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Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

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Original poster

Junior Maths Challenge JMC?

35 replies

rinskuro5 · 04/05/2014 13:14

Hi,
my DD is in year 8 in a very good grammar school this year and apparently 'very bright' and gifted with a great sense of logic, but a terrible memory. She gets 100% on school maths tests almost all the time, and does pretty well in science tests too, but badly in almost every other subject -_-" This confuses teachers and me too, but I take responsibility in not really helping her to prepare. Probably because she doesn't bother to prepare for them either...yep.

Anyways, she participated in the Junior Maths Challenge this Thursday after doing a past paper at school and now the answers are out, www.ukmt.org.uk/individual-competitions/junior-challenge/ (here they are, just scroll down) she calculated that she probably got 116/135, as she got question 20 wrong from misreading p and q and missed out 23 and 25 from lack of time, and also because english was not her first language so she hates reading walls of texts. I was just wondering, what are the thresholds for the olympiad, and will she qualify?

I heard it was around 100, however last year it was 113, which is strangely high. were people suddenly smarter last year or what?

dd is weirdly obsessed with the ukmt guys (so much i'm worried) and has since spent her time doing all the past papers including the olympiad questions. She's made me buy all the books (I doubt she understands anything in them though) and she even bought a shirt with the logo on it, telling me it was the mobil belt or something...wat. im confused.

anyway...thanks for your help. DD has better logic than me certainly. I can't even do lots of the questions on the past papers XD

OP posts:

LIZS · 04/05/2014 14:18

sorry no idea , but dd says she did it on Thursday having done 2 practice papers in class

Original poster

rinskuro5 · 05/05/2014 09:36

eh...did her teacher tell her any boundaries or anything about an olympiad?

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noblegiraffe · 05/05/2014 09:45

No one can tell you whether she will qualify because the boundaries change each year depending on how the kids do on the paper, only the top 1200 qualify each year. If the boundaries were higher last year it will be because kids did better in general, so probably the paper was easier.

The official results will be out in a couple of weeks, your DD will just have to wait to hear.

drivinmecrazy · 05/05/2014 09:47

DD1, yr8 also sat the test on Thursday, for the second year running. Her school did no preperation because it is supposed to be an 'on the spot' test. No idea of her scores. Infact, both last year and this they were only given 24 hours notice they were to sit it.
I think I read last year that one of the main purposes is to track the mathmatical abilities nationally, and use the data for planning for maths teaching in the future.
DD, incidentally, thinks it's mightily unfair that the cleverest kids get to sit an exam at all. I think she sees it as some kind of penance

noblegiraffe · 05/05/2014 09:50

I think I read last year that one of the main purposes is to track the mathmatical abilities nationally, and use the data for planning for maths teaching in the future.

Any idea where you might have read this? It sounds odd to me as the maths challenges are (deliberately) very different to the maths curriculum so I can't see how one could inform the other.

LIZS · 05/05/2014 09:53

No , no more info re.boundaries etc . tbh it is treated as a bit of fun . Can't see how the results would be statistically worthwhile nationally since only the top sets took them at dc school.

drivinmecrazy · 05/05/2014 09:57

Can't remember, in all honesty. I was googling it last year because I had no idea what it was. I guess it's used to evaluate the performance of the top maths students (& good luck with that cos DD hates maths with a passion though clearly shows an apptitude)
I remember it aims to test the top 10% maths ability across the country, and you can get bronze, silver or gold certificates (or none at all). DD got silver last year but I don't know her score. Not sure if she did either.
I was surprised, according to DD, that both yr7 & 8 sit the same paper

Original poster

rinskuro5 · 05/05/2014 10:18

No , no more info re.boundaries etc . tbh it is treated as a bit of fun

Yeah, I can't see schools taking this seriously...-_-" DD thinks the problems are much more intelligent than the ones on the school test papers. Does anyone know the highest olympiad boundary ever? Can't seem to find past boundaries online even though i can find the past papers.

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AtiaoftheJulii · 05/05/2014 12:13

If you search on The Student Room you might find some old threads about it (I know I've seen posts about the IMC, not sure about the JMC) which might give you boundaries. Honestly, I wouldn't worry about it at this stage - if she thinks she got 116, she's probably through to the JMO. If she finds out that she is, I would suggest having a look at the example answers that are on the UKMT site, as the section B questions are likely to be unlike anything she's done before.

Original poster

rinskuro5 · 05/05/2014 12:41

ehh...I really dunno.
she only got three wrong so that's like 88% right...
do you get mentoring if you do get into the JMO?

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Original poster

rinskuro5 · 05/05/2014 12:44

if she thinks she got 116, she's probably through to the JMO. If she finds out that she is, I would suggest having a look at the example answers that are on the UKMT site

When should she start to prepare? Does she need to? She's had a look at some questions already but I don't know whether she gets them right or not. She says they're pretty tough stuff.

The results come about a month after, right? And there's only around a month between the JMC and JMO so would it be better to prepare before she gets her results if she thinks she got in anyways?

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LIZS · 05/05/2014 12:45

dd reckons that you are deducted more marks for missing out or getting the later ones wrong than for earlier ones. So it isn't as straightforward as 3 wrong means 12% .

Original poster

rinskuro5 · 05/05/2014 13:13

oh I meant she missed two and got one wrong so lost one more mark than 12%. anyways, it's around twelve

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AtiaoftheJulii · 05/05/2014 14:17

Not much point thinking of it as a percentage.

If she is looking at past questions then she can also look at the past answers, so can see if she is getting them right/working along the right lines.

If she's interested and enjoys that sort of problem, then yes, there's plenty available on the ukmt site to work on. If she's not really bothered, then there's no point trying to make her prepare. Sounds like she's enjoying herself though :-)

Mentoring at this age is done just through school. There are some pages of old monthly mentoring questions available.
www.ukmt.org.uk/mentoring/junior/

AtiaoftheJulii · 05/05/2014 14:18

(And school may or may not be interested in the mentoring scheme. My children's schools have not done it.)

Original poster

rinskuro5 · 05/05/2014 15:46

Mentoring at this age is done just through school. There are some pages of old monthly mentoring questions available.

Oh, thanks that was helpful. I'd heard of mentors before and just wanted to check them out - I'm sure DD will enjoy them!

Yeah, she did past papers after the actual thing (not much use in that but the school did give us a late notice). She gets around 2-4 mistakes on each one, so I'm guessing 116 is about correct.

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hench · 05/05/2014 19:16

115 will be score for 2 missed and one wrong (all at high numbered questions) which is a very respectable score and extremely likely to qualify for olympiad. The UKMT usually put the actual grade boundaries on their website about a week after the contest (and certainly quite a while before the actual results are released).

Original poster

rinskuro5 · 06/05/2014 18:46

Oh thanks. but she got number 20 wrong so isn't it 116? because 135-(6+6+7) is 116....just practising my own math haha

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5madthings · 06/05/2014 18:53

My ds2 in yr 7 did this, he thinks it was fairly easy?!! But is a maths freak! It will be interesting to get the results.

He enjoyed it anyway which is the main thing. :)

Never knew about the online ones, can you post a link? It's the kind of thing ds2 would like to do.

soontobeslendergirl · 06/05/2014 20:18

My son did it last year and got a silver award, but they don't study for it or practice in advance or do past papers.

This year neither him nor my younger son were selected which I was a bit puzzled about as they are both good at maths, but have now found out that pretty much most of their class are good at maths so they just picked names out a hat on the day - there was no advance warning or anything. It's not a huge school and we currently have exams on using all the halls, so they could only put as many students as could fit in a normal classroom in for it - so they picked two names out a hat from each 1st year and 2nd year class.

Original poster

rinskuro5 · 06/05/2014 20:48

My ds2 in yr 7 did this, he thinks it was fairly easy?!! But is a maths freak! It will be interesting to get the results.

great! Let's see how he does XD

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Original poster

rinskuro5 · 06/05/2014 20:48

My son did it last year and got a silver award, but they don't study for it or practice in advance or do past papers.

yeah, same here.

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Original poster

rinskuro5 · 06/05/2014 20:49

You can find past papers and questions on the UKMT website :)

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lottysmum · 06/05/2014 20:56

More Year 7's did the challenge than Year 8's at my DD's school....but they have a very high achieving Yr 7 maths set....DD stated that she answered all the questions (which is a surprise ..not a fast worker) suspect her classmate who is already working at level 8 will score highly ...DD got silver last year suspect probably the same this ....

Original poster

rinskuro5 · 06/05/2014 22:10

lottysmum - which school is your DD from?
they must be pretty good!

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