Minnesota State High School Mathematics League
The Minnesota State High School Mathematics League is a high school mathematics league in the state of Minnesota. It was founded in 1980 by Macalester College professor Wayne Roberts. The league holds five statewide tournaments per year from November through February, as well as a state tournament in March. It is one of the Minnesota Mathematics Competitions.
Regular season
There are five meets for each regular season. For each meet, there are four individual events, A-D. Each mathlete chooses to compete in two individual events. Each high school chooses its eight top mathletes, including at least two students below the eleventh grade, as its "varsity" team, which actually earns points in the name of the school and competes together in the team event; the other students simply compete for themselves in whichever two individual events they choose. Each individual event contains one one point question and three two point questions, so the maximum a person may score per meet is fourteen points. The team events each contain six questions worth four points each. A team's total score is determined by adding the individual scores of the varsity members and the varsity team score. At the end of the season, teams are selected for the state tournament based on their season score.[1]
State tournament
The state tournament begins with the Invitational event. The Invitational is a 14-question test (with a maximum score of 24) taken by the top 50 students in the regular season. This is followed by the Math Bowl. The Math Bowl brings together the top 10 scorers from the Invitational, and they compete on stage by solving ten problems one at a time within a limited amount of time. Later during the day, there is a meet that is structured like the other meets during the regular season.
Past winners
The league officially recognizes individual and team winners of two types each season, one with the highest overall regular season score, and one with the highest state tournament score. The league also crowns one math bowl winner each season. Since the 1988–1989 season, the league has recognized an additional Tier 2 state tournament winner among smaller schools, with larger schools designated as Tier 1.[2]
All-state math teams
The Minnesota State High School Mathematics League sponsors the Minnesota All-State Mathematics Teams, which compete annually at ARML (American Regions Mathematics League), HMMT (Harvard-MIT Mathematics Tournament) and some other college math competitions. Selection is based on the math league regular season and state tournament scores and American Mathematics Competitions scores. The MN All-State Gold Team is the first team, consisting of 15 students for ARML and 8 students for HMMT.
References
- "MINNESOTA STATE HIGH SCHOOL MATHEMATICS LEAGUE: LEAGUE MANUAL 2020-2021" (PDF). Minnesota State High School Mathematics League. Retrieved 9 March 2021.
- 1980-2005 data from Roberts, A. Wayne (2005). Minnesota Math League XXV. Beaver's Pond Press. ISBN 1-59298-111-9.