Intermediate Maths Challenge/Olympiad

[Long Journey]

Yes, especially if Afghan hackers have counted among previous winners.

[silverysea]

I guess I was jumping to conclusions! but I know their school does the Olympiad, so maybe it's a practice for the Juniors. She got a bronze last year, in whatever-it-was! Maths is not her fave subject by a long chalk, only her loathing of RE keeps it out of last place-but I keep trying to help because she has a passion for biology and won't get far without jumping through the maths hoops, from what I can see.

The only reason we parents knew at all was we had to sign their homework book that they had practiced on a website-DH was presented with this at the school gate as he tried to drop and run to catch a train-he refused and so opened the gates for the Awkward (Parents version) Squad to "interfere".

She is 12.5.

Would it be any better if she had gone to a grammar/indy school? Somehow I doubt it.

[silverysea]

I got the evil eye from DD1 for laughing at the "Afghan hackers", I'll have you know.

I guess I have to laugh, else I'd cry.

[moved]

It will have been World Maths Day mathletics. An online game for the four operations. Great fun and she certainly didn't need to revise and there are no medals. They can get a gold certificate for doing lots of basic calculations.

I used to give Easter Eggs to the children in my school who had done the most.

[Long Journey]

If any DC did the PMC bonus round, results are on the site already.

[moved]

Any DC have their results? DD took it and has heard nothing from school.

[Guest55]

http://www.m-a.org.uk/resources/Finals_ ... t_2013.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[moved]

Sorry, I was talking about the intermediate maths challenge.

[Looking for help]

We have had results this last week from the Intermediate maths challenge - a bronze.

Very happy here, our son has only been doing statistics since September. Also, he struggles very hard to not answer the questions he's not sure about, in these things you lose a mark for getting them wrong. It's taken a few years now for him to understand that.

[twelveminus]

I don't think the IMC is a Statistics test.

Although on the point about not answering the questions you are not sure about, on Questions 16-20 the expected value of guessing is 6/5 - 4/5 = 0.4. The expected value of not guessing is zero. So you should be sure to answer questions 16 and 20, even if it's just a random guess.
On questions 21-25, the expected value of guessing randomly is 6/5 - 2*4/5 = -0.4, which is worse than not answering (expected value 0). In this case, a random guess is a bad idea. However on a question like Q25 you might know that it is either C or D, but not be sure what the correct answer is. In this case, picking either C or D randomly, would give an expected value of 6/2 - 2/2 = 2.

So you should always answer Q16-Q20, and try to answer Q21-Q25, but if you have no idea, leave it out (though guessing will not prove costly overall, since guessing all of the questions will give an expected score of negative 2, which is not much). So maybe it is a statistics test after all.