Ottoson 7th Grader Rates 7th In U.S. Math Competition

Arlington MA

30 May, 2021

10:35 AM

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Your Arlington Last Updated: 28 May 2021 Published: 28 May 2021 Written by Jonathan McIntyre, Bob Sprague In a nationwide test of math skills, the team representing Massachusetts finished eighth out of 56, and Ottoson seventh-grader Jiahe Liu finished seventh out of the 224 competitors. "It was a very fun and exciting experience," the student told YourArlington on May 28. "Doing it at home helped because it felt more comfortable at home, and I'm more used to doing problems on my desk as opposed to a table at the testing center. I very much appreciate the effort that the MATHCOUNTS put into organizing the event and making it as fun as possible." The 2021 Raytheon Technologies MATHCOUNTS contest, held May 8-10, celebrates cybersecurity and computer science and aims to inspire tomorrow's problem-solvers. Besides Liu, the Massachusetts team included Matthew Qian, RJ Grey Junior High School, Acton; Rohith Raghavan, Sharon Middle School, Sharon; and Yuan Zhuang, Curtis Middle School, Sudbury. Score tops coach The Gibbs-Ottoson math team is coached by parent volunteer Jon McIntyre, a former USA Math Olympiad qualifier. Coincidentally, he attended the Sudbury middle school. Liu's score of 37 out of 46 was deemed excellent for such a difficult test, noted McIntyre, who tried it later and scored 34. McIntyre commented: "[H]is outscoring me is not like outscoring an average adult. I was one of the top 50 in the country my senior year in high school [in Virginia] in some top math contests, and a top scorer in an eastern Massachusetts math league when in middle school. "Of course, I feel like I could have scored as high as 38, since I didn't fully follow my own advice, as I didn't skip past time-consuming Sprint Round problems and thus never got to some easier ones, and I had some distractions around me during the Target Round, so I misread a problem. "I suppose the same mistakes are made by any competitor under time pressure, right? That's part of why I avoid looking at the problems until I can take the tests under the same time limits, as it helps me experience the challenges the students face and come up with test-taking strategies to help them overcome the challenges. I just have to remember to apply those strategies myself! That nervous 'panic" state can make it hard to stick to strategy." For more details about the state teams, click here >> See an earlier photo of the teams here >> YourArlington.com has provided news and opinion about Arlington, Mass., since 2006. Publisher Bob Sprague is a former editor at The Boston Globe, Boston Herald and Arlington Advocate. Read more at https://www.yourarlington.com/about.