Senior Alex Zhai is vying for his third straight spot on America's International Mathematical Olympiad team. Gargoyle photo

FOR THE SECOND year in a row, Alex Zhai has earned a perfect score of 150 on the American Mathematics Contest 12 national exam.

“I didn’t really set this as a goal,” said Zhai, “since I knew I would be able to do all of the problems. It was mainly a matter of not making any careless mistakes.”

The senior is one of six Uni students who have qualified for the American Invitational Math Exam, which will be given on April 2. The other qualifiers are:

• Geoffrey Beck, senior
• Ethan Berl, senior
• Allan Luo, junior
• Mike Renner, senior
• Brian Wang, junior

The AMC 12 is for students in grades 12 and below.

Kevin Li, a freshman, was Uni's highest scorer on the AMC 10, which is for students in grades 10 and below.

To qualify for the AIME, students taking the AMC 12 must score at least 100; students taking the AMC 10 must score 120 out of a possible 150 or be in the top 1 percent nationally.

Seventy-nine Uni students took one of the AMC exams on Feb. 12; the results were released today.

Both exams are 25-question, 75-minute multiple-choice tests that cover secondary school mathematics. They feature problems that can be solved with precalculus concepts.

(Note: The AMC 12 is given on two dates each year. Contest A was on Feb. 12; Contest B was on Feb. 27. Several Uni students took the B exam. Those results have not yet been released.)

About 126,000 students take the AMC 12 each year; last year 9,767 students qualified for the AIME.

In 2007, Zhai was one of only 20 American students who recorded a perfect score. Six foreign students (three from China, two from Taiwan, one from Singapore) also had perfect scores.

The AMC 12 is the first step in a talent-selection process, sponsored by the Mathematical Association of America, that ends in the choosing of a six-member team to represent the United States in the International Mathematical Olympiad.

Zhai, a senior, has been a member of the U.S. IMO team for the past two summers. Last year, he won a gold medal and placed seventh individually at the 48th IMO, held in Hanoi, Vietnam. As a team, the U.S. placed fifth in the world.

In July 2006, Zhai won a silver medal in his first IMO, held in Ljubljana, Slovenia.