Four Bay Area teens scored medals at the Mathematical Olympiad in China as they matched wits with other girls around the world.

Faced with problems such as,

ABC = 2009 x (a+b+c),

it turns out "The answer itself isn't worth any credit" [Jing-Jing Li]. More importantly it's about "how to prove the answer, how to get there." Cupertino high school senior, Jing-Jing Li from Sunnyvale, earned a gold medal at the 8th annual China Girls Mathematical Olympiad.

What's tougher, the questions or the pressure? Jing-Jing Li:"For me, I think it's like mostly trying to solve problems, although the pressure doesn't exactly help."

Team mate and silver medal winner Patricia Li of San Jose said, "I'm going to leave for MIT in about four days."

With eight questions to solve in eight hours, Patricia liked number two. "I just saw the way to the answer. It was just like one pair of similar triangles. And I saw it, and I was like, oh man yah!" said Patricia Li.

Two additional San Jose students received bronze medals.