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Secondary education

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Original poster

Intermediate Maths Challenge

61 replies

TheSecondOfHerName · 04/02/2016 21:25

Anyone's DC take part in the open round this morning?

DS2 felt that it went well.

Last year he did quite well in the Junior one (gold certificate in the open round and a merit in the Olympiad) but he was in the oldest year group taking part. This year he is in the youngest year group for the Intermediate one, competing with children two years above.

OP posts:
LIZS · 04/02/2016 21:30

Dd did. We'd forgotten all about it tbh. She was more annoyed that she missed getting an exam result as the test ran into her Biology lesson.

raspberryrippleicecream · 04/02/2016 21:35

DD did it, but put no effort in and was annoyed at missing drama.

JennyWreny · 04/02/2016 21:37

DD did it and was mostly just happy that she missed Presentation Skills lesson!

HildaFlorence · 05/02/2016 07:23

Ds did it , he seemed nonplussed , it's just something they do .He has also just gone up a level as he's year 9.

AtiaoftheJulii · 05/02/2016 07:33

Ds did it too - he got full marks last year, so is hoping for the same again.

Original poster
TheSecondOfHerName · 05/02/2016 08:56

Atia that's impressive, especially if they use negative marking.

OP posts:
cakeisalwaystheanswer · 05/02/2016 09:54

It was actually a lot harder this year and the qualifying marks should be lower. TheSecond/Atia your DCs probably didn't notice!

Original poster
TheSecondOfHerName · 05/02/2016 10:15

He said that he came up with an answer for every question, but it might not have been the correct answer! Grin

OP posts:
relaxitllbeok · 05/02/2016 10:21

DS missed out three questions all of which I know he could have done five years ago (he already had distinction at the Cayley four years ago)... Any tips on how to develop reliability, Atia? Here it doesn't really matter, but DS's mode where he stares into space and misses out easy stuff is going to start being a liability soon. I think he's too relaxed rather than too nervous, but it's hard to think what to do that doesn't risk making him nervous (I used to do exam panic, and am very glad he doesn't!) Bribery, maybe.

OhYouBadBadKitten · 05/02/2016 10:27

Studentroom seem to think it was a lot harder so it may just be that relaxit.
It is a concentrated sort of paper - a lot to do in one hour so it is easy to slip up. The olympiads are a lot easier in a funny sort of way, much more time to think.

relaxitllbeok · 05/02/2016 10:31

Yup - DS is much more a "can see through a brick wall in time" than a quick thinker! There's always someone on SR saying the competition is harder than last year, though, and usually it isn't. Will be interesting to see the boundaries; the UKMT boundaries in general seem to have been creeping up over the years, and I keep wondering if they'll hike the difficulty to counter that. The questions don't look harder to me, but it's hard to tell.

drivinmecrazy · 05/02/2016 11:10

OOPS! This has reminded me that I forgot to ask DD how this went yesterday!

I think this website has the 2016 paper www.ukmt.org.uk/individual-competitions/intermediate-challenge/

I don't think it looks too bad at all ( caveat I would really struggle!!) . But based on the maths DD has been doing in yr10 it looks pretty reasonable.

OhYouBadBadKitten · 05/02/2016 11:22

Actually, I think those questions are pretty tough this year. - especially some of the geometry questions. Although all of the questions use KS3 maths, its about applying it in a deep way.

drivinmecrazy · 05/02/2016 11:27

Isn't the new style GCSE more about applying the maths they learn? That seems to be the major difference I see in DD's maths books.

relaxitllbeok · 05/02/2016 11:28

You may be right, guess we'll see when the boundaries come out how the participants found them!

relaxitllbeok · 05/02/2016 11:29

(that was to OhYouBad - no idea about new style GCSE!)

MidLifeCrisis007 · 05/02/2016 11:35

Crikey - that looks tough.... glad they didn't have that sort of thing in my day!!

Still awaiting feedback from DS (yr 9) on how it went for him.

Autumnsky · 05/02/2016 11:50

DS1 is y10, last year he got gold in first round, and got distinguish with book and medal in Olympiad round. Yesterday, he missed 2 questions, 1 is run out of time, 1 he can't work it out. For the ones he did, he got it all correct.

OhYouBadBadKitten · 05/02/2016 12:44

true relaxit :)

AtiaoftheJulii · 05/02/2016 13:31

Does/will he do any preparation for the Hamilton Autumnsky?

They were saying on TSR that this year's BMO1 was easier than last year, but then the thresholds for BMO2 were lower!

When I say he's hoping for the same, I haven't actually spoken about it to him properly Grin He got in late last night and got up late this morning, and when I asked him about it before he went out, he just said "oh, it was fine". I'm sure he will have a look at the answers tonight!

Michaelahpurple · 05/02/2016 15:30

My DS had a go at it last night - optional as he is year 8 but most of his class signed up. He got the maths star of the class to mark it for him and thinks he got one of the last section wrong and he missed three of that lot, so if the thresholds were like last year he might be in the running for a medal, which would be exciting. He managed to dodge doing it last year so I don't have a reference of difficulty.

Michaelahpurple · 05/02/2016 15:32

I find all these maths things a bit confusing - primary, junior, intermediate, various colours of kangaroo, first rounds, bonus rounds etc, all happening at different times of year and often done out of the indicated age ranges. And is the team maths competition in the summer by the same organisation?

AtiaoftheJulii · 05/02/2016 15:37

The Primary one is run by different people, but UKMT www.ukmt.org.uk/ run the others, yes.

OhYouBadBadKitten · 05/02/2016 15:43

There isn't a medal for this round :) just the levels of certificates.

It is a little confusing.

Primary maths challenge is for primary school kids. Don't think that is run by UKMT.

Junior is for years 8 and below and has a Junior kangaroo and olympiad. Run by UKMT.

Intermediate is for year 11 and below. From there year 9s and below can get into the pink kangaroo and Year 10 and 11 into the Grey Kangaroo. Top 500 from each year group qualify for one of the three Olympiads. Those olympiads are strictly by year group. Cayley for Yr9 and below, Hamilton for Year 10, Maclaurin for Year 11.

Senior challenge is for Year 13 and below. Top scorers go into BMO1 and the top scorers of that go into BMO2.

The 3 challenges for secondary kids are run by ukmt.

Run out of time to talk about the team challenges!!!

partialderivative · 05/02/2016 15:46

How do you prepare for such questions?

(though I do love them)

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