Why, someone new to Uni might ask, would you give up a game of sports and a free period to do math problems (AMC 10/AMC 12) for an hour and a half in the morning?

There must be a pretty good reason.

This morning, I was among about 100 students — about a third of Uni’s student body — who tried finding a seat in DCL’s undersized lecture hall. We weren’t there to watch a movie. There wasn’t any free candy at the end. No, our task was to complete 25 (pretty darn hard) math problems in 75 minutes. And many of us were lucky to finish half of those.

Fine, the majority of the people may have been missing more (academically) rigorous classes than PE. But the fact that a horde of half-awake morning zombies chose to sacrifice class time to do math problems says a lot about our school.

It is actually not uncommon for Uni students to go out of their way to take a test. Only a couple months ago did 90 percent of the sophomore class take the optional PLAN test, which was held on a sleeting Saturday morning.

Other standardized tests come routine to upperclassmen, although the SAT and ACT probably have more of an impact than any other kind of test. And to list the accomplishments of all other Uni students (that don’t involve taking a test) would probably overload the school server.

Maybe the promise of winning an award is the carrot in front of our noses, the reason we take the test. But only a small select group of people have a shot at a substantial award, so that can’t be the reason.

Résumé-building probably isn’t a factor either, considering the number of underclassmen taking the test. Uni students must just like math. That’s why I took the test — but is that why 100 other people did?

Math isn’t a sport (and please don't get started on chess), but the way people came out this morning, it felt more like a math team than a math competition. That might help explain the crowded DCL lecture hall this morning.