Jason Paller-Rzepka is a student at Southwest High School. He is also a member of the Southwest Math Team and participates in the Minnesota State High School Mathematics League.
At the competitions, students each enter two events and attempt to correctly answer a total of eight questions worth a total of 14 possible points. One of the purposes of the state math league is to prod students into studying material that isn’t always covered in regular high school mathematics classes. Another purpose of the league is to provide recognition and encouragement to exceptional students. More information can be found at the following website.
http://www.augsburg.edu/mathleague/
There have been four official meets this year. The fifth and last official meet of the year will take place on Monday, February 8th. Southwest is hosting the Minneapolis Division. Jason is one of three students in the state that is perfect on the season so far. To be clear, he has correctly answered a total of 32 questions of varying difficulty in eight different events at four meets.
There are over 1600 students in the Minnesota State High School Math League, so this achievement is worth noting. There have been only three students in the last five years that have finished the regular season without missing a question. There is only one more meet to go, so it will be exciting to see if all three students can answer their last eight questions correctly.
Students who do well in the Minnesota State High School Math League may seem like "brainiacs who just get everything right" to some people. The truth is that their success is the result of a lot of hard work. In order to be prepared, students must pour over a lot of material before each meet, reviewing and relearning many concepts that are just not covered in math classes. Jason is successful because he has combined his talent with an admirable work ethic. His efforts help lift other students as they strive to also be more successful.
Jason is part of the Minnesota ARML (American Regions Mathematics Team) – basically, a collection of some of the best math students in Minnesota. His ARML coach, Mike Reiners, has selected 32 students that he is taking to a competition at Harvard University on February 20th.
Jason will be part of an eight student team representing Minnesota at the Harvard-MIT Mathematics Tournament. Teams from across the United States are invited to attend. Teams will be hosted by undergraduate mathematics majors from Harvard and MIT.
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