The third Monday of January is the holiday commemorating the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. The first time Martin Luther King Jr. Day was celebrated was in 1986. Try to solve these problems without using a calendar!

How many times has Martin Luther King Jr. Day been celebrated?

How many times since 1986 has Martin Luther King Jr. Day actually been celebrated on his birthday, January 15th?

What is the probability Martin Luther King Jr.’s actual birth date falls on the third Monday in January?

In 1998, Nkem Chukwu gave birth to the first set of surviving octuplets.  The eight babies weighed from 11.3 ounces to 28.6 ounces at birth.  Leonard Weisman, the Texas Children’s Hospital’s chief of neonatal services, said it was imperative they gain lots of weight before they go home.  “For instance, the 500-gram babies are going to have to quadruple their weight [to reach a healthy level],” he said.  How many ounces will the heaviest baby have to gain to reach a healthy level?

Now that 2020 is finally here, let’s see what we can do with this new number! 

If the perimeter of a particular square is 2020 inches, what is the area of the square, in square inches?  Express your answer as a decimal to the nearest hundredth.

While there were many problems written and solved for MATHCOUNTS in 2019, below is a selection of some of the best of the year!

2018-2019 School Handbook, #27

A segment with endpoints G(-2, 3) and H(4, 7) is dilated by a scale factor of 2/3 with center of dilation (0, 0). What is the sum of all the coordinates of G’ and H’?

Millions of people will fix their eyes on the ball dropping in Times Square this New Year’s Eve to indicate the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020.  The famous ball is six feet in diameter and weighs 1070 pounds.  If the weight were distributed evenly throughout the ball, what would be the average number of pounds per cubic foot, to the nearest tenth?  (Assume that the ball is a perfect sphere, though its surface is actually made up of 504 small, crystal triangles.)

During this time of year, people around the world will be celebrating different holidays. Many of these holidays include getting together with family, exchanging gifts, eating special foods, celebrating, and remembering the reason for the holiday. 

In preparation for Thanksgiving dinner, Mrs. Cobble decided to get a new tablecloth for the dining room table.  Her rectangular table measures 3.5 feet by 6 feet, and she would like the tablecloth to hang exactly 9 inches over each side.  What is the area, in square feet, of the ideal tablecloth for Mrs. Cobble?

In honor of this year’s School Competition being released to registered competition coaches for our 2019-2020 Competition Series, see some of last year’s School Competition questions below!

Sprint Round, 19

Josie selected a number n. She divided n by 2 and then subtracted ½ from the result. She took half of that result and then subtracted ½ to get the final result of 10. What is the value of n?

Grady, Sophia and Ella Zappone were going trick-or-treating together down a long road with houses only on the right side of the street.  The addresses of the first three houses were 296 Boo Blvd, 300 Boo Blvd and 304 Boo Blvd, and the house numbers continued to increase by 4 down the entire road.  The kids decided to take turns knocking on the doors of the houses, so that Grady knocked at house 296, Sophia knocked at house 300, Ella knocked at house 304, and then Grady started the sequence over at house 308.  Grady will knock on the doors of a lot of houses.  When Grady gets to the first ho

Some organizations are looking to make a lot of money off of the flu vaccine that is in such high demand.  A survey done last week reported that 55% of 677 hospital pharmacists who responded reported being offered the vaccine at highly inflated prices.  Of those, 84% said they would not buy the vaccine at those prices.  How many of the 677 hospital pharmacists did not say that they would not buy the vaccine at the high prices?  Express your answer to the nearest whole number.