The Queens Chapter - NYSSPE annual MATHCOUNTS Competition was held on Saturday, February 4h, at Junior High School 189, in Flushing. Eleven schools from Queens registered in the MATHCOUNTS Program competed in the competition.

MATHCOUNTS is a Math skills building and competition for 6th, 7th & 8th grade students, sponsored by the National Society of Professional Engineers, the CNA Foundation, Raytheon Company, US Dept. of Defense, Northrop Grumman Foundation, 3M Foundation and Texas Instruments, Bezos Family Foundation, Conoco Phillips, Think-Fun and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics.

Competitions are held at the local Chapter level, followed by a State competition. The top individuals from the State competition then compete at the Raytheon National Competition, which is being held in Orlando, Florida this year. The top winners of the National Competition can win college scholarships.

Teams of 4 students and up to 4 individuals from the schools spend about 4 hours taking various written and oral tests.  There is a 40 minute, 30 question written individual test, to be followed by four sets of two written questions to be answered in 6 minutes each set.  This is then followed by a 20 minute, 10-question team test, where the 4 team members worked together to answer the questions.  The most exciting round is the oral countdown round, where the top 10 individual finishers will compete head to head for top honors.