Middle School Math Team Scores Big At CBA Competition

In keeping with what has come to be a winning tradition, the Middle School Math Team, coached by math teacher Cathy Piccirillo, has once again came home winners from the annual Brother Christian Jones Eighth Grade Mathematics Contest, otherwise known as the CBA Math Competition. Of the 20 private schools competing this year, Ranney’s Math Team finished in overall second place, with Marc Owitz placing 4th out of 160 students. Ranney’s team includes Anthony Dennis, Mike Kumar, George Thomas, Dylan Staats, Alec Silverstein, Nikhil Sobti, Grant Parker and Marc Owitz.

The CBA competition was created 38 years ago by math teacher Father Christian Jones. It is given to 8th graders across the state, with each competing school allowed only eight team members. During the competition students are presented with 20 multiple choice problems. Each correct answer earns the team five points; for each incorrect answer, one point is deleted; and problems left blank earn no points. Only the top five cumulative team scores are counted.

Lest you think this sounds easy, Mrs. Piccirillo gives the following examples of the kinds of math problems students in the CBA Competition are likely to be given to solve:

Examples:

It takes 954 digits to number the pages of a book consecutively . How many numbered pages are there in the book?

a) 354 b) 355 c) 356 d0 357 e) none of these

A wheel that has a radius of 13 inches rolls along the ground making 17 revolutions per second. How long does it take to travel a distance of 486 yards and two feet. Round your answer to the nearest hundredth of a second
(let pi = 3.14)

a) 12.57 b) 12.59 c) 12.63 d) 12. 61 e) none of these

In the past four years Ranney’s Middle School team has taken home two first place and two second place awards – an exceptional achievement for Ranney’s budding math and science students.