Gauss Math Contest

Three enthusiastic Chisholm Academy students recently joined others across Canada and around the world to write a famous mathematics test ‒ for fun! On May 18, 2022, Holden, Luka and David competed in their respective Grade 7 or Grade 8 version of the Gauss Math Contest. They all took this competition seriously and they did a great job!

Like many other contests hosted by the University of Waterloo, the Gauss contest is written once a year. The test is split into three sections. Section A is relatively easy for students with experience and interest in math at that age level. Section B is more difficult but most questions are still achievable to those who do some preparation and are careful. The last and most difficult section, C, contains quite a few challenging questions that your average math teacher would not be able to answer correctly on their first attempt. This is especially true given the added time pressure of the test: 60 minutes to complete all 25 questions (10 + 10 + 5). For comparison, Mr. Fillion (seasoned math enjoyer and contest enthusiast) only scored between 80-90% on the two contests.

The students met with Mr. Fillion regularly to review together some older contests and strategies (all of which are available at this link: Past Contests, Solutions and Results ). 

Here’s hoping these students, and others, compete in next year’s math contests! Mr. Fillion is always willing to help students prepare in advance! 

Congratulations once again to our contestants!

One of our tougher math sessions where we found the tens digit of 3^2016