Mathcounts had very exciting winter this year. We started the winter preparing for the upcoming chapter competition. The students spent elective blocks rehearsing for the countdown round of the chapter competition. The countdown round is the live round when students compete head to head in tournament fashion. The students practice using questions from previous chapter, state and national competitions. They were challenged by the vocabulary of the questions and the speed of the round. However, the repetitive practice helped when it came time to compete. On Saturday February 13, 2010, the students woke at 7:00 a.m. to head to Waterbury with their coach, Colleen Schopp and represent Indian Mountain School in the chapter competition. The students were nervous headed into the competition but were eager to defend their title as 2009 Champions. The morning consisted of three rounds–an individual round, a team round, and the live countdown round. The students completed a thirty question individual test and then joined their teams to complete an eight question team test. Their performance on the individual test determined their placement in the countdown round bracket.

 

Avian Song and Sophie Ro scored high enough to enter the countdown round bracket. Avian placed first overall on the individual test, which gave her a first round bye for the countdown round. Sophie Ro placed 7th overall on the individual test, which placed her in the final bracket of the first round. Avian continued to advance to the final round and ended up in second place due to an error in place value. Sophie advanced to the semi-finals, losing to the third place contender. The other team members gracefully cheered for their fellow team members and participated in the audience part of the countdown round. Ken Park, Daniel Cho, and YuJin all won frisbees for getting countdown round questions correct. Unfortunately Derek Baik was unable to attend the competition due to weather.

 

Having earned second place overall in the team competition the students earned a spot in the state competition. Sophie Ro also competed as an individual and also qualified to attend states representing an individual of Indian Mountain. Overall the Mathcounts team had a very exciting and upbeat winter term. Coach Schopp will miss their tenacity and desire to succeed, but looks forward to next year and the return of Ken Park, a now veteran MathCounts team member.