By Roger Wang | February 27th, 2022
Earlier this year, hundreds of students from The Woodlands participated in the Canadian Open Mathematics Challenge, American Mathematics Competition, Beaver Computing Challenge and Canadian Senior and Intermediate Math Contests (click this link to view our coverage on last semester’s math contests). In addition to having scored well above the overall contest average, many students from The Woodlands earned awards for their performance. Eleven students even qualified for the AIME contest for scoring exceptionally high on the American Mathematics Competition contest (top 2.5% of students for the Grade 10 Mathematics Competition and 5% for the Grade 12 Competition). Congratulations to all students that participated in these contests! In 2022, The Woodlands will be hosting four more math contests for students to participate in. These contests are the Canadian Computing Challenge, the Pascal/Cayley/Fermat Contests (Grades Nine, 10, and 11), the Euclid Contest (Grade 12 only) and the Fryer/Galois/Hypatia Contests (Grades 9, 10, and 11). Registration for all of the math contests is through School Cash Online and a full list of math contests at The Woodlands is available here. While registration for the Canadian Computing Challenge and the Pascal/Cayley/Fermat Contests are unfortunately closed, registration for the Euclid Contest (Grade 12 only) and the Fryer/Galois/Hypatia Contests (Grades Nine, 10 and 11) are still open and will remain open until mid-March. A full list of registration deadlines can be found on School Cash Online. Here is a breakdown of all the contests happening over the rest of the year.
Canadian Computing Competition (CCC):
The CCC is a computer programming contest that is run by the University of Waterloo. The CCC is designed to be both accessible to students with some programming experience and to challenge the keenest programmers at the secondary school level. The contest is available in two levels, the Junior Level (for any student with elementary programming skills) and the Senior Level (for any student with intermediate to advanced programming skills). There are no age restrictions for either level, although Grade 11 and 12 students looking to use the contest results for university applications are recommended to take the Senior contest. The Junior competition begins with “...straightforward topics like basic loops and conditions and progresses to advanced material, like recursion, two-dimensional arrays and efficient or clever algorithms”, according to the contest website. The Senior competition “...increases in difficulty from basic algorithms to more advanced algorithms, like careful counting and some mathematical reasoning”. Top-ranking students can earn the chance to compete at the CCO (Canadian Computing Olympiad). The contest has five questions with a total of 75 marks and lasts for three hours. The contest took place on February 16th.
Pascal/Cayley/Fermat Contests (9/10/11)
The Pascal/Cayley/Fermat Contests are run by the University of Waterloo. The three contests take place simultaneously on the same date. Students in Grade Nine or below are eligible to write the Pascal Contest, students in Grade 10 or below are eligible to write the Cayley Contest, and students in Grade 11 or below are eligible to write the Fermat Contest. All students are only allowed to write one of the three contests, usually the contest at their grade level. All three of these contests share the same format: 25 questions, with 20 of them being multiple choice (Parts A and B) and five being “answer-only” (Part C). The contest is out of 150 marks and lasts one hour. Standard calculators are permitted. The contests took place on February 23rd at 9:00 AM in the cafeteria.
Euclid Contest (Grade 12):
The Euclid Contest is run by the University of Waterloo. The contest is available to all students in Grade 12 and “motivated students” in lower grades. The Euclid contest gives senior-level secondary school students the opportunity to tackle novel problems with creativity and all of the knowledge they've gained in secondary school mathematics. The contest is beneficial for Grade 12 students looking to go to the University of Waterloo, with an excerpt from the university’s website stating, “The Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Waterloo recommends that applicants to the Faculty write the Euclid Contest. To be eligible for entrance scholarships, it is strongly recommended that applicants write either the Euclid or the Canadian Senior Mathematics Contest (CSMC) [which was completed in November]”. The contest takes two and a half hours to write and has 10 questions worth 100 points total. The 10 questions will be a mix of “answer-only” and “full solution” formats. Marks are awarded for completeness, clarity, and style of presentation, meaning that a correct solution that is poorly presented will not earn full marks. The contest will take place on April 5th at 8:30 AM in the cafeteria. Standard calculators are permitted. Registration for this contest remains open on School Cash Online until early March.
Fryer/Galois/Hypatia Contests (9/10/11):
The Fryer/Galois/Hypatia Contests are run by the University of Waterloo. The three contests are run simultaneously on the same date. In the same nature as the Pascal/Cayley/Fermat Contests, students in Grade Nine or below are eligible to write the Fryerl Contest, students in Grade 10 or below are eligible to write the Galois Contest, and students in Grade 11 or below are eligible to write the Hypatia Contest. All students are only allowed to write one of the three contests, usually the contest at their grade level. All three of these contests share the same format, four questions in total with a mix of “answer-only” and “full solution” formats. The contests are scored out of 40 marks and take 75 minutes to complete. Marks are awarded for completeness, clarity, and style of presentation. A correct solution that is poorly presented will not earn full marks. The contests will take place on April 12th at 9:00 AM in the cafeteria. Standard calculators are permitted. Registration for these contests remains open on School Cash Online until mid-March.
Interested in writing a contest?
Registration for all of the math contests is through School Cash Online. All four of these contests are run by the University of Waterloo. Students can view past questions and solutions, as well as past results at the University of Waterloo website.
To learn more about math contests at The Woodlands and view any new updates, join the Woodlands Math Competition Google Classroom run by Mr. Heathfield. The code to the classroom is xkphim2. This Google Classroom will provide more details about math contests and all results will be posted there. As of now, over 435 students have already joined the classroom. That’s nearly a 10% increase from November 2021! Additionally, students who wish to advance their math skills and better prepare for these contests can join the Woodlands Math Club. The club has weekly meetings every Thursday from 4-5 PM through Google Meets. The Google Classroom code for the club is v2vcjkr.
Good luck to all Woodlands students participating in upcoming contests. Go Rams!
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