They sat in arrayed desks, a few moving when asked to make sure they were not sitting next to anyone from their school. They had pencils and pens in front of them and nothing else.
I passed out a folded sheet of paper. The proctor told them not to unfold it until the competition began. He then called out their names from the official roster, giving each their number, which they wrote in a box on the top-left of the folded sheet.
There was a knock on the door. Four students were sheepishly looking in the window.
“Oh my heavens,” I said as I opened the door to let them in. They chuckled nervously. “Go ahead,” I said. “Pick a seat apart from each other.”
After the full roster had been read and the students had written their numbers down, the proctor read the official instructions and then reminded them not to begin until he said “Go”.
“On your mark… Get set…”
One of the students loudly flipped her paper open. The others looked over in horror as she realized her false start.
“Not yet,” the proctor said, and she quickly folded her paper back.
“Go!”
There was a great rush of rustling paper as they all unfolded the questions and began their mental calculations.
You see, in Number Sense, you solve math problems without writing anything down except your answers. No calculators. No scribbles. No scratch paper. No erasures. No corrections. Just answers to the questions.
After just a few minutes, someone on the far side of the room loudly flipped their paper over. The other students looked over in shock. There are only a few minutes for this event, and the number of questions is laughable. Many students answer fewer than ten questions. No one gets to the back.
Well on this day, almost no one.