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The Mathematical Association of America, parent organization of the United States Mathematics Olympic Committee, has sent commendations of distinction to 4 of our students, in recognition of their superior score on the AMC8. CONGRATULATIONS to Jiaqi Duan, Thomas Liao, Sean Ma, and Wendy Tsai.

In addition to the students named above, the following students have been invited to participate in the AMC10 exam in February, used to determine the most outstanding 10th grade math students in America: Alyssa Naritoku, Wen Zeng, Thomas Chang, Sofia Goode, Shyam Senthilkumar, and Ryan Smith.

Additionally, 6th graders Cameron Wong and Sheldon Zhu will be awarded certificates of merit for scores which ranked them among the highest scoring 8th graders in America on the AMC8. More information is available at http://www.unl.edu/amc/

Wendy Tsai, Ryan Smith, Patrick Gan, Jack Bishop, Sean Ma, Jaiqi Duan, Tommy Liao, and Jake Sim placed 1st in the 26th Annual MATHCOUNTS competition. Every private and public school from Long Beach to La Canada was invited to this competitive event, which took place February 28 in Los Alamitos.

San Marino placed second in the team category and Pasadena Polytechnic was third. Individually, Wendy placed 2nd and Ryan was 3rd among 120 top math students.

The competition consisted of three rounds. In the sprint round, the students must individually solve 30 questions in 40 minutes, without a calculator. In the target round, 8 challenging questions must be solved in 24 minutes. And in the final round, teams of four work together to solve 10 very difficult questions in 20 minutes.

South Pasadena advances to the California State Finals, to be held in March at the University of California in Irvine. The top teams from throughout the state will compete for the prize of representing California at the National Finals in May in Orlando, Florida.

Mathcounts is a national math competition sponsored by the National Society of Professional Engineers and Raytheon. Nearly 6,000 schools and 500,000 students participate across the nation.

Over 200 students from 11 middle schools in the San Gabriel Valley gathered at Mark Keppel High School on Saturday, March 7, for the 29th Annual Alhambra Math Field Day. South Pasadena was awarded the Sweepstakes trophy for taking first place in five of the nine events. Brightwood of Alhambra was first in three events, and Huntington of San Marino placed first in one event.

The following students were recognized for their outstanding efforts:

Team of Two-Jiaqi Duan/Ryan Smith(1st), You-Ree Lee/Alyssa Naritoku(2nd)

Calculator-Thomas Chang(1st), Krishna Mocherla(2nd), Chelsea Hong(3rd)

Advanced Mathematical Concepts-David Liu(1st)

7th Grade Speed Math-Ryan Park(1st), Jack Bishop(3rd)

8th Grade Speed Math-Wendy Tsai(3rd)

Math Terminology- Wen Zeng(3rd)

Math Logic Games- Ryan Park/Ryan Smith(1st), Ye-Eun Kong(2nd), David Liu(3rd)

Also recognized for placing among the top ten in their event were Patrick Gan, Ryo Arichi, Audrey Yim, Michael Ruan, Amber Laird, Shyam Senthilkumar, Gloria Kim, Tommy Liao, Michael Xu, Jake Sim, Jessica Fang, Sean Ma, Sofi Goode, Ke Shao, Sarah Choi, Jenny Wang, Jason Wang, Jeffrey Xiong, Henrik Wang, Jennifer Orr, Remeny White, and Bryan Li.

South Pasadena Middle School captured the first place trophy at the 37th annual Don Bosco Math Field Day, held April 25, in Rosemead. Over 250 students from 10 schools in the Greater Los Angeles area competed in this challenging event.

Harvard-Westlake place 2nd and San Marino’s Huntington School ranked 3rd. This was the 5th year in a row that South Pas has placed first and in the process broke the all-time team scoring record for the event.

Individually, South Pasadena 8th graders Patrick Gan and Ryan Smith tied for 2nd. Also scoring in the top 25 individuals were Tommy Liao, Krishna Mocherla, Wendy Tsai, Wen Zeng, Chelsea Hong, David Liu, Jack Bishop, Rhian Moore, Jeffrey Xiong, Sean Ma, and Jiaqi Duan.

Are you smarter than a middle school student? Then try this:

What is the largest sum of the calendar dates for seven consecutive Fridays occurring at any time in any year?

This question was one of fifteen that challenged students in the 7th annual Purple Comet, an international, internet-based mathematics competition sponsored by the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and the University of Texas-Dallas.

More than 1000 middle school teams from 25 countries vied for top honors. A team of six South Pasadena Middle School students tied for first place in the event. SPMS and teams from The Philippines, Romania, Turkey, and eight middle schools in the United States all had a perfect score. Each school correctly answered all fifteen challenging questions.

SPMS eighth graders Patrick Gan, Ryan Smith, Wendy Tsai, David Liu, Jiaqi Duan, and Thomas Chang were given one hour to solve the problems and submit their solution via a secure website.

To enable students throughout the world to participate, the contest was translated into fifteen foreign languages.

Note: The answer to the question at the beginning of this article is 142.

Additional information about the competition can be found at: http://purplecomet.org

Outstanding achievement in mathematics was recognized at the 24th Annual South Pasadena Middle School Open House Awards ceremony on May 28.

Eighth grader Patrick Gan was presented a trophy as Mathematician of the Year. Gan led the South Pasadena Tiger Cub team in fourteen local, state, and national events.

The Purple Comet Math Meet is an international, internet-based mathematics competition sponsored by the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and the University of Texas-Dallas. More than 1000 middle school teams from 25 countries vied for top honors. SPMS 8th graders Patrick Gan, Ryan Smith, Wendy Tsai, David Liu, Jiaqi Duan, and Thomas Chang tied for 1st by correctly solving all fifteen challenging problems. Further details are available at www.purplecomet.org.

MATHCOUNTS is the most prestigious middle school math competition in America. Sponsored by Raytheon and the National Society of Professional Engineers, over 6000 schools participated this year. The SPMS team of Patrick Gan, Ryan Smith, Wendy Tsai, and Sean Ma placed first in the Los Angeles/Pasadena region.

The United States Math Olympiad Committee sent Commendations of Distinction to four SPMS students for their outstanding results in the AMC8 math competition. The USMOC praised Jiaqi Duan, Tommy Liao, Sean Ma, and Wendy Tsai. Sheldon Zhu and Cameron Wong were sent Certificates of Merit for excellence among 6th graders taking the 8th grade exam. Tsai gained further recognition for her excellent score on the AMC10, a competition meant to determine the most outstanding 10th grader math students in America. More information is available at www.unl.edu/amc.

SPMS eighth graders ranked third in the state in the California Math League. Individually, Gan ranked 8th and Thomas Chang 22nd in California. Full details are available at: www.mathleague.com

MATHFAX is a geometry problem solving event. Gan and Smith tied for 9th in the U. S. out of nearly 1300 students. The team was 4th nationally. Full details are available at www.educontest.com.

SIGMA is a national math competition sponsored by the University of Nebraska. More than 10,000 students from 112 middle schools were challenged over a five month period. Led by David Liu (2nd nationally) and Rhian Moore (3rd), SPMS ranked second in the nation.

Each student that was recognized at Open House received gifts donated by Garlic Jim’s, Kaiser Permanente, Twohey’s and In-and-Out Burgers.

GOLD FOR SOUTH PAS MATH STUDENTS

On June 6, South Pasadena 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th graders excelled at the 2009 Los Angeles County Math Field Day. Over 300 students representing school districts from throughout the county participated. The competition was held at Wilson Middle School in Glendale.

South Pasadena Middle School eighth graders Wendy Tsai, Patrick Gan, Ryan Smith, and David Liu captured gold medals in Conceptual Understanding and Procedural Skills.

Seventh graders Jack Bishop, Rhian Moore, Tommy Liao, and Ryan Park took golds in Conceptual Understanding and Procedural Skills, and added a bronze in Problem Solving

Sixth graders Glenda Chen, Alex Kim, Lexie Scholtz, and Sheldon Zhu earned the gold in Conceptual Understanding, the silver in Procedural Skills, and the bronze in Problem Solving.

Fifth graders Justin Burger, Matthew Cheung, Raymond Gilmartin, and Karen Zhu were awarded the gold medal in Problem Solving.

Fourth graders Matthew Arena, Grace Kull, Matthew Lee, and Sarah Ohta captured the gold medal in Conceptual Understanding and the silver in Problem Solving.