Contestants participated in either the Junior Division, for students from grades 9 and 10, or in the Senior Division, for students up to grade 12.
Part of the two-day battle of the minds has students work alone under test conditions on the Individual Test. The Individual Test requires 75 minutes of problem solving and consists of thirty short-answer and multiple-choice questions. From these test results, the top 6 scorers in each of the Junior and Senior Divisions are chosen to compete in the "Countdown Round."
This final round pits the top students competing head-to-head on a stage and in front of an audience. These students must answer a battery of math questions that are read aloud from the judge. The Countdown Round determines the final rankings of the Individual Competition in each division.
Three International School of Belgrade (ISB) students earned spots in the Countdown Round, in both the Junior and Senior Divisions. At the start of the round, Jiwoo Kim, a 9th grader at ISB, sat in 3rd place in the Junior Division and his brother, Jihyung Kim, an 11th grader at ISB, was in 3rd place for the Senior Division. Within 45 minutes of taking the stage, Jiwoo had out-ranked seven of his competitors, including Senior Division foes, one after another answering many questions within just seconds. Had he been able to beat one more student, Jiwoo would have needed to face his own brother, Jihyung, in what would have made an intense final! As it was, Jihyung pushed on to triumph over the two rivals ahead of him to take first place in the Senior Division.
ISB is happy to share with the international community that brothers, Jiwoo Kim and Jihyung Kim, won first place in both the Junior and Senior Individual Competitions, respectively. Records suggest that this is the first time during the CEESA High School Math Contest that siblings have been crowned with these awards. The ISB community is extremely proud of the boys' success during the competition. We would also like to congratulate all of the CEESA math-letes!
By Anna Lettinga,
Upper School Mathematics Teacher and Mathematics Department Head
ISB