Meet the math whiz who aced the AP Calculus exam

17-year-old Cedrick Argueta is one of only twelve students in the world to earn a perfect score.



Meet Cedrick Argueta, badass math gangsta. The Southern California teen was one of only twelve students in the entire world to earn a perfect score on the Advanced Placement Calculus AB exam.

Lincoln Heights Teenager One of Only 12 Worldwide to Get Perfect Score on AP Calculus Exam

Cedrick, a 17-year-old senior at Abraham Lincoln High School in Lincoln Heights, was one of 302,532 students to take the exam, which tests the fundamental theories of calculus in a series of multiple choice and free-response problems. But he's one of only a dozen students who aced the whole damn test.

Every. Single. Question. Cedrick found out last summer that he had scored a 5, the top score possible on the exam. But last week, his principal received a letter from the College Board informing him that Cedrick had gotten every single question correct, calling it a "remarkable achievement."

Finally, An Asian Guy Who's Good at Math (Part Two)

Behold, Francis Su and the Presidents of the Mathematical Association of America.



A couple of years ago, I wrote about Harvey Mudd College math professor Francis Su, who had just been elected the 55th president of the Mathematical Association of America, the largest professional society that focuses on mathematics at the undergraduate level. It is worth noting that he is the first Asian American and first person of color to serve as president of MAA in its century-old history.

While researching that post, I came across this long list of past Presidents on the MAA website. They had not yet updated the site with Professor Su's photo, so it was pretty striking just how uniformly white it was. Like one hundred years of one hundred percent mathematical presidential whiteness.

I don't why I suddenly remembered that fabulously Caucasian math list today, but it prompted to me to revisit the MAA website to see if Professor Su was on it. He is. And he looks awesome.

Behold, the past and present Presidents of the Mathematical Association of America:

Watch these cool Asians teach you some math.

CAAM videos use cultural and artistic diversity to teach middle school math lessons.


This is pretty cool. The Center for Asian American Media has produced a series of short videos that use cultural and artistic diversity -- and a little bit of ukulele -- to teach middle school math lessons.

Learn Middle School Math with CAAM and PBS LearningMedia

The 2-5 minute videos were produced, written and directed by Kar Yin Tham, CAAM's director of education initiatives, who says she wanted to make diversity "the central starting point" in the lessons.

"The challenge was to figure out what math concepts were inherent in each artistic or cultural tradition, and how to best present them. To accomplish this, we collaborated with math educators, artists, musicians, and community based organizations."

Some of the collection's highlights include:

Finally, an Asian guy who's good at math.

Exciting news from the world of mathematics! This news is actually a couple of months old... Francis Su, a math professor at Harvey Mudd College in California, was recently elected the president of the Mathematical Association of America: Francis Su Elected MAA President.

Su is the first Asian American, and first person of color (seriously, no kidding), to serve as President of the Mathematical Association of America, in its nearly 100 years of existence. It is about time, yo.

The MAA is the largest professional society that focuses on mathematics at the undergraduate level. Su will serve as the organization's 55th president, and is one of the youngest presidents in MAA's history.