The Imagine Math “March Math Madness” starts in early March, and it’s a competition between schools and students of which schools can do more Imagine Math Lessons on their website.
The competition usually starts in late February or early March and usually ends in early April. Each week, more and more schools are eliminated, and the schools compete with each other in a bracket-style competition. There can only be one winner.
The first week of the competition, the “Sweet 16” schools are picked. These were the top 16 schools that would make it to the tournament.
The second week, the “Elite 8” were picked. These were the top eight schools. Then, the “Final 4”, which were the semi-final qualifiers, the “Top 2”, which were the finals, and finally, the one, and only one winner, which was Iselin Middle School.
This year’s winner was Iselin Middle School, and the leading MVP was Mr. DeLuca, the 7th grade honors teacher for math. He would give out candies to his students as incentive, as well as the promise of no more mandatory Imagine Math lessons for the rest of the year.
“It was really overwhelming, because you would have to keep doing Imagine Math for hours. It was just like your brain was frying because you had to do so many questions, and I had to do some late at night, because I was so determined to win,” Alexander Mazur said.
Mazur is a student at IMS, and he was a participant in the Imagine Math competition in Mr. DeLuca’s class.
“Even then, it worked out in the end because, you know, you get that sense of victory after all of that,” Mazur said.
Mazur said that the incentive for him to keep doing the competition, and dedicating his time to it, was that he really just wanted to win it for IMS. He also said that the candies were a good motivational tool as well.
Mazur said that he would do it again if the chance arose, but it would take much effort. He also said how he made new friends during the competition by bonding with his fellow classmates.
Moksh Patel was a student of Mr. DeLuca’s class, and he was one of the leading Imagine Math students in the state of New Jersey. He said that he was happy with the competition, because he “got a lot of candy.”
When Patel was questioned about whether he would do it again, he said yes because he “needed to eat a lot of candy.”
He said how it was an okay experience, and how he helped people out, but he had to “grind” Imagine Math lessons and put in hours of hard work.
Samarth Shah was a student in Mr. DeLuca’s class, and he contributed to the Imagine Math competition. Shah said how the competition was fun, but they “had to do a lot of work.”
Shah said that he would only do the competition again, if they got candy like they did in DeLuca’s class. He also said that they each helped each other out, and that when they got the announcement that they won, they were extremely happy because they “knew that all that hard work didn’t go in vain.”
Overall, the Imagine Math competition was very competitive, with only Iselin Middle School winning. Most students liked the competition, and they would mostly do it again.
