MADISON – The Math Team at Bob Jones High School consistently holds a stellar record with competitions. However, the students recently beat their own record for the highest score that any Bob Jones team has ever reached.

Bob Jones Math Team placed fifth in the nation and first among Alabama schools in the Team Scramble Competition with National Assessment & Testing. Bob Jones racked a score of 79, compared to the highest score of 89 by first-place Bergen County Academies in Hackensack, N.J.

Team members are Thais Arslanbekov, Elaine Bao, Jonathan Byers, Xueer Chen, Neha Chopade, Puja Chopade, Megan Danh, Nolan Drummond, Joy Duan, Sophia Fedoseyev, Yashas Gentela, Jonathan Gunasekaran, Benjamin Gunasekaran, Michael Guthrie, Constance Hu, Williams Hu, Noah Hutnik, Reedham Kalariya, Su Yeon Kim, Shiyeon Ku, Sherry Lee, Maanasi Limaye, Joshua Lin, Hubert Mitchell, Thomas Nguyen, Julia Nguyen, Joy Onawola, Felicia Onawola, Justin Pan, Aubteen Pour-Biazar, Ashwin Prabhakar, Soorya Ramesh, Pranav Ramesh, Dalton Shurtz, Alex Stern, Jeffrey Tuggle, Sam Uchitel, Samanvi Vootukuri, Isaac Wang, John Yoo, James Yoo, Mike Zhang, Will Bao, Daniel Sheng, Timothy Zhu, Skylar Elliot and Constance Wang.

“Though this is the tenth year in a row that we have placed nationally, this is our highest ever score and placement in this competition,” sponsor and math teacher Kimberly Cox said.

James Clemens High School also proved their mastery of the curriculum by placing 11th nationally and compiling a score of 68.

Madison was one of only three cities in the country to have multiple schools in the finals. Memphis, Tenn. had two representatives with Memphis University School and White Station High School. From San Jose, Calif., Valley Christian High School and The Harker School placed nationally.

Team Scramble Competition involves 100 problems in a 30-minute test. The entire team races to complete a single answer sheet, exercising collaborative and organizational skills in addition to mathematical skills in various topics.

From the 2018 tests, examples of easier problems included “Evaluate: -50 -9(-43-(-76)) -53” and “What is the midpoint of the line segment connecting the points (8, -5) and (-14, -9)?”

The test’s harder problems included these problems:

* “Six years ago, JT was three times as old as Wyatt. Five years from now, he’ll be twice as old as Wyatt. How old is JT now?”

* “Expand and combine like terms: (a + b -c) (2a -b + 3c)”

* “What is the point of intersection, in the form (x,y), of the lines 2X + 6y = 2 and y = 6x -8?”

National Assessment & Testing administers high quality, affordable mathematics competitions for math teams and honor societies. Contests cover diverse topics, difficulties and formats to provide both confidence and challenges to students of all abilities.

National Assessment & Testing’s offices are in Seattle, Wash. For more information, call 206-650-6411 or visit natassessment.com.