Structure of the contest. The Alabama Statewide Mathematics Contest is a high school mathematics contest conducted in two rounds. The first round consists of three 50-question multiple choice written tests: Algebra II, Geometry, and Comprehensive, which are administered at eight sites scattered throughout the state. This round is open to all Alabama high schools, and each school may send any number of students to participate, though each student may take only one of the three tests. It is both an individual and team competition; a school’s team score for a test is the sum of its highest four individual scores. The second round is a culmination of the team Comprehensive competition in the form of a "ciphering" (Jeopardy-style) tournament to which only high scoring teams from the first round written Comprehensive test are invited.

Each school competes in one of three divisions. The Division One competition is for public schools which are large enough to be classified as 6A in athletics and private schools which offer at least two years of mathematics beyond both Algebra II and Geometry. The Division Two competition is for public schools classified as 5A or 4A in athletics and private schools which offer only one year of mathematics beyond both Algebra II and Geometry. The Division Three competition is for public schools classified as 3A, 2A, or 1A in athletics and private schools offering no mathematics beyond Algebra II and Geometry.

Participation. The first round of the contest took place on Saturday, March 21. This year, a total of 1341 students participated, representing 79 schools. Compared to last year, the number of participating students dropped slightly (from 1362), but the number of participating schools increased modestly (from 73). Participation continues to be well below the peak participation of 2,021 students and 128 schools in 1988. The second round of the contest took place on Saturday, April 25 at Auburn University in Montgomery. Invited to the second round were 16 teams in Division One, 15 teams in Division Two, and 12 teams in Division Three. Accepting this invitation were 9 teams from Division One, 10 teams from Division Two, and 9 teams from Division Three.

The Algebra II Competition. This competition involves only the first round written test. The names of this year’s top-scoring teams and individuals are displayed in Table 1.

In the Division One Algebra II competition, the scores of the top five teams were very widely separated. Vestavia Hills claimed first place by scoring 844 out of a possible 1000 points, Grissom second place with a score of 711 and Hoover third place with a score of 614. Comprising the top 25% of the individual scores were 16 students from Vestavia Hills, 9 from Hoover, 8 from Grissom, 2 from Bob Jones, 2 from Homewood, and 1 each from Arab, The Montgomery Academy, and Murphy. In the Division Two Algebra II competition, Cullman won the team competition with a score of 632, which would have placed them third in Division One. Comprising the top 25% of the individual scores were 13 students from Cullman, 5 from West Point, 3 from Bradshaw, 3 from Muscle Shoals, 2 from Greenville, and 1 from Clay-Chalkville. In the Division Three Algebra II competition, there were only 12 teams. First place honors went to Vinemont for a score of 360. Comprising the top 25% of the individual scores were 6 students from Sand Rock, 5 from Vinemont, 4 from Holly Pond, 3 from Calera, 2 each from Lexington, Marengo, and Winfield City, and 1 each from Good Hope and Hanceville.

The Geometry Competition. This competition involves only the first round written test. The names of this year’s top-scoring teams and individuals are displayed in Table 2.

In the Division One Geometry competition, Vestavia Hills won first place by scoring 942 out of a possible 1000 points. This was the highest team score on any of the three written tests this year, and gave them the largest margin of victory in any of the nine first round team competitions. Hoover won second place, outscoring third place Grissom by the narrowest of margins: 755 to 753. Comprising the top 25% of the individual scores were 18 students from Vestavia, 9 from Hoover, 5 from Grissom, 4 from Arab, 3 each from Austin and Bob Jones, 2 each from Homewood and Jefferson County I. B., and 1 from Randolph. The Division Two Geometry competition featured the closest battle for first place of any of the team competitions as Cullman narrowly won first place by outscoring second place West Point 734 to 731. Comprising the top 25% of the individual scores were 13 students from Cullman, 5 each from West Point and Albertville, 4 from Bradshaw, 3 from Muscle Shoals, 2 from Guntersville, and 1 each from Jacksonville, Jemison, and Brooks. In the Division Three competition, there were only 11 teams. First place honors went to Winfield City with a score of 538. Comprising the top 25% of the individual scores were 11 students from Winfield City, 3 from Vinemont, 2 each from Lexington and Hanceville, and 1 each from Calera, Cold Springs, Lauderdale, Good Hope, and Colbert County.

The Comprehensive Competition. The results of the first round written test are displayed in Table 3, and the results of the second round ciphering tournament, which determined the final team placings in the Comprehensive competition, are displayed in Table 4.

The first round Division One competition featured a close battle for the first place team with Grissom prevailing over Vestavia Hills by scores of 924 to 901 out of a possible 1000 points. Central took third place with a score of 763. Comprising the top 25% of the individual scores were 25 students from Vestavia Hills, 18 from Grissom, 8 from Hoover, 6 from Central, 3 from Pelham, and 1 each from Bob Jones, Prattville, and Randolph. In the first round Division Two competition, Cullman won the team competition with a score of 719. Comprising the top 25% of the individual scores were 18 students from Cullman, 6 from Fairview, 5 from Bradshaw, 4 each from Muscle Shoals and West Point, 3 each from Albertville and Douglas, 2 each from Geneva and Handley, and 1 each from Greenville, Sardis, Clay-Chalkville, Guntersville, and Robertsdale. In the first round Division Three competition, there were only 14 teams. First place honors went to Good Hope with a score of 417. Comprising the top 25% of the individual scores were 5 students from Good Hope, 4 each from Cherokee and Calera, 3 each from Belgreen, Vinemont, and Sand Rock, 2 each from Lauderdale, Winfield City, Colbert County, Hanceville, and Cold Springs, and 1 from Lexington.

Based on the team scores for the written Comprehensive test, selected schools were invited to the second round ciphering tournament. Seedings for the tournament, which was a four round Swiss tournament, were also determined from these scores. In the Division One tournament, the top three seeds finished on top and in order. Grissom and Vestavia led the field throughout the day. Grissom did not lose a match. They briefly fell behind Vestavia as a result of a tie match with Central in the second round, but rallied to defeat Vestavia in the decisive fourth round match. Third place was decided by Central’s fourth round victory over Hoover. The Division Two tournament featured a neck-and-neck battle between fifth seeded West Point and first seeded Cullman, who were tied after each of the four rounds of the tournament, including the second round in which they played each other and tied. They were also tied after a special tie breaker round. At this point, the match continued in the form of a sudden death dual, which was finally won by West Point! Third place went to the third seed Albertville. In the Division Three tournament, first seeded Good Hope won all of its matches to take first place. Second place went to third seeded Calera and third place to fourth seeded Vinemont.

Acknowledgments. Many people worked on the tournament this year. We thank everyone who helped; your efforts were valuable and much appreciated. Here we can list only some of those who made special contributions.

Jan Elrod of Troy State University prepared the brochures and supervised the printing and distribution of the written tests. Suzanne McGill handled registration. The written tests were constructed by James Dupuy (Algebra II), Rhonda H. Bowden (Geometry), and Dorothy Wendt (Comprehensive), edited by Jimmy Nanney, William Nowell, Chester Palmer, Rhodes Peele and Robert Underwood of AUM, and typeset by William Nowell, Rhodes Peele, and Robert Underwood of AUM. The ciphering problems were written by Jeff Dodd, Edwin Smith, Jerald Abercrombie, Rodney Shirey, Deborah Primm, and Chi-Chin Chao of JSU, edited by Jeff Dodd, and typeset by Jeff Dodd and Steve White of JSU, with additional checking by Steve White, Johnny Smith, Martha Knight, and Wayne Dempsey of JSU. Steve White and Jeff Dodd of JSU did the scoring and score reporting for the written tests and prepared the certificates. Jeff Dodd of JSU arranged for the trophies. The site contacts for the tournament were Oscar Beck of U. of North Alabama, Anita Presson of U. of Alabama Huntsville, Wei Shen Hsia and Rita Reese of U. of Alabama Tuscaloosa, Bruce Atkinson of Samford University, Martha McCormick and Martha Knight of Jacksonville State University, Chet Palmer of AUM, Suzanne McGill of U. of South Alabama, and Paige Davis of Lurleen B. Wallace State Junior College. Chester Palmer of AUM hosted the ciphering tournament and served as contest chair, assisted by the Jeff Dodd of JSU who will be serving as contest chair for the 1999 contest.

The contest is administered by a joint committee of the Alabama Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the Alabama Association of College Teachers of Mathematics. The committee continues to be in need of assistance from present or former teachers of secondary or post-secondary mathematics. If you might like to help, if you would like to obtain further information of any kind about the tournament, or if you have comments or suggestions regarding the tournament, please contact the author of this article.

Department of Mathematical, Computing, and Information Sciences

Jacksonville State University

Jacksonville, AL 36265

jdodd@jsucc.jsu.edu