Last Wednesday, the MSMS Mu Alpha Theta club hosted the MAΘ Fall Start-Up, a national contest between schools that are run by the National Assessment and Testing (NAT). This contest involves students competing in a thirty-minute contest by completing a 100 question test, with the test covering all math concepts from simple arithmetic to advanced calculus. Students are tested without a calculator. 

Mu Alpha Theta Sponsor Mr. Kishan Patel explains the importance of hosting the event by stating, “It allows students to practice their mathematical skills in a pretty fun environment and allows them to see their growth through the semester. Given it’s the first contest of the semester, many concepts the students will not have seen before but they eventually will.”

Mr. Patel also believes this contest “not only improves problem-solving skills but readies students for their math classes with useful skills.”

Many MSMS students appreciate the event and understand the benefits that it provides them.

“I would have to say that the best benefit out of the Fall Start-Up is accepting that sometimes, you’re not meant to complete something. 100 problems in half an hour is pretty insane, considering the average amount of time you should spend on each question would be about 18 seconds. The moral of the story, if there was any, would be that you should attempt every problem, even if you know that you won’t be able to answer some of them as you go into it,” senior Gary Nguyen said.

This event will only be the beginning for Mu Alpha Theta this year, and it will aim spur students to do even more with Mu Alpha Theta. Co-President Leah Pettit echoes these hopes as she explains what she aims to gain from this event.

“I hope Fall Start-Up will encourage students to become more involved in Mu Alpha Theta. There are questions on there that everyone can solve, but they get progressively harder as you go through.”

There are more competitions that will be offered by NAT, which will allow for MSMS to compete on a national level. The remaining tests are the Team Scramble, a hundred question team competition; a timed Ciphering Competition; and the Four by Four competition, a ten round competition with four questions per team taken by four-person teams.