Skripac masters math at Hilltop

By ABBY SLANKER

neighbors@vindy.com

Fourth-grade students at Hilltop Elementary School put their thinking caps on and went head-to-head to solve math facts to qualify for the school’s annual Math Bee June 6.

Evan Skripac emerged as the winner and was crowned by principal Cathy Mowry as the Hilltop Elementary 2010-2011 Math Bee champion. Mallory Vaclav was runner-up and Vincent Prologo placed third. The three top-placing students were presented Barnes and Noble gift cards, courtesy of the Hilltop PTO.

For preliminary rounds, students were paired up one-on-one, shown a multiplication flash card by fourth-grade teachers, and the student who solved the problem the fastest and correctly moved into the next round.

Complete silence was needed as the students went through several elimination rounds. The finalists were whittled down from 128 to 64 to 32 to 16 and, in the end, eight finalists were left standing.

Showing a great amount of concentration, the “Elite Eight” were seated at a table on the stage.

The rules for the eight finalists were as follows: students were shown a math problem and were given a two-minute time limit to solve the problem on a dry erase board. When the student was comfortable with his or her answer, they turned the board over to signal their final answer. Dollar signs, decimals and commas had to be correct in the answer or the answer would be deemed incorrect.

Fourth-grade teachers checked the problems and had the final say as to whether the answer was correct. Audience members could play along also, as they were shown the math problem, too.

After several rounds, the “Final Four” were set. The four finalists were given one minute to answer a multiplication problem. Accuracy and speed counted, as the first student done with the correct answer was to be crowned the winner.