UKMT maths challenges - how to?

June Huh was not an IMOer. Terence Tao left the IMO circle very early (13 years old?) before he was worn out by the rigorous training.

IMO and Fields medal award are very different thing. IMO is a competition of solving known mathematical problems for high school students where a lot of winner student won't continue doing mathematian research as career, many will end up doing problem solving and apply mathematics knowledge to various industry and become successful.

FIelds medal is award to under 40 mathematician for their research contribution to the field, not problem solving skillset. Also, It’s not accurate to say that no individuals of Asian descent have won the Fields Medal in recent years. In fact, in 2022, June Huh, a mathematician of Korean descent, was awarded the Fields Medal. Before that Terence Tao a Chinese descent mathematician who won multiple IMO medals was warded Fields too.

To be top at either field it is prerequisite to have rigorous training, however just repeating exercises mechanically will probably never get any chance.

To triumph in mathematics competitions like the IMO, you may need to undergo rigorous training. However, such training isn't a prerequisite for becoming a proficient mathematician. Simply repeating exercises mechanically isn't conducive to mathematical excellence. Despite the outstanding performance of East Asian countries and the Asian descendants in Western nations at the IMO, it's noteworthy that none have received the Fields Medal for quite some time. It's more beneficial to engage in mathematics with enthusiasm and interest rather than engaging in excessive repetition that could diminish one's passion for the subject.

and that’s why they stopped there. Some kids want to go much further so they need to train and do a lot more than just turning up.

I want to add, about 50% of the participants did JMC will get bronze award or above. Gold vs Silver vs Bronze is about 1:2:3, I assume that is what is considered "done well".

Top 5% will go to Kangaroo round and less than 0.5%-1% go to JMO (BMO is equivalent top% for SMC)

We didn’t even know about it they just did it at school yesterday. School didn’t mention it was happening.

I had never heard of this until today when my son came home and told me he’d been told he had to take part in a ‘secret maths test’ but the teacher wouldn’t tell them what it was. He said he didn’t want to write his name on the paper because he ‘didn’t want to give his data to the government bruh’ if they wouldn’t tell him what the test was for. He then managed to sneak a look at what was written on the teacher’s paper, and found half a used rubber on the floor that he could write down the name on so he could come home and ask me about it.

FFS I don’t think his future lies in maths but it may lie in some kind of police work 🤣

My daughter loves maths, she loves the problem solving maths which is ukmt. She never started training until year 8 and first qualified for Junior Olympiad in year 8 by starting to practise from ukmt books, since then she has been using these books almost everyday. I bought them here:

https://ukmt.org.uk/textbooks

She now also practises these books(intermediate and contest training):

https://artofproblemsolving.com/store

Its similar to music and sport, it needs practice and passion. She was invited to Queens camp, qualified for BMO2 and was awarded gold for Maclaurin Olympiad (a medal and book prize and also means top 20 at her age in the UK). She also has a mentor from ukmt who coaches her and catching up with her training(free). Looking up, she might never make it to IMO in the next couple of years as there are so many better mathematicians however its possible for self training to reach to some high level.

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Never done anything for DD who is just naturally gifted at most subjects, especially maths and science.

She is at an independant school and last year, when she was in year 6 (primary) her head of maths in primary got her in on a spare year 7 / 8 place.

She got gold / through to next level and best in school in year 6!!!!

So yes, she beat the top maths students in years 7 and 8 in year 6!!!!

We did not prepare her..... she just naturally gets stuff like maths.... (she was confident with numbers up to 100 before her 3rd birthday)

Sadly today she was off school unwell, but I took her in for an hour to defend her title, but also today, her sister who is now in year 6 was taking it too.

We had an interesting chat at dinner tonight going through the questions they can remember.
Myself and DH (we both did A level maths, he did further maths A level too) were trying to work out the harder questions ourselves!

I loved doing Maths challenge at school, as did DH, 30 ish years ago!!!!! (my highest was a silver, while DD went straight in with gold and best in school and through to maths kangeroo while still at primary school!)

Yes, year 8 for mine.

So can I assume that out of his peers, he must have done pretty well to be put through to the challenge?

The "don't discuss before Sat" is because different time zones do it after the UK, and the deadline for uploading answer sheets is midnight tomorrow.

Yes, the maths test today, with only a small selection of kids is very likely to be the Junior maths challenge (assuming Y8 or below!)

Edit: Serves me right for not reading the whole thread, just clocked it has been and gone today!

I don't think mandatory coaching would be useful. I did these as a child and did limited prep outside class. But not no prep - I might do a couple of past papers etc but honestly it was mainly for fun.

But I did really enjoy maths and I would do it in my every day life.

If she does fancy some practice then that would be great. My usual technique for maths exams (which never failed me) is first do papers without timing and with access to a text book (update for resources of your choice). Get happy enough (not perfect) and then switch to closed book but no time limit. Then add the time limit. Obviously it works best with plenty of past papers but I found it built things up simply and logically and it's the only maths revision I have ever done.

Well it has been suggested that last week was a practise test to pick the children to actually do the challenge.

Yes I don’t understand that If everyone does the challenge on the same day…. Tbh, I wouldn’t be surprised if he imagined that bit.

My son, year 8 said he had done a maths test last week ( all the top sets did). He then did another test today, but fewer children than last week. About 30 children. They were told not to discuss it before Saturday…..

Does this sound like UKMT challenge? I’ve heard absolutely nothing about it from school, so I’m guessing maybe it’s something else? Someone kindly answered a thread I started and suggested it could have been this challenge.

My DS did absolutely nothing to prepare, he just saw as something not important. To be honest I wasn’t even aware it was something people did revise for. He is generally good at maths though and got gold (Yr11).

I disagree. Both my DS got silver or gold every year. We never did any practice with them, it was all done through (comprehensive) school

The Math Challenge and Olympiad differ significantly from the GCSE. While one assesses problem-solving skills, the other evaluates knowledge. Particularly with Olympiad questions, achieving a high GCSE score doesn't necessarily ensure reaching the Olympiad stage. I know someone who gained admission to Cambridge for maths despite scoring 0 in the BMO2.

DD struggled last year with the one she did in Y7. She is dyslexic and found the wording very confusing despite being in top set and never getting under 90% in the set tests in school. It's frustrating for her as she doesn't do as well as she could in them. It worries me the GCSE questions might be similar so we are working on breaking them down with her SEN at the moment - often a paragraph question switching from numbers to naming numbers in writing can throw her or make her forget a step which I hadn't realised before.

Thanks, that's interesting. DD won't be sitting any kind of 11+ as we are fortunate enough to have a great comp around the corner. As such she has had no tuition at all so will be interesting to see how she gets on. And she may be keen to give it another bash in future years.

She did say she realised on the way out she had got one wrong, something about eye colour and being left handed. Bless her!

@Chilto I think it depends if they sat the online version (fast results) or pencil and paper (takes forever).

@Bear2014 definitely good if they'll be sitting 11+
I don't know for sure, but I believe there is the primary challenge for primary school, and the junior one is aimed at secondary school kids (years7-9).

@Chilto according to ds results out 2-6 weeks time 🤷🏽‍♀️