Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Round One of the 5774 International Ulpaniada Mathematics Contests

Round One of the 5774 International Ulpaniada Mathematics Contest

It is an exciting morning here at Frisch for the math department. Seven of our brightest female math students are currently taking round one of the Ulpaniada along with 8000 other young orthodox woman from around the world.

The Ulpaniada is a three round math contest run out of Michlalah-Jerusalem College.  Held every two years, the Ulpaniada's test questions are very different from those found on the SAT or any other math contest currently held in the US. It is a rigorous exam combining math and logic and Torah.  These Frisch students have to be creative and insight to even attempt to answer these 14 multiple choice nonstandard questions. Two questions in today's round one even require understanding the Hebrew calendar and numerical value of the letters in the Hebrew alphabet to be answered.  It is not everyday do these students see Hebrew in the middle of a math test!

With two past Frisch students qualifying for the final round held in Israel, we are optimistic that our current group of bright young Cougars have a fabulous chance of repeating history.