On Feb. 4, 2023, several Schreiber students attended the Nassau Math Tournament (NMT). Two teams composed of 20 mathletes went to SUNY Old Westbury to compete against 20 other schools from the Nassau region. The students were exempt from school to participate in the competition.
“It felt really good that we had our A team earn eighth place in the competition because the other schools were really smart. We were proud of our performance,” said junior Kirin Doshi.
Although they felt like they did well, those who attended the competition have their eyes set on next year. They hope to improve from this year and familiarize themselves with the harder problems.
“Our team, made of math research and mathlete kids from Schrieber, got a few awards; however, we can always do better. This event showed that as a school we need to refine our math skills to improve for next year,” said sophomore Justin Lee.
This competition is a good learning experience for the students and helps them gauge what they need to work on for other math competitions. It is a very intense math competition involving questions from a multitude of units. Although the competition is very difficult, Schreiber often does relatively well in comparison to other schools that attend.
“I thought the competition was fun. It was for sure harder than last year’s competition, but at least we got to eat some pretty good food,” said junior Dean Chen.
Dean got a score of 21 out of 25 last year, placing him in the upper echelon of students in the county. Although NMT is a very serious math competition, it is also enjoyable for those competing. Students believe it requires hard work, dedication, and performance under pressure, yet also serves as a rewarding experience.
“I believe the mathletes club can be improved by focusing topic by topic rather than just giving a test without prior preparation. Focusing on the type of test given at the NMT would benefit us more than the NCIML, which is much easier,” said Chen.
There is always room for growth for the team and students. Similar to all other disciplines, improvement in competitions of this type involves work and communication among members.
“We as a team need to work on communication and team working skills. We struggled on the team problems which really lowered our score, but hopefully by next year we will be a lot better in that department,” said Lee.
Congratulations to this year’s Schreiber students on their success in the Nassau Math Tournament and good luck to those representing our school next year.