We had a strong team, buoyed by the leadership of the
captain of school no less, but I couldn’t help feel my confidence waver when a
small slip in one of the first four questions gave NHEHS the lead at the
beginning of the match. However, a mistake on their part in the next four
questions allowed us to claw back some marks, leaving both teams neck and neck at
the end of the starter section. This pattern repeated itself exactly in the
geometry section; some inscribed squares got the better of us in the first two
questions which gave NHEHS a temporary lead, but some painted cubes got the
better of NHEHS in the next two which brought us back to level pegging.
At this stage I was concerned that we were in for another extremely close match, and I could already feel my heart rate starting to rise in anticipation of a nail-biting finish. Fortunately, my blood pressure was eased slightly by the mental arithmetic and probability section, where a stolen mark from the square root of a mixed fraction put us 3 points ahead. Up next was a team question on Lagrange’s four-square theorem, and at this point SPS really started to shine, getting an astonishing 10 points to NHEHS’ 4 and increasing our lead considerably. A flawless set of calculator questions put us even further ahead, and we had a comfortable lead going into the last two sections.
- Mr Cullen-Hewitt
