Senior Nassim Fedel placed fourth in the Bay Area Senior Mathematical Olympiad, on Dec. 10.

The competition spanned 90 minutes and consisted of a 30-question test.

Each Bay Area high school selected a number of 12th grade students to compete for individual and team scores.

“I looked at 12th graders who are post BC [Calculus], because we have a number of them,” said Radu Toma, the Instructional Supervisor of the Math department. “Among those students, I looked at the people who did well in the past in various competitions.”

Toma hopes that participation in math competitions at Paly will continue to increase.

“Paly has been active in math competitions for many years now and our students have often placed well in such competitions.” Toma said. “Five years ago, we started offering a Problem Solving class for the students interested in participating in math contests. Since then, our students started competing, with notable result, in national contests like the Mandelbrot Competition, the Fall Start Up Contest, and the Collaborative Ciphering Trials. At the same time, our results in the local and national competitions we’ve been attending for many years have become even more notable.”

The math department’s goal is to ignite the interest of Paly students in math competitions.

“They are fun events where students can learn more math, prove what they already know, and meet other students with the same interests from other schools,” Toma said. “All our students are invited to participate in the American Math Competition contest in February . All our Geo/Alg2 and BC Calculus students already participate in the Continental Math League series of contests. The Trig-Analyt and Analysis classes compete in the California Math League contests. We all do our best to encourage all students to get involved.”