Bothell brothers aim to calculate a win at national math competition

When Yuta Kato, 14, gets stumped with a math question, he'll sometimes turn to his brother, Yota, 12, for help.

After all, if you're the fourth-best math student in the state, the next-best person to ask would be your third-place brother.

The brothers, who earned those rankings at the MATHCOUNTS state competition in March, make up half of the four-person Washington state team that will compete nationally next week. The team also includes eighth-graders Shijie Joy Zheng of Odle Middle School in Bellevue and Andrew Morgan of Washington Middle School in Seattle

"I'm feeling pretty good, and ready," said Yuta Kato, a year ahead of his seventh-grade brother at Northshore Junior High in Bothell. "Just being there, it's pretty exciting,"

About 228 students from across the country and U.S. territories will compete in the mathematics competition next Friday and Saturday in Fort Worth, Texas, said Bill Kavanaugh, Washington state MATHCOUNTS coordinator.

The competition includes written and oral questions, with students answering individually and sometimes working as a team within an allotted time. In the countdown round, as with a game show, students are given a question and must hit the buzzer first to answer.

The math competition started about 23 years ago and is one of the country's largest. President George W. Bush and former presidents Clinton, Bush and Reagan have all recognized winning teams in White House ceremonies.

The Washington state team placed second last year.

Kavanaugh, who has been involved with the math competitions for more than 20 years, said he has never heard of two siblings being on the same team at the same time.

The Kato brothers seem to push each other and each has a competitive streak, said Cindi Trujillo, math teacher at Northshore Junior High, who has worked with them.

Sometimes during competitions, the brothers will hit the buzzer and give an answer before the audience can comprehend the question, Trujillo said.

"A sigh of amazement will go through the room," Trujillo said. "It's incredible and amazing to watch."

This year's state team also has a veteran member. Zheng competed during last year's competition and was the highest scoring girl at nationals, said Qun Li, who was the state coach last year and is again this year.

Students compete at the regional level before going on to the statewide competition. The four highest-scoring students in the statewide competition make up the team that competes in the nationals, said Li, who is a computer analyst and whose daughter competed in the state competition this year.

"We're seeing more girls come out for the competition," Li said. "The ratio of boys to girls is probably 8-to-1, but it's getting better."

During the competition, students will be asked questions such as: "What is the greatest prime factor of 221?" Answer: 17. Or, "What is the 100th digit after the decimal point of the decimal representation of 1/7," in less than 45 seconds without the help of a calculator. Answer: 8.

For Yota Kato, competing in math is more fun than going to math class.

"The problems they ask you in the competition are more interesting," he said. "You have to be creative to solve them."

Rachel Tuinstra: 206-515-5637 or rtuinstra@seattletimes.com