麻豆社

Last week, on Tuesday, 12 November, I set off across the river with the next iteration of the Hans Woyda team for our Round 2 match against Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School.

A dry forecast gave way to some light drizzle, but Siddharth Raj Krishnamurthy (Fourth Form), Richard Zhan (Sixth Form), Adavya Goyal (Lower Eighth), and James Chapman (Upper Eighth) were insistent on taking the 40-minute walk up to Holland Park. Naturally, this time could not be wasted, so I peppered them with a barrage of past paper questions on our journey, pausing only to allow safe passage across roads (and to avoid accidentally committing an act affectionately coined 鈥渘erd sniping鈥� by XKCD). Fresh off the first round of the House Maths competition, the team was already warmed up for some competitive mathematics. After the stimulating journey, they were firing on all cylinders, and while I didn鈥檛 want to get ahead of myself, I felt in my bones that we were in for an impressive performance.

After taking their seats in the CVMS library鈥攁n unusual setting for a maths competition, no doubt intended to disorient our team with its unprecedented concentration of literature鈥攖he pupils began with the starter questions. It was fairly even between the two sides, but Adavya鈥檚 familiarity with dodecahedra gave us a slight lead going into the geometry section. Unfortunately, another dodecahedron bested both Adavya and James this time, but Richard and Siddharth鈥檚 mastery of equilateral triangle tilings helped widen the lead further.

Next came a set of mental arithmetic questions concerning divisibility tests, and here the SPS team truly shone, not only nailing all of their own questions but also picking up a stolen point from CVMS. Our lead was by no means insurmountable at this stage, but it had become a significant buffer as we reached the halfway point of the competition. I could feel myself relaxing as we approached the team question.

The team question concerned symmetric numbers on old calculator displays. While CVMS was the only side to spot that an entire digit had been missed by the question setters, it was SPS that managed to find all of the solutions, leaping even further ahead of their rivals. After a quick sandwich break, the boys followed this up with a clean sweep of the calculator section (where the CVMS Year 12 was severely hampered by not knowing where the factorise function was on his graphical calculator). This helped us edge even closer to a sure-fire victory.

The algebra and calculus questions focused on a function that produces prime numbers, meaning an encyclopaedic knowledge of primes was a significant advantage. Luckily, our boys seem to know these numbers like the backs of their hands, and another stolen point put us out of reach of CVMS heading into the race. This spared me the life-shortening stress I often associate with this final section. While unnecessary for victory, the SPS team managed to increase the points difference even further with an almost flawless performance, conceding only the final question, which a CVMS Year 13 proudly claimed for himself. By the end of the match, SPS had sailed to a truly remarkable win with a final score of 59鈥�34.

Please do congratulate the boys when you next see them, and look forward to Round 3 against Highgate School next Monday! This match will determine who advances to the main knockout competition and who is relegated to one of the plate competitions, so the stakes are high. Please also wish the final group stage team of Issam Abou Zaki (Fourth Form), Shyamak Sawant (Sixth Form), Aman Parekh (Lower Eighth), and Eason Shao (Upper Eighth) the best of luck if you see them.