Fruitful outing at international Mathematics Olympiad
SIBU: SMK Methodist third former Samuel Haw won third place at the 30th Singapore International Mathematics Olympiad Challenge (Simoc) held at National University of Singapore ( NUS) from July 1417.
In last year’s championship, he was placed fourth and earned the honourable mention.
Samuel attributed his improvement in the competition to determination.
“I was not happy with my result in last year’s competition so I started to prepare for this year’s competition right away.
“I’m glad that I’ve finally obtained the bronze,” he told The Borneo Post in a recent interview.
Samuel, in Yakin 3 class and among the top students of the class, said based on the previous experience, he learned to analyse questions and do more past year questions.
“I did a lot of exercises online. I even searched for formulas online and asked teachers how to solve the Maths problems,” he recalled.
Samuel whose ambition is to become an engineer loves solving complex problems. He said the competition taught him to use critical thinking to solve problems.
Felicity Lai was thrilled to obtain silver in the 13th Singapore International Mathematics Competition (SIMC) held from Aug 4- 6 at the Institute of Technical Education Central in Singapore.
Felicity, from Newton 4 class, said she joined SIMC for the fi rst time and did not expect a silver.
She had participated in Maths competitions since Form 1.
“I love Maths as it trains me to brainstorm,” she enthused, saying the competition was challenging as she had to solve questions beyond her level.
Her preparation? “Did past years’ questions and plenty of exercises and consultations with her teacher. I spent a few months to prepare for the competition,” she shared. Her parents had encouraged her to join.
Jesslynn Loo, who is also from Newton 4 class won bronze in the SIMC which she found more difficult compared to other competitions as it involved Pure Maths. Jesslynn said she took a few months to prepare for the competition, doing many exercises especially on weekends.
“I worked harder when the competition got near,” she said, adding that she had a tight schedule as she had to attend tuition classes.
Carina Loi Jing from Einstein 4 class brought home the bronze in the Asia International Mathematical Olympiad 2017 (Aimo) held in University of Malaya on Aug 3.
Carina said this was her first attempt in Aimo competition but her third international competition so far. She brought home awards from competitions as well.
She found the recently concluded competition tough as the questions were beyond her grade.
“I needed to refer to books for Form 5 and 6. The most challenging part was that the time allocated was only two hours and there were 30 questions. I needed to solve as many Maths problems as I could,” she recalled.
She said she did not do well in Simoc competition last year so resolved to do better in Aimo. Participation in competitions enriched her school life.
Jesslynn and Felicity also participated in Aimo and both took home the bronze.
Other participants from SMK Methodist in Aimo included Basil Kuok who brought home silver, Brandon Ting, bronze and Victor Kong, merit. They competed in Aimo with about 1,300 students from around the world.
Jesslynn and Carina will participate in the World Mathematics Team Championship in Bangkok, Thailand from Nov 9 to 13. other