MathCounts

Calvert School participated in the regional MathCounts competition February 5th at Perry Hall. There were 24 schools and over 160 students in the competition. Three Calvert students performed well enough to qualify for state competition: Joe Sakai, William Little and Oliver Schmickel. Congratulations!

Problems of the Month-January

Problems of the Month-January

Well, it is basketball season…

1. Mr. Little and Mr. Doss were playing Hot Shot, the arcade basketball game where you try to make as many baskets within 60 seconds as possible. Since it was on classic, they earned 2 points for baskets made in the first 50 seconds and 3 points for baskets made in the last 10 seconds.

Mr. Little scored 60 points. What is the minimum number of baskets that Mr. Doss must make in order to beat Mr. Little’s score?


2. In three games, William scored 8 points, 14 points and 11 points. What is his scoring average for these three games?

3. William wants to score enough points to raise his average to 15 points per game. How many points will he need to score in the next game to raise his average to 15 points?

Happy New Year!
4. If the perimeter of a square is 2011 inches, what is the area of the square? Round to the nearest hundredth.

5. What is the median of the first 2011 positive integers?

MathCounts competition

During the first week of February, Calvert School will join ovr 30 other schools in the MathCounts Regional Competition. In case you didn't know...

"MATHCOUNTS is a national enrichment, club and competition program that promotes middle school mathematics achievement through grassroots involvement in every U.S. state and territory.

Currently in our 28th year, MATHCOUNTS is one of the country's largest and most successful education partnerships involving volunteers, educators, industry sponsors and students. President Barack Obama and former Presidents George W. Bush, William J. Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Ronald W. Reagan have all recognized MATHCOUNTS in White House ceremonies. The MATHCOUNTS program has also received two White House citations as an outstanding private sector initiative. Particularly exciting for our Mathletes® were the hour-long ESPN programs on each of the National Competitions from 2003-2005." (from mathcounts.org)

Problems of the Month-December

Sorry for the delay. Answers are due by December 23rd. More questions will be added later. There will be 10 altogether.

1. Claire loves making snowflakes. Mr. Little estimated that Claire should be able to create 1000 unique snowflake patterns, even though no two snowflakes are alike. Of course, there now needs to be a math problem involving 1000. How many pairs of positive integers add up to 1000? For example, 1 + 999 = 1000.

2. Elizabeth and Sophie were singing the 12 Days of Christmas with their math class. The teacher asked the class to complete the following challenge: Using the numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4 and basic rules of order of operations (+, -, x, ÷ and parentheses), write an expression for each number from 1 through 12. Each digit can only be used once, and they must all be used.

3. For a set of five whole numbers, the mean is 4, the mode is 1, and the median is 5. What are the five numbers?

4. At 10:00am, Mr. Little leaves his house in a car at a rate of 60 mi/h. At the same time, Mrs. Little, driving in another car, leaves the same house at a rate of 50 mi/h in the opposite direction. At what time will the cars be 330 miles apart? Don't worry, we will turn around and drive back home once you finish answering the question.

5. If a▲b = ab + b for all non-negative numbers, what is the value of 4▲3?

6. At Chipotle, a burrito with extra guacamole costs $7.75. Three burritos with two extra guacamole costs $21.60. What is the price of each burrito and each extra guacamole?

7. Find the area of the Christmas tree if the larger square is 4 inches x 4 inches.