Senior Sohail Farhangi recently participated in the Olimpiada Mexicana de Matemáticas, a mathematics competition in Mexico.

“I actually saw it on a flyer from the Math Team, and I took a chance and applied,” Farhangi said.

There were about 200 competitors at the test, four of whom were American.  The other three had also gone to a math training camp Farhangi had gone to from August 1 to August 10.  Along with the training camp, Farhangi also trains for math contests year-round as a member of the Jefferson math team.

“We took the practice test in previous years so I thought I’d do pretty well,” Farhangi said.

According to the Vienna Sun Gazette, the four U.S. students worked on individual and collaborative math challenges and got a chance to talk to the Mexican competitors.  Since the test was in Mexico, all of the proofs had to be done in Spanish.

“I thought it would be a hindrance, but it was actually a lot easier than I thought, since a lot of the things are the same as they are in English,” Farhangi said.