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Health & Fitness

Briarcliff Middle School Mathletes Making it Count!


This winter Briarcliff Middle School’s math club, Mathletes, participated for the first time in the American Mathematics Competition. The AMC is a 25-question contest comprising topics such as probability, estimation, percentages, spatial visualization, everyday applications, and the reading and interpretation of graphs. The students are given 40 minutes to complete the challenge, with the score based on the number of problems answered correctly. BMS students participated in the middle school AMC in mid- November.

The Briarcliff Middle School team members scored 58 out of a possible 75 points, placing them on the Merit Roll. Of the 149,804 students hailing from 2,410 schools nationwide, four Briarcliff students – Letitia Chang, Farhaanah Mohideen, Matthew Tu and Michael Tu – scored in the top 5 percent and were recognized as part of the Honor Roll. Christopher Li and Michael Tu were awarded placement on the Achievement Roll, which recognizes high-scoring students through grade six.

Ten Mathletes were chosen to participate in the regional Mathcounts competition at Pace University. Mathcounts is a national middle school coaching and competitive mathematics program that promotes achievement in mathematics through engaging “bee”-style contests. This February marked Briarcliff Middle School’s 13th consecutive year of involvement in the nationwide competition. In three rounds, student contestants were presented with nearly 50 complex mathematical problems to solve in a specified number of minutes for each round. The final countdown round replicated the game show Jeopardy in format.

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Briarcliff’s Mathletes are led by advisers Svetlana Ryzhik and Barbara Murphy (pictured with team members). Ms. Ryzhik has been a part of the Briarcliff Middle School community for 15 years, serving as a teacher’s aide and lunch monitor. She was employed as a metallurgical engineer in the former Soviet Union. Ms. Murphy is a Briarcliff Middle School math and science teacher.


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