Are you smarter than a fifth grader?
By David Bassler
On Thursday, April 14, 165 students at Mammoth Elementary competed in the Noetic Learning national math contest. The contests are grade specific and consist of 20 challenging word problems that must be completed within 45 minutes. How would you have fared with these 2 sample questions from the 4th and 5th grade tests?
1) The Summer Olympic Games are an international sports event occurring every four years. The 30th Summer Olympics Game (Game XXX) will be held in London in 2012. What year was the 1st Summer Olympic Games (Game I) held? (Answer at end).
2) Mark wrote down a 5-digit number. In that number, the sum of each group of three adjacent digits is 9 and the sum of each group of four adjacent digits is 11. What is the number Mark wrote? (Answer at end)
Thirty-two 2nd graders tackled the 2nd grade contest. Ryan Furness earned a spot on the national honor roll with the high score of 80 points. Honorable mention went to Ace Selters (70), Bryce Horowitz (70), Cecilia Bassler (70), Fiona Godoy (65),Taylor Williams (60), and Aidan Le Francois (60).
Twenty-seven 3rd graders took the 3rd grade contest. Keely Podosin was our highest score with 80 points which made the national honor roll. Stella Anderson (65), Trent Presson (65), Ruby Walker (60), Carson Durough (60), Barrett Mannetter (55), Thomas Zentmyer (55), Lily Pederson (50), Maya Weber (50), and Annie Matthiessen (50) earned honorable mention.
One hundred 4th graders competed in the 4th grade contest. Hats off to teachers Lisa Anderson, Michelle McMillian, Michelle Quirsfeld, and Marci Jefferson for having ALL of their students participate! Top honors went to Charlie Regelbrugge who made the national honor roll with 70 points. Honorable mention went to Lucas Strazzere (60), Liam Bassler (60), Justin Okamoto (55), Hannah Linnaweaver (55), Orion Ellis (55), Emily Posey (50), Alexia Craven (50), Charity McDaniel (50), Elan Preis (50), Ari Schuldt (40), Allison Williams (40), Alexis Molina (40), Owen Omondi (40), and Chris Knowles (40).
Next up is Mammoth Elementary School’s own Math-a-Thon on Tuesday, May 17th! Students will compete for cash prizes in speed, mental math, and problem solving rounds. There will also be puzzle contests, raffle prizes, t-shirts for all participants, and an ice cream sundae party at the end! All for free!
Answers: Question 1 = 1896. Question 2 = 22522.
