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.
Five points are awarded for each correct answer while four 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. Subtract the wrong number score from the total.
Read more about this topic: Number Sense (UIL)
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“Life is a game in which the rules are constantly changing; nothing spoils a game more than those who take it seriously. Adultery? Phooey! You should never subjugate yourself to another nor seek the subjugation of someone else to yourself. If you follow that Crispian principle you will be able to say “Phooey,” too, instead of reaching for your gun when you fancy yourself betrayed.”
—Quentin Crisp (b. 1908)