This is a story about a math competition I had in sixth grade that changed my perspective on things. I did not omit names from this because it really adds to what happened (Only my teachers last name was used, and his first name isn't there).
My teacher always stated that he took one sixth grader to the biggest math competition of the year, but he never told me it would be me. Mathcounts® was (and still is) a world renown math competition with chapter, state, and national levels of competition. There are three rounds in the competition: Sprint, target, and Team. There is also an occasional fourth round called the countdown round, where 12-16 people compete to be the best mathelete. I never considered myself to be that good at math, until Mr. Ondes told me I would be going to the competition in my sixth grade year. It… broke me out of my cage to go to the math competition. As a famous poet once wrote: “I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”:
As I sat in the car going to the competition in SIUE, I wondered what the competition would be like. Where would I sit, what would it look like, when would it end? The questions continued to scroll through my mind until we stopped in front of the building. As I entered, I didn’t see anyone else from my school. John, Chad, Monica, Danny, Jacob, not even Mr. Ondes was there. So I sat, and as I sat, I felt lonely.
Until John finally came in. He was a short, weird seventh grader who I knew the most out of who was coming. As he walked by, I noticed some people. Monica was already there, and so was Mr. Ondes. I had sat there myself for fifteen minutes waiting for people who were already at the competition. I felt extremely stupid, which is not good if you are about to be in a math competition.
The first thing I received when I was over there was a tee shirt. Now these were no ordinary tee shirts, the were grey tee shirts that had the logo; “Got a Problem? MATHCOUNTS®.” They were the cheesiest tee shirts I had ever seen in my life. As we entered the hall, I saw so many tables in the room. There were four chairs for each table, and there was about 75 tables. I got to sit at a table where only one kid was to my side: Matthew. Little did I know that we would be “rivals” after that day, so I just said “Hi” and looked away. I have known Matthew since fifth grade, but I hadn’t seen him since. Needless to say, this was going to be fun.
The first round was the sprint round, which happened to be my favorite round. For example, a problem would be, If Julie has six dollars and puts the money in the bank with 10% interest, how much money will she have by the next year? The problems were fun, so I enjoyed doing them. As I compared with the others, I noticed I had missed some, but I didn’t mind. The target round was next and much harder. You have six minutes to do 2 problems, but they are very hard. I am pretty sure I missed half of them, which is ok, but I should have done better. Then came the team round. Since I wasn’t on the four person team, I got kicked out of the room. We finally had lunch then, but all I had was a lunch I packed since I can’t eat the lunches there. Lunch was extremely boring, because I had no one to talk to. I just waited for it to end.
The countdown round was the coolest round of them all. I got to watch an all Liberty final, where Jacob beat Danny in eight questions. The awards ceremony finally came. Liberty won many of the awards including: First place team, school, 3rd place individual, 4th, 5th, 7th, and 8th place individual. The grade awards were for 7th and 6th grade, with someone from Lincoln getting the one for seventh grade. The winner for the sixth grade was….
“ Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” Robert Frost once wrote that in one of his poems. I did exactly that, I chose the road less traveled by. Before the contest, they told me to do my best and not expect an award. I won top sixth grader. Good thing I didn’t expect anything. This is a story about a math competition I had in sixth grade that changed my perspective on things. I did not omit names from this because it really adds to what happened (Only my teachers last name was used, and his first name isn't there).
My teacher always stated that he took one sixth grader to the biggest math competition of the year, but he never told me it would be me. Mathcounts® was (and still is) a world renown math competition with chapter, state, and national levels of competition. There are three rounds in the competition: Sprint, target, and Team. There is also an occasional fourth round called the countdown round, where 12-16 people compete to be the best mathelete. I never considered myself to be that good at math, until Mr. Ondes told me I would be going to the competition in my sixth grade year. It… broke me out of my cage to go to the math competition. As a famous poet once wrote: “I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”:
As I sat in the car going to the competition in SIUE, I wondered what the competition would be like. Where would I sit, what would it look like, when would it end? The questions continued to scroll through my mind until we stopped in front of the building. As I entered, I didn’t see anyone else from my school. John, Chad, Monica, Danny, Jacob, not even Mr. Ondes was there. So I sat, and as I sat, I felt lonely.
Until John finally came in. He was a short, weird seventh grader who I knew the most out of who was coming. As he walked by, I noticed some people. Monica was already there, and so was Mr. Ondes. I had sat there myself for fifteen minutes waiting for people who were already at the competition. I felt extremely stupid, which is not good if you are about to be in a math competition.
The first thing I received when I was over there was a tee shirt. Now these were no ordinary tee shirts, the were grey tee shirts that had the logo; “Got a Problem? MATHCOUNTS®.” They were the cheesiest tee shirts I had ever seen in my life. As we entered the hall, I saw so many tables in the room. There were four chairs for each table, and there was about 75 tables. I got to sit at a table where only one kid was to my side: Matthew. Little did I know that we would be “rivals” after that day, so I just said “Hi” and looked away. I have known Matthew since fifth grade, but I hadn’t seen him since. Needless to say, this was going to be fun.
The first round was the sprint round, which happened to be my favorite round. For example, a problem would be, If Julie has six dollars and puts the money in the bank with 10% interest, how much money will she have by the next year? The problems were fun, so I enjoyed doing them. As I compared with the others, I noticed I had missed some, but I didn’t mind. The target round was next and much harder. You have six minutes to do 2 problems, but they are very hard. I am pretty sure I missed half of them, which is ok, but I should have done better. Then came the team round. Since I wasn’t on the four person team, I got kicked out of the room. We finally had lunch then, but all I had was a lunch I packed since I can’t eat the lunches there. Lunch was extremely boring, because I had no one to talk to. I just waited for it to end.
The countdown round was the coolest round of them all. I got to watch an all Liberty final, where Jacob beat Danny in eight questions. The awards ceremony finally came. Liberty won many of the awards including: First place team, school, 3rd place individual, 4th, 5th, 7th, and 8th place individual. The grade awards were for 7th and 6th grade, with someone from Lincoln getting the one for seventh grade. The winner for the sixth grade was….
“ Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” Robert Frost once wrote that in one of his poems. I did exactly that, I chose the road less traveled by. Before the contest, they told me to do my best and not expect an award. I won top sixth grader. Good thing I didn’t expect anything. |
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