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April 25, 2018
Upper St. Clair students earn high honors in PA Math League
Students in grade six through 12 earned high honors in the recent Pennsylvania Math League contest.
Boyce Middle School sixth graders finished second among 79 Pennsylvania schools. This marks the seventh consecutive year that Boyce has finished first or second in the math competition.
Sixth grader Alex Sun placed fourth overall and his classmates Arjun Suresh and Shiven Verma tied with the eighth highest scores in the commonwealth. In total, 70 Boyce Middle School students participated in the PML contest on Feb. 27, 2018.
Fort Couch Middle School students also earned high honors with seventh graders finishing third among 62 schools. Jason Lu and Carter McClintock-Comeaux tied for fifth place and Alexander Todd tied for 20th place.
Fort Couch eighth graders placed fourth among 63 schools. Daniel Wang tied for sixth place and Shanning Zhou tied for 15th.
"Congratulations to the students who participated in the PML math competition!,” Mr. Andrew Lucas, middle school math curriculum leader and Fort Couch math teacher, said. “Fort Couch was first in the region for seventh and second in the region for eighth.”
At the middle school level competition, grades 6 through 8, participants were given 30 minutes to solve 35 questions – ranging from simple and straightforward to complex math problems. The school’s team score – comprised of the school’s top five scores – is reported to the PML.
At the high school level, PML consists of six contests each year, administered once a month (October through March) with six questions per contest. Problems draw from a wide range of high school topics, including geometry, algebra, trigonometry, logarithms, series, sequences, exponents, roots, integers, real numbers, combinations, probability, and coordinate geometry. Each six-question contest has a 30-minute time limit. The last two questions on each contest are more difficult than the first four, with the final question being intended to challenge the very best mathematics students.
“The contests are designed to promote the enjoyment and study of mathematics, covering a variety of difficulty ranges and topics of interest that encourage students to find problems that are challenging and stimulating,” Connie Gibson, gifted education teacher, said. “Additionally, working through these problems, and following up with a review of the detailed solutions, is also an excellent way to prepare for the SAT.”
This year, Upper St. Clair High School was among those recognized as Cumulative High Scoring Schools across the commonwealth with a tie for sixth place. Three USC students placed in the top 10 of Pennsylvania’s Cumulative High Scoring Students including sophomore Braden Yates, tied for fifth place; junior Sam Ding, tied for seventh place; and senior Spencer Miller tied for eighth place.
The PML specializes in conducting math contests designed to stimulate student interest and confidence in mathematics.
At Boyce, students also earned recognition for achieving top scores among their school-level peers.Category 1: Fifth Graders studying 6th Grade Math
- 1st Place (tie): Grace Myers and Eitan Schwartz
- 2nd Place: Yuhong Shi
Category 2: Sixth Graders studying 7th and 8th Grade Math
- 1st Place: Alex Sun
- 2nd Place (tie): Arjun Suresh and Shiven Verma
Category 3: Sixth Graders studying 6th Grade Math
- 1st Place: Daniel Seewald
- 2nd Place: Dhruv Saggi
- 3rd Place: Ethan Jooste
