Glacier High School junior Silas Schwarz is a member of the first Montana team slated to compete in the prestigious Harvard-MIT Math Tournament Nov. 12-15 in Boston.

The team led by University of Montana Statistics Professor Jon Graham also includes Jonathan Chen, Fergus High School, Lewistown; Magnolia Chinn, Sentinel High School, Missoula; Carolyn Graham, Hellgate High School, Missoula; Jackson Hall, home school, Billings and Jack Murphy, Capital High School, Helena.

The team was assembled based on the students’ mathematical prowess at 2013 Montana Mathcounts middle school competition.

Hall, an eighth-grader at the time, had contacted the top scorers to see if they wanted to participate.

“Absolutely,” Schwarz said when he received the call about joining the team. “When I finished Mathcounts in eighth grade I was disappointed because I wanted to continue competing.”

The team would spend the next two years under the tutelage of Graham practicing for the Harvard-MIT Math Tournament in between school, sports and other activities.

“I’ve already seen a lot of improvements in the two years,” Graham said. “It will be really interesting to see how they do.”

Practices have focused on solving challenging math problems from previous tournaments. The problems are written by Harvard and MIT students and surpass typical high school-level math — even college undergraduate-level math, Graham says.

“I’ve been doing this along time and even I struggle to do the more difficult problems written by Harvard and MIT students,” Graham said.

The team participated in the Harvard-MIT Mathematics Online Tournament in 2013 and 2014. Although the results don’t count, it was good exposure Graham said. Schwarz agreed.

Schwarz said the math questions test how good someone is at solving problems.

“I definitely like problem-solving,” Schwarz said.

Schwarz said he became interested in math at a young age when he began advancing past grade-level concepts.

“I would say I was doing something different from most people in math definitely by third grade,” Schwarz said noting that by about fifth grade he was taking math with seventh- and eighth-graders.

He enjoys the advantage of working with a team.

“Everyone is good at something. These are very talented teammates and it’s not often I get to work with people like that,” Schwarz said.

During the tournament, there will be a combination of sections where participants either solve problems individually or as a team. Most sections provide an hour to solve 10 problems. Problems are worth points based on difficulty.

“The final round I think they’ll enjoy the most,” Graham said, referring about the “Guts” round where teams get three problems to solve at a time.

“When they feel they have the answers, they have a runner who runs to the front of the room to turn in the answers and get three more,” Graham said adding that the problems increase in difficulty.

spend the next two years under the tutelage of Graham practicing for the Harvard-MIT Math Tournament in between school, sports and other activities.

“I’ve already seen a lot of improvements in the two years,” Graham said. “It will be really interesting to see how they do.”

Practices have focused on solving challenging math problems from previous tournaments. The problems are written by Harvard and MIT students and surpass typical high school-level math — even college undergraduate-level math, Graham says.

“I’ve been doing this along time and even I struggle to do the more difficult problems written by Harvard and MIT students,” Graham said.

The team participated in the Harvard-MIT Mathematics Online Tournament in 2013 and 2014. Although the results don’t count, it was good exposure Graham said. Schwarz agreed.

Schwarz said the math questions test how good someone is at solving problems.

“I definitely like problem-solving,” Schwarz said.

Schwarz said he became interested in math at a young age when he began advancing past grade-level concepts.

“I would say I was doing something different from most people in math definitely by third grade,” Schwarz said noting that by about fifth grade he was taking math with seventh- and eighth-graders.

He enjoys the advantage of working with a team.

“Everyone is good at something. These are very talented teammates and it’s not often I get to work with people like that,” Schwarz said.

During the tournament, there will be a combination of sections where participants either solve problems individually or as a team. Most sections provide an hour to solve 10 problems. Problems are worth points based on difficulty.

“The final round I think they’ll enjoy the most,” Graham said, referring about the “Guts” round where teams get three problems to solve at a time.

“When they feel they have the answers, they have a runner who runs to the front of the room to turn in the answers and get three more,” Graham said adding that the problems increase in difficulty.

There will be probably be some nervousness going into the tournament, but at this point, Schwarz said, “I’m as ready as I’m going to be.”

Hilary Matheson is a reporter for The Daily Inter Lake. She may be reached at 758-4431 or [email protected].