My Experience with Math Contest
Jack Zhu
Herburt Hoover MS, Grade 7

Now that I know I won an award, all I can feel is happiness and pride. But when I first entered the testing room, all I can feel is nervousness and self-doubt. I have prepared hard for the contest, studying strategies and working my way through hundreds of math problems. Still, I could think of nothing except what will go wrong.

I walked in the testing room and found a seat on the front row. I then thought about all kinds of problems that could be in the contest and how to solve them. Finally, the test was handed out, and I looked at the problems. The first few were simple questions and I sped through them all. As I went through the last few questions, I looked at the ones I think other people would get wrong, and checked them over and over again. I kept on checking my test until it’s finally time to hand in the test. I thought to myself, There’s nothing I can do now, so instead of worrying, I should start thinking about that I would win the contest like I know I will. The effort and time I put into this contest weren’t wasted, just like any effort you even put into anything else will prove to be useful.

    If you won the contest you deserve to be proud and recognized, because you worked very hard to achieve that goal. Even if you didn’t win, it will give you the motivation to work even harder. “Winning isn’t everything”. This Math contest was meant to be an opportunity for all the math athletes to compete and have fun, get better at math and learn strategies. So don’t feel bad if you lost, because the contest was still fun and made you better at math.