All About Math Olympiad Training & Questions

[mathsparks]

joconde:

Hi all,


So I need some advice on what I should do. Should I be kiasu and start my son with private prep course now, or wait and see if he gets selected by sch ? If I enrol him into private course now and then later he get selected by sch, it's like waste of money lei. Cost is a concern for me, of course.

By the way I found this course conducted by SMS :
http://sms.math.nus.edu.sg/Enrichment/Enrichment.aspx#Primary
Rate is $10 per hr, very economical, but large class. However, website says they'll select participants if demand is too high. Anyone had experience with this course to share more info ?

Thanks in advance !

For P5, it's the one conducted by NUSH. For P6, it's RI and HCI. In Maths Oasis, they've weekly competition classes for P5/6 which starts in Jan each year and they've another one in July.

Son attended the one at NUS last Nov and was useful. Conducted by lecturers.

Son has been with Maths Oasis since P5; not because I'm kiasu, but becos he shows a real interest and is fast at grasping/learning new concepts. Since I'm unable to teach him myself, I send him to the experts to further develop his skills.

My advice, sign yr son up for weekly classes instead of just crash courses before a competition. Let him work on Maths oly kind of qns available from popular.

[joconde]

Hi Mathsparks,


Thanks for sharing.

You still send ur son to NUS holiday course when he is already attending the weekly course at Math Oasis ? I guess ur son must be very enthusiastic in Math ! BTW, is there any overlap in what they teach ?

In your opinion, if my son can manage those math olym workbooks from popular, is it still necessary to go for lessons ?

Also, do u know where I can obtain past year paper for NUS high competition ?

[mathsparks]

joconde:

You still send ur son to NUS holiday course when he is already attending the weekly course at Math Oasis ? I guess ur son must be very enthusiastic in Math ! BTW, is there any overlap in what they teach ?

In your opinion, if my son can manage those math olym workbooks from popular, is it still necessary to go for lessons ?

Also, do u know where I can obtain past year paper for NUS high competition ?

I think there's some overlap. NUS courses are during the hols; so to keep son occupied and he wants to go, we sign him up.

I think if he can manage those from popular, it means he is very good. so may not be necessary.

Maths Oasis extracts past year qns for their students to work on. And I have a copy of last year's. Sorry I don't have a scanner at home. But pm me, will see what i can do.

[kiasiparent]

NMOS - only for P5 and below.

SMOPS - only for P6 or anyone 12 years old
RI - for P6 usually. (P5 can join if selected by school)

Besides those competitions, there are also others like the Australian maths competition, American maths competition, Gauss and also some conducted by local school like ACS annualympics.

I believe that the hardest of them all is the RI paper. Some of the questions are excruciating hard and tedious to solve and will require tremendous observation skills in order to spot the trick and answer the question in less than 3 mins. 20 MCQ in 1 hour. 3 minutes per question. Good luck.

For the SMOPS, most of the questions have an elegant and short way to solve. It is possible to see 1% of candidates scoring more than 80% score since the duration is 2 hours. Those 1% candidates will be most likely get into ranking.

NMOS exams are catered towards P5 and below so tend to be easier.

[joconde]

Thanks all for sharing…mathsparks : I’ve more or less decided to sign my son up for a weekly course, and I believe the centre will provide mock test papers, anyway, thanks for offering the help

[mathsparks]

You’re most welcome. That’s what we kiasu parents are here for…helping and sharing. Have a gd day!

[MdmKS]

kiasiparent:

I believe that the hardest of them all is the RI paper. Some of the questions are excruciating hard and tedious to solve and will require tremendous observation skills in order to spot the trick and answer the question in less than 3 mins. 20 MCQ in 1 hour. 3 minutes per question. Good luck.

Hi kiasuparent, kind to share where to get a copy of past year RI competition questions? Thanks.

[mathsparks]

Sadly, son is not in AMEC club so didn’t get chance to try RI paper.

[kiasiparent]

MdmKS:

kiasiparent:

I believe that the hardest of them all is the RI paper. Some of the questions are excruciating hard and tedious to solve and will require tremendous observation skills in order to spot the trick and answer the question in less than 3 mins. 20 MCQ in 1 hour. 3 minutes per question. Good luck.

Hi kiasuparent, kind to share where to get a copy of past year RI competition questions? Thanks.

hi i am sorry i no longer have the copy of past year RI questions. I have personally done the questions and i know the difficulty level of most RI and SMOPS papers.

You can try clicking on this link though: http://contests.heymath.com/AdminLogin.page?module=scadmin&action=login&testID=RI09#

Change RI09 to RI08, RI07 to see past winners.

[kiasiparent]

SMOPS 2009 results are out.


Notice how Nanyang primary own with 14 platinums and 12 gold.

http://www.hci.sg/aphelion/apmops/index.htm