ICTM
Saturday morning, I woke up ready for the Illinois Council of Teachers of Mathematics regional contest. By the time my carpool arrived at Parkland College, my nerves were racing and I had completely forgotten how to find the surface area of a sphere.
As people began trickling in, I noted all the different schools that were taking place in the competition. Centenial, Central, St. Thomas More, and even some school from Lexington (they even had matching shirts made to wear at the contest). By then, I had calmed a bit and was hanging with a few of my friends who had arrived as well. There was nothing I really needed to worry about, and I was determined to have a good time.
In the individual testing, I could feel my insides flopping around again as I remembered that I hadn’t used my geometry skills for practically a whole year and couldn’t remember the difference between a complementary angle and a supplementary one. It was too late for me to worry about that so I just worked determinedly, trying to make the best out of it all. For 50 minutes, all I could hear in the classroom filled with dozens of students was the scratching of pencils. Other than that, it was dead silent.
After that ordeal, the freshman-sophomore eight-person team competition was about to begin. After spending five harrowing minutes attempting to get all of my group together, we were all ready to go. Each team was given 20 questions. Uni High shared the room with Urbana High School. As soon as the directions were explained, we started. The questions were quickly divvied up, and we all set about answering them. The freshmen were given the first 10, which were supposed to be easier, and the sophomores took the last 10. There were questions involving algebra and geometry, and the tests were all printed on obnoxiously colored papers. But 20 minutes later, it was over.
I didn’t stay for the awards ceremony; I didn’t come for the want of winning anything. I came for fun, and I got it — all at a rather interesting math contest.
Linda Song