For fourteen years
while I worked in Monticello, I loved coaching MATHCOUNTS at Piedmont Academy. I’m one of those seemingly rare people who
like working with middle school students.
They are young enough not to be too cool, but they are old enough that
they are really starting to understand some things. Maybe I’m just an overgrown 12-year-old myself.
Last March I began
a new job in Macon, and with my commute, I’m not able to coach anymore,
unfortunately. (However, I’m so happy
that I can continue as the Middle Georgia chapter MATHCOUNTS coordinator, which
I have been doing since 1998.) I look back
very fondly at my years of coaching.
Over those years, I mostly used the MATHCOUNTS school handbook to coach
my mathletes, but sometimes I came up with my own materials to highlight a
particular theme. One time we had a Pot
o’ Gold scavenger hunt for St. Patrick’s Day, in which the students followed
clues and solved math problems around the school. Another time we solved greyhound math
problems, and I brought in my own greyhounds so that the students could meet actual
retired racing greyhounds. Several times
I dressed up as Madame Pi and “read” the students’ minds. (This was actually a neat math trick.) Once we even played Survivor, where the mathletes
solved math problems as their challenges.
Since today is
Valentine’s Day, I’ll share the Valentine’s math questions that I created one
year for my mathletes. (I’ll post the
answers tomorrow.)
1) Edna and Ethel were running a kissing booth. If Edna received twice as many kisses as
Ethel, and together they received 111 kisses, how many kisses did Edna receive?
2) Letters
spelling I LOVE YOU are written on slips of paper, one letter per slip. The slips are placed in a hat, and one is
drawn at random. What is the probability
of drawing a vowel? Express your answer
as a common fraction.
3) Cupid
is target practicing with his bow and arrow.
His circular target has a radius of (QT)^0.5. What is the area of his target. Express your answer in terms of pi.
4) Forrest Gump is selecting 2 chocolates from a box of 12
chocolates. If each chocolate is
different, how many combinations of chocolates can he get?
5) Juliet wants to trick Romeo into thinking that she is dead,
so she is getting a sleeping potion from the apothecary. If she needs 1.5 ounces of potion per 25
pounds of body weight, and Juliet weighs 110 pounds, how many ounces of
sleeping potion should Juliet purchase?
Express your answer to the nearest tenth.
6) The lower station of a cable car system is 2400 feet from
the base of Lovers’ Leap. 2600 feet of
cable extend from the lower station to the top of Lovers’ Leap. If Sam simply jumps off of Lovers’ Leap
rather than taking the cable car down, how much distance will he save?
7) At the Valentine banquet 10 women ate both hogs and quiches,
but the 24 men ate only hogs because real men don’t eat quiche. None of the women ate only hogs. If 56 people attended the Valentine banquet,
how many women ate quiches only?
8) Gary is considering going to the Sadie Hawkins dance, which
is 10 miles from his house. He can ride
his bicycle 15 miles per hour. Mary has
invited him to the dance and will pick him up at his house on her
bicycle-built-for-two. If together they
can ride 18 miles per hour, how many minutes will Gary save by going to the
Sadie Hawkins dance with Mary instead of going stag? Round your answer to the nearest minute.
9) Seven out of eight blind dates end up a disaster. Of the remaining blind dates, three out of
four couples wind up getting married. If
Helga gets set up on a blind date with Hagar, what is the probability that they
will get married? Round your answer to
the nearest whole percent.
10) Buffy
claimed that she would love Biff 4 Ever.
However, she broke up with him after only three weeks. What percent of 4 Ever did Buffy actually
love Biff? Round your answer to the
nearest whole number.
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