Junior maths challenge 2025

It's always a risk when they don't all sit it at the same time. With mobile phones they don't even need to take the paper out of the room. Maybe they'll make it so all of the UK has to sit it at the same time. That won't stop international candidates from seeing it before they sit it. To some extent it is going to rely on everyone cooperating.

We just found out that DS10 got full marks (135) in the JMC this year.

We know he’s gifted at maths but always hard to compare to his age group as UMKT don’t release any breakdown by age. I’m curious if anyone else has primary age kids qualifying for the Olympiad?

Sorry folks, I hadn't realised that the pics of the actual paper has since been removed. It was on there 100%, it was like someone had attempted the paper, done a few workings alongside the questions and circled the answers they believed correct and then took pics and posted there.

You can tell by the comment underneath "I have reported this to UKMT and this is going to get taken down and you all will be in serious trouble." as there is nothing in what the OP says now that is necessarily controversial.

I've looked on Waybackmachine, its not there.

I can’t see it on Reddit either. It was all very low key at their school and they didn’t mention it until
they were in their maths lesson taking it. I assume it’s what they took!! Guess will find out if no results come!

@Jonny234 thank you. I clicked through to the link and didn't see the paper. I don't use Reddit myself, so I don't know if I'm not permissioned or if I'm not looking in the right place. Do you still see the paper there?

@sunflowerdaisies that is news to me! I've never heard that was allowed. That said, invigilators are supposed to collect all the papers from the children but not all instructions are followed precisely.

@user149799568my child took it on the Tuesday (in the UK). I was surprised as said in the calendar it was going to be on the Wednesday. They didn’t take the papers with them though!

@user149799568 I reckon thats a good summary, aggregated perhaps a few hundred looking and gaining an extra question, maybe pushing up their overall marks by 1 more correct.

I've tried to ascertain typical international entries in the past for JMC/ IMC and I believe it's perhaps around 10% of the total entrants, about roughly allocated across the board when it comes to grade boundaries.

This is the Reddit link https://www.reddit.com/r/UKMTleaks/comments/1sy3zmz/welcome_to_rukmtleaks_introduce_yourself_and_read/

@Jonny234 I think that about 300,000 students have been taking the JMC in recent years. By the end of Wednesday, 300,000 copies had been printed and some children had been allowed to take them home. There is no doubt that students in New Zealand, Australia, and Asia could have found the paper if they'd wanted to. Unfortunately, I don't have a good idea of how many students in those time zones took the paper on Thursday and even less idea of how many of them would have looked.

I'm more surprised that you found the paper was available on Tuesday, before the UK students took the challenge. Again, it's not clear how many students would have taken advantage of that and, presumably, not all of them would have had access to parents or peers who were willing to solve all the questions for them. That said, around the Olympiad qualifying level, as few as 200-300 students getting 21 correct answers or above when they shouldn't have could have been enough to shift the boundary from 20 correct answers to 21 correct answers.

Would you provide a link to the Reddit?

@GHGN I generally agree on this its about how suited the candidate is to the questions, like my DD took the 2023 IMC as a mock and scored 118 when cayley was 95 and Maclaurin 103. Then she takes the IMC this yr and scrapes Cayley. Specifically you do mention something she hasn't been taught with nCr so I'll take a not of going through that with her in due course.

@user149799568 Perhaps you have the right take in the main but I could offer a plausible alternative which may have ramped up the JMO threshold. Unfortunately the paper was leaked on Reddit and the original post is still there. Coincidentally I came across it at the exact time my DD was sitting the exam and could see it had been leaked the day before.... on Tuesday. It's a shame.

Most DC's sitting the exam won't bother to look but those near the top may be inclined to. It especially benefits those overseas who came across it as I understand they have an extra 24hrs to take the exam or something.

The children at the very top end were better prepared than I'd expected.

I think it depends on the year and the kind of questions that came up. DD was close to full marks on many occasions across JMC and IMC papers but also felt short of the Olympiad threshold a couple of times by just one question as well.

This year, she actually put in a bit more practice and was a lot more careful. Her reasoning for the last question was very concise and was better than the official solution. She just labelled the finishing order numerically and listed all possible outcomes, used nCr formula to calculate the total arrangements.

This year’s threshold is a lot more reasonable so fingers crossed for everyone.

@Statistico Maybe that's a blessing in disguise that it isnt touch and go, it'd be awful to miss it by 1 or 2 marks.

@GHGN Full marks is amazing for anyone imo. Last year it was far more doable, but its a hell of an achievement this yr.

I mentioned the thresholds to my DD when i heard about them on here. Finally she sparked into life and for the first time since she actually took the exam started wondering what she may have scored. She went through the answers and tried to remember what she selected.

After the test was taken on the day she said to me:
20 questions confident on
2 slightly less confident on
1 educated guess
2 random guesses

She's looked through them and it seems promising. Apparently the 2 slightly less confident and the educated guess are all correct. One of the random guesses is wrong and she doesn't know about the other. (My guess is its also incorrect)

On the confident ones she has 12 right and cant remember the other 8. So as I see it she needs 6/8 on these to get to 21/25 overall.

I hope she doesnt fall short by one question.

After many attempts, the older one finally got full marks. The younger one nearly got into JMO by strategic guessing and pure luck. Not a big fan of the scoring system in the JMC personally but it is what it is.

Initially I guessed 115 for Olympiad, without having seen the paper at all but then after viewing it happily agreed 105 more likely. 112 is impressive. Don't think DS has got that close to that whereas 105 could have been annoyingly within a single question again

Wow. That's a surprise to me. Kangaroo down at 80 from 100 last year, quite a drop and lower than I expected whereas Olympiad 112 higher than I expected.

Looks for most that 21 questions or more correct bags the Olympiad, thats unless the 4 incorrect are all 6 mark questions.

DS got silver:)

@user149799568i haven’t, thank you so much, will look at this! She’s really bored in maths at school so trying to find some more fun challenges. She finds English much harder so don’t want her to be totally fed up with learning (either because it’s too easy or too hard!)

Results just out on Twitter (X) and on the website

The boundaries on the PMC Bonus Round can vary from year to year, albeit MA might choose to keep them the same some years. Unlike those for the UKMT challenges, the boundaries don't target pre-specified percentages but MA publishes the number of children achieving each medal so you could work out the percentiles in a given year.

My DD did the PMC in the past. 25Qs. The grade boundaries I believe were always set at 12 bronze, 15 silver, 20 gold, 25 platinum or something and it didn't matter how many achieved what, unlike the UKMT JMC/ IMC/ SMC.

@sunflowerdaisies The Primary Kangaroo is quite new, as in two years old. I don't know why UKMT doesn't publish boundaries for different levels of achievement; perhaps they think primary school children shouldn't be scored in that way?

Have you looked at the Primary Math Challenge? It is also intended for Year 5 and Year 6 pupils and has been around for about 30 years. A number of past papers are available onlline and medal boundaries for past Bonus Rounds are available.

I used to love the maths challenge when I was a teenager and my year 7 child took it for the first time this year (their school did no preparation- just entered their top set). My year 5 is a very strong mathematician so I printed both the primary kangaroo and this year’s JMC off to try. Does anyone know what is considered strong marks in the primary kangaroo as there are no boundaries on their website for this one. Thanks.

130 is a great score on the Kangaroo. I've seen a lot of comments in the past where people say their DCs have scored higher on that vs the JMC. It's perhaps a shame there is no further granulation with the Kangaroo's above the 10%/20%/30% G/S/B. Maybe a Platinum top 5% needs adding for exceptional candidates who for whatever reason missed out on the JMO.

The results for 2026 should be out soon. I AI'd it the other day asking when they'd be out going off previous yrs. It said 5th-14th.

On the Kangaroo last year he scored 130 and didn't guess any. His school seemed to think it was a very good score but only a tiny number at his school ever get through to the Kangaroo, eg 1 or 2 children max.

I think 123 will be well above JMO qualification level, 2026 was nothing like 2025.

I gave a bit of feedback on last yrs Kangaroos in my DD's school all of which would have scored 100+ as yr7's in 2025 to qualify. They seemed to guess about 7. So if they answered 18, got say 15 correct, and pot luck answered 7/5 correct on the ones they guessed that would be around 16-17 in total. Remember too these students are now a year older.

Worst case if that 16-17 is split say 12 of the 5 pt questions plus 4 6pt questions that would be 84pts in total. Best case maybe 10 of the 5pt questions and 7 of the 6 pt questions that would be 92. So while I generally agreed with the 85 Kangaroo prediction the other day, perhaps 87/88 or so could be a bit closer.

In the years the Kangaroo has existed since 2015, in the 3 years the threshold has been 86-88 the Olympiad thresholds have been 105/107/113.

I think 20 questions correct will be enough for JMO, something like the range of 13 5 pt questions plus 7 6pt questions, or 12 5 pt questions plus 8 6pt questions, leading to 107-108. Maybe even a chance that 19 questions correct with a good 6pt heavily balance leading to 103 may be enough.

I just think, gut feeling, despite me quoting the previous years sub 105 is a bit more likely than 105+. The normal format in harder years always seemed to be an accessible 15 before ramping up but this year it was more like 5 before ramping up. For those in yr7 or less who achieved 100+ scores in 2025, and assumed they'd at least improve a few marks in 2026 it must have come as a shock. I know this happened to many on the IMC. there were fewer easy marks on offer.

I haven't looked through the paper or the solutions with my DD at all and don't really want to bring it up in the event she misses it. She lands where she lands. At the end of the day it may be a good thing if she drops down as she'll try harder for future exams.