IMLEM Math League

Advisors:
Ms. Katherine Keon

IMLEM stands for Intermediate Math League of Eastern Massachusetts and is composed of schools from all over Eastern Massachusetts. Competitions are held once a month at a hosting school in the geographic clusters that make up the league. Here, a group of about five schools gather and work on some rather complicated (but not impossible) math. Team members are given ten minutes to complete three problems in five different categories, and teams score based on the number of correct answers per member. There is also a team round during which students are given fifteen minutes to complete as many of the six given problems as they are able. In this portion of the competition, students on a team can put their “heads together” to come up with the answer using any strategy that will get them to the answer.

Each meet gives awards for highest scores at the sixth, seventh, and eighth grade levels, as well as to the high scorer of the meet. (The top two scorers from our own team are awarded a certificate for their achievement.) The scores are sent to a tabulator who records them to the cluster competition area, which in turn is sent to the division. These scores are kept until the end of the season, when awards are given by the league to students who are top scorers, to the highest scoring school, and to top scorers at each grade level for the full season. We also award our team members' participation with a medal and special treat at the end of the season.

There are weekly dues that help defray the costs of the awards, snacks, and end of the season treat. This charge is one dollar per week for the twenty weeks we run. This is payable in one lump sum or can be made in two payments of ten dollars. The first payment is due at the first scheduled practice of the year and the second payment is due in January. Last year’s dues also enabled us to purchase calculators for the team to use during the fourth and fifth meets when calculators are allowed. 

On meet days, when we travel to a hosting school, we leave SMA at approximately 2 p.m. Team members must have a signed permission slip that will be turned in to either Ms. Keon or Mrs. MacKay. These slips will be given to the office for verification of dismissal for math team competitions. Students will not be able to be dismissed on the day of a meet without this permission slip. If parents are not providing your transportation, the portion of the slip for alternate transportation must be filled out. These are due in the morning (no later than 9 a.m.) of a Thursday meet day.

Practices are from 3 to 4 p.m. on Thursday afternoons unless it is the Thursday before a meet, in which case we stay until 4:30 p.m. to run through a previous meet’s material which is timed and discussed.

If you have any other questions about our team, please do ask. It really is a lot of fun and a great way to make a good impression on high school admissions committees when the time comes!