Ella Guo

Sophomore Edward Chen solves problems for the USAMTS competition. “I have not competed in this competition in the past because I took the AMC instead. These are some pretty good proof problems,” he said. Chen worked with friends to solve math problems.

Math Club last met on Sept. 11 in Room A331 and will continue to do so every Wednesday after school. In the past meeting, Math Club participated in the USA Mathematical Talent Search (USAMTS) competition, which is hosted online. Allison Shen, club president and junior, explains the process of this competition.

“There’s a lot of fun proof based as well as puzzle based problems,” she said. “(For) the USAMTS, you do the problems on your own but you submit them online. The problems are on paper because they are proof based, but you can choose to type out or hand write your solutions.”

This competition is open to all students at CHS, Shen also said. She said that students will need to enter via the USAMTS website. The competition is not limited to students who are in the Math Club.

Club sponsor Peter Beck said that the level of math knowledge required for this competition varies.

“It’s for all levels of math,” Beck said. “Well, we teach up to linear, so anything from USA Algebra up to linear. Now to approach (the proofs) from an algebraic standpoint, you probably need some background information on it. Calculus doesn’t really apply to the proofs, but you can use Calculus ideas.”

While the competition deadline is Oct. 15, Math Club will be moving on to different activities in the following weeks. Shen states that students may still work on problems together outside of class, however they will focus on the Arete Math Madness math competition for the upcoming meetings.

“Arete is a team-based competition, so we hope to bring in all the members of Math Club together,” Shen said. “Anyone can join up until the first round, which I believe is Sept. 25.”

“Bring a device and come into the Math Club to participate,” Beck said. “(There are) various questions, some for higher level math and some for lower level math but we can figure it out in different ways. There aren’t any math classes that can set you up for these ideas. It’s all about mathematical thinking more than anything else.”