Middle School Students Participate In Math Olympiad Program

By Tanjua Damon

The average of six numbers is four. A seventh number is added and the new average is five. Find the seventh number.

This is one type of math problem 135,000 students worldwide worked on this year during the Math Olympiad Program, including sixth grade students from Newtown Middle School. The students had a series of five monthly contests of five problems each from November to March. There was weekly practice session under the direction of teacher John Ventresca.

The program allows students to learn how to solve unusual and difficult problems and to think creatively. The students from Newtown Middle School placed in the top 20 percent of the 4,000 teams who competed.

“Because of the high scores the team placed in the top 20 percent,” Mr Ventresca said. “All sixth graders do this. This is the first year we had an advanced math pilot class in the sixth grade.”

Seven of the students who participated were honored with national awards within the elementary division. The following students earned the silver pin, which is given to the 90th to 97th percentiles: Valerie Nezvesky, Jill Logan, Jake Benson, Patrick Dunseith, Ryan McGrath, Dan MacDonalds, and Darcy Fiscella.

Twenty students were given the embroidered felt patch for being in the top 50 percent of all participants. Those students include: Tara Cerreta, John Nelson, Erica Federman, Justin Miller, Tilly Philbrick, Christopher Kraft, Nikia McFadden, Michelle Plunkett, Briana Eckhart, Michael Stephans, Robert DeFilippe, Shaina Musco, Jesse Cox, Billy Tierno, Linda Chamiec-Case, Brian Stickles, Julie Landin, Christopher Potter, Tricia Reed and Danielle Nicolosi.

The entire team was named to the National High Achievement list for its score of 175 points, according to Mr Ventresca. The team must be in the 80th to 89th percentile nationally to win this award.

Many of the students thought the program was fun.

“I thought it was fun,” Darcy Fiscella said. “On weekends we would have practice. We would always go over the tests.”

During the practice sessions the students would also help teach their classmates how they might go about solving a problem in a different way than other students.

“You can’t really learn how to do certain problems,” Valerie Nezvesky said. “You had to use things you already knew. Common sense things really. It challenges you. Sometimes when problems seem to easy, it mixes me up because I think it’s wrong.”

Jake Benson found the program a good way to learn other ways of thinking about how to do something.

“I thought it was fun and interesting,” he said. “You just go to think out of the box. Not regular, you have to think how you would regularly think and you have to get creative.”

There were time limits on the problems the students were tested on. The object is to be able to get as many points as you can.

“The time limit [was challenging],” Ryan McGrath said. “Certain time limits didn’t leave enough time to do the really hard problems at the end.”

Mr Ventresca said the math concepts were fairly easy for the students. The challenge was learning different strategies.

“The arithmetic is very simple,” he said. “It’s the math that is complex and learning strategies. Certain concepts and problems kept repeating themselves.”

 The Math Olympiads serve 4,000 teams and 10,000 students nationally. About 1,800 teams and 35,000 students are in 32 other countries. The program has been in place since 1979 providing challenging, thought-provoking problems that stretch the abilities of students in grades four through eight.