Students put math skills to test

By Allison Schaefers
Advertiser Staff Writer

Thirteen-year-old Kaleb Boultinghouse was one of about 225 O'ahu students who actually volunteered yesterday to take a math test on a beautiful summer day.

Boultinghouse, an eighth-grader at Wai'anae Intermediate, said the hour-long Kumon Math Challenge definitely lived up to its name.

"It was pretty hard," Boultinghouse said. "I didn't even get to finish it, but I went back and figured all the problems I got stuck on."

O'ahu students tested their applied math and calculation skills during the test, which was administered at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa campus. About 10,000 students from throughout the United States and Canada participated in the annual summer competition designed to allow first- through 10th-grade students to sharpen their math skills and practice test taking in a university environment, said Susan Kondo-Leong, math challenge coordinator.

National winners will be announced in September and the top 20 students in each grade will receive scholarships ranging from $100 to $1,000, Kondo-Leong said.

The idea is for students to test their math skills against other students and to encourage them to continue challenging themselves over the summer, she said.

"It's a very challenging test," Kondo-Leong said. "Some of the problems are very complex."

The test was designed by education specialists from Kumon Math and Reading Centers, an after-school supplemental education program. There are 50 Kumon centers throughout Hawai'i, and nationwide there are 1,100 centers with more than 100,000 students.

Test results from the Kumon Challenge will be computed electronically and students who took the test will receive information about how their math skills rank nationally, Kondo-Leong said.

Colleen and Glenn Waki of Honolulu said they encouraged their 7-year-old daughter Kaitlyn to take the test so they could see where she ranked against other students and because they knew she would enjoy taking it.

Kaitlyn likes playing with numbers so much that she works on math problems seven days a week, Colleen Waki said.

Challenge results will not be available for several more months, but just minutes after taking the test, Kaitlyn said she was pretty confident that her hard work had paid off.

"I think I did really well," Kaitlyn said. "But I wish there had been a few more fractions. That would have been fun."