Vol74-3 March 2024

SMECO held 30th regional MATHCOUNTS competition

Each year, more than 500 regional competitions are held in middle schools across the country. In 2024, your cooperative held the 30th annual regional MATHCOUNTS Competition at Calvert High School.

The competition features rounds of mathematics problems to challenge students one-on-one and as teams over the course of the three-hour event.

Winners of the Southern Maryland chapter competition will compete in the statewide contest at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. The top four individual competitors from each state competition receive an all-expenses-paid trip to the national competition in Washington, D.C., in May.

The individual portion of the competition has a sprint and a target round. Winners are determined by the highest combined scores from the two rounds.

Sprint round: Students complete a 30-question test

Target round: Students have four sets of math problems and six minutes to complete each set of two questions.

COUNTDOWN ROUND

The top 12 scorers overall finish the competition by facing each other in the countdown round.

• A single-elimination bracket-based tournament
• Students respond verbally to questions within seconds

Teams of four answer 10 questions in 20 minutes.