Junior maths challenge 2025

[scisso]

Does anyone know when the results and boundaries get announced? How was this year’s paper in comparison to previous years?

DD sat it and thought some of them were quite hard so had to guess them, but she hasn’t done much of the past papers so doesn’t have much to compare against.

any insights would be very much appreciated.

@Justabitawkward I wasnt necessarily implying it was the be all and end all but it just helps show a little bit of differentiation. Certainly the later maths challenges will look even better on the CV.

The issue these days is grade inflation is so prevalant that how do you know one top candidate from another? Every little helps I suppose.

Agree on the career progression angle. It's all about getting to the next stage and ultimately to a position where you want to be. Then soft skills are very important.

I didn't put any pressure on my DD whatsoever. We had loads of time for prep over half term and did other things instead like visting the seaside and generally knocking around, I think she did a couple of questions one day. She landed where she should have done.

@Statistico Agree on all that. Like I've said before I think Kangaroo level probably coasts through it all too.

Btw, I have a dislike for pure maths in general, It's ok at A level but too boring at Uni with all the proofs.

@Jonny234 agree* *that the higher age level competitions may well help carry some weight towards university applications when added to the grades achieved. But importantly also prepare them better for university level maths if that is the direction they want to take.

I am sorry if it seemed I was implying anything personal about putting pressure on kids. That was meant as a very general statement in cases where this might be the case, if it is at all. But that is me making assumptions and which are unsubstantiated and unproven!

Justabitawkward No problem mate. It's easy on here for people to interpret things wrong. I wasn't necessarily, I knew the context.

I too have made some assumptions on here in the past and have been quickly (and quite rightly) pulled up on them.

Sorry if not clear, but obviously my grad interview anecdote was about looking at Senior Olympiads as a marginal differentiator on CVs for a highly technical math heavy (and obscure) job.
My comment wasn't about Junior at all. And no pressure at all but just something that might demonstrate an actual interest in problem-solving math in a field of candidates with v.strong STEM & finance degrees.
Mind you if a candidate had a Gold in any Olympiad it would impress us, as we all understood what it meant, but I would have chat to understand their school's attitude to it, for context.
I'm not attempting to speak for all employers at all here either and my data is quite old.
I would second the comment that it does seem harder to differentiate as so many more top grades given out now, so I could believe more employers might look things like that.

The grade inflation thing got silly, done for political reasons to claim higher standards, and for the exam boards to compete for students. I remember my A levels, all JMB, and that was the hardest and known as such to a degree Manchester Uni at the time of the Happy Mondays and Stone Roses (yes the Hacienda still existed then..... what a horrible place) would lower their entry grade by one downwards to account for it.

There should be defined and standardised grades, a bit like JMC/ Kangarro/ JMO. Something like A* 5%, A-E all 15% bands, N 5%, U 15% or something like that. Then admissions tuturs and later employers know yr upon year what means what.

For the final 10 questions, I suggest increasing the number of options to 8, just like in the TMUA; this would significantly reduce the possibility of guessing correctly. I agree that not having point deductions reduces psychological pressure.

@GHGN
I noticed from another thread that your DC have done really well in the UKMT since Year 2! What year is your daughter in now and how did she get on in the Olympiads? Did you teach her all yourself? My DD is in Year 5 and is going to try her first JMC this year. Looking further on, it’s such a shame that we don’t have many Maths Olympiad classes here in the UK, unlike in the US. I’ve looked at the AoPS online courses for the future, but the time difference just won't work for my DD.

Lots of good online, live courses run here:
https://mathsaurus.com/live-maths-and-problem-solving-classes-for-ages-9-18/

This is basically all done by one guy. I worry he might be spread too thin across too many levels to offer real depth in Olympiad training. It's not like the US, where you often have tutors with elite competition backgrounds, including the IMO.

@swdd have you done any of the stuff produced by Kevin? He certainly seems an absolute maths powerhouse with a maths degree from Oxford, PhD in maths etc

It is the more advanced olympiads, like the MOG or BMO, that I was talking about. I couldn't find any classes for them on his website. While Kevin is clearly a maths powerhouse, that isn't the same as being a former UK olympiad team leader or medalist. Elite maths olympiads are a niche area, and a specialist is always the best choice.

The MOG is a similar standard to SMC and preparation is really just past papers.

Students are selected for national training camps for the international olympiads, where the tutors/coaches are highly experienced.

The MOG has a very different emphasis to the SMC. The SMC is still discrete answers to multiple choice questions, albeit with 1000 possible answers rather than 5. Most of the MOG requires the student to show full reasoning for solutions which are often proofs. Past papers and sample solutions are posted on the UKMT website, but coaching about the marking scheme is still quite useful and most children will need to study topics outside the National Curriculum such as number theory beyond the past paper solutions to do very well.

Selection for the Oxford summer camp is mostly based on performance on the Hamilton and/or Maclaurin Olympiads, and the BMO1 for children who take it early. AFAIK, UKMT don't look at the MOG for that selection. The national training camps teach the Olympiad marking schemes and advanced topics, yet it's difficult to qualify for that training if you haven't already learned much of it beforehand.

So basicaly you have to be a top maths student to be trained (24 students nationally?) , not trained to be the top...

UKMT do both outreach and training for the IMO. The outreach programs are the ones where participants are selected randomly from the top 1.5% of IMC scores, no more than one per school, no school can send a child in consecutive years. The real IMO training starts with the Oxford camp at the end of summer. They used to select two dozen students each year though I think they found the funding for 30 last year. There are ~20 gold medalists on the Hamilton each year and another 20 on the Maclaurin. Since there is a considerable amount of overlap between these students, yes, the selection for the first camp is pretty much a gold medal in Year 10 or Year 11. UKMT run more advanced camps after the initial training where the selection criteria is mainly the BMO2 scores, but those take even fewer students and some are selected multiple times so it works out to fewer than a dozen (new) students a year.

Can younger kids sit in Hamilton or Maclaurin Olympiad, which seem only focus on year10and 11? I guess they are eligible for SMC and then BMO.

AFAIK, children in Year 9 or below are eligible only to sit the Cayley even if they achieve a higher IMC score than the Hamilton or Maclaurin boundaries. Similarly, children in Year 10 are eligible only to sit the Hamilton even if they exceed the Maclaurin boundary on the IMC. So a child in Year 9 or below would need to sit the SMC and score highly on the BMO1 to be considered for the following summer's training camp.

Almost time for the 2026 JMC sitting. One thing I will predict is in line with other recent UKMT exams I'm expecting it to be far harder than last year. The IMC paper in January 2026 was give or take about the most difficult ever.

I think the JMC Olympiad qualification threshold is likely to be like the pre 2022 scores in the 100-110 range.

I hope your prediction is correct. My DD is good at the last 10 questions but always makes silly mistakes in the first 15!

I was surprised my DD didn't mess up last yr, as she has a tendency when she finds things easy to not pay due attention leading to errors. She ended up qualifying for the Olympiad. But as things were I told her at the time don't be disappointed if you don't make it next (this) year.

Things have since changed, the IMC Cayley level dropped from 105 last yr to 86 this. She took it and said it was nothing like any past paper she'd ever done, at the back end (Q17 onwards) it was far more difficult than usual. This was a consensus from everybody who was gold level or higher. For those lower maybe answering just the first 15 or so they might not feel any difference.

Just looking at the SMC, the gold level is 72 this yr, the lowest since 2002. I read a comment online from someone who did both the IMC and SMC and claimed the former was more difficult because it seemed impossible to complete it all in the 60mins whereas the SMC is 90 mins.

I might be optimistic with my 100-110 Olympiad prediction, the way things have been it could easily drop into the 90s.

Makes me wonder how is best to prepare....if it does go the way I expect is practising past JMC papers any use? Will the Q's be too easy? Instead should one be revising with JMC kangaroo papers and maybe the first 10 or so questions of IMC past papers?

Since your DD already qualified for the JMO last year, perhaps she could ease off a little bit this time? She has already proven her ability, and if things do not go as planned, I suspect she might still be able to take a discretionary route. I would not place too much weight on the JMO anyway, as it is merely a preliminary step toward more significant Olympiads as Hamilton, Maclaurin, MOG and BMO.
Last year’s 125 point threshold was insane. It does not reflect the standards of a proper Olympiad qualification when the margin of error is reduced to such an extreme. If she got just one easy question and one hard question wrong, even with everything else correct, she would still be out. I would be happy to see an improvement in the difficulty levels this time.
The Kangaroo seems to have a different style; it is more witty and less formal in its mathematical approach. The IMC is a bit harder, but some problems might not be appropriate as they require Year 9 to 11 knowledge.Using JMO past papers to prepare for your DD's JMC seems like a good idea. It provides the right level of challenge without wasting time, as the JMO is her actual goal anyway.

Last years 125 was insane as you say and very unfair, it got so high that it didnt distinguish the most capable in my opinion. Luckily my DD was on the right side of it but it could easily have gone the other way as it did for so many others.

I didn't say before but unlike when she did the JMC last year my daughter actually prepared for the IMC this yr. Took 3 past papers at home and did very well on them, 1 above cayley level for that yr, and 2 above maclaurin level for the other years. But the IMC came and it was brutal, when i saw her after school she was genuinely shellshocked. Fortunately she had enough in the bag to qualify for the cayley. One thing, I do not think she had a discrepancy in the IMC when it came to theory which i was surprised at as she hasnt gone beyond KS3 and the exam includes KS4.

With her at this level we've agreed she doesnt need to do anything for the upcoming JMC, as the practice from the IMC should still be fresh in the mind. Ok she's going to have an extra year vs last and the exam will likely be harder, but there's no way it'll be as hard as the IMC this yr.

The only way I can see her failing to qualify is a bad exam or a silly 125 threshold again, but for the reasons I've stated I think this will be unlikely.

Great! How did she find the Carley this year?

She'd done no prep at all, I just see it as great experience for her and just hope she can get some traction on something. She did.

Merit.

Very impressive result, especially with no preparation on Carley. Did she do any other maths enrichment or competition work at school/home, or truly zero preparation? She is clearly very talented.