Every birthday of my life, I put as many pennies in a jar as my age in years. I now have $1.20 in my jar. How old am I? I personally would have $5.95 in my jar by now, along with a sinking feeling that my retirement plan is not going to be fully funded using this method.
The statement above does not describe an ill-conceived savings program. It is, instead, one of the released sample questions from the International Math League contest.
The questions used for the timed contest are designed to engage and challenge young minds without going beyond their grade level. Any student able to answer 40% of the questions correctly is "to be commended." Few score as high as 80%. There were 35 puzzling questions in this year's contest with only 30 minutes to solve them.
The Math League has participants in 48 states, Ecuador, Turkey, Canada, Brazil, Chile and Taiwan. Sixty schools in Florida entered this year, including several public and private schools from the Jacksonville area. Every student at
Julia Landon College Prep participates in the annual event.
This season's official scores were recently released and Julia Landon led the city with a remarkable showing. Landon's eighth-grade students were ranked second in the state and first in the region. Two students placed in the top 10 statewide, Jacob S. and Chase W., ranking eighth and 10th respectively, and first- and second-place in the region. Also impressive, seventh-grade students came in fourth-place overall statewide. Two eighth-graders placed in the top 10 statewide, Victoria G. winning fourth-place and Ashlie M. winning eighth-place. Victoria and Ashlie held the top two spots in the region. Landon's sixth-grade students placed 13th in the state.
Congratulations to the Julia Landon students who participated and succeeded at this international competition!
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