I became interested in actually learning more advanced theory. Whenever I showed commitment to math, I could see my improvement through my competition scores, which I found interesting.”
Personally, Bailey has placed very well in competitions such as the UMD Math Competition, which allows students to compete for a full scholarship. He says he hopes to use his competition math knowledge and skill in his future life. “I definitely plan to major in STEM, and probably in engineering. But I am considering working towards a minor in math. Many competition math topics cover the basics of discrete subjects such as number theory, so I might be able to apply the knowledge I’ve gained towards college,” he said.
Meetings for the Math Team are not meant to be stressful. Instead, Zhu, Bailey and Li try to cultivate a welcoming atmosphere welcoming to students with all levels of prior competition math experience. “At meetings, we sometimes do practice problems for an upcoming competition or teach helpful concepts. However, paying attention isn’t a requirement,” Bailey said. “The room has people who are both focused on learning as well as chatting with friends. Sometimes, we do fun activities like the Pi Day celebration where the room was filled with people clamoring to get a slice of pie.”
Bailey encourages all students with an interest in STEM fields to join the club. “Math Team is an active club, so if you are looking to commit to a STEM-based club, Math Team is a good choice. For example, we participate in multiple competitions each year. However, Math Team is also the type of club where what you get out of it depends on the commitment you put in,” he said. “There is no obligation to participate in every single competition or come to every single meeting for Math Team. I would recommend trying it out for a week or two if you are interested. Maybe even participate in a competition. And then you can decide if you want to spend more time on math.”
The club participates in multiple competitions throughout the year including the MoCo Math Meets, Johns Hopkins Math Tournament, and MMATHS. They also host individual competition opportunities such as the AMC and the UMD Math Competition. On team tournament days, Bailey says the mood is very energetic. “On competition days, the team is often excited to see how much progress they’ve made. High performance isn’t stressed because Math Team just enters competitions for fun,” he said.
One competition Richard Montgomery placed particularly well in this year was the MoCo Math Meets. The county-wide tournament occurs over the span of six weeks and consists of weekly tournaments with three individual rounds, each with two problems that students have ten minutes to solve. In some weeks, there is a team round where teams of five collaborate to solve a set of five questions in twenty minutes. The points of different high schools are then tallied and teams gather to face off in a final in-person.
This year, the finals were held at Wootton High School, Feb. 19, and RM entered the doors number one in the standings with a slight edge over the other top schools. However, the team suffered a heartbreaking second-place finish to Blair High School with a margin of just one question. “We lost by one. It’s a sad day for RM math today,” Bailey said. “Second place in the county, so we’re still pretty good.”
The team that represented the school at the Math Meets Finals was the A team which, consists of the top-scorers of an exam the club issued at the start of the year. One such student was junior Derek Wang, who joined the team in his freshman year. “I started doing math competitions in fifth grade, and got really into it during lockdown in middle school… I’ve done well in the AMC competition, qualifying for the AIME in ninth, 10th and 11th grade. I also enjoyed doing the UMD math competition, qualifying for the second round the past two years, and placing top 50 in the state this past year,” he said. “On competition days, the environment is usually lighter and more about putting our practice to the test, and anticipating some interesting challenges to crack.”
Wang says that the math team was a place for support while developing his mastery of math and practicing for tournaments. “It’s an exciting and positive environment that helps you build critical thinking and problem-solving skills. We have a great sponsor in Mr. Davis, committed captains and are looking for more math enthusiasts,” he said. “Weekly meetings are always fun, with engaging activities and intriguing topics to learn.”
Like Bailey, he plans on incorporating his knowledge into his career path. “I really enjoy the problem-solving and creativity of math. It’s like a riddle that I piece together the solution to using clues from the problem. I definitely plan to go into a STEM career with heavy math emphasis, but I am still undecided if I want to be a math major,” he said.
For Zhu, it was the last competition of his high school math career. “I did this back in 10th grade once, and we didn’t sign up last year. So this year I’m back again, my second year,” he said. “I think I am a little bit less prepared for this one because sophomore year I was on the grind, and right now I just didn’t have a practice routine because it does take a lot of time to practice questions.”
Personally, Zhu has dedicated many of his high school hours improving his math skills—math is one of his favorite subjects, and his hard work has borne him impressive results. “I think it’s really interesting. I think the competition is kind of different from the school math. School math is just a lot of formulas, you just plug in and you solve the problems. But for competition math, it’s more like you have to find more creative ways. You have to find your own solution. Sometimes you derive the formula yourself. It’s more creative. And sometimes when you solve the problem, it’s more satisfactory,” he said. “My performance in AIME puts me in the top three percent among all AMC contestants. I also participated in and did well in a few other competitions too, like the UMD competition.”
He says he enjoyed the low-pressure and collaborative environment of the event. “For math competitions I would say this is a really beginner friendly one. I think the most important ones are AMC and ARML and the UMD competition, but this one is pretty good for beginners. I think it’s a lot of fun, just participating,” he said. “This is actually the one that you get to do it in a round robin or do a team round with your teammates, while all the other math competitions are just individual. So I think this was a good opportunity for friends to get together and do math.”
