SJA Math Students Score First in State on UVM Prize Math Examination
SJA led the state on the UVM Annual Prize Math Examination again this year. Twenty St. Johnsbury Academy math students were awarded certificates of merit for ranking in the top-ten percent of all students from across the state, the highest number of any Vermont high school. Additionally, three students won individual awards: Jiabin Xu ’20 and Hanzhang Yu ’19, who tied for first in Region 2, and Sung Woo Jang, who won 8th place in the state and was the top-scoring student in the school. Pictured left to right are Sung Woo Jang and Jiabin Xu. Hanzhang Yu is missing from the photo.
SJA led the state on the UVM Annual Prize Math Examination again this year. Twenty St. Johnsbury Academy math students were awarded certificates of merit for ranking in the top-ten percent of all students from across the state, the highest number of any Vermont high school. Additionally, three students won individual awards: Jiabin Xu ’20 and Hanzhang Yu ’19, who tied for first in Region 2, and Sung Woo Jang, who won 8th place in the state and was the top-scoring student in the school.
Twenty students from the Academy, the highest number for a high school in Vermont, were awarded Certificates of Merit, recognizing their ranking in the top-ten percent of all students from across the state that took the test. There were Zixian Chen ’20, Sihan Dong ’19, Gavin Ghafoori ’21, Yufan Hu ’20, Sung Woo Jang ’20, An Jiang ’20, Emma Keenan ’21, Mate Koszo ’21, Yichen Lu ’20, Yifeng Pan ’20, Jiajun Shen ’19, Yi Cheng Shen ’21, Xin Tang ’20, Zeou Wei ’19, Jianing Wu ’19, Jiabin Xu ’20, Daisuke Yamada ’19, Hanzhang Yu ’19, Liang Zhao ’20, Yiqi Zhao ’20.
Three students were honored at the annual Math Day awards luncheon hosted by the UVM Department of Mathematics and Statistics: Sung Woo Jang for winning eighth place in the state, and Jiabin Xu and Hanzhang Yu for winning first prize in the region.
According to the University of Vermont website, “The High School Prize Examination, administered by members of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at UVM, is one of the longest running annual high school mathematics contests in the US.” The competition consists of forty-one questions encompassing number theory, algebra, and geometry. The questions must be answered without the aid of technology and must be completed in a two-hour time period.
Sharon Fadden, Chair of the SJA Mathematics Department, said, “It is exciting to see so many of our students demonstrate proficiency and mastery of our course concepts on this challenging exam. All were able to successfully apply multiple strategies of the problem-solving process.”
Academy Headmaster Tom Lovett said, “Under Sharon’s leadership, our math department has gained international notoriety, and we are pleased to see a mixture of international and local students excelling at the highest levels here by working together. For so many reasons, I am proud of what these students have accomplished!”
