Lexington Math Tournament

Revision as of 19:04, 12 March 2024 by Pomme de terre (talk | contribs)
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

The Lexington Mathematics Tournament (LMT) is a biannual middle school mathematics competition sponsored and run by the Lexington High School Math Club in Lexington, Massachusetts. LMT consists of two tournaments: LMT Fall, which usually takes place in December, and LMT Spring, which usually takes place in May.

In high school, there are overwhelmingly many opportunities from all sorts of math leagues and contests and competitions, whereas there are far fewer in middle school (small regional leagues and MathCounts). The transition from middle to high school math can be difficult. Inspired by other tournaments that provide challenging problems to high school students, it is Lexington High School's goal to offer middle school students an equally fun competition to help bridge the gap to high school mathematics and encourage them to continue their pursuit of mathematics in all of its forms.

LMT Fall

In LMT Fall, the individual rounds consist of a Speed Round and a Theme Round, respectively.

Speed Round

The Speed Round is a relatively fast paced, 50 minute test covering a wide range of subjects. It consists of 25 problems, and is the first round in the tournament.

Theme Round

The Theme Round consists of a total of 15 problems, which are divided between 3 themes with 5 problems each. The problems in each theme will all involve some scenario relating to the overarching theme, and are ordered in approximately increasing difficulty. The themes rotate every year.

Team Round

The Team Round takes place after the conclusion of both individual rounds. In this round, 4-6 person teams work together to solve a test consisting of 10-15 problems in 60 minutes.

Guts Round

The Guts Round is a 75 minute event where teams work together to solve sets of 3 problems each. At the starting signal, each team sends a runner to an assigned problem station to pick up copies of the first set of problems for each team member. As soon as a team has answers for one problem set, the runner may bring the answers to the problem station and pick up the next set. However, once a team submits a problem set, they may not go back to it. Grading is immediate and scores are posted in real time.

LMT Spring

In contrast to LMT Fall, the Theme Round is replaced with an Accuracy Round, but the rest of the event follows a similar format.

Accuracy Round

In the Accuracy Round, competitors will be presented with a 10 question test covering a wide range of subjects to be taken in 60 minutes.


Mini-Events

At each LMT, a period of just over an hour after lunch will be dedicated to mini-events. These are fun activities which can be from a wide range of topics. The exact selection of mini-events available to competitors changes each competition, but some examples of past mini-events are the estimathon, geometry bee, science bowl (or ball), and Tetris.

See also