Westamaths

                                       Westamaths

On Wednesday 14th August we were doing a maths competition called Westamaths. Usually the teams from our school have to travel to another school but this year would be different. We were hosting it in our hall. Schools are allowed two teams from each year group (year 6, 7 and 8). The teams consist of 4 members. One is a runner and one is a reader and then you have two more people in your team. You are also allowed two reserves in each year group. The year 7's would be doing their competition first. They start at 11am but they are ready at 10.45am so that they can get their briefing and be told what to do and how it works. Basically, you have 30 minutes to try and complete 20 questions. Each question is worth 5 points. So the most points you can get is 100 which doesn't happen that often. But if one question is too hard, then you can pass it. But if you pass it, you don't get any points for it. One of the year 7 teams came first. They managed to come first but they passed on one question so they got 95 points. They had to have a tie breaker for 1st place. It was with Westport South School. A tie breaker is where if two teams have the same amount of points, they each get one question and the first one to get it to the person who is marking, and gets it right, wins. They won their tie breaker so they came first. They are going to Cantamaths in Christchurch on the 28th of August. Then it was the year 6's turn. One of our school's year 6 teams were all year 5's. Our other year 6 team had a tie breaker for first, with Westport South again. They won their tie breaker and would've gone to Cantamaths if they were year 7 or 8 but year 6's can't go to Cantamaths. Then it was the year 8's. My team was Franklin, Matt, Ayesha who was the reader and then me who was the runner. We sat down at our desks while Mrs O, our principal, explained what we have to do. The first question came in an envelope and we walked up to our marker and then went back to our table with the envelope. Then when they said go we opened the envelope and got our first question. We were the 2nd or 3rd team to answer our first question. We had to beat the other Grey Main team. The points were on the projector in the hall and I kept looking up at them. At one point the other Grey Main team were 3 questions ahead of us. There was one team who finished all of the questions and didn't pass on a single one in 26 minutes. At the end we had 85 points, and another team had 85 points so we were going to do a tie breaker for third with Karoro School. One of the teachers held a question flipped over on our desk and then they flipped it. We had to work it out before the other team. We had done the question before in practice but we couldn't remember what it was. Matt kept saying it was 30 but we didn't listen to him and kept trying other answers. Then, after about 5 tries, he snatched the paper, wrote 30, and made me run. Then, the marker said it was correct! After we had finished, we were called up onto the stage. We got third place with 85 points. Buller got second with 90 points and Wesport South took home the trophy with 100 points. I didn't really care that we didn't come first, I was excited that we were going to Christchurch in 2 weeks for Cantamaths.