BY JOHN SNYDER
OF PASCACK PRESS
WESTWOOD—A picture with a perimeter of 1.2 meters is framed. One side of the picture is 40 centimeters, and the distance from the edge of the picture to the edge of the frame is 1.5 centimeters on all sides of the picture. What is the area of the portion of the frame not covered by the picture? Express your answer in centimeters-squared (cm2).
- A) 198
- B) 189
- C) 203
- D) 134
- E) Other
Pascack Press congratulated Primoris Academy students for their achievements at the 2018 Mathleague State Championship held in Summit on May 2.
Since then, the story got even better.
The students who placed in the top five at state went on to the Mathleague National Championship June 16 at Texas A&M University at College Station, Texas, pulling down more awards.
Hillsdale resident Shailen Shah, 8, landed first place nationally in the third-grade division. His score of 197 was the second highest ever in Mathleague national history for this grade.
Shah is a student of Primoris Academy in Westwood, as is Thomas Isernhagen of Waldwick, the third-grade division’s second-place winner.
Another teammate, Andrew Brahms of Morris Plains, won ninth place in the fifth-grade division.
Primoris Academy placed eighth in the overall Team Sweepstakes.
“This win means a lot to me because I wasn’t expecting a first- place win at nationals. It was a fun experience solving this challenging test but also nerve-wracking being in a ballroom filled with hundreds of smart kids. It was great to be there with my Primoris schoolmates and that we could celebrate multiple wins together,” Shah told Pascack Press Aug. 2.
Overall, 11 students from Primoris Academy qualified for nationals by placing among the top five overall individuals in the students’ grade level at state.
Of those who qualified, seven students traveled to Texas and joined a field of 375 contestants from the United States and other countries.
These students competed in a challenging math competition consisting of four segments: Target, Sprint, Number Sense, and Team Test.
The math problem at the top of this story comes from a mathlegague.org sample test, sprint round, for elementary school students.
Individual awards are based on the first three sections. All contestants competing take the same timed test and have the opportunity to show their abilities regardless of their age and grade.
Mathleague.org sponsors a number of elementary school contests throughout the school year. The contests are structured such that students will find the tests good preparation for other elementary and middle school math contests.
At state, Primoris took a second-place team award.
Grade 3 winners were Thomas Isernhagen (first), Shailen Shah (second), and Michael Pylypovych (third).
Grade 4 winners were Jed Sloan (first), Mythreya Dharani (second), and Gabriele Herr (third).
Grade 5 winners were Andrew Brahms (first), Aidan Mascoli (third), Daniel Gilman (fourth), and Tony Kim (fifth).
Grade six second-place winner was Justin Lee.
Incidentally, we reached out to Shailen for the answer to the math problem above. He fired back the answer, B, and helpfully showed his work.