Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - November/December 2013 - (Page 12)

Reckoning with by Victoria Xia Randomness Math Prize for Girls, sponsored by the Advantage Testing Foundation, is a national competition for middle and high school girls. Each year, about 300 girls are invited to participate based on their scores on one of the American Mathematics Competitions (AMC) exams. With a grand prize of $25,000 (and another $23,000 to be distributed among the other top ten finishers), Math Prize oﬀers the largest monetary prize of any high school math competition in the world. Girls may win a maximum of $50,000 over multiple years of competition. Victoria Xia hit her maximum last year; here, she explains why she's still going back. A s I write this, the fifth annual Math Prize for Girls is scheduled to take place in September at MIT, and I'll be returning to potentially continue my two-year winning streak. I've been asked a few times if I think I'll be able to pull it off. My answer: I wouldn't bet on it. At any high school math competition there will be at least a handful of kids who could all easily take first place. Depending on who is lucky enough to have the test contain more problems of their favorite type, and also on how each contestant feels on that particular day, results can be shuﬄed around quite a bit. I consider myself to have gotten lucky twice in a row with Math Prize; had slightly different problems been chosen, I might not have a champion title to defend at all. Because each year's test has only 20 problems, one careless mistake or clever insight can bump a contestant many ranks. At first glance, this randomness seems to imply a rather dark conclusion:

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - November/December 2013

In My Own Words
Interested in Econ
The World in Numbers
Reckoning with Randomness
Elliptic Curves
A League of Our Own
More Than Math
Developing Your Numbersense
Where Math Meets Imagination
Selected Opportunities & Resources
Dancing in the Footsteps of My Ancestors
Off the Shelf
Word Wise
Exploring Career Options
Planning Ahead for College
Students Review
Mark Your Calendar
Knossos Game

Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - November/December 2013