Math Olympiad 2017

It was a weekend, and like last year I was dropping off Aditya and Shreya at their Math Olympiad class contest.  This was a contest available to all (hundreds of... although I don't know the exact number) students... who attend Mr. G's Math Olympiad classes in our city. 

Mr G is a fantastic teacher who loves Math and loves kids.  He also loves coming up with outlandish math problems (e.g. My grandma bikes at 800 mph so how long will it take her to bike from San Francisco to New York... which by the way is an over-simplification of one of his incredibly funny word problems.)

Each of the students (ranging from grade 4 to 8) could take any one of 4 levels of tests, progressively increasing in difficulty from level 1 to 4..

Aditya had taken level#2 last year and placed 3rd along with his friend N.

This year, both Aditya and Shreya were appearing for level#2.  Aditya was anxious about keeping his "rank" from last year, if not improving it.  Shreya was anxious because her brother is known as the "Math wizard" and she hates being compared to him. 

I dropped them off, and returned about 1.5 hours later when the results were being announced.  Mr G shared that there were 12 problems on the 1 hour test, and the first 3 prize winners correctly responded to 8, 7, and 6 problems respectively.  Shreya got 5.  (Woo Hoo!  Her confidence has reached new highs!)

What about Aditya?  He too, had gotten 5 problems right and hence, not placed.

He looked unhappy... even distraught. 

He barely put together the energy to ask Mr G: "When is the next test going to begin?"

Here, by "next test", we do not mean the test that was going to happen next month or next year!  We are talking about level#3 test, which was going to be held in about 15 minutes! (He had already decided that he was going to take level#2 and if allowed, also level#3on the same day.  We knew that already.  But what we didn't know is he would want to take level#3 AFTER not having won a prize in level#2.)

"Are you sure you want to do this  Aditya?" asked Mr G lovingly and firmly.

Aditya replied affirmatively, shoved down the snack he had brought from home and then rushed inside for the test. 

As decided we came back 1.5 hours later.  We were thinking Aditya was going to be super exhausted from answering 24 increasingly challenging Math problems over 3 hours.  I looked at him as he was sitting next to his friend M.  He looked composed.

The results were announced.

And as you might have guessed it by now, Aditya placed 3rd.  This time, he got 7 out of 12 problems right!

His expression was priceless as he picked up his "prize" from Mr. G!

Kudos to our hero for his positive attitude, his perseverance, and his passion for Math!  (And kudos to Shreya too for doing so well on her test!)