Anyone elses DC take the UK Junior Mathematical Challenge today?

[LynetteScavo]

If they did, I bet they actually wrote the answers on the answer paper, not the question paper like my DS.

He's supposed to be bright FFS.

Did the teacher not notice?

Apparently not.

I thought they could have transfered the answers for him, but he's bought home the question paper, without saying anything to the teacher.

What is the Junior Maths Challenge? Primary or Secondary School?

It's for secondary. DS is in Y7, so it's the first year he's done it.

It was organised by UKMT;

"The UK Mathematics Trust (UKMT) is a registered charity whose aim is to advance the education of children and young people in mathematics. The UKMT organises national mathematics competitions and other mathematical enrichment activities for 11-18 year old UK school pupils. We were established in 1996 and last academic year over 600,000 pupils from 4000 schools took part in the three individual challenges, the UK's biggest national maths competitions. Each challenge leads into a follow-on Olympiad round and we run mentoring schemes and summer schools for high performing students as well as training the team of six to represent the UK in the International Mathematical Olympiad. We also run team maths competitions for two age ranges, publish books and organise enrichment seminars for teachers."

Obviously DS will not be going to the summer school.

DD is supposed to be doing it this week - will give her the heads-up!

bigTillyMint, I doubt she would need a heads-up. I think to most people it would be completely obvious which was the question paper, and which was the answer paper.

But as I said to DH, better that he makes this mistake now than on a GCSE paper. You live and learn.

Oh dear. My DS did his on Friday, I think he wrote the answer on the right page but he is a law unto himself so who knows.

Well done all yr7s who are doing it.
Oops to Lynette's ds, but as others have said it's a good learning opportunity.

UKMT papers are so different from anything they will have done before. Most "good" mathematicians are used at primary to getting 99-100% in tests. Most schools only enter the top maths sets, yet still 60% of the entrants score less than 33%, because the test is so hard!

Yes, they get the results through fairly promptly - within a month certainly - because the Junior Olympiad (next round) is in the middle of June.

DS did it on Friday.

I'm a bit annoyed with the people who run this as they do not give extra time to dyslexics. DS got a high mark in the earlier paper - but I am left wondering how he should have done had he not been disadvantaged by denying him the additional time he needs to read the questions in the first place!

DD1 (pretty bright) failed for four years on the trot to read the instructions about not guessing at questions as they take marks off for wrong answers. Finally she managed on the Senior paper .

DD2 did the JMC on Friday with a broken wrist (the teacher marked the answers after she'd done the working out with her wrong hand), so no idea how she managed. The papers are HARD though.

I thought this one was the first round? DD2 certainly didn't do any previous papers this year?

DS did the Intermediate and Junior since Y3 and the first year he did it he put all the answers in the wrong place i.e. circled A instead of colouring in the box! So he got 0 for the junior and a gold for the Intermediate! lol!

I thought this was the first round too - DS1 in Y8 did it at school.

I think it is the first round, the teacher was explaining about what they do if they get through, at Parent's Evening.

Friday was the first round.
But some schools give students a practise paper a couple of weeks before, then enter just the top 20 scorers or whatever for the actual thing.

The boys' school just enter students in yr8, so neither of mine did it this year.

DD's had to be postponed, I think, because some of them were on a trip.

My DD did the challenge on Friday - knew that it was better not to guess and get it wrong as they take marks away for wrong answers! Didn't even know she was doing it........ho hum the joy of senior school!

My DD did the challenge last Friday - she knew that they take marks off for wrong answers - didn't tell me until she'd done the challenge. The joys of senior school.

DD did it and now I am thinking I should ask her where she wrote her answers!

She was thrilled to be picked, because she missed double French .

DS1 did it last Friday too.
He said it was easy but then in the next breath, he said he didn't put answers in for the last 3 questions because he didn't have a clue and didn't want to lose marks for wrong answers..... Is that how it works?

OP - Agree with your DH - better now than on a GCSE paper I suppose! DS1 actually came home a week or so ago with a past paper and answer sheet so he knew the format, so that helped. My DS's problem would have been neatness - he's SO messy. Apparently it's read by an optical mark reader and on his practice papers, he kept making a mark vaguely in the area of the box he was suppose to colour but not right on top! Whether or not he managed to actually colour the box on the day, who knows??

I didn't know about the deducting marks for wrong answers! I wonder what it'll mean for DS - he said most of the paper was dead easy, but there were some trickier questions. He thought he'd had a good stab at how to go about them and, though confident, wasn't sure.

Hmm, just checked on the UKMT website and it says that they deduct 1 mark for every incorrect answer on Q 16-20 and 2 marks for every incorrect answer on Q21-25......

Not sure what I would have advised my DS in this situation. By not attempting the last 3 questions, he's missed out on a possible 18 marks but if had tried and got them wrong, he would have lost 6 marks from what he'd got already

Will have to wait and see! Any idea how long they have to wait for a result?