Click and count: State math meet draws 900

BANGOR – Someone in the back of Bangor Auditorium started clicking a clipboard Tuesday afternoon. Other students joined in. Soon the clatter drowned out all conversation.

It is a tradition at the Maine State Math Meet, something the students do when they are bored, restless or just anxious as they wait for scores to be announced.

On Tuesday, the proctors just smiled and went about their business. Many have been participating in the meet for years, some since they were students themselves.

“It was one of the most important things I did in high school,” said Brian Twitchell, secretary of the Maine Association of Math Leagues and math teacher at Mount Abram Regional High School in Strong.

The meet, which drew up to 900 students Tuesday, has been held at various places in Maine for 31 years.

There are six individual rounds, two team rounds, and two relay rounds. During relay rounds each student on a team does part of a problem before passing it back to the student behind. Their answers depend on the answers of the preceding person.

On the other side of a wall at the auditorium, proctors, usually two from each of the 87 schools, graded the questions. Each answer sheet was graded twice and the grades were checked against each other to ensure accuracy.

Six or seven proctors sit apart from the others and judge appeals. “Sometimes,” Twitchell said, “kids think of it a different way.”

The appeals judges decide whether the answers should be accepted.

The questions are difficult.

Judith Clark, math teacher at Woodland High School in Baileyville, said, “It’s hard because they can throw anything at them.”

Calculators are allowed only on the team round. Problems can include anything from geometry to algebra and trigonometry.

Ashley Oliver, senior and salutatorian at Woodland High, agreed that the questions are difficult, but she stays on the math team for the people.

“It’s just usually a really fun group of kids, even if we’re not always really good at the math part,” she said.

The teachers love math team too. “This is the high point of my year,” said Kathy Filip of Camden Hills Regional High School in Rockport.

Twitchell said, “It’s a fabulous, energetic activity.”

There are some friendly rivalries between schools that met during the five regular season meets.

The top 12 teams from the Maine state meet will continue on to the New England meet, which will be held in Canton, Mass., this year.

The Maine Association of Math Leagues also will choose 30 to 40 students to attend the national meet at Pennsylvania State University in June.

The students spend from Thursday to Sunday traveling and competing.

Allen Gerry, treasurer of the league said the trip will cost about $12,000. It is paid for by association dues unless they receive donations.

He believes the event is “doing great things for math and science. It makes kids become what I call friends with math.”

Following are the top scoring individual students for the meet Tuesday:

Josh Scripture, Bangor High School, 68 points; Michael Jerome, Cheverus High School, and Chunan Liang, Portland High School, 64 points; Luke Hubbard, John Bapst Memorial High School, and Gao Ryan, Falmouth High School, 63 points; Scott Massidda, Marshwood High School, 62 points; Ho In Na, Hebron Academy, 61 points.

Following are the top scoring schools for Tuesday’s meet:

First: Cheverus High School, 599; 2nd: Portland High School, 571; 3rd: Falmouth High School, 561; 4th: Bangor High School, 552; 5th: Mount Ararat High School, 491; 6th: Oxford Hills High School, 491; 7th: Marshwood High School, 474; Hebron Academy, 473; 9th: Fryeburg Academy, 461; 10th: Erskine Academy and John Bapst Memorial High School, 460.