Hunched over their desks, pencil tips race across scrap paper as the students rearrange equations over and over again in their pursuit of a final answer. While other students think of math as a twisted form of psychological torture, these members of the Ipswich Math Team believe the opposite.

The Math Team meets Wednesdays after school in Mr. Mabbott’s room (A208) to work through practice problems in preparation for their monthly competitions. Every month, there are six categories of math problems, from Algebra I concepts to Trigonometry. There is a practice problem given for each category, which is extremely similar to one of the actual problems in the competition in their corresponding category. On competition day, the ten members on the starting lineup, known as “regulars,” each compete in three categories. Alternates can choose how many categories they compete in, but Mr. Mabbott expects everyone to compete in at least three. Competitors have ten minutes to solve as many of the three questions per category as they can, earning two points for every correct answer. There’s no penalty for an incorrect answer, so students should guess on questions they don’t know how to solve. Mr. Mabbott believes every student should be able to earn six points from thoroughly practicing the given practice problems.

After each of the six rounds, the teams split into their “regular” and “alternate” groups for the Team Round. The fifteen-minute Team Round has six questions, each worth three points, but are much higher in difficulty than the questions for the individual rounds. As the name implies, the students work together in their groups to solve the questions.

Mr. Mabbott has coached the Ipswich Math Team since 2018, and Mr. Shippen joined him as a coach later on. In his first few years coaching, Mr. Mabbott “didn’t have enough students to make a full team,” and he “only had 6 or 7 students going” to their first competition. He’s proud that since then, “the team has been built into what it is today, where [there are normally] alternates now.” Mr. Mabbott has seen many students come to enjoy Math Team after initial skepticism or a feeling of not being good enough at math to be on the team. 

Math Team is open to anyone interested, and its members are always happy to help others develop a stronger understanding of math concepts beyond the ones in practice questions. Ryan Shea, a senior and Math Team member since his junior year, joined Math Team because he “loved math” and “wanted to do it more and get better at it.” He feels that he has gotten much better at math after joining the team. When asked his favorite thing about the Math team, he said it was “the variety in the problems we solve” and spending time with other students who liked math. Ryan also thinks that the team has been “putting up a good performance this year, but there is definitely room for improvement.” Ipswich came second to Manchester Essex in their division for the first two meets this year and got first place in the most recent meet (12/5/2024). 

Interested? Give this question from a previous practice set a try: