Teng, Cao Qualify for Math Olympiad; Move to Summer Competition
By Suril Kantaria ‘09
News Staff Reporter
Wednesday, March 22nd, a record-breaking forty-eight Choate students accepted their invitations and took the American Invitational Mathematics Examination. Out of this talented pool, two students, PengTao Teng ’07 and Yifan Cao ’08, qualified for the next level, the extremely challenging USA Math Olympiad.
Only 350 students in the nation qualified for this year’s USAMO. As Mr. Doster, math team coach, puts it, “It is an exceptional achievement for any student to even take the USAMO test.” The qualification process in itself is very complicated. First, the students must take the AMC 10 or 12. Students who achieve a qualifying score move on to take the AIME. A combination of a student’s AMC and AIME scores is used to create a personal index that is used to determine whether he or she will move on to the USAMO. This year’s cutoff was 217; according to Mr. Doster’s statistics, Yifan achieved an index score of 241.5 while PengTao had a 222.
The winners of the USAMO, the twelve highest scorers, will be invited to an award ceremony in Washington D.C., and will compete to be members of the six person USA team in this summer’s International Math Olympiad in Nebraska.
When asked about what he will use to prepare for the USAMO, Yifan responded, “Past problems, books and just pray.” PengTao responded similarly, also saying, “The USAMO will be mind-blowing, literally.”
The USAMO is a nine-hour essay proof test taken over the course of two days. It was started in 1972 to find talented math students who could compete for the USA on the national team at the IMO. This year, it will be administered on April 18th and 19th.
Yifan and PengTao are both distinguished and talented mathletes. Yifan said, “I was part of math competitions in middle school and had good experiences with it, so I decided to continue here at Choate.” PengTao credited his history for his success saying, “Ever since middle school, my teachers have been encouraging in my mathematical pursuits, and here at Choate, I credit Mr. Doster as the most supportive, without a doubt.”
