Today's math team competition went really well, especially for my group being undermanned.
Myself, my brother, and a friend of mine were all on a team for the competition, a grueling three hour competition of much problem solving. There were four events for this competition, following a Winter Games theme.
Slalom - There are 20 questions and 40 minutes. Generally this equates to each student of a four-person group being able to spend 8 minutes per problem, but we only had three people. Therefore, about 6 minutes per problem. The goal was to cross off every wrong answer of the five choices. Crossing off a wrong answer gave one point, and crossing out the right answer subtracted four points. We got 5th out of 32 teams in this.
Curling - This one was the most complicated. There were 20 questions and 40 minutes, as before, but with some changes. The session was broken up into three subrounds, with the answer sheet being collected at the end of each round. For every right answer, you got one point. Because you kept the same problems, this meant that if you got an answer right in the first round and wrote it down again in the next two, you could get a full three points. My team got 3rd out of 32 teams.
Biathlon - This one was astoundingly straightforward. There were 15 problems that took a long time to do but were fairly easy, and these were each worth two points. The other 5 problems were really difficult to do, and were worth three to five points, depending on the question.
Speed Skating - This was hell on Earth. There were four rounds to this one, and each was more frantic and insane than the last. (Personal note - find missing friend on Monday and berate him.)
Round 1 - 20 problems. The instructor would continuously read off four questions (twice each) in a row, pause for 90 seconds, and then read off another four. Generally a group is supposed to have four people and thus be able to do this fairly easily, but we instead had to cover it ourselves.
Round 2 - 16 problems. It was just like the first one, but with only 45 seconds between clusters.
Round 3 - 12 problems. It was just like the first one, but with each question only being read once.
Round 4 - 12 problems. It was just like the first one, but with only 45 seconds between each cluster and each question was only read once.
We ended up taking 5th out of 32 overall. Alone, our average would have gotten us second, but the other group from my school in our division 'got flustered' and failed hard on the Biathlon and Speed Skating sections. Also, I got some pleasant feelings from going up to receive our awards, which was new. I generally don't like doing such things because I don't like going up in front of crowds, but I must say the expressions on some of the other teams' faces were priceless. I got a nice chuckle from some guy attempting to explain the theory of twin telepathy[X] to one of his teammates while I walked by.
[X] - To any of you out there who are not of sound mind, I am reminding you that telepathy is pseudoscience and that twins are no more likely than most people to develop these pseudo-scientific 'psychic abilities'. Just because my face looks like my brother's face does not mean I can tell what he is thinking. That is all.
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Topic: [MILK] There were 12 eggs here what did you do with them? (Happy thread?!) (Read 16319820 times)