Number Sense (UIL)
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Number Sense is one of several academic events sanctioned by the University Interscholastic League. It is also a competition held by the Texas Math and Science Coaches Association, using the same rules as the UIL. It is one of the UIL's oldest academic competitions: the first state title was awarded in 1943.
Number Sense is designed to test students' mental math abilities (i.e., their ability to solve math problems without the aid of calculators or scratch paper).
Students in Grade 4 through Grade 12 are eligible to enter this event. For competition purposes, separate divisions are held for Grades 4-6, Grades 7-8, and Grades 9-12, with separate subjects covered on each test as follows:
- The test for Grades 4-6 covers basic arithmetic and mathematical functions.
- The test for Grades 7-8 covers the subjects under Grades 4-6 plus algebra, geometry and number theory.
- The test for Grades 9-12 covers the subjects under both Grades 4-6 and Grades 7-8 plus analysis, trigonometry and calculus.
For Grades 4-6 and Grades 7-8 each school may send up to three students per division. In order for a school to participate in team competition in a division, the school must send three students in that division.
For Grades 9-12 each school may send up to four students; however, in districts with more than eight schools the district executive committee can limit participation to three students per school. In order for a school to participate in team competition, the school must send at least three students.
Rules and Scoring
The test consists of 80 questions and is limited to only 10 minutes. There is no intermediate time signal given; at the end of 10 minutes the students must immediately stop writing (they are not allowed to finish incomplete answers started before the stop signal).
The questions must be answered in order; a skipped question is scored as a wrong answer.
Since Number Sense is designed to test students' mental math abilities, no calculators or scratch paper can be used during competition.
In order for a question to be scored as correct the exact answer must be given (no allowance for rounding), except where the question is preceded by an asterisk, in which case for the question to be scored as correct the student's answer must be within 5 percent of the exact answer.
5 points are awarded for each correct answer while 4 points are deducted for each wrong or skipped answer. However, questions not answered beyond the last attempted answer (defined as any problem where a mark or erasure exists in the answer blank for that problem) are not scored.
Another way to score the contest is to multiply the number of attempted problems by 5 and multiply the number of wrong problems by 9, and then subtracting the wrong number score from the total.