MatchCount

Trust the americans to make a viable market out of maths. I was watching ESPN, yes the SPORTS channel in disbelief as students from around America were competing for a MatchCount prize.

I dont know what to make of it. Initially I thought it was a product of commercialization, but then bringing maths into the mainstream isnt a bad idea. Perhaps thats what we need here, in Sri Lanka, looking the amount of Math failures at the O/L stage.

Some of the questions had me stumped, although I only used my head, in contrast to the contestants who could work out the problems. But some of those kids were really phenomenonal. The questions were tough but the answers were faster than the time taken for me to read the darn question! Another similar program is the Spelling Bee contests, again broadcast through CNN.

[Blogger's Note]

What was I thinking? The title should be MatchCount, sorry, MathCount (it seems an involuntary process. The letter "c" just gets typed). And the channel should be ESPN and not CNN. Yeesh!

[/Blogger's Note]

I think its time we had something like this in Sri Lanka.