After months of practice and hard work, Arcadia High School’s (AHS) Math Team swept the second round of competition held by the Bay Math League (BML) on Wednesday, Jan. 25. With this victory, the team added another win to its exceptional performance in the first round in November, in which it also secured first place! 

Each year, students from AHS’ Math Team compete in three rounds of competitions held by the Bay Math League (BML), a group of schools in Southern California that include San Marino, South Pasadena, North Hollywood, and Palos Verdes Peninsula. During each competition, competitors solve problems spanning over three of five possible math topics—one for each grade level, and a separate research topic. This year, freshmen were assigned to similarity, sophomores to systems of equations, juniors to trigonometric equations, and seniors to optimization. In addition to these subjects, competitors also had the chance to research and solve problems related to number theory. 

After three rounds of individual competition, including one for the given subject assigned by grade level, teammates also had the opportunity to collaborate on a team round, and were given five problems to solve in ten minutes with nine other team members. Members of the Math Team were also split into A, B, C, and D teams depending on their skill level—determined by a team-wide tryout held a few days before the competition—with aggregate scores from the A team tallied up against those from other schools. 

Although problems in the BML were presented to competitors on the day of, captain and senior Aaron Lee partially attributed AHS’ strong performance to prior preparation—completing practice problems, as well as recognizing and honing each member’s strengths in practice in order to effectively divide and conquer questions during the team round.

For Lee, who often leads Math Team meetings and presentations, competing in BML also gave him the opportunity to talk to other members of his team, especially underclassmen; for many, it was their first time at an in-person math competition.

“The previous two years were online because of COVID, so this year was the first impression of a BML for many of our members,” said Lee. “It was cool—competitions are almost like a bonding event, if you will, and you get to know some of your members more. That’s the fun part.”

According to Lee, as the AHS Math Team first arrived at South Pasadena High School, they got a good laugh at a competitor’s comments about them.

“When we first walked into the school, we were all wearing our Arcadia Math Team shirts, and someone from South Pasadena high School heckled us—they said we were going to lose,” said Lee. “It did not go his way.”

For sophomore Avik Kumar, who competed at the BML for the first time, the competition was indeed an exciting and educational experience.

“While not being on A Team this academic year, I was still able to learn a lot through the two competitions I went to, including [being] able to think fast on my feet as well as avoiding careless mistakes,” said Kumar. “Even just by going to these events, I’ve been able to improve in my math class, as skills such as efficiency while maintaining accuracy can come in handy in any situation.”

In addition to the Math Team’s dominant performance at BML, a record number of members who took the infamous annual American Mathematics Competitions (AMC) test, a 25-question test that tests creative and advanced application of math concepts, qualified past the first round of competition—16 out of 30 members on Math Team, including five underclassmen.

Out of the 80 people from AHS who took the test, 16 participants advanced to take the American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME), an honor granted to the top 5% of AMC 12 scorers and top 2.5% of AMC 10 scorers.

Those who qualified for the AIME were then pulled out of class on Tuesday, Feb. 7 to take the nationally-administered test, with the chance to qualify for the United States of America Mathematical Olympiad, one of the most prestigious math competitions for American high schoolers.

Although Lee doesn’t think that the team’s outstanding performance can be solely attributed to his and his co-captain’s leadership, he instead believes that the cutoffs to qualify for the AIME have dipped slightly while the team’s performance has stayed consistent, allowing competitors who would normally fall slightly short to advance.

Their incredible performance at BML and on the AMC notwithstanding, Math Team still has plenty of exciting events to attend later in the year: BML 3, which will be hosted in Toros High School in March; the annual Math Challenge, a buzzer-based competition open to all students; and Math Rush, a week of interesting math problems beginning on Pi Day.

Congratulations to AHS’ Math Team for their amazing achievements, and we look forward to what they have planned for the rest of the year!

Photo courtesy of AHS Math Team