Sample questions Antilles wins St. Thomas Mathcounts competition

ST. THOMAS - Once again Antilles School took the top slot in the St. Thomas-St.John District Mathcounts team competition Thursday, but the top individual score belonged to eighth-grader Sidharth Parwani from All Saints Cathedral School.

While it technically was his second year participating in Mathcounts, Sidharth said this year he really gave it his full attention - and it paid off. He gave credit to his Mathcounts coach V. Woodley.

"Ms. Woodley taught me so much stuff I didn't know," he said.

Sidharth said he always has been good at math, at least ever since his little sister was born. He said she got all the attention, so he retaliated by excelling in math to make his parents proud.

That competitive streak served him well Thursday. The All Saints team - of which he is a member - placed second and Sidharth came in second in the countdown round as well.

He said he is excited to compete with the St. Croix "mathletes" at the territorial Mathcounts March 29.

"I hope I will win, but just to be there is an honor," Sidharth said.

Antilles beat seven other teams from public, private and parochial schools in the district.

Antilles Mathcounts Coach Michele Garcia said she was proud of her students, many of whom are new to the Mathcounts competition this year.

Garcia said when she had to leave island suddenly because of a death in the family - just a week before the district competition - some of her former mathletes who now are in high school volunteered to coach the students in her absence.

"They really stepped up," she said. "That's a definite tribute to our program."

Almost 60 students competed at Palms Court Harborview Hotel in two individual written rounds - the Sprint and the Target rounds - a team round, and an oral countdown round. The countdown round does not count toward the final score for the mathletes.

Antilles School seventh-grader Nicholas Midler won Thursday's countdown round.

The event - for sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders - test students' math skills in algebra, geometry, probability and statistics.

Ten students will compete against St. Croix's top 10 mathletes in the territorial Mathcounts competition March 29: the four winning team members from Antilles and the next top six finishers in the individual rounds.

The Antilles team members are Pooja Chainani, Nicholas, Simran Mirchandani and Jonathan Qualls.

The additional students moving on are Muhamad Ali of Bertha C. Boschulte Middle School; Rysa Bryan of Ulla Muller Elementary School; Shivaang Chawla of Antilles; Marcus Norkaitis of All Saints; Sidharth of All Saints; and Manav Thadani of Antilles.

Celebrating its 29th anniversary, Mathcounts is a nationwide program designed to address the problem of declining math skills among U.S. students. The competition's goal is to boost interest and involvement in math among middle school students.

About 40,000 students, representing more than 6,000 schools from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, the U.S. territories and schools affiliated with the U.S. Defense and U.S. State departments will take part in this year's national competition.

For more information, go online to www.mathcounts.org.

- Contact reporter Aldeth Lewin at 714-9111 or email alewin@dailynews.vi.1. A rectangular tile measures 3 inches by 4 inches. What is the fewest number of these tiles that are needed to completely cover a rectangular region that is 2 feet by 5 feet?

2. How many combinations of pennies, nickels and/or dimes are there with a total value of 25 cents?

3. What is the greatest whole number that must be a factor of the sum of any four consecutive positive odd numbers?

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