Math whizzes secured a spot among the top 5 in Hesse

Math isn’t for girls? Not a chance! At the international “Bolyai” math team competition, (from left) Sophia Rogosch, Emma Wagner, Janne Elsaßer, and Teresa Dinges took 4th place out of a total of 61 eighth-grade teams from Hesse. To achieve this ranking, you have to be pretty good at solving a certain number of problems within a limited time frame. And they’re quite tricky.
Participation in the competition, which was developed in Hungary, is voluntary and challenging. A team of four must solve 14 problems in 60 minutes. The team can decide for itself how to approach the problems. For example, they can divide up the problems at the start of the 60 minutes or work together to find the solutions. One thing is clear, though: the problems are too challenging for everyone to solve all of them within the allotted time.

Seventeen teams from Steinmühle had registered, including just one from 8th grade. That team made it into the top 5 in Hesse. In the Marburg-Biedenkopf district, seven teams achieved this ranking across all grade levels. A total of 680 teams participated statewide. Principal Björn Gemmer and the four participants were understandably delighted with the young math whizzes’ performance and the resulting award. They demonstrated once again that outstanding achievements in mathematics are often made by female students and proudly presented their certificates to the photographer.

A look at the problems (example):
“We write down the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 in a specific order. In this sequence, starting with the second number and continuing for all subsequent numbers, the following holds true: The sum of the numbers to the left of the number currently under consideration is a multiple of that number. Which number, then, can be immediately to the left of 4?”
(A) 1 (B) 2 (C) 3 (D) 5 or (E) “You cannot write down the numbers according to the requirements.”
(The correct answers to the above problem are A and B.)