Fraser Heights Secondary students ace Pascal Math Contest to place first in B.C., third nationally
From left, Fraser Heights Secondary Grade 9 students Kunru Li, Owen Qiu and Abigail Wang aced the Pascal Contest, placing first provincially and third nationally in the mathematics competition.
A team of Grade 9 math whizzes from Fraser Heights Secondary finished first in the province and third nationally at this year’s Pascal Contest, with one student achieving a perfect score of 150 on the one-hour exam.
Students Owen Qiu, Kunru Li and Abigail Wang led the school to provincial victory as well as national bronze, making Fraser Heights the only public school in B.C. ranked in the top 10. The team finished with a combined score of 430 between Qiu (150), Li (142) and Wang (138).
“It’s quite remarkable, we’ve had some stellar math students but I can’t recall one of our students ever getting a perfect score on any of these three contests,” said teacher James Ahn. “Even the score of 142, that is off the charts, we don’t often get kids in the 140s.”
Hosted by the University of Waterloo, the Pascal, Cayley and Fermat mathematics contests test the skills of Grade 9, 10 and 11 students, respectively, from across the country. The Pascal exam has three sections that become progressively more difficult and challenge students to think differently in order to interpret and understand each question.
“It’s not curriculum-related but more math and higher-level problem solving questions,” said Ahn. “There are elements of algebra, fractions, geometry, but it’s more about problem solving using math as a basis – Part C, most teachers have a tough time answering those questions. The mere fact they could finish the exam in an hour and get them all right is incredible.”
This year’s Pascal Contest exam was taken by 24,700 students in Canada, including 3,531 in B.C.
Additionally, in B.C., Fraser Heights’ Grade 10 and 11 teams placed 17th in the Cayley exam and 20th in the Fermat exam, and more than 40 Fraser Heights students qualified for certificates of distinction, given to the top 25% of students who take the exams.
Ahn said many of their high-ranking math students go on to programs at the University of Waterloo and other schools with a focus on mathematics and computing sciences.
“Waterloo has some of the most brilliant minds making these tests, and they’re looking for students who can problem solve and eventually go into computing science and math-related fields,” he said. “A lot of the Ontario universities, and UBC, will ask kids, ‘Have you written these math contests?’ And if they have and they’ve done well, they do get a leg up in terms of their application being accepted to programs.”
While Ahn teaches many of these math students, he said gives all the glory to the students for their hard work and dedication to learning that extends well beyond his classroom.
“As teachers, we can’t take credit for it,” he said. “These are kids who’ve practised things on their own outside of school, and they’ve done exceptionally well.”
