Chestermere UCMAS student Abhaydeep Singh Dhaliwal placed second in the national mental math competition in Toronto on June 25.
“I was scared because there were so many people. I thought I might lose, but then when I won second place, I was proud of myself,” said the eight-year-old.
Although Dhaliwal placed second in all of Canada, he had to overcome challenges before competing, such as nervousness, and not being able to see his mother.
“There were so many kids, so he got a little bit upset,” said Dhaliwal’s mother, Kiranjeet Dhaliwal.
Throughout the national competition, there were three categories that approximately five thousand students participated in.
“There was Abacus, and mental agility where the students are asked questions at a very high speed and include addition, subtraction, division, multiplication, and square root,” said Directors of Chestermere UCMAS Minu Bhatia and Munish Bhatia.
“Then there was Flash where the students saw the numbers on a large screen, and they had to calculate the answers,” Munish said.
Before competing nationally, Abhaydeep participated in the provincial mental math competition, with roughly 800 other students.
“I’m really proud of him, he’s a really good guy, and he’s really intelligent,” Kiranjeet said.
She added, “It was really exciting and amazing.”
This year all of the UCMAS Chestermere students are either champions or placed second in the province.
UCMAS Chestermere is designed to increase the focus and concentration in youth, Munish said.
By being involved in the UMCAS program, youth’s math skills will get stronger, along with their focus levels in all other activities and subjects will peak.
Throughout the program, students learn how to visualize numbers in pictures, and are required to pass eight levels.
“It’s a lifetime skill,” Munish added. “We teach them how to use the right side of the brain, which is way faster than the left side.”
