UKMT intermediate maths challenge?

I'd never heard of this but a friend has recently told me her Y5 DS and another Y5 child got silver. Wasn't sure what it meant, but that's good then, isn't it?

Oooh - forgot to say - I found being cautious an advantage. My instinct with maths is to check, check and check again and only move on when I am sure it is perfect. This works well with something with negative marks if you get it wrong but not so well in other exams where I tend to not finish papers.

I did the Senior when I was in Y11 - the school I went to was entering the Sixth Form and said any Y11 who wanted to could too. I got a gold and into the Olympiad. Another lad from my year got a silver and another a bronze. I remember all the Lower sixth people hated us because thy got told off for letting 3 Y11 kids beat them.

Both me and the lad who got the silver got double A at A-level (long before A level A*) and into Cambriidge.

I never did it again. In L6 the school forgot to enter us and in U6 it was the week I had loads of Uni interviews and coursework and I panicked and refused to do it. Regretted afterwards but I was worried if I didn't get into the Olympiad again Cambridge would find out and not let me in! (I was a bit of a drama queen at 17.)

Ha, I remember doing this in Y10 and getting a Bronze.

But I really struggled with some Maths concepts - I got a B for GCSE and was in the middle set all the way through Secondary school. Having just checked the past papers, I think I either was on fire on the day I did the test or got really lucky with guessing the multi-choice answers I probably wouldn't get 10 marks now.

I like that we are raising kids with their own style!

Cruelty?? Nah, indulgent mother ;-)

(Er, my son has it on his bedside table atm )

I've already bought her a copy of that fortunately she absolutely loves this stuff otherwise it could be considered cruelty! I don't know if her answers will be full enough for what's needed but we've talked about how getting this far is a big achievement and what she does now is a bonus. They don't get long to prepare though do they?

Well done :)

It's definitely worth having a look at some past questions if she hasn't already, because they're quite different to most things she will have done. And look at the solutions too, lol! My son found the sample pupil answers for the JMO interesting - they don't seem to publish similar for the IMOK, but they might be useful as well anyway.

I can recommend the Problem Solver's Handbook - it's on their front page atm - www.ukmt.org.uk/

Good luck to your dd too richmal!

Well done kitten's dd!

Well done Kitten's dd. Best of luck to her in the Olympiad.

Well done richmal's dd and oybbk's dd!

My dd's school didn't enter any year 9s this year so dd didn't get to do it.

We only got 2 into the kangaroo from my school this year.

she is very chuffed! and I'm ridiculously proud given its her work not mine

I dunno, few years ago but I got bronze and am anything but a talented mathematician. B at gcse

dd is into the olympiad :)

Well, unless they were offering to pay ... ;-) Anyway, it's generally y10s who get invited, so he was probably safe doing the Cayley - needs to watch out this year ;-)

He didn't know that...I think the school would have expected them to go and a great deal of pressure to attend would have been extended. I'm sure he didn't want to find himself in that position.

lol, you're not EXPECTED to go! It's not compulsory! You get an invitation, and you have to pay so it's up to you.

Don't know how my DS has done this year but he got gold last year and an invite to the Cayley. He likes maths but it isn't his passion so when he found out if he scored high enough he would be expected to go to a summer maths camp, I think he deliberately didn't try! He said "I'm not giving up a week of my holidays to do maths". He doesn't think he's done as well this year, however, we'll just have to wait and see. 4 boys from his school made it to the Cayley last year but can't remember if any got to the residential.

A silver is really good though and her gold even better :)

Thanks noblegiraffe

bruffin good luck to your ds in both maths A levels.

Dd only got a silver in JMC last year.

We still dont know how dd did and probably wont find out til mid week next week. Very irritating as shes really keen to know if she is going onto the olympiad (she was 1 mark off on the junior paper last year and shes improved loads)

Well done richmal dd
Ds was one mark off the kangaroo

I haven't got experience of the UK competitions (yet - my children are just coming to the age when they start doing them); but would estimate from my own background in such things that exceptionally good performance in the competitions should predict high results at GCSE and particularly aptitude for further maths; but the reverse is not necessarily true.