Skyline High School Commended in National Math Contest

 

Seattle, WA – April 24, 2007 – Skyline High School has some of the best high-school mathematicians in the country, as demonstrated by their commendation in the 2007 Collaborative Problem-Solving Contest, a national mathematics contest administered by National Assessment & Testing (http://www.natassessment.com).  While most math competitions encourage rote memorization, familiar problems, and quick mental reflexes, the Collaborative Problem-Solving Contest presents schools with fifteen unique, intricate problems to be solved over the course of a week.  Under the guidance of coach Adella Croft, students worked together using brainstorming, collaboration, research, and technology to solve the problems, gaining experience with skills that will be critical in college and their careers.

 

The 2007 Collaborative Problem-Solving Contest included creative problems accessible to students of all abilities, such as one asking teams to determine how many times a day a digital clock displays an arithmetic pattern.  For example, a 12-hour digital clock will display an arithmetic pattern with a difference of 1 (e.g. 1:23 or 9:01) twelve times a day, while a 24-hour digital clock will only do so three times a day.  Other problems on the test started out simply, but progressed to some very difficult conclusions.  One such problem involved expressing numbers as sums of consecutive numbers (e.g. 3 can be written as 3, 1+2, 0+1+2, and (-2)+(-1)+0+1+2+3.  The first parts of this problem asked how many ways 150 and 900 could be written, which was pretty straightforward (12 and 18 respectively, for those of you wondering).  However, later parts of the problem asked for the number less than 1000 with the most expressions (945 has 32) and possible numbers of expressions (e.g. no number less than 1000 has exactly 22 ways it can be expressed), which turned out to be somewhat tricky.

 

Skyline High School was commended for having the highest score in the nation on problem 15, one of the most difficult.  This problem involved analyzing possible scores on another National Assessment & Testing contest, the Ciphering Time Trials.   

 

National Assessment & Testing administers high-quality mathematics competitions throughout the year that high schools can participate in through the mail.  Their 2007-2008 schedule includes five contests in a variety of formats, including individual and team tests, as well as a variety of difficulties, from an easier 100 problems in 30 minutes to a more complicated 15 problems in one week.