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Hans Woyda Round 1 vs NHEHS

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.

 A gap of 13 points is impressive indeed, but history has taught me never to count my chickens before they’ve answered all of their maths questions correctly, and greater leads have certainly been eroded in the past. The algebra and calculus section concerned an interesting mean function, and some slightly mean questions meant that both teams ended up conceding points to each other. NHEHS could still catch up at the beginning of the race section, but a tough set of questions led to low scores on both sides and robbed them of the opportunity to close the gap. At the end of the match the SPS team had delivered a comprehensive victory, with a final score of 55 – 39. 

- Mr Cullen-Hewitt



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