Anyone else DC doing the Intermediate Maths Olympiad Today?

[3nationsfamily]

My DS seems very relaxed about it- in fact not sure he even wants to progress to the next level as he sees it as just more exams to have to do rather than an intellectual challenge!

It's the Junior maths Olympiad (and Kangaroo), not intermediate!

He has done very well to qualify, we only have one student from my school sitting it. Your DS doesn't need to worry about further exams though, there are no further rounds after this. They get a certificate and a key ring, and if they do exceptionally well they might win a medal or a prize.

My son is sitting the Junior Maths Olympiad today. He is quite grumpy about it as he had a week of school exams last week. He is good (and mentally quick) at maths but it is certainly no passion - to the slight bemusement of my husband who loves solving maths puzzles

My DS is sitting JMO today with two of his classmates who also got through - no idea how any of them will cope with a 2 hour exam .... Seems a long time for Yr 7's but I normally underestimate him!

DS2 did the junior Olympiad today and was pleasantly surprised by how well it had gone. He answered every question in section A and more than half of the questions in section B. He found explaining the proofs quite tricky due to lack of experience. He said that there were some children doing the kangaroo at the same time.

what is "the kangaroo"?!?!

noblegiraffe how able would you say a student has to be to get a merit in the Y11 Kangaroo? I'd never heard of the Kangaroo before - posters on MN only seem to talk of Olympiads! Would it suggest a reasonable talent for A level do you think? I know almost nothing about these challenges, other than they happen. Also, do you know what sort of percentage get gold in the various challenges?

It seems to be the next tranche of gold award students down from those going in for the Olympiad cherokeee - I'd never come across it until very recently either.

Molio lots of the information you are looking for is on the website www.ukmt.org.uk/individual-competitions/ where it explains the various levels and scoring.

Thanks for that 3nations. But actually I was most interested in the answer to my first question, about how mathematically able a child scoring a merit in the Pink Kangaroo would need to be, and so the perspective of a current teacher was what I was after. The website is interesting up to a point, but just gives percentages - that actually tells me very little about ability per se. I'm wondering whether it would be a good indicator for A level success or whether it's not really that relevant. Hopefully noblegiraffe will give me a view!

IME you have to be very good at maths to qualify for the Kangaroo/Olympiads. It's a different type of thinking to GCSEs and A-levels, but all the students I've known who have qualified have done very well at A-level. However, there have been plenty of students who have not qualified who have also done exceptionally well at A-level, so while qualifying is a good sign, not qualifying isn't a bad one.