Jiho Kong, 2nd left, with the other math league.org competitors from the CNMI.
A FRESHMAN at Saipan International School finished among the top 10 of all competitors of his grade level in the recently concluded mathleague.org’s National High School Championship in Kansas City, Missouri.
Jiho Kong transferred from South Korea in the middle of last school year. He said it was his first year of math competition ever, adding that he made the CNMI team at the local competition in February.
The national championship Kong competed in brings together high school students from across America.
According to Kong, there were approximately 200 competitors in Kansas City.
Like himself, the competitors could only attend the national competition after beating other students at the state levels of the competition.
Kong said in Kansas City, he had to pass a gauntlet of math challenges en route to his success as a top 10 finisher.
He first answered questions in the 60-minute sprint round, which was an individual round wherein he had to answer 30 multiple choice questions. He then moved onto team rounds, target rounds, relay rounds, and the final power round, which Kong describes as the most difficult of all. According to mathleague.org, the power round is a “multi-part, proof-oriented round” where a team works for one hour to “produce a single multi-page answer.”
Kong had the eighth highest score among freshman competitors for the sprint category.
Despite being “scared” of the “overwhelming” amount of top-performing math students, Kong said he stepped up his performance in Kansas City.
“I did better than any competition I was in in the CNMI,” Kong said, reflecting on his experience.
“I heard that I was qualified and I was never expecting to be, because there were so many good students. So, I was really surprised,” Kong added.
In the next school year, when Kong is a sophomore, he expects that it will be even more difficult to place in the top 10, because, in his observation, the sophomore students don’t have a wide margin of performance from one student to the next. In other words, all the points he racks up in competition will count. He’s still very much looking to get onto the CNMI team.
